The Operator

Jack turned to look at her over his shoulder, his stubble thick and his suit grimy. “Babe, I just wanted to be with you,” he pleaded.

It meant nothing. Her heart was cold. “Out,” she said as she pushed him into the stairwell. Jack caught his balance, his expression hurt as Harmony took control of him as the ranking agent. They hadn’t come away with Michael, and her bid for Evocane had backfired.

Someone opened the freezer door at the top of the stairway, and the sound of choppers and a bullhorn drifted down with the scent of snow. Yep, that sounded like Steiner. Her thoughts went to her diary. Son of a bitch. . . He’ll take that, too.

“Peri.”

It was LB, and she paused as Fat Man pushed past her, leaving her and LB alone. His eyes still held the wonder that she’d given him. “You’re not going to give me my knife back, are you?” she joked.

“You should have let me kill him,” he said, eyes finding Jack at the top of the stairway as he smacked the hilt of her knife into her hand.

She smiled at the weight of it, then leaned to slide it away. “I know. He’s really bad for my asthma. Will you do something for me?”

Hip cocked, LB eyed her. “Seriously?”

Her heart seemed to flutter as she handed him her journal. “I don’t want Steiner to have it, and he’s going to strip me to my skivvies. It’s my diary,” she said, face warming as he took it, expression puzzled at its torn and scuffed state. “Don’t read it. Just . . . hang on to it for me.” God, I feel as if I’m thirteen.

“You want me to hold your diary?” he said quizzically.

“There’s nothing important in it,” she said, fidgeting when Harmony shouted down for her to hurry up. “I don’t want Steiner to have it. I’d let you keep that second vial of Evocane for me, as well, but Jack is bound to tell Steiner he came in with two. Steiner might believe that you broke one, but not two, and if he thinks I left them here, he’ll tear your place apart for them.”

“Not to mention Steiner’s drug cabinet is going to be closer than mine.” LB tapped her diary against his palm. His brow furrowed as if he knew it wasn’t a diary but a piece of herself. “Sure. You’re coming back for it, right?”

Her eyes dropped to the pocket where he’d put that second vial of Evocane, then rose to find his. “I’ll be back for both. Count on it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

The operations van had Opti’s symbol on the steering wheel, making Peri think they were headed for Detroit’s old Opti complex. The vehicle’s acceleration was impressive for being electric, the quiet nothing of their swift passage pleasant. Even so, Peri thought a little engine noise might be preferable to the tense, one-sided conversation of Steiner standing in the middle of the van’s aisle, reaming out Harmony. Cold, Peri drew her coat closer, thinking it ironic that it had the WEFT logo on it, with her since the fiasco in St. Louis. God help me, I don’t even know when I lost my wool Reuso.

The man had started in even before they’d cleared the lines that WEFT had strung at the outskirts of the arena, questioning Harmony’s motives and loyalty both. As expected, everything on Harmony had been confiscated. They’d cleared Peri out as well, making her glad she’d left her diary with LB. It didn’t sit well that all her Evocane, right down to the two remaining pens, was in the van in front of them. That she was hooked on a drug that did nothing for her was worse. She didn’t think Jack would say anything to Steiner about there being two vials, but she wasn’t going to risk losing them both.

Harmony had been silent so far about her new addiction, but by the looks of it, Steiner was close to figuring it out, picking up on the slight hesitation in Harmony’s voice as she lied to her boss. The man hadn’t let up, making Harmony repeat her story a handful of times in the hope of finding an inconsistency, but seeing as Harmony was telling the truth—mostly—there’d been none.

A stone-faced man sat beside Harmony, facing both Peri and Allen. It would be absurdly easy to knock him out, take his holstered pistol, kill everyone, and flee. But she didn’t. It wasn’t who she wanted to be. Besides, Allen wasn’t in any shape to help, huddled in a CIA coat with an ice bag on his face and grimacing every time they went over a railroad trestle or hit a pothole.

“You removed Reed from her cell,” Steiner said flatly, and Peri frowned, her focus out the front window blurring to make Detroit’s midnight lights a kaleidoscope of sliding color as they headed to the repurposed Opti complex. “Transported her across state lines and into a high-risk area. Did it occur to you that she might be trying to return to Opti?”

“That was a very low probability, sir,” Harmony said, her voice having lost its respect about ten miles back. “Her goal was to retrieve her partner, not return to Opti.”

Steiner’s frown was obvious in the passing lights as he swayed with the van’s motion. Her gaze slid to the guard’s weapon, wanting it. She missed her Glock. She missed her knife. She missed everything they’d taken from her thirty seconds after crossing into WEFT jurisdiction, including much of her confidence.

“Peri isn’t a flight risk,” Harmony insisted. “We need Michael, and I wasn’t going to compromise anyone else again. Not after last time.” She hesitated. “We had a better chance with two.”

“We don’t work by chance,” Steiner said. “And without authorization, you were lucky no one was injured or killed. I wouldn’t have been able to protect you.”