“Flame,” Rora called out, sitting bolt upright.

Taking her time to absorb her surroundings, she found she was in the backseat of a vehicle, warmed by the sun that was brightening the road around them.

Junker was trying to catch glimpses of her from his place in the driving seat. “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” she grumbled, rubbing her face and pushing the blanket from her body. “Where are we?”

The question came out on instinct, but it didn’t really matter where they were, only how far they were from wherever they were going. Junker seemed to be on a mission, and she could respect that, as long as it didn’t get in the way of hers.

“Remember I told you I stashed my kit in a secure location in case things went south?” Junker asked. “I need to go pick everything up.”

Yes, she remembered, he’d told her the previous day. Retrieving his possessions made sense, but she was a little disgruntled that it meant a detour. “There are ways to protect your technology that don’t involve hiding it,” she mumbled, climbing into the front of the car. “How long until we get there? Can we stop for coffee?”

“By email, I got the impression that you were an optimistic person, you seemed… fun.”

Yawning and picking sleep from her eye, Rora pulled down the visor and used the mirror to check her appearance. “And?”

“So far, I’m not getting that from you.”

She couldn’t bring herself to crack a smile or even care that she was disappointing his expectation. “I’m fun,” she muttered, pulling her feet onto the seat. “Where are we on the coffee?”

“We’re only a half hour away from our destination,” he said, glancing her way once, then twice.

“What’s flame? You say it every time you wake up.”

Breathing out, she wondered if this was how Strike had felt when she kept questioning him. “You know, by email, I got the impression that you were relaxed,” she sneered, sort of mocking him and hoping that he’d pick up on her displeasure. “So far I’m not getting that from you.”

“I guess neither of us is at our best,” he said. “Hard to just chill when we know the fate of the world is in our hands.”

If he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders, she should be working to take some of the burden. After all, a lot of this was her fault. It seemed like her mood was permanently sour these days, and she had to work to remind herself that Junker was new to this and trying his best.

“Don’t worry so much. We’re not the only ones interested,” she said. “There are… contingencies.”

Infused with new energy, Junker leaped on her statement. “What does that mean? If we fail, you think that someone else will stop him?”

Stop him from doing what? That was the question. Rora wasn’t as worried as Junker, but that was because she knew something that he didn’t. The Point wasn’t really in play.

“I know that the world is safe… for now. But if, for whatever reason, it gets unsafe, there are people we might be able to appeal to for help.”

“Who?”

During her liaison with Strike, she’d learned a lot. Part of that education included meeting people who might be interested in saving the world if it came to it. Like Shula’s X… and the NSA. But at the moment, Rora wasn’t going to show her full hand. Not until she knew more about Junker.

It didn’t usually take her this long to judge a person’s character, and she did have history with Junker, who also had Benjamin’s endorsement. But still sluggish after her stay with Bella, Rora was also reeling from being stung by her former lover, making her question her own ability to judge someone’s virtue.

“You don’t trust me.”

“No, not really,” she said, figuring that was at least some kind of honesty, whether he liked it or not. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” he said immediately.

Turning to him, some of her aggravation faded. It was impossible to be wary of a person so obviously naïve. “Really?”

“Why shouldn’t I trust you?”

She tried to restrain her scoff. “Why shouldn’t you? Because you don’t know me. Because emailing someone for a few months doesn’t give true insight into what they’ll do in a life or death situation. Often, we don’t know what those closest to us are thinking or how they’ll act on a daily basis. How can we expect to know each other when we’re practically strangers?”

He thought about this for a minute. “Benjamin talked about you. A lot… You guys had a thing, didn’t you?”

“Back in the day, yes,” she said. The glimmer of her good humor faded. “But not recently. I don’t want to talk about me and Benjamin.”

He gazed out the windshield. “We have to find him. If he’s out there somewhere… after all this time. Do you think he’s alive?”

It didn’t even occur to her that Junker wouldn’t know Benjamin’s fate, but she didn’t appreciate being reminded of it. “What did I just say?” she snapped, startling him.

“Sorry.”

Rora had never been a bitch, not like she’d just been to Junker. She could hold her own if she had to, but she couldn’t attack an innocent person for asking a question. “Junker… I cared a lot about Benjamin and it’s been a tough few months. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

“I’m asking a lot of questions,” he said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t push. You have been through a lot. Just… if you want to talk, I’m here. You’re not alone anymore.”

Like he’d read her mind, he touched on her biggest vulnerability. Glancing at him, they held eye contact for a score of seconds.

Rora kept looking at him after he faced the road again. “What’s your plan?” she asked. “You said you had one.”

“Exile’s the key to this, sure, but he’s not easy to track down. Do you remember how long it took us to find him the last time?” She nodded. “We don’t have the time to go through that again… One thing you said last night intrigued me… You said if he was in the city, you’d have known where he was. The way you said it… you were confident.” Again, she nodded. “Do you think you could find him again?”

She sighed. “If I knew what city he was in, sure. But I think he’s on the move.”

“Why?”

