The man would probably swallow his tongue.
“Does he do this at home?” the principal demanded, jarring him out of his daydream.
“I don’t think so.” Patterson had no idea what he was referring to. “I don’t know.” He turned to his son, who was slumped in the chair beside him in the classic teenage position of defiant apathy. “Do you?”
His son shook his head and Patterson suddenly realized the kid was dying of embarrassment. Although he wasn’t sure who the boy was embarrassed by, himself or the principal.
The principal’s glower intensified. “Then can you tell me why, if it’s inappropriate to do this sort of thing at home, you would think it appropriate to do it in your science class?”
“I dunno,” the kid said querulously. “Probably because science is so wicked boring.”
Patterson was about to tell him what he thought of that statement when his phone rang. Sighing, he turned to the principal. “Excuse me, I have to take this,” he said. “Try not to do anything incriminating until I get back,” he added to his son as he got up.
The principal was unfazed by the interruption. He launched into a lecture, perhaps as a way to make sure the boy knew he was still being disciplined even while Patterson was out of the room. “Son, you’re going a hundred miles an hour at a brick wall,” he said. “Slow down. Every time you turn on that cell phone of yours, it gets you in trouble.”
Words to live by, Patterson thought as he closed the door behind him. “Hello?” he said tensely.
“Well, I guess you really didn’t want me to retire,” said a familiar voice.
Patterson felt a sensation that he suspected was a lot like a sucking chest wound. “Henry! You’re okay!” he babbled, barely aware of the bell ringing. Students flooded into the hall, brushing past him roughly. “Thank God!”
“Stop it.” Henry’s tone was flat and lethal. “Is Monroe dead?”
Patterson swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Shit,” Henry said, furious. “What about Jack Willis?”
“It wasn’t me, Henry,” Patterson told him desperately. “None of this was me. I swear it.”
“Jesus, Del,” Henry said. “I trusted you.”
“You still can,” Patterson told him urgently. “I’m the one fighting for you! Let me call you on another line.”
There was a moment of silence that Patterson believed was a lot like the very last second of a hundred-foot fall, just before the impact.
“604-555-0131. You have thirty seconds,” Henry said and broke the connection.
Patterson looked around desperately for someone he could borrow a phone from but the hallway that had been full of kids only a moment ago was deserted now. Where the hell had they all gone?
As if on cue, a couple of girls came out of a nearby ladies’ room, whispering to each other and giggling.
Patterson hurried toward them, taking out his wallet. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks for your phone for five minutes.”
The girls looked at each other, then at him. They were dressed in what Patterson supposed was the height of teenage chic and made up to an extent that was practically kabuki, but he could see they were wary. They’d probably been warned about strange men offering them gifts or money. But they weren’t on the street and he wasn’t asking them to get into his car, he just wanted to borrow a phone. If neither of them said yes, he’d have to goddam mug them. Wouldn’t the principal love that?
Finally, the taller one nodded. Patterson paid her, grabbed the phone, and moved away from the girls as he began dialing frantically.
“You can start with whose idea it was to send a team to Agent Zakarewski’s apartment,” Henry said as soon as he answered “Was that necessary?”
“Also not my call,” Patterson assured him. “She’s working for the inspector general, not me. Is she with you?”
“Yeah,” Henry said. “Not voluntarily.”
Patterson looked around. The girls stood a little ways up the hall whispering to each other. No doubt they could hear every word he said. Kids had ears like bats, especially when it came to things you didn’t want them to hear.
“Listen,” he said, unable to keep the desperation out of his voice. “This isn’t something I want to say over a phone—I’m at my kid’s goddam school.”
“Del!” Henry snapped. “What the hell is all this?”
Patterson took a breath. “We have a… problem here.” He lowered his voice and cupped his hand around the phone. “Gemini.”
The silence on the other end was deafening.
“Your old friend,” Patterson went on after a moment, “working with Janet Lassiter and her people. I can’t stop them.”
“What about Dormov?” Henry said. “Did he have something to do with Gemini? You remember Dormov? The guy I popped on the train because you told me he was a bio-fucking-terrorist. Was he working for Gemini?”
Patterson leaned against a row of lockers and closed his eyes. Now what was he supposed to say—that he’d been completely bamboozled by Janet Lassiter? It was true but Patterson knew how it was going to sound. Maybe if he apologized for not knowing he had been a sock puppet for Verris’s sock puppet?
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, Patterson thought. Saving the world in the service of your country was supposed to be a clean job. The agency was supposed to be the good guy. He glanced up the hallway at the girls. They were smirking at him now. He felt like telling them they had a bright future as Real Housewives. Except they’d probably like that.
“So I was pulling a trigger for Clay Verris,” Henry said.
Patterson let out a long breath. One of the main reasons he had quit drinking was his deep and abiding resolve to avoid the humiliation of hitting bottom. But somehow he had managed to do that very thing after getting sober.
“Henry, I regret my lack of candor, but listen—” Patterson said, babbling again.
“How many other times did you do this to me?” Henry demanded. “How many times did you spike a file and send me out to AMF someone who didn’t deserve it?”
“Never,” Patterson said promptly. “Not ever. This was a one-off, I swear on my son’s life.”
He could practically hear Henry thinking it over, trying to decide whether he was a liar or a fool.
“All right,” Henry said after a bit. “Agent Zakarewski is not a part of this.”
“Henry I can fix this, but I need both of you to come back,” Patterson said.
Henry gave an incredulous laugh. “To what?” he said and broke the connection again.
Patterson stood in the hallway staring at the phone. It was pink—not just pink but pink, the pinkest pink he’d ever seen. He had no idea how he had failed to notice that.
“Hey, mister.”
He turned to find the girl he’d borrowed the cell from standing behind him with her friend. “What do you want?” he asked, annoyed.