ORSE DROVE. WITH no destination. It seemed like everywhere in New York had become too dangerous for us to be. Anywhere we went, any place we stopped was liable to blow up within minutes of our arrival.
I wondered about Daniels. It looked like he and Crane had been in it together. Probably since before I had even gotten to New York. It had just been me and Schultz. Neither of us had known it. And now he was dead. And so was Crane.
Daniels. After I left him cuffed in the hotel room, would his co-conspirators come to his rescue, or would they have simply eliminated him?
And Noah Braxton. Horse had tried to call him a few times after Bryant Square, but got no response. He didn’t risk leaving voicemail or sending text messages, so he wasn’t sure whether Noah would call him back. “Unfamiliar number calling. He could be apt to just ignore it.”
He kept on trying.
“We seem to be running a little short of places to be.” He said as he drove.
“Maybe we should just find a diner or a bar that has food.”
“You hungry?”
“No. But it would be good idea to eat. Or at least be somewhere we can get fed.”
He found a bar with welcoming light, down a quiet street and a little out of the way. The bar menu looked good. They had a dining area with a restaurant menu, too.
I ordered a coffee. Now that there was food available, I wasn’t ready to face it. Horse asked for a round of sandwiches with potato chips.
“When they’re sitting on the table next to you,” he leaned back and grinned, “Your appetite will pop right out to say ‘Hey!’ I guarantee it.”
He was managing morale. Probably his own, but certainly mine. He was good at it, too. The little expectation of a plate of sandwiches lifted my spirit. Only a little, but I felt it. His big, optimistic grin was helping, too.
He had plenty of experience in combat. It was obvious when I saw him handle a grenade launcher on Carmine Monreale’s roof. Delta Force, if I understood right from his conversation with Noah.
I was fighting to manage my own morale, too. “Crane, gone. Daniels, probably gone. And a traitor, too.” I wished the coffee would come. “I guess that surprises me a little less than Crane. He was a hard assed son of a bitch, but I thought he was down the line.” It wasn’t any good dwelling on it, but I had to decompress or it would fester. “Schultz, gone, too. And him probably only because he’d kept a fat folder of evidence. The fat folder he’d left me on the memory stick.”
I looked into Horse’s eyes. “You and me,” I said, “We’re both pretty certainly through the gates of no return. Whatever the housekeeping and clean-up is about, whoever is behind it, you’re bound to be a target in the firing line still, and so am I.”
“We knew that when we saw those orders come in at Carmine’s place.”
“True. But that could have been a time and place thing. Something temporary. Who can say?”
“The order you got on me, the find and kill,”
“Locate and secure.”
“Yeah. Whatever. You agreed that was what it meant.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“No worry. Can you see who sent it?”
“Can I turn on my phone?”
“Good point. If you take the chip out, will the message still be there?”
“I don’t know.” I took the phone out and pulled the chip before I switched it on.
He said, “Sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not. If it’s not, we’ll have to take it somewhere there isn’t a signal.”
“There are plenty of spots on the subway.” The phone was starting up. When the phone was on, I looked for the messages. “Looks like they’re all here.”
“Can you see that one?”
“Wait. Yes. Here it is. It’s from Daniels desk.” I showed him. Not thinking. Something changed. I didn’t know when, I didn’t see it happen, but that was the moment I realized it. I trusted him now.
He frowned. “Do those things need authorization?”
“There needs to be proper authority, of course, but the message wouldn’t necessarily quote it.” I scrolled down. “No. This one doesn’t.”
“Dead end.”
“Wait. It does show the agents who were copied in. That’s odd.”
“What?”
“No other agents. But it’s got a part of another message. It must have been copied or forwarded.” I almost dropped the phone. “It’s from the NYPD.”
I looked up at Horse. “The Commissioner’s office.” I should have expected it, but it was still a shock.
Horse said, “That’s a pretty high-up enemy to have.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. It was his name that got me sent here from Saint Louis.”
“The police Commissioner?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t Commissioner at that time, but he was pretty well on his way up.”
“But you didn’t think to mention this before.” His face didn’t change, or his voice. Except he slowed down a little. Maybe I imagined it, I don’t know. I didn’t imagine the temperature dropping, though. I’ve felt that in interviews before. “You didn’t share the fact that the situation we were dealing with might involve the top cop in the NYPD?”