Revealing her logic wasn’t betraying any big secret. “I think if this device and Benjamin’s work are drawing interest, he’ll want to make himself a difficult guy to pin down. Best way to do that is keep moving.”

That and she’d noticed the chest she’d raided in the loft was light on apparel and tech.

He bobbed his head. “I have to say, I thought the same thing. If we could find out what city he was in, could you track him?”

“Is that why you asked me to help?” she asked, twisting her body toward him. “I’m not a sniffer dog.” Although she had once referred to herself as a cadaver dog after Strike called her a homing pigeon. “I can’t hunt him down.”

“That’s ok,” he said, reaching over to put a hand over hers on her knee. “I’ve put the feelers out. Once I get to my computer, I’m hoping we’ll have something.”

Confronting the truth that she’d have to see Strike again, she slid her hand out from under Junker’s, though that left his palm on her knee. “The device, the top-secret tech you mentioned, what is it?”

She’d seen it, held it in her hands, but she still didn’t know what it was designed to do.

“I don’t know exactly,” Junker said. “But I know he got it from someone in government, someone at the highest level.”

That wasn’t exactly true. He’d picked it up from the carpet after leaving her boneless and aroused on a motel room floor.

Rora cleared her throat. “Why would they hand over something like that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re sympathetic to his cause? He has something on them? I can guess, but I don’t have any evidence of their motive.”

Rora didn’t want to be bitter, but she was definitely sliding toward it. “He doesn’t have a cause,” she muttered, her negative mood returning. “He has a hard head.”

Junker was innocent in his confusion. “I… don’t know what that means. You mean he’s logical?”

“No, I mean he’s stubborn,” she said. “Imagine the worst-case scenario and assume that’s how he got hold of it.”

Junker sucked in a breath. “Then I’d guess he got someone else to get it for him. That he somehow conned them into it… Maybe they didn’t even know what they were getting. Then he could honestly say he didn’t receive the tech from a government agent; that it was given to him by the innocent party. Less of a crime to get it from a willing civilian than to blackmail or bribe a government official.”

To distract herself, Rora popped open the glove box. “Willing,” she muttered.

Junker watched her investigate and pick out a candy. “He’s a smart guy,” he said. “No denying that he knows what he’s been doing.”

“He’s been doing it a long time,” she said, sucking on the candy and fashioning its paper into a triangle in a series of folds and tucks.

“Did you… spend time getting to know his history?” Everything he was comfortable with sharing. “You never told me why you and he fell out.

She shook her head and sucked hard. “Not friends. Exile isn’t interested in making friends. I can make my own assumptions. No one gets a reputation like his unless they know what they’re doing.”

“Have you heard what people say about him?”

Narrowing an eye, she let her focus creep around to him. “That better not be hero worship I hear in your voice,” she said and was taken aback by his open smile. It had been a while since she’d seen a man smile.

“I keep my hero worship in my other pants,” he said. “But I have heard about some of the jobs he’s done. I wouldn’t mind asking him a few questions. I’m capable, but sometimes he shows ingenuity that’s… unparalleled. He thinks of contingencies that the rest of us wouldn’t even imagine planning for.”

“That’s how you stay out of jail,” she said. “Those of you who do this for research and ethical purposes don’t have to worry about going to prison for life. He does.”

It was obvious that Junker was intrigued, and it was interesting to see Strike from an innocent person’s perspective. “Do you think that’s why he flies so low under the radar? Prison? Must get lonely, don’t you think?”

She resisted the urge to laugh in his face, but it was difficult. “He doesn’t like people.”

“Might make him difficult to tail,” he said.

“Is that your plan?”

“The plan is to find out what he has, what he plans to do with it, and how to take it from him.”

And Junker thought Exile would reveal that through his actions? Rora didn’t need to waste her time. “Let me save you some time,” she said. “You said he has this top-secret tech? I’d guess he plans to use it to his benefit. And if you want to take it, you better be willing to put a bullet in him. Exile won’t give up his computer for anything.”

That got his attention. “You think it’s in his computer?”

She knew it was in his computer because she’d seen Strike sitting in Buddy’s living room installing the device in Opal. But she couldn’t give Junker those details. “If that’s what it’s for, why wouldn’t he put hardware in his computer?”

There was suspicion in his eyes when they next met hers. Oops, she hadn’t meant to put herself in the spotlight. “I don’t know what it looks like, its size, or if it needs to be integrated to work. It might have an independent power source and operating system.”

Time to backtrack and downplay her knowledge. “True. So, you have to find out. But, I don’t have a clue how you’re going to find him.”

“I’ve got people looking,” he said, and she folded her arms, unconvinced. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

Her dubiousness wasn’t doubt of Junker’s skills. Though she knew Strike could avoid detection and that even if they did locate him he could shake a tail. But the truth was, she didn’t know if she wanted Junker to find him.

No, even that was a lie. She knew that she didn’t want Junker to find Strike. If the men came face-to-face, one of them was going to have to blink first, and she doubted that it would be the one determined to kill her.