Chapter 136

I was furious at so many people and so many things that I couldn’t even begin to figure out what to be mad about first.

One: Devlin’s attitude was absolutely unsustainable. When we’d been partners – professional or romantic, it didn’t matter – our greatest strength had been our ability to communicate. While other teams fell apart because of nursed grudges or secret agendas, we’d formed a highly functional partnership based on trust and honesty. We had relied on each other implicitly. When things went sideways, both he and I had known we weren’t operating alone.

Until he’d gone and screwed that up, of course.

When circumstance forced me back into the field, I’d been pleasantly surprised to see that the old rhythms were still easy to grasp. Granted, it was often difficult to separate the professional lines of communication from the unfamiliar, bittersweet romantic ones, but that hadn’t influenced us on the job. We just worked. And I’d been hoping to keep things like that for as long as possible.

That wasn’t going to happen if he insisted on brooding in his hotel room and sniping at me in public. I needed to force him to sit down and spill, but we didn’t have the time for the kind of fallout that conversation could produce. At the same time, waiting until the Mouse was dealt with didn’t seem to be an option anymore, either.

Two: Barrett was handsome, admittedly, but he was also a troll of the highest order. Without any knowledge of my history with Devlin, Barrett had accurately honed in on the exact things he could or say that would drive my ex-husband crazy. The fact that he seemed not to mean anything personal by his antagonisms didn’t make them any less effective or any less detrimental to team morale. Maybe scaling so many buildings in the dead of the night, with no one but his own thoughts for company, had given him something of a complex. Maybe he didn’t realize that his comments and snark could cause any one of us to make a mistake at a critical moment.

Maybe he just didn’t care.

Whatever the reason, he needed to be reined in. Although, if he decided that he didn’t want to be reined in…what exactly would I do? He knew just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to realize the stakes. I wasn’t about to tell him anything about the Magi or the Lady, if I didn’t have to. Without that information, it was entirely possible that he’d dig his heels in and continue taking shots at Devlin whenever possible for his personal amusement. I needed to figure out a way to convey the seriousness of this job to him, without giving him any of the particulars.

And that, of course, would also take time.

Three: My sister was coming to town. And I was going to have to talk to her. Compared to the other threats and hassles on my mind, sitting down to a fancy dinner and listening to a string quartet with my sister shouldn’t have even rated as worth mentioning. But, while my head knew that academically, my emotions didn’t seem to have received the same memo. I could already imagine her insufferably well-meaning questions and comments, backed by a lifetime’s worth of inherent superiority.

“Oh, I wish I could just fly off to London. I had such a good time there last year, but I was busy working on a research project and couldn’t really enjoy it.”

“Oh, Barrett, it’s so lovely to meet you. If Sarah had told me that she was having a wedding, of course I would’ve cleared my schedule. I’ve made sure that all of my colleagues know the latest procedure, just in case I have to drop everything anyway.”

“Oh, Father, I looked over those projections you sent me and, if you’re looking to get into the medical equipment overseas, I know just the person to put you in touch with.”

And so on and so on. Just an endless barrage of tiny, insipid little barbs hidden in polite conversation that I couldn’t ever point out or even defend myself against. There was a reason I tried not to be in the same ZIP code as her whenever possible, but here I was, about to deliberately expose myself to an entire evening.

That, more than almost anything else, made me want to strangle the Mouse with my bare hands.

A million other irrelevant irritations tumbled around in my head, vying for the spotlight, and I didn’t make any effort to sort through them. Instead, I did what any red-blooded American woman would do, when faced with more troubles than any one person should reasonably have to deal with.

I called my grandmother.

An hour passed before Virginia got back in touch with me. She said that she’d been out with CJ, enjoying a day without her daughter-in-law, but that she’d be able to meet me when she back to the hotel. I insisted that we meet on neutral ground, instead. The last thing I needed was for Barrett to come sauntering back in or to run into Devlin while he was stewing…or, with my luck, both at the exact same time.

We ultimately agreed on Klyde Warren Park. Virginia had, through some distant subsidiary that she’d contributed to once upon a time, helped to fund the creation of the park, but had never actually seen it in person. I wanted to take in some fresh air, but also didn’t want to find myself anywhere isolated enough that Hunter and his team of kidnappers might be able to get a clean shot at me. Klyde Warren worked nicely for both of us.

Michel entered the bedroom while I was finalizing our plans. He waited patiently until I finished before he said anything.

“That was something, wasn’t it?” Michel asked.

I rolled my eyes and flopped back on the bed. “I swear, Michel, the ego of the average heterosexual male is going to be the death of us.”

“Us?” Michel coughed. “As in, this team?”

“Us, as in humanity,” I clarified.

“For what it is worth,” Michel said, “I do not think that ego is limited to only heterosexual men. Or even men, for that matter.”

I sat up. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

He raised his hands in surrender. I noticed that one of them trembled slightly. “I am hardly the person to talk about another person’s relationship problems.”

“And yet, here you are,” I said. “Speak your mind, Michel.”

Michel sighed. “I do not know what I think,” he said. “Or…maybe I just do not how to say it? I only mean that I have noticed the…difficulties…that you and Devlin are having lately.”

