"Promise you won't be pissed at me."
"Of course I won't."
Am I that censorious? Maybe I worry too loudly.
"Why would I be?"
"I had to do it. In case I fuck things up again." Ian took a breath and picked up the lighter with his right hand. "The last few times that I've morphed accidentally, pain's triggered it. But you learn to handle pain the same way you handle adrenaline. You know. You habituate."
Ian mimed the action of holding his hand over a flame as if he was trying to help Mike understand. Mike realised he was probably staring at Ian like an idiot. It took him a few seconds to put it all together.
"You
burned
yourself? Deliberately? Jesus Christ, why?"
"How else can I reproduce the pain thing? You can't hit yourself that hard. And everything else is
really
dangerous, like blades." Ian let out a long breath. "Sorry. I knew you'd be mad."
Mike wasn't mad. He was upset, helpless, and desperate to put things right for Ian. "No, I just – damn, I just don't know what you go through. I don't know enough to help."
"I'm not made like you, Mike. I need to find my own way of handling all this."
"Sure. Sorry." Mike tried to look more relaxed about it. Recoiling wouldn't help. "But you can't keep doing that, buddy. Let's treat the burn and have another think. You don't have to tell anyone. I'll just say you touched a hot pipe or something."
"It's okay. It worked. I don't lose control now." Ian stood up and put the mirror in his pocket. There was a resigned necessity about him, as if he accepted all this went with the territory, and not a trace of self-pity. "It's the same as sparring. You learn how to take a punch to override your instinct."
It made perfect sense, but that didn't mean Mike felt better about it. His anger towards KWA had settled down to background radiation. Now it flared again.
He felt that breathless, bursting sensation rise in the back of his throat. It was every moment that he'd been shot at or threatened. If anyone laid a finger on Ian, he'd break their goddamn neck. This was the legacy that Kinnery had imposed on Ian, the kind of thing the kid had to do to deal with his condition. It was hard to see it as a talent right then.
"Under control, then," Mike said, playing things down.
Ian nodded, studying his palm. "Sorted."
KW-HALBAUER, LANSING
NOVEMBER, ONE WEEK BEFORE THANKSGIVING.
"I
know
Mr Weaver's busy." Dru's you-will-obey voice usually worked a lot better on the phone than in person. "This is urgent. Just walk into the meeting and put the note in front of him. It'll take you twenty seconds, and believe me, that'll be less disruptive to your life than what'll happen if he doesn't get it."
It was harder to get face time with Weaver lately. The new company was spread over almost double the number of locations, and this week he was at the old Halbauer HQ in Minneapolis. Dru was running out of time. If the boy in the video was anything to do with Kinnery, he might already have been moved, but he'd leave a trail that she might be able to follow. She had to make her move now.
"I'm going to keep ringing back," Dru said, "and if you stop taking the calls, then I'll start from the top and work down until somebody obliges me. We're working for the same company, for goodness' sake."
Dru could hear the ice forming on the line. "One moment." There was no
please
. "I'll put you on hold."
"Thank you." But the "you" got cut off, and Dru found herself listening to Vivaldi.
She was pretty sure she used to be more diplomatic on the phone. Bumping up against hard corporate objects over the last few months had added sharp corners to her rather than rounding them off. She'd watched her supposed betters flout the law with the expectation of getting away with it, and now she wondered just how many rules she needed to obey herself. She recalled her first term at college, her behavioural studies class; imagine, her professor had said, if everyone said screw the law and did as they pleased. There'd be no way of enforcing any rules at all, nowhere near enough police or troops to keep order. Laws only worked because humans generally preferred to fit in and followed the herd norm for good or ill.
Dru just wished that that he'd spent more time teaching the class about the individuals who created the norms. Some days she felt that she only had to push the door a little harder and it would swing open into a world of chaos where she had no limits on her behaviour. It no longer seemed like a bad thing, either.
I can break the rules. And the bigger the rule, the less chance I've got of being punished. That's what I'm seeing every day now.
Vivaldi was suddenly cut off mid-allegro. "Dru, it's Shaun."
"Hi. Can anyone hear you?"
"No, I thought this might be sensitive. I'm in a private office."
"I'll keep it short, Mr Weaver." Dru stuck to the oblique code. "I have a lead on our material that I need to follow up, and it'll mean being out of town. Can you cover my absence with HR? It overlaps with my vacation, but not completely, and it could take a couple of weeks. I'd hate this to founder on over-zealous administration."
Weaver understood the term
material
. "Certainly. You sound like this is significant."
Was he really asking for detail? She picked her way through the recurring minefield of what he might not thank her for being told, and what she needed to conceal for her own sake.
"It's sufficiently striking for me not to ignore, and it's current. I don't even know if I can get a flight this close to the holiday, but I'm going to try."
"How current?"
Now she had to commit herself.
Suspect
was too risky on an unsecured line. "There's a chance I might be able to locate a subject."
"Okay." Weaver got the point. "Dru, if you do locate the material, I want you to call me immediately – any time, on my private cell if need be – and not take any further action. Just observe. Your task is to find it and give me a location. That's all. If this is what we've been thinking all along, it's going to require specialist handling."
Dru got the feeling that she should have undersold it. It was too late now; she'd stoked him up and there was no point in trying to backtrack. But she was doing what he'd asked – just observing. Nobody had to know, least of all a senator who could probably create ripples the size of a tsunami for small fry like her.
There was something that bothered her, though. Weaver still hadn't said how he planned to extract the stolen material.