“It… it didn’t seem relevant.”
“There’s an issue of trust, Vesper.”
The quiet in the bar seemed comforting before. Cozy. Now it was hollow and I felt exposed. A phone sounded in his pocket. His eyes stayed fixed on me as he took it out and answered.
“Who’s this?”
Then, “Noah. I thought you’d gone into early hibernation.” He listened a moment. “Yes, our legal guiding light, little Miss By the Book here has just let me onto a big secret. Better if we talk face to face. Can you come here?”
He said the location of the bar then hung up.
We sat in silence a while.
I said, “Well. What about them Yankees?” Since it had been his line from before, I thought at least he might see it as a friendly gesture. Maybe it could recall something of our history. Maybe that wasn’t the best idea I ever had. Not right then.
His voice cooled. “It’s not just the fact that you held out on me, Vesper.” He turned my name over so tenderly, I really felt like a heel. “We’ve fought together. Had each other’s backs. In the face of fire, damnit.” His face had plenty more to say. His voice was done with it.
He ran his big paw over his brow then up over his head. He stared at the table and wiped both hands over his face.
“Noah should be here soon.” He sounded like his battery had gone flat.
A girl brought the sandwiches and chips. Neither of us had any appetite for them.
Noah Braxton saw the atmosphere as soon as he arrived.
“So, big guy. Spill. What’s up?” he was trying to keep it light; although the look he gave me came with a large dose of I knew it.
“You tell him.” He sounded weary.
“Paul Butler is involved in the boilerhouse project.”
“The police Commissioner?”
I nodded. “Very deeply.”
His face was serious. Then he had a thought, “Wait, have you just found this out?”
I paused. “I only just saw some pretty conclusive evidence,” Horse drew a long breath through is teeth, “But, no. He was the reason I was sent from the Saint Louis Bureau to New York AC.”
Noah spoke very quietly. “You knew all along that the head of the NYPD…” Horse held up a hand.
“We are where we are. No point in stirring it more. But if you duck out at this point,” his eyebrow twitched, “I wouldn’t blame you.”
Noah said, “Well, you don’t have a jumping off point, do you? Not unless it starts with an international flight.”
“I don’t. But you could maybe extract yourself.”
“And leave an asshole from the Force in the line of an incoming shitstorm?” Braxton shook his head slowly. “No, there’s no way I’m going to let you keep all the fun to yourself. Nice try, though.”
He looked at me and then back at Horse. “These agents, you know they’re a bit like the spooks we had in the intelligence corps. You remember them?”
“How could I forget? You gave me a cold shiver just reminding me of them.”
Noah said, “They were so indoctrinated with secrecy, all of their ‘Chinese walls’ and levels of clearance, they often couldn’t have a normal conversation. Great at listening. Couldn’t talk without tripping themselves up or dropping off halfway through a sentence.”
Horse nodded.
Braxton went on, “Secrecy is so important in what they do, it can all too easily become what they do. I’ve heard that kind of mentality can be worsened with the paranoia that breeds in civilian government agencies.”
He called the server over to ask for a beer. When she left, he said, “Vesper may just never have thought to share details of evidence outside of the team on her investigation.”
Horse looked up. “You’re taking her side now?”
“I’m saying her background isn’t the same as ours. In the field, we never had to run what we did by DA’s. We didn’t ever have to worry about information leaking to the enemy when the only contact we had with them was with weapons between us and them. We communicated with them mostly by fire.”
His beer arrived and he thanked the girl very nicely.
Horse said, “I didn’t think you trusted her, right from the start.”
“I didn’t.” Noah’s eyes turned to me, then back to Horse. “Still don’t.” He took a pull on his beer. “I trust her feelings for you though. There’s no mistaking that.”
A dry chuckle shook Horse’s chest. “I didn’t tell you the part where she set me up to go to jail for two killings I didn’t do.”
Noah’s eyebrows lifted as his face turned to me. He looked at me a long time and I felt the way I imagined a butterfly would feel spread out and stuck on a pin in a case. Of course, it doesn’t feel anything then, does it? Noah turned back to Horse.
“Two killings you say? And yet here you are in a bar, telling me about it?” his eyes turned back to me. “I think there’s still a part of that story missing.”
Horse looked at me. Serious now. “Something else you want to share?”
At that moment, I wanted to give it up to him so much it hurt.