“You aren’t the only one. You still talk to him pretty regularly, right?”

He nodded.

“Has he said anything? Is there some clue you’ve managed to uncover that might explain why he’s acting like this?”

Michel hesitated before answering. “I would not want to tell you anything that he has not already told you. But, even without getting into details, I think that you can figure out most of what he’s thinking on your own.”

“Barrett,” I said and rolled my eyes again. “Sure, there’s that. But Dev’s been sulking since before we came to Dallas and long before Barrett became a part of…whatever it is that we’re doing.”

“Since Atlanta?” Michel suggested.

“Yes, since Atlanta,” I said, “but we talked about that.”

We had talked about that, hadn’t we? I thought back to our time in Atlanta, trying to recall the specific details of that conversation. Devlin had sniped at me all throughout my chat with Virginia, only to turn around and earnestly apologize later on for getting emotional. He’d asked me why my choice to hide him from my parents had pissed him off so much and…

Oh. Oh.

Something must have changed in my face, because Michel raised a concerned eyebrow. “What is it?”

“He said that he thought I’d kept him hidden because of what we do,” I said. “And I told him that wasn’t true, but…”

“But?” Michel prompted.

“But I wasn’t really sure if that was true,” I admitted. “And then we never really had a chance to get back to that conversation, and…”

I trailed off as I realized that wasn’t quite true, either. We’d had opportunities to talk. In Atlanta, before we’d left. After the debacle when we’d met Barrett in the first place. While we’d been flying to Dallas. Hell, we were staying only a few rooms away from each other right now, and I’d spent an hour and change stewing over my problems instead of walking down the hallway to confront them head-on.

It wasn’t a matter of time. It hadn’t ever been a matter of time. I was actively avoiding that conversation, because I didn’t have a response to what he’d said and I didn’t want to think about that fact.

I groaned. “God, I need a therapist.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I keep making the same mistakes, over and over again, without realizing it,” I said. “Is Devlin still here?”

Michel shook his head. “He and Mila went out to speak with her local friends.”

I caught a bitter note in his words and lifted a concerned eyebrow of my own. “Everything alright there?”

“Things were fine,” Michel said. “Maybe even good. But then I was hurt at the theatre and she just…pulled away? Does that make sense?”

I’d caught the looks during the conference earlier, but I hadn’t understood them. Now that he mentioned it, though, it was strange that she’d gone to run errands without him. Since landing, the two of them had been pretty much inseparable.

“Have you guys argued about anything?” I asked. “Or had any disagreements, at all?”

“Nothing comes to mind.”

“Are you still training with her?”

“No.” Michel frowned. “She was too busy at first; now, she just finds excuses to be somewhere else.”

If Devlin was difficult to understand, Mila was inscrutable. If she choose to let me know exactly what she was thinking, in clear English, I was liable to assume that she wasn’t feeling anything at all. Of course, I knew better than to think of her as an emotionless machine, but that only made it too easy for me to ascribe my own thoughts onto her actions. Michel, what with his feelings towards her being complicated by the job and her general demeanor, was probably making that same mistake.

“I mean…I don’t know, Michel,” I said. “That just sucks.”

“It is as good as can be expected,” Michel said. “I do not know any other way to explain that. It will be whatever it will be.”

“Well, as this current conversation has proven, I’m not in any position to give you advice,” I said. “Although, talking to each other is probably the only thing I could really suggest.”

“Talking,” Michel said, blowing out air through his nostrils. “I do not think that Mila is the type to talk much about her feelings.”

I knew that Mila was, however, the type of person to think about her feelings, even if she didn’t voice those thoughts. But I couldn’t say that to him without betraying her confidence.

“I think you’d be surprised,” I said carefully. “Whatever happens, it’s got to be better than just staying locked in your own head and coming up with worst case scenarios all day, right?”

“That sounds like good advice.” Michel winked at me. “Maybe it is something that we can both work on?”

“That’s the plan, as soon as I can pin him into one place.” Silently, I made a promise to myself to follow through on that. “What’re you doing for the rest of the day?”

“I need to look at maps of the area around the target,” Michel said. “I do not know what the fastest way to get away yet, but…traffic will be different at night than now, so I do not know how much good it would do now. I will probably train until nightfall, I suppose.”

I’d never really thought about what Michel’s job in our crew actually entailed. As the wheel-man, he was responsible for our entry and exit from target areas, but his contributions went further than that. His training with Mila had turned him into a passable fighter, if pushed into a corner, and the many conversations he’d had with Devlin had given him the skills of a fair grifter. If Devlin generally served as the troubleshooter in the team, Michel was rapidly shaping up to be a Swiss Army Knife of Criminal Talents.

That had to be exhausting.

“How long does that take?” I asked.

“Which part?”

“All of it, I guess?”

He gave the question several seconds of intense consideration. “Several hours,” he said finally. “But if I get started now, I can get most of it complete before I have to drive.”

At that rate, he was going to work himself to the bone. We were all pushing ourselves to function under sub-optimal conditions, taking on harder tasks than we were used to and putting ourselves at ever-greater risk. But Michel seemed to be working even harder than the rest of us. I found time to go out to lunch dates – professional dates, I quickly corrected myself – and to attend fundraisers, after all.