Damn, listen to me, I'm all euphemism. But I need to know he's not getting into anything illegal that's going to backfire on me. Specialist handling. Sure. What the hell is that?
She decided to risk asking the question on an unsecured line. "How specialist, Mr Weaver?"
He paused for a few seconds. "Need to know works both ways. For the same reasons."
"Yes, I need to know what I'm letting myself in for."
"You're not at risk. Just call me if you find anything and let me handle the rest."
"Understood."
"If you're that concerned, would it be wiser for me to know where you're going?"
If Weaver had taken any notice of the mall video, he might already have gone through the same steps that Dru had. She dithered. If she found a thief – which was all this would be, no matter how unbelievable the results – then she certainly wasn't going to perform a citizen's arrest. She couldn't detain a grown man, or anybody else for that matter. They might even be armed. She'd
want
to hand over the task.
Who would Weaver trust with the information? Maybe he's decided to call in the FBI after all.
Her biggest fear was that she was wrong, she'd cobbled together totally unrelated facts, and all she'd manage to do would be to upset a powerful politician who could grind her underfoot and Clare's future with her. But she still needed to know.
"If I were to call you and say I'd found what we were looking for, and exactly where I thought it was, who would
you
call?"
Weaver paused. "The one man who has the ability to resolve this without any embarrassment to anyone. He'd want to be discreetly helpful, believe me."
Kinnery. Weaver's got him by the balls. If I find his mule, then Weaver calls him and says it's all over, so how about bringing the guy in and talking terms. It stays in-house. No police, no FBI, no FDA, no whatever. It has to be that. There's nobody else he could call. He really wouldn't do anything physical. We're not in that kind of business.
It made sense. It was a clean fit with Weaver's motives and methods. It made her feel better. "I might be wrong, Mr Weaver, or it might be a dead end."
"It's a risk we all take. So, where is this?"
"East Coast," Dru couldn't say Maine in case Weaver was on the same page. She'd look insane for believing the video, and if he knew something she didn't, she was only giving him more pieces for his own personal puzzle that might not turn out well for her. "I'll call you right away if I get a result."
"Okay. Safe journey, Dru. And I do appreciate that you're disrupting your holiday plans for this."
After she'd rung off, Dru wished yet again that she'd recorded the conversation, simply to check that she hadn't compromised herself or the company. She was pretty sure she hadn't blown it, though.
What she
had
blown was family harmony, or as much as existed at this time of the year. Larry had been told to stand by to have Clare for the holidays, but for longer than he'd planned. He wasn't happy. He never was. Clare took it pretty well, but she was at the age where having Mom around wasn't the be-all and end-all of Thanksgiving.
Dru couldn't back out of the trip now. The emotional blackmail from Larry would fall on deaf ears. She managed to book a flight to Bangor for a few days before Thanksgiving, then rented a car and rang around the Westerham area to find a room.
And if I can't get a room, I'll sleep in the goddamn car.
Might be good practice for when I get fired for this.
She had to be as near the Braynes' home and neighbourhood as possible to do all that waiting and watching. But she did find a room; now things were set in concrete. She charged it to her own card to avoid going through the travel agency, temporarily covering her tracks. Now she had to go through with this, if only to claim back the expenses.
Dru dropped Clare off at Larry's the night before the flight and he invited her to stay for supper. That was a bad sign: usually, he wasn't even chatty. Dru wondered what Clare had been saying. Maybe he'd totally misread her recent makeover as some overture to getting back together. She stood on the doorstep and started edging backwards to indicate she really had to leave.
"Clare's upset that you won't be back before the holiday," he said.
"She's
not
upset. She's got you to herself. It makes her feel grown-up." Dru took a few more steps backwards. Larry never did take any notice of body language. "Look, I've got an early flight. Non-negotiable. Entertain your daughter, and cherish what time you have with her before she grows up and turns into me."
"It
is
a man, isn't it?" Larry raised his eyes from hers, looking at her hair with disapproval. "I didn't miss the new look, by the way. Is that why you won't tell Clare where you're going?"
"No."
"Really. Suddenly you're the CIA."
"It's only goddamn Maine." Shit, she'd lost her temper and let it slip.
Never mind.
"If I was going to fuck anybody, I'd make him take me somewhere tropical, and anyway, it'd be none of your damn business if I did."
"Who books a business trip right before Thanksgiving?"
"For the last time, Larry, it's not a man. It's
work
. It's god-awful, boring, tedious work, which I have to do because you missed so many child support payments when you went bust."
"Am I allowed to call if Clare gets sick, then?"
Dru didn't want Larry calling her cell at the wrong moment. She tore a sheet out of her notebook and scribbled the hotel number on it. "Okay, here's the hotel. Happy? You can even ask if I've got a man in my room."
"Jesus, Dru, you can take some things too seriously."
"If I told you what the job was, you'd never believe me anyway. If I can make it back earlier, I will, okay?" She peered around him in case Clare had been summoned by the raised voices. "So now you're getting back on your feet again, I expect you to pay your share. I'd prefer Clare not to have to see me take you to court."
"I'm fully aware of my responsibilities, thanks. Enjoy your trip. Remember to bury your parachute when they drop you behind enemy lines."
Dru drove off, trying to think if there was anybody she had a completely cordial, relaxed relationship with these days. It looked like there was just Clare. She was at war, acknowledged or otherwise, with everyone else.
It didn't matter now. If she drew a blank on this trip, she could write it off as a respite that she was long overdue and just enjoy a break somewhere pretty and rural, even if that meant staying in her hotel room with a bottle and the TV for company. A change was as good as a rest.