"Hmm?" Sumpter said with interest. "Where are you meeting?"
Atticus tried to be truthful with Sumpter, to save lying for important dodges. "Downstairs."
"Okay." Sumpter punched the down button. "Shall wesee what the FBI has to say?"
Riding with Sumpter was like riding with a stranger, only worse. Sumpter stood watching the numbers count down as Atticus and his team silently communicated.
I called her first.Kyle's face plainly said.
What do we do?Ru asked subtly with a nervous glance to Sumpter and a slight twitch of his upraised palms.
Fake a call,Atticus told them, thumb and pinkie extended to form a receiver, with a slight shake as if it vibrated with a silent ring.
Kyle started to sulk, as he was the one who normally set up such a ploy.
Ru took pity on him. He used the Japanese hand signal of pointing to his nose to indicate himself, a habit he got off his mother and grandparents. I'll do it.
Atticus nodded. Ru was more devious than Kyle, by far.
How soon?Ru asked by raising his left wrist and giving Atticus a querying look.
Atticus flashed all ten fingers and then repeated the phone sign. A time delay would keep suspicion off of Ru.
They hit the lobby and got off the elevator.
Ru made a show of searching his pockets. "Shoot," he said aloud for Sumpter's sake. "I think I left my phone and PDA upstairs."
"Lax, Takahashi." Sumpter sighed.
Ru handed Atticus the money. "I'm going to run back upstairs for it. I'll be back down in a couple of minutes."
Atticus urged Kyle toward the restaurant with a look. "Go see if Zheng is here yet." Atticus handed the money to Sumpter. "Could you put this in the hotel safe?" And then, to give him a little nudge, "Sir. We won't need it until Saturday."
A sharp glance from Sumpter indicated that the "sir" might have been over the top, but he took the bag without a word.
Having delayed Sumpter, Atticus felt he should make sure that Kyle had given the heads-up to Agent Zheng that Sumpter was outside the loop. Normally Kyle could be trusted to keep his eyes on the ball, but this time his eyes would be likely elsewhere.
A prickling awareness made Atticus check his stride. He focused and found he perceived a presence beyond the wall of the hotel, pretending to be relaxed, watching and waiting.
Pack.
" Good morning, Boy." Another's thoughts brushed against Atticus's mind with the impression of grizzled fur and a curious working nose. Atticus straggled to put a face to the psyche. " I'm Murray." And a face was supplied, picked from a perfect memory, created by a glance into a mirror: an unruly head of salt-and-pepper curls, a neatly trimmed beard, and dark eyes framed a nose formed by Jewish ancestry. " They call me Mouthpiece. Onetime lawyer, public defender, now Pack member. Going from one necessary evil to another."
A Jewish space alien?
" What are we?" Atticus wondered if he could trust Murray's answer any more than that of the Iron Horses or Agent Zheng. " Werewolves, space aliens, demon, or angel?"
" Angel is new." While the idea seemed to amuse Murray, there was no indication it was correct.
" Any of them true?"
" What we did to you on the beach, we did because you can't lie mind to mind. You can't create a believable memory any more than you can have a fully textured dream."
" So?"
" If you want the unassailable truth, you can examine our memories. See how our kind came to this world."
" Yeah, right." He wasn't about to let them back into his head. This casual intimacy—a stranger's emotions raw and honest—grated like sandpaper against his sense of privacy. It had been barely tolerable with Ukiah; despite everything, he had to admit—reluctantly—he'd been excited about finding his brother.
" You're the one who has to live in ignorance." Murray gave a mental shrug. " If you change your mind, we are denning tonight at Ponkapoag Camp, outside of Randolph."
How did you shut someone out of your mind? Atticus had never learned the trick of not listening that humans seemed to easily achieve. He stalked across the hotel lobby, hoping that distance could block Murray out.
The hotel had two restaurants. Breakfast was being served at the one named—ironically enough—the Intrigue Cafй. Kyle was hovering nervously by the door.
"I thought I would be able to recognize her." Kyle motioned at the various businesswomen already seated. "She's not one of these, right?"
"Not even close." Atticus took out his—Kyle's—phone and found the time was five minutes after. He dialed Zheng's number and was dropped immediately into voice mail. Her phone was either busy or off.
"Think she blew us off?" Kyle checked his own watch, and then compared it to his PDA. "Or maybe she got into trouble?"
If she was working with the Pack, wouldn't Murray have mentioned if Zheng had gotten into trouble? But when Atticus considered this, he realized that Murray was guardingZheng. She was somewhere close by. If she was on her phone, then perhaps she had sought out someplace private to talk.
"Get a table." Atticus patted Kyle on the shoulder. "I'll find her."
Now that he was focusing on her, he caught her scent on the air by the door. He drifted through the cafй. She must have left the doorway moments before the elevator delivered them to the ground floor. While the front of the hotel faced an elevated highway (which Kyle had told them would be torn down once the Big Dig was finished), the back was directly on the waterfront. Sleek yachts and sailboats were tied up to the U-shaped wharf, shrouded thick with fog. Globe streetlights still burned, extending his range of vision. A glass rotunda sat at the far end of the wharf, and a female figure stood within it.
Zheng?Atticus pushed out into the chilly, damp morning. Her scent led toward the building that signage identified as the Ferry Pavilion. She stood in profile to him, looking out into the fog, but her attention was on the cell phone she held to her left ear. Tension filled her body, although the only sign on her face was a slight gathering of her brow. The glass wall blocked her voice until Atticus pressed his hand against it and caught the vibration.
". . . felt better if you'd slept with me last night," she was saying.
Who was she talking to? There had been only a queen-size bed in her room at the Residence Inn. Had she worn her lingerie? Atticus considered Murray's presence and wondered if there were some Pack-to-panties correlations; maybe Zheng's involvement with the Dog Warriors had begun at the same time she had started to buy fancy underwear.
If so, who was the lucky Dog? He couldn't imagine the sleek and elegant Zheng with any of the Dog Warriors, but they said opposites attracted.
Judging by her body language, Atticus wasn't the only one having trouble hearing the other end of the conversation. Zheng pressed the phone closer to her ear and focused on the words.
"I'm fine. It just unsettled me. I hate walking blind into them—though Socket is right; it's like they're one person wearing borrowed skins. We should have expected this after Butler— I'm fine.Murray is here with me. Where are you now?"
Zheng paused to listen, rubbing her brow to soothe away the slight signs of distress. In a moment, she regained her serene composure. "What are you going to do about—are you on a pay phone? Call me when you can talk without being overheard." She glanced at her phone to check the time. "I'm going to be late to this meeting. Is that spelled how it sounds? H-o-w-a-r-d?" She started to turn toward Atticus. "Okay, I'll check my—"