She moved in and took the opposite corner. She knew of no one with more iron concentration than Gregory; she'd seen him hold a target in the middle of a firefight, waiting for just the right second to pull the trigger. McCarthy seemed to have realized it as well; he came next, hands well away from his body. Laskins followed, standing behind Gregory.
Gregory smiled very slowly at Jazz, and made a tiny little gesture with his empty left hand.
She walked in, eyes still locked on his, full of fury and challenge. He held the stare as he released the Hold button and the doors rumbled shut.
It was a long ride down. Nobody spoke. Jazz never blinked. Neither did Gregory.
"Your name is Jazz, yes? Like the music?"
She kept on staring. He returned the gun to his shoulder holster with the fast, elegant gesture of a stage magician, about one second before the doors opened.
"You're crazy, dorogaya. I like that in a woman."
"You and me," Jazz said grimly, "are going to go a few rounds. You know that, right?"
"I look forward to the opportunity."
Laskins pushed forward, leading the way. McCarthy grabbed Lucia's arm. "Stay here," he whispered. "Go back up, get Rawlins—"
McCarthy was wrong. There was no chance—not even a small one—that if she went back upstairs the FBI could protect her. But that wasn't what made her step out to follow Laskins. It was Gregory Ivanovich, who knew her as well as anyone alive, putting two fingers to the back of Jazz's head and miming pulling a trigger.
She didn't know what Laskins would do, but she knew Gregory. All too well.
Chapter Fourteen
There was a big black limousine in the parking lot across the street and it held all of them comfortably. Or uncomfortably, thanks to the tension in the passenger compartment. It was a long, silent ride, but the landmarks were familiar. Lucia exchanged a quick look with Jazz, who raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes. Lucia shrugged.
The limousine turned down the slope of a parking garage, and parked on the top level, next to the elevators of…their own office building.
"You're kidding," Jazz said flatly.
"You may be assured, Ms. Callender, that I'm deadly serious today," Laskins said. "There's nothing I'm finding remotely amusing."
Gregory Ivanovich hustled them into the elevators and upstairs. The doors had been opened wide into their office suite, and all the lights were on. No one there. At least, Lucia thought, Pansy hadn't been caught up in this mess. That was some comfort.
Laskins opened the doors to the big conference room, with its long, gleaming table and recessed lighting.
It was full of people, who were chatting among themselves in a pleasant buzz of sound. Twelve—no, fourteen of them. Sixteen, counting Laskins, who took a chair at the table, and Gregory, who leaned against a wall, seeming entirely at home. Lucia scanned the other faces quickly. Laskins was the very image of a successful lawyer, but there was a tired, unkempt-looking woman who might have come straight from tending her kids. A tall, thin black man who wore glasses and looked like a professor. A slender, well-dressed young woman with understated jewelry and the unmistakable aura of wealth.
The buzz died down as everyone's attention focused on the newcomers.
"Let me guess. The Cross Society," Jazz said, just as Lucia was about to. "Wow. Imagine how impressed I am. No, go on. Just imagine."
The stay-at-home mom smiled. She was the only one who did.
"Not the entire society, obviously, merely a few key players," Laskins said, and shut the doors. "Be seated, the three of you."
"Where's James?" Jazz asked.
"James?" Laskins echoed, as if he'd never heard the name before. Lucia felt a twinge of anxiety, and saw it in Jazz, as well.
"James Borden, you asshole. Where is he?" When Jazz got scared, she got belligerent.
"Mr. Borden is on an errand. It's quite an important one, actually. Be seated, Ms. Callender. We don't have a lot of time."
Gregory stepped forward and pulled out a chair. He performed an extravagant comic-opera bow. Lucia tried to send Jazz a message in a last, quick glance, and slid into an empty chair on the other side of the table. McCarthy took the one next to her.
Gregory bowed again, even more comically.
Jazz gritted her teeth and sat.
"What in the hell is this, Laskins?" Lucia asked. For answer, he held up his hand. Gregory stepped forward and put something into it.
A red envelope.
"This," he said, "is a duplicate of what went to Ms. Callender earlier in the day," he said. "It was waiting for her when she arrived back at her temporary home in Manny Glickman's warehouse. Go ahead. Open it, Ms. Callender."
Jazz just stared at him. Didn't reach for it. After a long enough pause that it became clear she wasn't about to comply, Lucia reached over and took it. She opened it and took out a single white sheet of folded paper.
On it was written, DO NOT ALLOW LUCIA GARZA TO CARRY THROUGH WITH THE INVESTIGATION, OF J&J ELECTROPLATING.
No letterhead, no signature. Lucia looked up at Jazz, who returned her stare without flinching. There was something fierce in her eyes.
"Did you get it, Ms. Callender?" Laskins asked.
"Yes," Jazz said. "I got it."
"Then why did you fail to follow instructions? Do you not yet understand the seriousness of the situation? When you fail to follow our instructions, people die."
"Yeah, and guess what? When we do follow your instructions, people die," Jazz said. "I'm sick of operating in the dark. No more of these mysterious bullshit messages from nowhere. You want to enlist us in your army of do-gooders, you'd better damn well convince me how holding off on busting a bunch of terrorists is doing good!"
"It's not your job to question how or why we give these instructions!" Laskins bellowed. His face had gone entirely red, so mottled Lucia was afraid he was going to clutch his chest and hit the floor.
"Bite me!" Jazz screamed. "You guys treat us like trained monkeys, and you know what? We can make our own decisions. Isn't that why we're so damn valuable to you? Because what we do matters?"
"Yes," said the thin black man, farther down the table. He'd helped himself to a cup of tea, Lucia saw. By the looks of other cups around the room, they'd also started the coffeemaker. They'd certainly made themselves thoroughly at home. "Yes, you do make your own decisions. And you have no idea how much chaos that creates, do you? Presumptions are made about how the time stream will run—they have to be made, or we'd never be able to predict any outcomes at all. You are a fulcrum upon which events turn. And when you don't do as we've asked, you upset everything."
The hausfrau next to him laughed apologetically. "You've lost them, Jeffrey." She put a plump, motherly hand over his and gave Lucia a warm smile. "You have to imagine the scope of what we're talking about, ladies. It's not just an either-or proposition. It's like the biggest pin-ball game you can imagine, with a hundred thousand balls in play, and a million flippers, each of which has a simple decision to make. Do or don't. You see, it was a simple decision we made on your behalf—don't move on the terrorist information. In connection with about fifty other simple decisions, it cleared the way for something important to happen. However, now all of that is unclear again, the ball randomly bouncing. We can't control what we can't foresee."
Lucia looked around at all of them, all the quiet faces, ranging from scowls to smiles. "You're all…psychics? Like Simms?"
"Oh, no." The man called Jeffrey sipped his tea and looked put out at the question. "There are only a handful of genuine psychics in this world, you know. Fifty or so, in any generation—"