Hendricks’s mouth became a thin sharp line, his expression as dark as his thoughts. “His name was Lester. He was a good man. A good friend.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be glib. I just think that I could be of assistance to you, is all-and from what I can tell, you could use the hand.”
“I’m not exactly looking for an intern,” he said.
“And I’m not looking to be one. You’re a field guy-I get that. But it seems to me you might need a little tech support. An eye in the sky. A voice in your ear. A ghost in the machine.”
“Does your mother know you’re here?”
“Does yours?”
At that, Hendricks smiled wanly. He was an orphan who’d never known his mother. He took some comfort in the fact that Cameron didn’t know that about him, at least.
“Look,” he said, “my last tech guy, Lester, was a soldier, a warrior, and I still managed to get him killed. It’d be ridiculous-immoral, even-to take you on.”
“Immoral?”
“Damn right. You’re a kid.”
“I’m twenty.”
“Like I said.”
“Don’t give me that ageist bullshit. If your buddy was a soldier, I’m guessing you were too. It fits my profile. How old were you when you first enlisted?”
“Eighteen,” he said, “and if I’d had any idea what I was signing on for, I would have run screaming the other way.”
“I know what I’m signing on for.”
“No, you don’t. And I can’t afford to babysit you until you realize this isn’t the life for you.”
“No one’s asking you to babysit me. I can take care of myself. Just ask Nick Pappas.”
“That was a lucky shot,” he said.
“The hell it was. Thanks to Lockley, Mom made sure I knew my way around a firearm.”
“You ever aim one at a person before today?” She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. “That’s what I thought. Pappas is dead, you know. You killed him. How’s that sit with you?”
“It was him or you. I didn’t kill him so much as exchange one death for another, the net result of which will be fewer innocent people hurt. My conscience is clear.”
“Yeah? Then why are your hands shaking?”
Cameron looked down at her hands and seemed surprised to discover he was right. She balled them into fists to still them. “They’re not. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Taking a life isn’t like balancing a spreadsheet. Every time you kill someone, justifiably or not, it takes a toll-the first one more than most. You’ve probably been coasting on adrenaline ever since. But when the crash comes, once the adrenaline abandons you, it comes hard.”
“Don’t tell me how I’m supposed to feel.”
“I’m not. I’m just saying I’ve been there. In my case, the shakes were just the beginning. Next thing I knew, I broke out in a cold sweat, and my throat constricted until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Then my mouth filled with saliva-”
But by then, Cameron was already on her feet and halfway to the bathroom. Hendricks followed her wordlessly. Knelt down beside her. Held her hair back when the sickness came. Her stomach clenched. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She retched until there was nothing left for her to bring up and then a little while longer.
He felt bad for pushing her toward this. There was a chance she wouldn’t have wound up puking if he hadn’t. But he needed her to understand that this wasn’t a game.
When she finally ran out of steam, he fetched her a glass of water from the sink. It smelled like old pipes. “Here. Drink this.”
She took a big gulp. Rivulets of water spilled from the corners of her mouth and ran down her chin.
“Easy,” he said, “or it’ll come back up.”
She slowed down. Sipped carefully. When the glass was empty, he fetched her another.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Getting there,” she said, her voice like sandpaper.
“You understand that I can’t take you on, right?”
Tears brimmed in her eyes again. “But I saved your life.”
“Which is already more than I deserve.”
“So that’s it, then?”
“Oh, you won’t be getting rid of me that easily,” he said. Cameron laughed; it sounded forced and weak but was better than nothing. “Far as I’m concerned, you and me are in this together until I know for sure we got away clean. Which means you’re going to need to patch me up. After that, we’ll lie low for a little while and rest. Then we’ll get out of here together. But once Long Island and this Pappas mess are in our rearview, we’ll go our separate ways. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, reluctantly. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“There’s one data point I couldn’t find, no matter how hard I tried. If anybody knows it, it’s locked down so tight even I couldn’t get my hands on it.”
“What’s that?”
“Your name. You never gave one when you saved my mom.”
Hendricks mentally scrolled through his many aliases and then thought, Fuck it-she’s earned this much at least.
“My name is Michael,” he said.
10.
CHARLIE THOMPSON PACED outside the conference room, nervy from anticipation. O’Brien was inside, on a call with the director. She’d been in there for nearly an hour.
Forty minutes ago, some Podunk online news site blew the embargo on the TIC’s recorded statement taking credit for the bombing and threatening further attacks, no doubt garnering millions of clicks before the major outlets could follow suit. Since then, the airwaves had become a feeding frenzy, and the Bureau’s phones rang off the hook-panicked citizens jumping at shadows, mostly.
The conference-room door opened. O’Brien stepped out, looking tired and drawn. Thompson froze midstride and stared at her, eyes avid.
“Well?” Thompson asked.
“I’m sorry. The answer’s no.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Oh, come on, Charlie, you can’t really be surprised. We’re in the midst of a national security crisis. We know next to nothing about these TIC whack jobs, which means we’re behind the eight ball already, and we have no idea what they might do next. The last thing we need’s another 9/11 on our hands. Now that the video’s out there, the world’s eyes are on us. We need to do this by the book, no mission creep, no side projects. We simply don’t have the resources to go after Segreti right now-if, in fact, that man was even him.”
“If? Are you kidding me? You know damn well that was Segreti.”
“Sure, it looked like him, but we have overwhelming evidence that suggests he died in federal custody.”
“We had overwhelming evidence,” Thompson corrected. “It went out the window the second Segreti showed up on tape. As far as I’m concerned, we owe it to this guy to protect him. We already failed him once. And remember, he walked in of his own accord.”
“Yeah, and put four federal agents in the hospital. Three of them were so badly injured, they were deemed unfit for duty. One will never walk right again.”
“You weren’t there, Kate. I was. Segreti was a mess when he walked in. He felt cornered, threatened. If he’d wanted to kill us, he easily could have. But he didn’t. He held back. Then he surrendered his weapon and offered Organized Crime Section its biggest collar in thirty years.”
“Oh, c’mon. That’s speculative at best. We don’t even know for sure what Segreti can give us. You have to admit, the story he was peddling sounded a little too good to be true.”
“Sure, except we hadn’t even finished debriefing him before the safe house we’d stashed him in blew sky-high. You ask me, that does wonders for his credibility.”
“Maybe so, Charlie, but either way, it doesn’t matter. The Bureau can’t afford to be distracted by Segreti right now.”