“You can take a break, you know,” I said.

“I know,” Michel said. “But…you all are doing so much more than me. I cannot break into a building like Devlin or fight a dozen men like Mila. This is what I can do to help.”

“I mean, that’s true, but we’ve been doing this for years,” I said. As soon as the words left my mouth, I instantly understood that I’d said the wrong thing. “Wait, no; I don’t mean that your, uh…inexperience is a bad thing. What I meant is that we’ve had a long time to get to where we’re at. You don’t have to put more things on your plate, just because we happen to be better in our respective areas.”

“We have dangerous enemies,” Michel said. “If I can work myself a little harder and make us all a little safer, I am happy to do it.”

“Right up until you collapse from exhaustion or make a mistake because you’re drained,” I countered. “Trust me, Michel; the fact that our adversaries are so powerful is exactly why we need to make sure we approach every one of these jobs when we’re as rested and clear-headed as possible.”

Which, of course, was optimistic thinking at its finest. That didn’t make the advice less viable.

“I…do not have anything else to do,” Michel said slowly. “What are you doing?”

“Getting some perspective, I think.” I forced myself to stand up, rolling my shoulders as I did so. The motion released some of the stress I’d been holding in my back. “Everything has been so intense the last couple of days.”

“Only these last few days?”

I smiled at him. “As bad as it’s been, it feels like it’s worse now.”

It was personal, now. My identity was on the line and, with that, my family’s safety. I could scarcely imagine the damage the Magi would be able or willing to inflict on Raymond, Elizabeth, or Virginia if they thought it might force me and the rest of the team out of hiding. Failing at this juncture wouldn’t force us to cut bait and hide; it would mean the end of everything I knew or had known.

Instead of voicing those thoughts out loud, I forced myself to smile wider. “Grab your keys,” I said. “We’re going for a drive.”

Michel was already moving toward the dresser, where he’d thrown his keys upon entering the room. “Where to?”

“Over the river and through the woods,” I said.

He stared blankly at me.

“To grandmother’s house,” I finished, rolling my eyes slightly at his expression. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 135

In hindsight, I could’ve announced my plan with a touch more subtlety.

Mila and Michel exchanged an inscrutable look, somehow communicating without the benefit of spoken word, and then turned in unison to look anywhere in the room except at Devlin or myself. Max’s jaw dropped open in mute shock. The Texan put both of his boots flat on the floor and pushed the brim of his hat up with a thumb to express his surprise. Even Barrett seemed a bit taken aback by the blunt pronouncement. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but I could see his eyebrows climb in my peripheral vision.

Devlin…Devlin didn’t react the way I’d expected him to. I don’t know know how I’d expected him to react, honestly. Instead of frustration or irritation, he allowed only the barest sliver of his temper to escape his tight control. The steady rhythm of his fingernails against the tabletop abruptly halted before, after a moment pregnant with unbearable tension, he resumed the action.

“I’m sorry,” Devlin said. “I must have heard you wrong. Because I think I just heard you suggest that we rob your parents and that can’t possibly be correct.”

His unnerving calm pierced through my own anger, but I clung to the indignation like a life raft. “Not my parents,” I said. “My parent’s company. There’s a difference.”

“I don’t think they’re going to see it that way,” Devlin said.

“Well, that’s why you aren’t going to get caught,” I countered. “Unless you don’t think you can pull it off?”

Devlin blinked slowly, deliberately. “Do I think that, with a week’s worth planning and operating against someone willing to hire professional kidnappers, I can sneak into a multi-billion dollar company to steal away their top secret, crown jewel without alerting the authorities or whatever private security they’ve contracted to guard their corporate secrets? Again, I just want to be sure that I’m fully understanding your question.”

I started to reply, stopped when I realized that I had no response, and then started speaking again when it occurred to me that silence wasn’t any better. “I think that we’ve done more audacious things with less time and fewer tools in objectively worse situations,” I said. “And I also think that we don’t really have another option, all things considered.”

“Now,” the Texan drawled, “maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t fully grasp the significance of this program ya’ll are discussing. And maybe I fell asleep and missed out on the finer details of your little group – who I’m deeply indebted to, make no mistake – but this doesn’t sound like a job, so much as a glorified suicide mission.”

“Seconded,” Mila said. I shot her a look and she shrugged. “What? Am I supposed to lie?”

She was focused on our personal safety, as ever. That drive had probably intensified after Michel had been hurt at the community theater. Nothing wrong with that, except that playing it safe wasn’t the right move now. I could feel that much in my bones. The clock kept running down, ticking closer and closer to the minute when the Mouse would have full access to all of my secrets. When that happened, it would all be well and truly over. My life as a privileged Ford….my carefully constructed identity as IreneAdler in the forums and chat rooms of the Community…everything would come crashing down in a single spectacular, awful instant.

We needed to act. That’s what Mila had taught me, and I agreed with the philosophy. Fixing mistakes was better than allowing our enemies – my enemy – to box to us in while we deliberated and debated.

