"Really? Where? On the twenty-second floor?"
"Yeah. I hear he's got quite a setup there."
Jack nodded. "The view is amazing."
Jamie stared at him. "You were up there?"
A smile. "Yep. Brady invited me up for a little chat this morning."
"You apply for membership on Monday and by Wednesday you're having a tete-a-te?te with the SO? Do you see a dunce cap on my head? Do you see a birth certificate with yesterday's date on it? What kind of hayseed do you take me for?"
"No kind. I worked il so lie thinks I'm someone else—someone he wants to be chummy with."
"Like who? And how did—?"
He shook his head. "Sorry. Trade secret."
"If that's true, then you are one amazing motherfucker."
He wagged his finger at her. "Now, now. No sweet talk." Another quaff of beer, then, "By the way, how many RCs does Brady handle personally?"
Jamie's turn to laugh. "Luther Brady? Doing the Reveille Tech thing?" She shook her head. "I'd have to say none. If you met him, you should know that."
Jack shrugged. "He's offered to take me through the Reveille process himself. Starting tomorrow."
Jamie felt a flare of anger. "That does it. You almost had me with the bit about meeting Luther Brady. You should have quit while you were ahead." She snorted. "Hardly anyone under Overseer rank—except maybe for the GP—even sees him with any sort of regularity. So the idea of him acting as your RT is…"
The words ran out as Jamie saw the matter-of-fact look on Jack's face. He didn't care if she believed him.
Could it be true?
John "Jack" Robertson was either the best undercover operator she'd ever met, or the biggest liar.
He cleared his throat. "What's with that big sphere hidden away in his office?"
"The globe?" she said, feeling her skin tighten. "How close are you two?"
"Well, I'm not number one on his speed dialer, but I get the feeling he'd like to be number one on mine."
"But he showed you the globe?"
"No. I caught just a glimpse of it as I walked into his office—before the sliding doors closed it off. So it's a globe?"
"That's what I've been told. I interviewed a DD—that's a Detached Dementedist—who used to work on the temple's cleaning crew. She got a good look at it once when Brady forgot to close the doors. Told me it's about eight feet high with all the seas and continents in relief, but dotted with all these red-and-white lightbulbs and crisscrossed with lines that aren't latitude and longitude. She figured Brady wanted it cleaned—why else would he leave the doors open?—so she started dusting it. Brady came in and threw a screaming fit. He pressed some button in his desk that closed the doors, then threw her out."
"Really." Jack's eyes narrowed. "You've got to figure the lights are temple locations. But they're no secret. Why would he throw a fit because she saw them?"
"Obviously it's more than just a map of the earth. And Brady did more than throw a fit. He had this poor girl declared a lapser and had her brought before FPRB. She was so upset she quit, which means an automatic DD situation."
She watched Jack as they sat and sipped in silence. He seemed to recede.
"You're figuring how you can get a look at that globe, aren't you."
He nodded. "My curiosity is, as they say, piqued."
"But you're there to find a missing member, right?"
"Yeah, but unanswered questions tend to nag me."
"Any luck finding him?"
Jack nodded. "Spotted him yesterday, but couldn't speak to him—he was in lapser mode."
Jamie laughed. "I wonder if he got caught looking at the globe too."
"Could be."
"At least you know where he is. He could have been one of the unaccounted for. There's a certain number of Dementedists who simply vanish every year."
"Missionaries, right?"
"So we're told. But nobody hears from them again. Ever."
"Ever is a long time. They could resurface in a few years."
"Yeah. So could the Titanic."
But someone had resurfaced—at least Jamie thought he might have. She was still trying to confirm his identity.
She rattled the ice in her glass. "I could use another DS. Another RR? I'm buying."
He shook his head. "I've got an errand to run."
"At this hour?"
"It's the only hour for this particular errand. A hot date with a hot plate."
"Pardon?"
"Just kidding." He rose. "I'll get you a cab."
Jamie hid her disappointment. She was pretty good at it. Plenty of practice.
"That's all right. I think I'll hang in here awhile." She didn't feel like heading down to the Parthenon. Her Dementedist shadows would be waiting. "I kind of like this place."
"Great."
As he slipped past her she gripped his arm. "You figure out what's going on with that globe situation, you'll tell me, won't you?"
"Sure. Least I can do for all the backgrounding you've given me."
She watched him go, and thought about the fellow she thought—hoped—she'd discovered. She was going to need help nailing down his identity. Maybe Jack…
No. She had to keep this to herself. Besides, she didn't know yet how far she could trust John "Jack" Robertson. For all she knew he might be a Dementedist plant, trying to lure her into a bad situation.
Listen to me, she thought. Completely and thoroughly paranoid.
But still, she didn't know enough about him to trust him with what might turn out to be a major coup. Not yet.
15
Jensen stepped out onto Tenth Avenue and headed for his car, leaving John Jay College behind. He'd had trouble focusing on tonight's Police Science 207 lecture. His thoughts kept veering toward Jason Amurri. Something off-kilter about that guy. Maybe he should have listened more closely to the lecturer—the subject had been Investigative Function, and he sensed this Amurri needed some investigating.
Jensen climbed in behind the wheel of his Hummer and sat there without starting the engine.
Nothing seemed right in his life lately. Shalla, the woman who'd been living with him for eight years, had walked out last summer, saying he spent too much time at the temple. Well, maybe he did. Still, he missed her.
Lately, without her to come home to, he'd been spending more time than ever on the job. He felt he owed it to the Church and to Brady, and not just for the nice salary they were paying him.
He owed them because he was a fraud.
When he'd reached the top of the Fusion Ladder, Jensen had had to face the devastating realization that he was a Null. Somewhere along the way his xelton had fallen into a coma from which it would never awaken, and so Jensen hadn't achieved any sort of fusion, let alone Full. Everything he'd experienced climbing the FL had been Sham Fusion, a form of Null self-delusion: He'd wanted fusion so badly he'd imagined it happening.
But he couldn't tell anyone. It would pull the rug out from under his status in the Church. The HC might let him go back to being an ordinary TP, but no Null could be Grand Paladin.
He found it hard to hide his pain with Brady and the High Council members as they sat around and traded stories about their Full Fusion powers. Jensen couldn't remain silent—they'd wonder why—so he was forced to make up tales of levitating or leaving his body.
Fortunately no one was required to demonstrate their powers. Luther Brady had made it clear from the outset that exhibitionism would not be tolerated. But that didn't lessen the deep ache Jensen felt as he listened to them.