“With who?” a male voice asked.
“Not your concern,” Irene said. A glance around the room told everyone else to remain silent.
“Okay,” the voice said. “Do I need to introduce myself?”
“I’d prefer you didn’t,” Irene said. Jonathan got that that was her nod to give the agent on the other end of the phone plausible deniability if this whole thing came unzipped.
“Okay,” the agent said, “I just finished a one-hour interview with… the Russian. Director Rivers, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I saw some of the marks on that man’s body. I don’t think—”
“Please report what you know,” Irene interrupted. “What you think in these circumstances is less important to me.”
“Yes, ma’am. Well, he tried to hedge on answering questions, but when I confronted him directly with Saint Stephen’s, he seemed too tired and exhausted to resist. The prison is, in fact, a garrison of sorts, but they are not armed.”
Jonathan’s first instinct was to be buoyed by the words, but his bullshit bell rang just a few seconds later. A terrorist without weapons was like a doctor without a stethoscope. They just didn’t occur in nature.
“Are you saying that there are no weapons at the prison?”
“No, ma’am. The weapons are there, but the occupants don’t go around armed all day. They stockpile the weapons.”
“What kind of weapons are we talking about?”
“Firearms and explosives, to be sure,” the agent said. “But he wasn’t able to give us numbers. He said that he hadn’t been up there in a while.”
“How many people?” Irene asked.
It was killing Jonathan not to be asking the questions.
“Under fifty.”
“There are a lot of numbers between zero and fifty,” Irene said.
“Yes ma’am, but that’s all we’ve been able to get out of him so far. The guy is a mess.”
Jonathan pointed to the northern annex, where all the heat was coming from.
“Did you show the Russian the photo of the prison?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And what did he tell you about where things happen?”
“Well. Do you have a photo there with you?” the agent asked.
“I do.”
“Okay, well, the weapons are stored in the part of the complex that used to be a chapel. If you look at the big part that used to be the main cell block, the chapel is connected to it on the western wall of the compound. Just north of the main entrance.”
Jonathan’s gut turned. The chapel occupied a big footprint. If it was anywhere close to being filled with weapons, that could be a lot of firepower. When he met Boxers’ gaze the Big Guy was grinning. Clearly, he saw the opportunity to make a crater.
The agent continued, “Those four buildings in the middle of the compound that form the giant square are additional cell blocks. The northernmost building of that square — the one that runs east-west — is where the garrison sleeps.”
That would be the garrison that numbers somewhere between one and forty-nine people.
“What do they do there during the day?” Jonathan asked. He didn’t do silent well, and he’d reached his limit. Irene’s glare actually gave him a chill.
“Who is that?” the agent asked.
“He’s authorized,” Irene said. “His identity doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t understand the question.”
Jonathan sensed that he was stalling for time, but he cut him some slack. “This unarmed, unnumbered garrison,” Jonathan said. “What do they do when they’re not garrisoning?”
A pause. “I don’t know.”
“Some of them have been busy shooting down airliners,” Boxers said.
“Um, Director Rivers, how many people are there in the room where I’m speaking?”
Irene’s ears had gone hot. “There’s a good handful of us,” she said. “But that should not concern you.” She glared at Jonathan and drew an invisible zipper across her mouth. It was exactly the same gesture that Mama Alexander used with the kids at Resurrection House. The absurdity of it made him laugh.
“Here’s the thing,” Irene said, daring anyone in the room to speak. “If, hypothetically, someone were to try to gain entrance to Saint Stephen’s Reformatory, how many people would they be likely to encounter at, say, midnight as opposed to noon?”
Silence on the other end of the phone.
“Are you still there?” Irene asked.
“Jesus, is that what you’re planning to do?”
“Focus, young man,” Irene said. “Answers are far more welcome than questions.”
“I–I don’t have an answer for that, ma’am.”
“You mean you don’t have an answer, ma’am, yet, right?”
In all these years, Jonathan had never seen Irene in badass boss mode. He was impressed.
“Right,” the agent said. “That’s exactly what I meant.”
“And you’ll get back to me as soon as you have answers?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“One more thing,” Irene said. “I don’t want to mention any names or locations, but are you still at the facility to which you were dispatched?” Jonathan knew she meant Arc Flash’s farm.
“Yes, ma’am. But we’re almost packed up to leave.”
“Don’t do that just yet,” Irene said. “The owner of that facility — a little man who goes by the name of Arc Flash. Is he still there?”
“He’s the reason why we’re in a hurry to leave. I can’t tell you how offensive—”
“There you go with opinions again,” Irene said. “What did we say about those?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Irene closed her eyes as she spoke the rest, as if too ashamed to make eye contact. “Here’s what I need you to do,” she said. “I want you to return the Russian to the custody of Mr. Arc Flash. Then I want you to go and sit in whatever vehicle you brought while he asks the questions. It shouldn’t take long. When he’s done, call me with the details.”
Another long silence.
“Hello?” Irene prompted.
“Ma’am, do you know that you’re asking me to break the law? You know that nothing we get will be usable in court.”
Irene stewed for a while before answering.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m going to tell you an interesting story,” she said. “You might know that J. Edgar Hoover’s body wasn’t all that cold when I first joined the Bureau. Certainly, his fingerprints were still on everything we did, from the firearms we carried to the way we comported ourselves in public. My first supervisor was a devotee of Director Hoover. Are you familiar with Director Hoover?”
“I believe I’ve heard the name.”
Ah, petulance, Jonathan thought. Bad move.
Irene continued, “He told me that Director Hoover valued loyalty over everything — that if you went crosswise with J. Edgar, you either needed to quit, or prepare yourself for a long career at an Indian reservation.”
Pause. “I’m not sure I understand your meaning.”
“I’m quite certain you do,” Irene said. “How’s your Chippewa, young man?”
“You’re threatening me.”
“Absolutely not. I’m promising. You need to decide if you trust me enough to believe that what I’m asking is in the critical interest of the United States, or if you want to file a protest that, one way or another, will have you living your working years along the shores of Lake Superior.”
Jonathan almost felt sorry for the guy. Fibbies tended to be purists at heart — unless their careers were at stake, in which case Grandma and her wheelchair were both eligible to be slung under the bus.
Jonathan could hear the wheels turning in this poor guy’s head. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,” he said.
When the line went dead, Irene winced to the rest of the room. “Well, that was ugly,” she said. “I feel like I need a shower.”