“Max,” I said, focusing on her because she was the only person who might understand the technology in play. “They either wrote something or had something written for them that’s capable of independently capable of seeking out and drawing conclusions from data.”

Her bottom jaw, somehow, dropped even lower for a ludicrous instant before she shook her head and locked her eyes onto mine. “How advanced is it?”

“I don’t know that,” I admitted. “My father was talking about it in pretty glowing terms, though. And, wherever it’s at in development, the Department of Defense has been making overtures about getting their hands on the tech.”

“They want to buy it outright?”

I shook my head. “They want to utilize its services, but my father isn’t going to let go of the source code.”

Max scoffed. “And I’m sure they aren’t going to try everything in their power to reverse engineer it on their own, so they can have all of the profits with none of the accountability.”

“I thought of that, too,” I said. “And the fact that they haven’t already done that makes me think that Minerva’s just fundamentally beyond their understanding.”

“Minerva?”

“That’s what they’re calling the program.”

“The Goddess of Strategic Warfare,” the Texan said “But also the Goddess of Wisdom. Someone at the company must be a fan of the classics.”

Max and I turned to stare at him.

“What?” The Texan asked. His tone sounded almost exactly the same as Mila’s. “I read, too.”

“Since we’re likely to be the people who have to go into this death trap,” Devlin interrupted, “why don’t you try explaining this in a way that we can all understand?”

I bit back a sharp retort.  He was acting out, probably hoping for some sort of overblown reaction that he could use as fuel for his tantrum, and I couldn’t afford to give that to him.  We didn’t have the time, for one thing; for another, I steadfastly refused to get into a screaming match with Devlin while Barrett was present.  I wasn’t sure what the cat burglar’s presence had to do with anything, but I was fully convinced that shrieking at my ex-husband in front of him was a no-go.

I took in a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly before I spoke.  “If my father wasn’t exaggerating, Minerva could be the culmination of decades of work into artificial intelligence and machine learning.  I’m not being too hyperbolic if I say that it’s potentially the first step towards a whole generation of technology.”

Max nodded her agreement to that, before turning more skeptical eyes to me.  “Which is why I’m having some trouble believing that it can do what you’re saying, actually,” she said.  “You do know what you’re saying, don’t you?”

“I got as much information out of Raymond as I could,” I said, “but he wasn’t going to spill all of the details to me over lunch.  He might not even know all the details, honestly.  Computers have always sort of confused him.”

“So you want your team to break into…somewhere…on the off-chance that he wasn’t overselling his product?”

I looked at each person assembled around the conference table in turn, hesitating a little bit at the obvious effort in Michel’s careful posture and speeding past Devlin’s gaze a little too quickly. 

“Here’s the thing,” I said.  “We don’t really have another choice.  You can’t beat our…adversary…and it’s only a matter of time before he finds out who and where we are.”

“We could just skip town,” Max pointed out, as she indicated herself and the Texan.

“No, we can’t,” the Texan said in the mildest possible tone.  “These folks saved your life when they got you out of that caravan of yours.  And they put themselves on the line to figure out who was trying to kill or kidnap me.  We ain’t about to let that kind of a debt go unpaid, now are we?”

I expected Max to object, to protest in some way against the Texan’s expectations.  She did draw herself up straighter and take in a breath, as though she was preparing to argue against what he’d said.  Then, she surprised me by deflating and shaking her head in the negative.  “No,” she said.  “No, I guess we can’t.”

The Texan nodded at his daughter and then turned his eyes my way.  “All that said, what these other fine people have been saying does sound like, uh…intelligent advice.  What’s the rush, exactly?”

Telling him about my dual identity was out of the question.  Even if I liked him, I didn’t trust him.  Information was the currency he used to purchase neutrality in the wars and skirmishes that played out between gangs and crime families.  Now that someone – maybe the Mouse, maybe the Magi, maybe some other insanely powerful and as-yet unknown figure – had decided to become more hands-on, there were only two ways he could play it.  Either he started putting people and resources into the field in response, escalating the game until the cost became too high for one party or the other.  Or, more likely, he sought out new information with which he could purchase his freedom.

The knowledge that a member of the Ford family was a criminal would likely fit that description neatly.  Someone could try to blackmail me with that information.  If I completely cut ties with my family, changed my name, and fled to a country with no extradition treaty, someone could still blackmail my family with that information.  There was no telling what Raymond would do to protect my good name or how far Elizabeth might go to protect us from a scandal.  It might start small but, with that first inch, it wouldn’t be long before any potential blackmailer had complete control over my family’s finances and assets. 

Unacceptable.  Simply unacceptable.

“I’m not going to ask you to trust me,” I said to the Texan.  “You’ve probably dealt with too many liars over the years to just take someone at their word.”

“I wasn’t going to call you a liar, exactly,” the Texan drawled, “but I do get your meaning.”

“But I’m also not going to tell you everything,” I said.  I waited until he gestured for me to elaborate.  “Secrets are valuable.  I know some of yours now; you know some of mine.”

“And some of mine,” Max said under her breath.  I ignored her.

“We’ve got mutual enemies right now and mutual interests.  What I need is for you to believe that I wouldn’t send you into a situation I didn’t think was absolutely necessary.  And I certainly wouldn’t do that to my team.”

