LITMIR.BIZ

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owed her that much. It was his fault the Silence had found her at all. It was his fault that Lee was dead.

      So much blood staining his hands, no matter how much he tried to step away from it all.

      But he was a loyal dog. Always had been. And Andre had been his master, once upon a time.

      4

      The man sitting behind the mahogany desk might have been carved out of the same wood, so still was his expression and body. Only his eyes moved, black pupils bright and alert.

      The messages had all been sent. Some would come right away. Others would play out the anticipation, measuring the years and the miles between against the urgency of his request. But they would come. They would all come.

      Andre knew his people well. Had chosen them, trained them. In some cases, let them go. All, always, waiting against a day like this.

      The location of his office had once been a matter of significance to him; a corner space with a custom-made desk, and an in-box that was constantly filled with urgent projects and situation files. And when he had demanded extra filing cabinets moved into the office, so that he didn’t have to wait for someone else to look something up, they had arrived paneled in matching wood.

      Now, those filing cabinets mocked him, filled with information from past situations, solved situations. How much of that had been complete? he wondered. How many of his situations could have been closed sooner, if he’d gotten more, faster, more accurately? How many of the situations still open could have been closed, if he’d gotten one piece of information withheld? Who was behind this? What was their goal?

      How soon would he go insane, wondering what-ifs without any basis, replaying scenarios without ever knowing for certain?

      Andre Felhim was not a man who lingered overmuch on “what-ifs.” He dealt with facts and responsibilities. Actions and counteractions. Situations and solutions.

      He saw the road, and took it.

      “Sir?”

      The voice that broke into his thoughts came from Darcy Cross, standing in the doorway. Brilliant, dedicated Darcy, who never failed him, not once. His office manager, Bren, lurked behind her, the Amazonian blonde towering over tiny, sparrow-boned Darcy. Andre had trained more than a dozen field agents in his career, knowing that most would come and go, but these two were his constant. He would have been hard-pressed to replace either one of them.

      “Come in, both of you. Sit, please. Would you like some tea?”

      Darcy and Bren looked at each other, then nodded.

      “Yes, please,” the researcher said. “Would you like me to pour?”

      “Please.”

      The teapot was an elegant silver Art Deco set, the tea poured into tall glasses with silver chasers. Sugar lumps, not packets, from a silver bowl. Bren poured out, and sat back with the glass balanced easily on one knee, waiting for it to cool. Bren, bless her, was dog-loyal. He had no doubts of her.

      “Sir?” Darcy asked again. She moved the glass from one hand to another, her delicate hands making the glass seem oversized. He hated to see that look of fearful anticipation in her hazel-blue eyes. Still, she was valued within the Silence not for her courage, but her almost frightening ability to uncover things other people tried to hide. If Darcy did not know something, there was nothing to know. Her knowing; that made it real. She knew that there was a problem. Therefore, there was a problem.

      The thought that she might be party to this disinformation, that she might be hiding or redirecting that lifeblood of the Silence—unthinkable. Not because—unlike everyone else he had trained—she had any undying loyalty to him, but because her true love and loyalty was to information. She truly believed that it needed to be free. The thought of impeding it would make her head implode.

      Despite this, he trusted her to know who had protected her, who continued to ease the way for her to do her job without outside interference, or undue political influences. She would file away what was said here, would bring her mind to bear on what he pointed her at, and know everything there was to know—but she would not sell it to another player. Not while he continued to protect her.

      He therefore merely held up a hand, indicating that she should drink her tea, and wait.

      Jorgunmunder, his protégé/lieutenant would arrive soon, the third of the three he had called to this specific time and place. And then, they could begin.

      One of the great dividing lines between Manhattan residents, even more than Mets versus Yankees, was “subway or bus?” Wren was firmly on the subway side. Subways had track problems, yes. And they ran late, and occasionally stank, especially in the summer. Buses were just as crowded, and got stuck in traffic, to boot. Add to that her tendency to be “overlooked” even when she was jumping up and down trying to flag a bus down…at least the subway trains stopped at every stop, no matter if they saw someone waiting on the platform or not.

      Unfortunately it was also the middle of the morning rush hour, which meant that no matter what sort of mass transit you took, it was going to be packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Thankfully today was that in-between sort of day; cool enough that the levels of human sweat were down, and not cold enough yet that people were wearing bulky coats that took up twice the available room.

      Some people claimed that New Yorkers were rude. Wren had asked Sergei about that once; he, being from Chicago, had merely shrugged, as confused as she was. It wasn’t until she had spent time riding the subways waiting for a target to appear before she understood what it was outsiders were reacting to; not rudeness, but extreme politeness. Everyone in Manhattan was living in their own space, the lack of eye contact or acknowledgment others bemoaned actually allowing their neighbors the illusion of privacy, keeping noses down in newspapers or books, or eyes closed and shoulders moving to noises from their iPods.

      Wren’s fingers twitched—the desire to Take overwhelming, for an instant, the fact that she had no desire to own an iPod, nor any market to sell one, even assuming she was interested in that. Which she wasn’t. She was a Retriever, not a garden variety thief.

      But sometimes, sometimes, that itch hit, a throwback to her adolescent stint as a thrill-shoplifter.

      The moment passed, the way they always did. Self-control was key. Focus was everything, the only thing, and the foremost part of focus was self-determination. Wren found a spot in the corner, leaned against the wall, and rested her eyes on nothing, letting her mind run over the material she had read that morning online until an inner-timing sense warned her that the train was approaching her stop. She slipped through the crowded car, shoulder and elbow acting like the prow of a small boat, moving people aside without them even realizing that they had been moved.

      Neezer had taken her to see Chicago, back years ago when it was on Broadway, when she was still a teenager and he was still sane. A birthday outing, it had been. That evening had convinced Wren that Manhattan wasn’t so much a ballet as it was a Bob Fosse jazz routine, all hands and shoulders and feet constantly moving. If you did it right, you looked cool. Wrong, and you were a spaz.

      When she had told Neezer that, expecting her mentor to laugh, he had merely blinked at her, long and slow, and nodded his head as though he’d never thought of it that way before but it made everything make perfect sense.

      God, but she missed the old man. A lot. If he’d stayed, if he hadn’t wizzed…

      Is as it is, Jenny-Wren. His voice, sad and slow, across the years. He hadn’t, he had, and she only had his memory to consult with, now. A memory that was starting to fade, no matter how tightly she clung to it. The things people think are forever? They’re dust before you know it. Wren was surprised by how bitterly angry that thought left her.

      Coming up the stairs to street level, Wren stepped over the homeless person sleeping in the entryway, resisting the sudden urge to shove him out of the way with her foot. If you didn’t want to go to a shelter, that was your own choice. But there was no reason to sprawl in the path of people just

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