“You should try de Throwdown,” he said. “It’s the wafel that beat out Bobby Flay’s.”
“Don’t you guys have e-mail? Instead of ambushing me, how about a nice OpenTable invitation next time?”
“Like you would respond.”
“Try me, Agent Callan. As I said last meeting, come in through the front door, I’m very cooperative by nature.”
“Unless cornered.”
“Who isn’t?”
“I need to know everything you learned from Tyler Wynn and Petar Matic. If you can tell me what was in that drop box, that would be helpful, too.”
Heat took her eyes off the tugboat churning upriver under the Queensboro Bridge and regarded the agent. Peel away the military zeal and the aggravating habit of surprise appearances, he seemed like an OK guy. Then self doubt about her trust instincts raised a caution flag. “You must have One PP on speed dial. Use it.”
He shook no. “Not optimal. This is too sensitive, too big. If this goes into the bureaucracy chain, there’s no containment.”
“Then why involve me?”
“Because you are already involved. And you don’t have a big mouth.” He grinned. “I learned that the other night in the warehouse.” She returned his smile and he held out his hand. At first, Nikki thought he wanted to hold hers, but he took her lunch garbage, and she blushed at her misunderstanding. He tossed her plate and fork in the can beside him and then pivoted on the bench to face her. “Detective Heat, I can assure you of one thing. The case we are working is developing into a matter of the highest national security. Maybe if I disclose to you, it will make you feel better about sharing with us.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s a short story. Nicole Bernardin, who was once CIA, reached out to us about a month and a half ago to say that she had come upon highly sensitive documentation of something urgent she needed to share. We did thorough checks on her background with Central Intelligence as well as her more recent history working with Tyler Wynn in his new-let’s call it, independent-capacity. We made arrangements for her to get the information to us, but someone killed her before she could tell us where to find it.”
Heat said, “If you want to know about the drop box, I found it, but I never saw what she had stashed.”
“What did it look like?”
“A tan leather pouch with a zipper on top. The kind merchants use to take their cash to the bank.”
He squinted, envisioning it, and said, “Thank you for that.”
“You can thank me by answering this. If you knew Tyler Wynn had switched sides, why didn’t you arrest him? Especially if he was into something endangering national security?”
“Exactly for that reason. Come on, Heat, you know what it’s like to keep a suspect on a leash. We never picked up Wynn because we didn’t want to blow his cover before he led us to whatever he’s involved with.”
“And how many people have died while you held this leash, Agent Callan?”
He knew what she was getting at and said, “For the record, Intelligence had no information Tyler Wynn had gone rogue at the time of your mother’s death. In fact, her murder is where this investigation began. I was FBI back then, and I was the designated contact for your mother.” That made Nikki turn to face him. “That’s right, I knew her,” he said. “In a scenario that played out very close to Nicole Bernardin’s, your mother had reached out to us, voicing suspicion about a developing security threat on U.S. soil. We seeded her with two hundred thousand bucks to bribe an informant to get the proof and she was murdered the night she got it.”
Nikki watched a tram float overhead as she digested the news. If Callan was telling the truth, that money wasn’t her mother’s Judas payoff, after all. She brought her eyes down to meet his, and he said, “So there you have it. That’s the story.”
“Except for what sort of domestic plot she uncovered that, apparently, has been sitting on your radar all these years.”
“That’s classified.”
“Convenient. And meanwhile, Tyler Wynn has been roaming free. Excuse me, on your leash.”
Agent Callan ignored the shot. Part of that double-locked military demeanor, nothing appeared to knock him off mission. “A lot of people have asked you this, but I’m going to ask again, and I hope you will be straight with me. Do you have any idea what your mother received from that informant?”
“No.”
“And you have no thoughts about where she might have hidden it?”
“No. Wherever it is, she hid it very well.”
“You found Nicole Bernardin’s drop.”
“I told you, I don’t know. Don’t you think I’ve been through this on my own a million times?”
After a crisp nod, he got to his point. “I want you to cooperate with me on this.”
“I have been. Are you listening?”
“I mean moving forward.”
“I work for NYPD.”
“I work for the American people.”
“Then use your speed dial to call an American downtown at headquarters, then I’m all yours. Otherwise, thanks for the visit.”
She was almost to York with her hand up for a cab when he walked toward her, trying out any leverage he could bring to bear. “Think about this. Doesn’t the fact that someone can reach one of your prisoners and kill him while he’s in custody tell you something about how serious this threat could be?”
“I can’t help. I simply don’t have anything to give you.”
“I could help you get Tyler Wynn.”
Or, thought Nikki, keep me from getting him if it didn’t serve your purposes. She said, “Thanks for the tip on the wafel,” and got into her taxi.
Heat got back to her apartment that evening and Rook got up from his MacBook at her dining room table to greet her with a deep kiss. He folded his long arms around her and they melted into each other where they stood. After they held each other a moment, he said, “You’re not falling asleep on me, are you?”
“Standing up? Are you calling me a horse?”
“Neigh,” he said, and she laughed for the first time that day.
“So stupid.” She laughed again because it was stupid. And welcome. She cupped a hand on his jaw and caressed his cheek.
When he asked her how she was managing, she told him the truth. That the day had been a struggle and that she craved a warm bath. But after he mentioned he’d made a pitcher of Caipirinhas, the bath went on hold and the glasses came out.
They settled on the couch and she filled him in on her meeting with Bart Callan. “So that was your mysterious lunch engagement, DHS?”
For a moment, she thought about telling him about her shrink session but felt too spent to open up that topic and let it go. But then Nikki considered what Lon King had said about her reticence to reveal herself-his version of the wall speech-and she said, “No, I saw my shrink.”
“So you’ve gone from calling him ‘the’ shrink to ‘my’ shrink? That’s new.”
“Let drop it, OK?” Baby steps, she thought, baby steps.
But he persisted. “I think it’s good for you. If ever there was a time, Nikki. For the Petar baggage alone, if not for Don.”
“Speaking of Don,” she said, seizing an alternate topic to steer the conversation elsewhere. “I’m planning to fly to San Diego day after tomorrow. His family is holding a memorial at the navy base.”
“I’d like to go with you, if that’s all right.”
Nikki’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’d do that?” Rook’s smile said yes, and she leaned forward and kissed it, beautiful to her as it was.