“Where, exactly, do I fall on this scale?” Barrett asked.  This time, I went ahead and sent an elbow directly between his ribs.

“You still haven’t convinced your team that this is necessary,” Devlin said.

I glared at him before I could control myself; then, after another deep breath, my glare lessened in intensity until it was merely a stern look.  “You know me,” I said.  “You’ve known me.  Do you really think that I’d put us all at risk, if I didn’t truly believe that this was the only viable solution?”

He held my gaze at first, but looked away before the shared contact could become too intimate.  “Mila,” he said.  “How long would it take you to get some idea of the kind of security we might hypothetically end up facing in there?”

“Starting from scratch?”  Mila ran a hand through her hair in thought.  “What kind of resources would I have?”

“I can convince my parents to take me to the offices,” I volunteered.

Devlin shook his head.  “No, you can’t.”

“And why not?”

“Because your father already knows, for a fact, that you aren’t interested in the business side of things, for one,” he said.  “If you start acting out of character, there’s always a possibility that he starts asking questions that we don’t want him to ask.  If this is going to happen – and I’m not saying that this is going to happen – you have to realize that the only chance we’ve got is keeping everyone as placid as possible.”

He had a point.  I hated when he did that, especially when he was otherwise acting like a total ass.

“I can do it,” Barrett said.  “Raymond seems like the kind of man who’d look forward to showing his daughter’s new husband all around the business.  Especially if he’s looking for someone to inherit the reins of the company.”

Silence fell over the room.  I carefully did not look to see what expression was on Devlin’s face, but I could still feel the scowl like heat against my cheek.

“He’s not wrong,” Mila said.

“I know that,” Devlin replied in a tight voice.

“I know a little bit about the interior,” the Texan said, “and I can get my hands on the blueprints from a friend I got in the city planning office, but aside from that…”

“I know that we need someone to go into the building,” Devlin interrupted.  He clenched and unclenched his jaw.  “You don’t need to convince me of that.”

More silence. 

Devlin stared at the table for a long second before looking at me again.  “If we do this, we’re going to do this right.  Reconnaissance, planning, escape routes…the whole nine.”

I nodded.

“And, I’ll be the one calling the shots on the ground,” he said.

“I won’t be there, Devlin,” I said.  “I won’t even be in the same part of the city.”

He said nothing. After a few moments, I realized that he was waiting for me to give him a very specific answer.

“You’re calling the shots,” I conceded. 

He nodded in satisfaction and turned to Max. “You’re going to have to play a big part in all this, too.  We need equipment – earbuds, mostly, but we’ll have a better idea what kind of countermeasures later – and we’ll need someone to run operations.  Can you do that?”

“Of course,” Max said.  Then, a moment later, she actually thought about what she’d agreed to.  “I mean…of course, but I don’t have a lot of experience with that.”

“Sarah can fill you in on the finer points,” Devlin said, “but it’s mostly just going to consist of keeping us all on the same page.  With better equipment and less interference from other cell phones and Bluetooth headsets, you won’t have to get anywhere near us this time.  You can run the op from a safe distance.”

“I wasn’t scared of being up close,” Max protested.  She didn’t do a very good job of hiding the relief in her voice, though.

Devlin almost certainly noticed the tremor in Max’ voice, but he chose not to comment on it.  “Michel?”

“If I am driving you to the office building,” Michel said, “then I cannot be there with Sarah.  Are you sure that is the best decision?”

“As far as Raymond and Elizabeth are concerned, Barrett’s her husband. Virginia thinks that you’re who she’s actually married to, but I’m sure we can come up with some explanation that makes sense.”

“I can talk to her,” I interrupted.  “Unless you think I should out-source that too?”

There wasn’t any reason for me to have been so snappy.  At least on the surface, it seemed like Devlin was taking my proposal at face value.  He wasn’t actively trying to shoot down my idea, even though he likely didn’t understand what we were trying to steal or even how we’d get a copy of the program out of the building.  But, in the instant he’d decided to treat it as a serious thing, he’d just seized control of the entire conference away from me.

I’d been in control, at first.  Dealing with complaints, convincing individuals to assist us…but that moment had passed. 

I wished he’d do or say something ignorant, so that I’d be justified in unloading my frustrations on him. But, in his purely professional persona, it would’ve been petty and self-destructive of me to start contradicting him out of spite.

“What’ve you got in mind for me?” the Texan asked.  The question was directed at Devlin, of course.

“I don’t know yet,” Devlin said.  “Depends on what we find out in the next day or two.  Just keep your options open.”

“Can do,” the Texan said.

Barrett cleared his throat dramatically. “And when do you want all of us to get started on our tasks, oh captain, my captain?”

A look of impossible heat flashed in Devlin’s eyes for an instant. I don’t know if I could’ve withstood the force of that glare without shying away, but Barrett didn’t shift his weight or avert his eyes.

“The sooner we get this handled,” Devlin said, through gritted teeth, “the sooner you can find somewhere else to be. We get started immediately.”

