He glanced up at me and gave me a weary smile. "Yeah. I suppose I did."
"Really?" I did some mental calculations, and gave him an appraising look. "I suppose you could have been a young man, say twenty or so, that would only make you in your forties."
He shook his head as if to tell me I'd asked him enough personal questions. The traffic was ridiculous, and I decided to get us out of this mess. I spotted a down exit moving at a quicker rate. In a second, I had us down on the sixth level and moving swiftly.
"I want you to reconsider taking the case," he said.
I nodded. "All right. Talk to me."
"Somebody's been using my name on the LINK to prop up Letourneau."
"Your name?" I asked, "What does Letourneau need with a cop's name?"
"A cop?" Michael frowned, then, he said, "Oh, right. Me. No, not literally, more like figuratively."
"Someone's using your name, your LINK access, figuratively? How does that work?" I watched his face intently. I couldn't believe that a second ago he didn't realize I was talking about him when I said "a cop's name." Captain Morgan had confirmed that Michael was with the force, so what was up with this guy?
"Let me start again," Michael said.
"I think you'd better."
I decided that I needed to give Michael my full attention. I noticed a mostly empty parking lot and swung around to enter. I keyed off the engine and turned in my seat to look at Michael. He was frowning at the duct tape, as if trying to choose his words.
"It's not really my name I'm concerned about," he said finally. "It's more like my reputation and the reputation of some people very close to me."
"How is your rep tied to Letourneau?"
"To the LINK-angels." He corrected.
I studied his face. His lips were pursed and his expression serious. Glancing out across the car park, I could see a billboard with a beatifically smiling presidential candidate Letourneau. His arms were open and welcoming like the forty-foot Jesus. Behind him, in the 3-D space, hovered an image of a LINK-angel. The virtual artist had done a good job mimicking the experience of the angels. The apparition drifted in and out of view, like a dream: one time over Letourneau's right shoulder, the next second over his left. I shivered, then I shook off the feeling.
"I still don't see the connection," I said. "What do the LINK-angels have to do with your reputation?"
"Poseurs," he spit.
I laughed and shook my head. I pointed my finger at him in mock accusation. "Blasphemer."
"Heretic is more accurate, thank you very much." Michael's lips tightened like he was holding back something, and his face went scarlet all the way to the ear tips.
"That's a pretty fine line of a distinction."
"Not to me, and not to the law." He pointedly avoided my gaze and plucked at the duct tape. "Anyway, I don't buy the presumption that the LINK-angels have anything to do with God, nor are they inviolable. If I believed that, I wouldn't be asking for you to hack them."
"That's what I still don't get. Why bust the angels? Most skeptics have been convinced by them, even men of science. That the angels are genuine seems to be the only thing religious and secular leaders agree on. The LINK-angels' appearance was a worldwide miracle..."
"I know all this," he growled. "That's why I need your help. You're the only one, Deidre. You know the truth."
"What truth?"
"I think you know." Michael's eyes were filled with an intensity that made me look away. I shook my head.
"I don't want to get involved," I said. "Besides, the truth doesn't count for jack, my friend; power and influence do. If I had either, do you think Daniel would be locked up right now? Do you think I'd be kicked off the force? Excommunicated?" I laid my hand out flat in the air between us. "No."
"Yet you can't let it go on the way it is, can you? You keep trying to print your letters to the editor, even though you know excommunication automatically bars you."
"I ... I ..." I didn't have an answer. "That's different."
"No, it's not. It's politics, just like this faux Second Coming, and it must be stopped."
"Now you sound like the Hasidic fanatics. They want my endorsement as a notorious LINK celebrity, too, you know."
"I'm not looking for votes."
"What are you looking for, Michael? You want the LINK-angels brought down, but why? What are they to you, really? What do you get out of it? All the LINK-angels have ever given anyone is a sense of peace. Why destroy that?"
Michael laughed. "As if that's all they do." He pointed his chin in the direction of Letourneau's smiling hologram. "You know as well as I that they're propagating the whole Second Coming myth."
"I know, I know. But what does it matter to you? Or is it who you represent, Michael? Who is this boss of yours? Is it in your father's interests that you've approached me?"
"No. I came to you on my own." He took in a long, steadying breath. "It matters to me because ... it matters to me."
"That's not good enough."
Michael's gray eyes flashed up at me. "You don't need to know my reasons to do this job. Are you telling me you don't want the barter?"
"It's not worth the risk if I can't trust you. Why not go to the Hasidim or someone else?"
Michael shifted slightly on the vinyl seats. Creaking was the only sound for a few moments as he started to speak, but then stopped. Finally, he said, "I'll be honest with you, you weren't my first pick. I did go to the Hasidim first."
He glanced at me to gauge my reaction.
"The Malachim?" The Hasidic terrorists went by the code name Malachim Nikamah, the Angels of Vengeance.
He nodded. I raised my eyebrows, but held my tongue. It made sense. The Malachim were renowned hackers and the LINK was what they terrorized. They shared Michael's distaste for Letourneau's bid for messiah, and disbelief in the divinity of the LINK-angels.
"Things didn't work out with them," he said.
"And you think they will with me?"
Michael nodded.
"I don't know about this," I started. "People with past terrorist connections representing hidden interests don't exactly inspire trust, you know ... it's not really my kind of thing; maybe you need the CIA or something."
"Do you trust your government, Deidre?" He gave me a knowing look out of the corner of his eye. "These are the same people who issued a life sentence for an innocent man."
"Daniel was hardly innocent, Michael. There is no doubt in my mind that he killed the Pope." I dropped my eyes and tried to keep my emotions in check. "It was a crazy thing that happened to Daniel, but sometimes people just snap."
"Is that what you really believe?"
"That's what I have to believe. The evidence is empirical."
"Maybe," Michael said quietly. "Maybe not."
"What do you know?" I demanded. "Is there something about Daniel's case that's changed?"
"The LINK-hack case you were working on has never been solved. No one has even touched it."
I hadn't thought about that case in over a year. With everything that had happened with the Pope, I'd forgotten about it. The details came back to me in a rush: "But, it was a smash-and-grab of bioware tech – hot stuff. The company, was it Jordan Institute? They hounded us every day to crack that case."
"Exactly my point," Michael said, turning to face me in the cramped car space. "Somebody's hiding something about Daniel's case."
"And, so, what are you saying? Do you think our old case is related to Letourneau and the LINK-angels somehow? That's kind of a strange leap in logic," I said.