The conference room was empty when I came in, but it was set with pitchers of water, coffee, tea, and two plates of cookies. A plate of Oreos and animal crackers on the near side of the table, and a plate of vanilla wafers on the other.
I looked at the cookies, then heard the door open behind me. “I sense a disturbance in the force.”
“Yes,” said a voice, and I turned to see Mr. Church.
Church is a big and blocky man, somewhere well north of sixty but looking like age didn’t matter much to him. Dark hair going gray, eyes mostly hidden behind tinted glasses, and he wore very thin black silk gloves. All the time. His hands had been badly damaged during the drone thing a few months back. Company rumor says that they did some kind of radical procedures on him, and from what I can see he has full use of them, but he always wears the gloves now. Bunny has a pool going that Church has some kind of cyborg Darth Vader hands under the silk. I don’t know if I agree. Maybe it’s just that he has one flicker of vanity and doesn’t want to show scars. I’ve asked Rudy about it, but he declined to answer. Rudy’s more of a grown-up than the rest of us and prefers not to speculate about someone else’s pain.
Church did not offer to shake hands, because he doesn’t do that anymore. But he did something he’d never done before. He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s good to have you back, Captain,” he said. He squeezed my shoulder once and then walked around to the far side of the table, pausing briefly to scratch Ghost’s head. Ghost wagged at him, too.
I asked, “Rudy?”
“Resting,” said Church. “However, if you’re looking for an explanation as to what happened at the hospital… we don’t have one. I’ve had three top psychologists interview him and I sat with him myself this morning.”
“Sam said he doesn’t remember what happened.”
“That’s not entirely true. Dr. Sanchez remembers almost everything, but he said it was like remembering a dream. He said that he was aware of what he was doing but he described it as watching events on TV. There was no direct connection to his actions.”
“So what are we talking here? Is he possessed? Is he going to spit green soup and levitate now?”
Church did not smile. No reason to. “I have reached out to a number of experts — friends in various industries. They are flying in from all over the globe. We will get to the bottom of this.”
I touched his arm. “Look, Rudy is my best friend. He’s a better man than either of us. We need to help him.”
Church nodded. “We do and we are. Now, please, sit. We have much to catch up on and time is not our friend.”
“Is it ever?”
“Sadly, no.”
I sat down and poured myself a cup of coffee, added milk but no sugar. It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Brick Anderson, Church’s personal aide and bodyguard, and I commented on it.
“He’s picking up my cat,” said Church.
I waited, expecting there to be more. A punch line maybe. When he did not offer further explanation I said, “Um… cat? As in pet?”
“Yes,” he said flatly. “Why do you sound so surprised? People own pets.”
“You don’t.”
“I do, actually.”
“Let me guess,” I said, “it’s a white-haired cat and you’ve decided to name it Blofeld.”
Church selected a vanilla wafer from the tray, broke it in half, and nibbled one piece. “No,” he said.
“Well, what is—?”
Before I could finish the question the door opened and in walked Brick with a plastic pet carrier. Brick is roughly the size of Nebraska. He used to be a top field operator before he lost a leg in combat. His new one is ultra-high-tech and hard to spot beneath his clothes. Church always takes care of his people. Actually, a lot of the DMS support staff is made up of former field agents who fell in battle but did not fall off of Church’s radar. Family is family.
Brick is special, though, and we all knew it. Church trusts few people, and even among his inner circle there’s almost no one who he shares his personal life with. When Church’s former aide, Gus Dietrich, was killed during the Majestic Black Book case, Brick stepped up to fill that gap. He is a very smart but very quiet man, and he is fiercely loyal to Church. He is valet, butler, driver, confidant, and bodyguard. A friend, too. He has his own apartment in Church’s house and his clearance level is actually higher than mine.
Brick smiled at me. “It lives.”
“Kind of.”
We shook hands, and I watched as he set the pet carrier on the table and opened the door. The cat that emerged was big and blocky like his owner, with smoky blue-gray fur and eyes as dark and round as ripe pumpkins. He had small ears that bent forward, and walked on short, strong legs. I recognized the breed, a Scottish Fold.
“Bastion,” said Church.
The cat walked across the table and I offered my hand for him to sniff. He did, then looked away with typical feline disinterest. I was noted but not deemed worthy of further interaction. My own cat, Cobbler, seldom treats me with any more enthusiasm, and I feed that little bastard. Ghost would walk through fire for me. So, on the whole I’ve become a dog person.
Ghost watched the cat with undisguised contempt. He’s not a cat person, either. Bastion eventually settled onto the chair beside Church.
Brick said, “Got a call from Circe. She is not happy that you have Rudy in quarantine. She said that you are due for dinner tonight because someone has to eat the lamb chops she bought for her husband, and she doesn’t want to hear any excuses about the world coming to an end. Her words. Oh, and she said to bring wine. Something that goes with lamb chops.”
“You told her that there is a grave national crisis and that I don’t have time to socialize?”
Brick grinned. “Sure. Want to hear exactly what she said to that?”
Church sighed. “No, I believe I do not.”
“She said she wants you to bring a complete copy of Rudy’s medical file. Nothing left out. I’ll get one, so we’re good there.”
“Will you please pick up the wine, too?”
“Already did,” he said. “Got a couple bottles of the 2009 Bodegas A. Fernández Tinto Pesquera.”
Church nodded. “Very good choice. Thank you.”
To Brick, I said, “Wine? Isn’t Circe breast-feeding?”
Brick gave me an ironic smile. “I’ll tell you what she told me, and I quote, ‘I have a week’s worth of breast milk in the fridge and a husband in intensive care. If I want to get hammered, then anyone who tries to stop me is going to get a bullet in the kneecap.’ Unquote. And for the record, Joe, I don’t think she was joking.”
I exchanged a look with Church. He clearly didn’t think she was joking, either.
“Enjoy your lamb chops,” I said to him.
Church never uses foul language, but the look he gave me probably burned off five years of my life.
Brick left, chuckling and shaking his head. Church ate more of his cookie. The cat watched him and I watched the cat.
“So… cat,” I said, shifting back to safer ground. “Never figured you as a cat person.”
He shrugged. “Bastion was a gift from a friend.”
“Oh?”
“Lilith.”
“Oh,” I said, putting a totally different inflection on it. It brought to mind that dream fragment I had of the two of them standing by my tombstone. Holding hands. Lilith was a mysterious woman with a horror show of a past who escaped a particularly brutal kind of sex slavery to form a female intelligence network called the Mothers of the Fallen. She also spearheaded Arklight, the militant arm of that group. She was one of those women who seem to exude power and at the same time be untouched by time. Spooky but beautiful in a harsh Queen of the Damned sort of way. Her daughter, who I knew only by the code name of Violin, was a former lover of mine. Violin is an occasional ally and a trusted friend. Lilith, not so much. The memory of the dream fragment I had of Church and Lilith at my grave went skittering across the front of my brain like nails on a blackboard.