Without another word, he shoved his chair back from the table and stalked out of the room. Michel, Mila, and I all looked each other in mute surprise; the Texan and Max exchanged a knowing look that I couldn’t quite read; and Barrett glanced up at the door Devlin had left through, before yawning extravagantly.

“Well, I guess we should get to work, then?” Barrett asked the room. He received silence, stares, and a particularly sharp glare from Mila in response. “What? I can be a team player, too.”

Chapter 134

No amount of wheedling or cajoling could pry anymore details from Raymond about Minerva, the government agent, or the deal he hoped to strike. After I said I’d be at my sister’s fundraiser, Elizabeth had stepped in and dominated the conversation with energetic chatter about the connection between two sisters and a path to reconciliation between the two of us. I mostly tuned her out, except for the occasional nod or noncommittal grunt at the appropriate moments. In her excitement, Elizabeth didn’t notice my reluctance to engage in the conversation. That left the majority of my mind free to think.

It wasn’t that my sister and I were at odds with each other. Raymond was an only child and Elizabeth had been adopted, so neither really understood the weird dynamics of sibling relationships. While one of us had gone the way our parents had wanted – world class doctor, philanthropist, and a shining example of the Ford family – I had chosen to live my life according my own rules and code. And, while that particular code was flexible enough to allow me to commit federal crimes on a fairly regular basis, that didn’t mean I resented my sister for her successes.

Well, I did resent her, but that had more to do with her unending superior attitude when we happened to be in the same city than with the things she decided to do with her supreme privilege. She certainly wasn’t better than me, even if all the newspapers and magazines came within millimeters of outright saying as much. We were just…different.

And we’d landed on a technique that allowed us both the freedom to live without the burden of everyone else’s expectations and comparisons. She and I simply stayed away from each other. A twice-yearly email, as well as a thoughtful birthday gift, constituted the sum total of interactions either of us could stand. It was a system that worked and had worked for the better part of two decades, not including the rare occasion when Elizabeth contrived some coincidence that brought us together for an hour or two.

I was about to blow that unspoken arrangement right the hell out of the water.

After we finished eating, Barrett and I made our exit, against Elizabeth’s strenuous protests. There were matters to get in order, of course, and dresses to try on. Where pragmatism failed, the appeal to fashion worked wonders. I had to promise her that she’d be allowed to help me look for dresses before the fundraiser, although I didn’t commit to wearing whatever she picked out, before Elizabeth finally let us go.

As soon as we were in the car, I dropped my smiling mask and sank into an undignified scowl. Barrett looked at me for a few seconds before carefully, deliberately turning to look out of his window.

“Go ahead and ask,” I snapped. “You’re going to do it eventually, and you need to know anyway.”

“You and your sister don’t get along,” Barrett said. “That’s pretty obvious. What I don’t get is why you’d agree to attend her fundraiser.”

“It’s complicated.”

“I find that everything related to people who…do the kind of work we do…is usually complicated.” He turned his head enough to meet my eyes. “I’m pretty good with complicated, though.”

“It isn’t about her,” I sighed. “Not really, anyway. But my mother is going to be all over us from the moment we’re both in the same room and I can’t really afford that distraction.”

“And what would she be distracting you from, exactly?”

Instead of answering him directly, I raised my voice and told the driver that we would be headed to my hotel, instead of Barrett’s.

He turned fully away from the window. “I’m intrigued, but also very confused.”

“Keep it in your pants. I don’t want to have to explain this more than once, so I’ll answer your question when we’re all in the same place.”

I unlocked my phone and typed out a group text for Michel, Mila, and Devlin.

 

Sarah: There’s been a development that we need to discuss. How soon can you all get back to the hotel?

 

After a brief pause, I decided to add Max and the Texan. We were still operating in his territory after all; if anyone might be able to give me some more context, he’d be the person. And, while I didn’t necessarily trust Max with something with as much potential as Minerva, I was still working with the smallest toolkit imaginable. If a technical problem arose, we’d need her, her expertise, and her experience to handle it.

I thought about texting the Twins, but ultimately chose not to. In formal settings like a fundraiser, Mila would be enough to ensure our safety. If something arose that was beyond her abilities, we wouldn’t need more muscle; we’d need a big hole and a fast car, in that order. Besides, if she thought their presence was necessary, Mila was perfectly capable of making that call on her own.

“Does this mean I’m part of the team?” Barrett asked.

“It’s too late to cut you out of the loop,” I said. “And it’d be more trouble than it’s worth to come up with a new story that would pacify my parents without stirring up suspicion.”

“That almost sounds like you’re growing fond of me.” Barrett immediately raised both hands in mock surrender, a split second before I was able to hit him with a full-force glare. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. You’ve made it perfectly clear that I’m only involved in this because of happenstance and dumb luck.”

I scoffed. “Luck, he says. I don’t know what part of this seems lucky to you.”

“I just had lunch with the Fords,” he pointed out. “And now I get to pick out something fancy to attend a fundraiser that I’d normally have to sneak into. From the tenth floor. So this is a pretty big step up for me.”

He spoke so matter-of-factly that I almost didn’t realize he was making a joke.

Before I could respond, my phone vibrated once, then once more.  The first response came from Mila, speaking for both Michel and herself.  They were about thirty minutes away from the hotel, working through some combat training with the Twins, and would head straight back.  Without needing to be prompted, Mila had decided to keep Akumi and Kira out of this, for the moment.

The second message was from Devlin.  It wasn’t necessarily curt, but it did have a feeling of abruptness to it that I didn’t like.

 

Devlin: Already here.  Who else is coming?

 

I hesitated before replying.  He’d never made any secret of his distaste for Barrett and our relationship wouldn’t be helped by the cat burglar’s presence.  At the same time, it wasn’t something that could be avoided.  So, it was now a matter of deciding which would lead to a bigger explosion: telling him in advance that Barrett was going to sit on our strategy meeting or letting him find out when we arrived?

The answer was obvious, but that didn’t make it less distasteful.  I swallowed nervously before typing out two sentences.

 

Sarah: The regular team, plus Barrett.  He’s already in the loop on this.

 

Seconds stretched into a full minute while I waited for him to text back.   When his response came, it was written in the same terse, technically non-problematic way as his first message.

 

Devlin: I’ll arrange for somewhere private.

 

No other text came through after another minute and I returned my phone to my pocket.  The complete lack of emotion coming from Devlin wasn’t just concerning; it was disconcerting.  I didn’t know where we stood, didn’t know how to ask, and wasn’t even sure that I wanted a real answer.  And I wasn’t going to get any resolution on that during our meeting, due to Barrett’s presence; in fact, owing to the whole situation in Dallas as of the last few days, I doubted I’d find the time to sit Devlin down for a chat until much later.  I could only hope that the stretch of silent resentment didn’t irreparably damage something between us.

“Everything alright?” Barrett asked.

“Everything’s fine,” I said automatically.  “Just making sure that we can approach this problem as a unit, instead of several different sub-groups all trying to pull of their own thing.”

He made a sound of agreement, leaned back, and closed his eyes.

“Did you mean what you said at the restaurant?”  I asked, for no other reason than to keep myself out of my own thoughts.  “About your father making you work for a living?”

“Every word of it,” Barrett replied, without opening his eyes.  “Although I didn’t actually wait tables for more than a year before I decided to pursue, uh…alternative means of income.”

“Like what you do now?”

“Like what I do now, sure,” he said.  “Not exactly, though.  Television would have you believe that my career field is staffed to the brink and filled with successes.  It’s just easier to take on smaller jobs with lower payouts, but better odds.”

“Then why’d you ultimately decide to go the harder way?”  I asked.

Barrett grinned, eyes still closed.  “I wanted a challenge.  This appealed to me.  It’s really as simple as that.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that.  There wasn’t much of a psychological component to unpack, for one.  I’d accurately read Barrett as an adrenaline junkie back in Atlanta, long before he and I had ever had a real conversation.  He had that in common with Devlin and, if Devlin’s scathing critique of me after the debacle of the fair was accurate, I was starting to develop something of an addiction myself.  I’d just assumed there was more to it than that.

Some felons, lacking any legitimate options to earn money, turned to the Underworld to provide job opportunities in varying shades of morally gray all the way down to darkest black.  There were thieves like Devlin and myself, who claimed to be working for at least nominally noble goals; mercenaries like Mila and Aiden, who craved outlets for their own violent tendencies; and people like Michel, who simply got in too deep and couldn’t find or didn’t want a way out. Sometimes, it was just a deep psychological need for the crime, a desire to live by their own rules on the fringes of the law-abiding world around them.

But boredom?  That was new.  This was one hell of a life to live, out of simple boredom.

“Ever think about quitting?” I asked.

“Sometimes, I guess, but never seriously.  What else would I even do?  I’ve got a very specific set of skills that are incredibly useful in this field, but absolutely useless outside of it.  What, am I going to become a climbing instructor?”

I chuckled before I could stop myself.  Then, I decided that I didn’t want to stop myself, and I let a ripple of laughter out.  The sound filled the back of the car and, joined with Barrett’s own deep rumbling laugh, it helped to take my mind off of the impending meeting, the fundraiser, and the problems I desperately wanted to ignore. 

“And you?” Barrett asked, when our chuckles had slowed down to a trickle.  “Is this what you plan to do forever?”

I’d retired years ago and successfully stayed retired until Devlin swooped back into my life.  But now that I was back in the game…I just didn’t know.  Before we’d gotten fully drawn into the war between the Lady and the Magi, I’d told myself that London was My Last Job.  Then, when it had only turned out to be the tip of an iceberg of criminality, I’d allowed myself to first dip a toe into the waters of my past, then to submerge myself completely.  Going back to a purely civilian lifestyle seemed too small, too constricting for me now.  In all honesty, it had been too dull even before Devlin’s return.  I just hadn’t been able to admit that to myself. 

I liked the work I did.  Hurting the Magi, limiting their ability to inflict harm on the underprivileged and the downtrodden, testing my skills against an enemy that wouldn’t hesitate to pounce on any perceived weakness…all of those things stoked a fire in me that I hadn’t felt in a long time.  It was dangerous beyond belief, of course, and wildly irresponsible.  But it was doing something that mattered, even if no one outside of my limited circle of comrades knew what we were doing.

That was too much to explain to Barrett, though.  So, instead of fully answering his question, I merely shrugged.  “We’ll see how this turns out first.  No need to start speculating about the future if I might not even have a future.”

Barrett opened one eye and grimaced.  “So young, so beautiful, but with such a dark sense of humor.”

“Who’s joking?”

Max responded to my text just as we pulled up to the hotel.  She’d been attempting to decipher the RFID hard drive in her own personal Faraday cage and, appropriately, hadn’t received the text message at first.  Instead of working out of the secondhand computer shop, Max’ cage was located only a few blocks away from the hotel.  Working in a dense city center, with all of the competing signals and transmissions, provided her with a sort of camouflage.  It wasn’t a perfect solution, but I supposed it was the best we could hope for under the circumstances.

Mila leaned against one wall, facing us, as Barrett and I pulled up and stepped out of the car.  She tilted her head, cat-like and curious, but said nothing until we were only a few feet away.

“This is something he needs to be involved in?” Mila asked, pointedly ignoring Barrett. 

“It’s something he’s already involved in,” I countered.  “I told Devlin as much when he asked.”

“My issues aren’t always Devlin’s, and his issues certainly aren’t mine.  I’m just supposed to make sure that nothing happens to you and it’s pretty difficult to do that if you keep picking up strays.”

“No offense taken, in case anyone’s wondering,” Barrett said, to no one in particular.

“Keeping my parents complacent just became the most important thing we can do,” I said.  “He’s a key part of that.  As long as they think I’m married, my parents won’t pressure me to spend time with any other suitably aged, wealthy bachelors.  They won’t be looking too hard at me, especially with everything else going on.”

Mila raised an eyebrow.  “Everything else?”

“Let’s get everyone in the same room so I only have to go through this once.”

Mila sighed.  “Come on.  Devlin’s got everyone else in one of the conference rooms.”

She turned and walked into the building, taking long powerful strides that quickly carried her out of earshot.

“Is she like this all of the time?”  Barrett asked.

“Her personality can be something of an acquired taste,” I said, which wasn’t entirely inaccurate.  Mila didn’t hide her feelings, when she bothered to have feelings, and she wouldn’t pretend to like someone that she couldn’t stand.  “But she’s a professional.  Come on.”

We caught up to Mila and, together, the three of us went to the end of one hallway, turned, and went down to the end of that hallway before she stopped.  Mila opened the door and gestured for Barrett and me to step inside.  Then, she stepped inside, closed the door behind us, and locked it.

Devlin sat inside, drumming the fingers of one hand against the table top, idly listening as Max spoke to him.  The Texan wore his over-sized hat and had propped his ridiculous cowboy boots on the actual table. He was studiously trying to look like he was not eavesdropping on the conversation between Devlin and his daughter.  Michel sat a few seats down.  He opened one hand slowly until it began to tremble. He clenched it into a tight fist for a few seconds before gradually relaxing.  A half empty bottle of water rested on the table in front of him. 

Mila cleared her throat.  When everyone had found a seat, including Mila, Devlin spoke for all of them. 

“Alright, what’s going on?  What developments were you talking about?”

“I was having lunch with my parents and -”

“You were having lunch with your parents?” Devlin interrupted.  “As in, the two of you?”

“Well, if we hadn’t gone to lunch together, I don’t know how else you’d explain us arriving back at the hotel in the same car,” Barrett said dryly.

I wanted to hit him in the ribs with my elbow or maybe a car, but I suppressed the urge.  “While we were there, my father told me about a new project he’s working on.”

Devlin crossed his arms, careful not to jostle his injured arm too much, and said nothing.

Michel coughed, took a sip of water, and spoke. His voice had a little bit of a rasp now that I’d never noticed before.  “What is this project?”

“A program,” I said.  “If it can do what Raymond said it can do, then it might be exactly what we need to deal with…everything we’ve been dealing with.”

A significant look accompanied that last part of the sentence.

“What kind of a program?” Max asked.

“Something they created in-house,” I said.  “It’s proprietary, cutting edge stuff.  Two or three generations ahead of where they should be.”

“I’ve still got some pull with your father,” the Texan said.  “And I’m sure I own enough shares to get his attention.  Could probably get some more information out of him about it, if you wanted.”

I shook my head.  “That won’t work.  It’s part of a deal he’s working on – one that I think you know something about, actually – and he’s not going to blow a contract or discuss something like that with shareholders until it’s a sure thing.”

“But they were perfectly willing to discuss it with him there,” Devlin said.  “I guess he’ll just ask them to hand over the program.  Seems a little bit too easy, but what do I know?”

It wasn’t just his tone.  His body language, his demeanor, the way he wasn’t quite looking directly at me…everything about him suddenly infuriated me.  I’d made a mistake.  We’d all made mistakes.  But that didn’t give him the right to hold onto a grudge for days, to stew in his own self-righteous indignation, when I was trying – just like we were all trying – to survive. 

I slammed a palm down on the table and glared at him.  “No, Devlin,” I said.  “Barrett and I are going to attend a fundraiser at the end of the week and you are going to steal the program.  Does that sound easy to you?”