“They’re almost as paranoid as I am.”
“They’ve got reason. One of their people was just shot down. Sniper.”
“That’s bad. I hate snipers. Unless they’re on my side.” He looked her over. “Way you were walking, something about you… You ex-military too?”
She nodded. “Marines. Mostly working on a flattop. Just got out not long ago.”
“And that’s how you knew Medina?”
She nodded.
After a moment he added, “I never thought of her as Ruth. She was base CIA Liaison Medina to me. I figured that was just another way of saying field agent.”
“You know she’s dead?”
“I heard. My friend did some research on my case. Her name came up. He checked her out. They claimed it was accidental drowning.”
“You believe that?”
“No. Where do we get this laptop?”
“Not here. DedSec set up a drop at the train station…”
“Here’s your steak, sir,” said the bartender. “And the lady’s Caesar salad.”
They ate in silence. She mostly picked at hers. The blood oozing when Wolfe cut into his steak made her queasy. She was still trying too hard not to think about the blood on the footbridge…
Verrick stood by the concrete wall above the boat ramp, with his fists balled into his heavy overcoat, a powder-blue felt hat pulled down over his head against the night-time wind-sheer off Lake Michigan. The rattling of the chains pulling the Silverado up the boat ramp was getting on his nerves. He dug in an inside coat pocket, and found a pill. He was trying not to take the Oxycodone but…
Mick Wolfe was getting on his last nerve.
The big crane creaked on the industrial-sized tow truck—designed to pull overturned semi-trucks upright on the freeway—and it froze. The men in blue coveralls went down to look at it. The big four-door pickup that Wolfe had rolled into the lake was halfway out of the water, oozing water and muck. Verrick could see that the leather interior he’d had custom made was immersed in murky water.
“That son of a bitch,” he muttered.
The cops arrived, a patrol car and an unmarked Crown Victoria. The patrolmen got out, and went down to talk to the workmen. Verrick looked over at Tranter who was coming over to stand at his side.
“That yours?” Tranter asked.
“That’s what the police report says, Tranter. Stolen truck. And that’s my truck. Perp, Mick Wolfe. So why hasn’t anyone arrested him?”
“You said before you didn’t want an all points bulletin on him. We could put his name up on television news, call him a mad dog, the whole shebang.”
“It’s tempting. But can you count on Wolfe not talking to the wrong people when he’s arrested? Can you count on every cop who picks him up to deal with him our way?”
“Hell no. Who knows what Wolfe’ll do if they pick him up. And you haven’t got the whole department on your payroll. We can’t count on any of that.”
“Then… I’ll just push harder to locate him through ctOS. We find him, we’ll get the right people out there.”
Verrick watched moodily as water started streaming out of the Silverado as they got up on the back of the towtruck.
He sighed. “Not the top best truck out there but I loved that thing. I’m going to put him in what’s left of it and set him on fire.”
“Smarter to just shoot him first chance.”
“Don’t tell me what’s smarter, dammit!”
Tranter’s face went grim. “You don’t own me, Verrick. I am not your little abused dog, like that Starling character. Don’t push it.”
Verrick returned the look. “What have you done for me lately, Tranter? Nothing much. What am I paying for?”
“Tell you something. Things are getting hot around you. You want me to work on this—you double my paycheck.”
“What!”
“You heard me.”
Verrick privately vowed to put Tranter in that burning truck with Wolfe when he got a chance. But he said, “Fine. Just get it done. Get Mick Wolfe.”
The Hawk was ripping down South Canal Street as Wolfe and Seline walked hunched over, against it.
The Union Station with its dignified Beaux Arts face, was just up ahead. “You sure the station’s still open at this hour?” Seline asked. Her voice was somewhat muffled under the wool scarf she had bought. It covered half her face. She now had a blue scarf in place of a wig, and no sunglasses.
“Of course it is.” He glanced at her. “That’s a better disguise. Just cover the whole damn face up.”
“It wouldn’t work inside. It’d call attention to me. Maybe I should get a burka.”
“Maybe you should. But not in a train station.”
“You don’t disguise yourself. You’re not worried about ctOS?”
“Not too much. I’ve got some hardware on me that transmits to their camera. Disguises me.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I am.”
“Where’d you get that? At Radio Shack?”
“Got it from a friend. Tell you about him some other time. If it turns out I can trust you.”
“Wolfe, I’m the one who should be worried about trust around here…”
“Are you? You could be some kind of federal agent looking for my friend. Van Ness could’ve pulled some strings…”
They had gotten to the Union Station entrance, and Wolfe was glad to go in. His face was going numb in the cold wind.
Inside, faces tingling in the renewed warmth, they found their way to the Great Hall. A lot of the ticket booths were closed, but that’s not what they were here for.
A discontented-looking black-clad hipster with a soul patch was slumped on a wooden bench by the door, clutching his luggage to him. On other benches were a number of homeless—one of them, hunched under a broad brimmed hat, looked familiar to Wolfe…
They clopped across the Great Hall, the big room echoing their footsteps in a way that made Wolfe edgy. They were right out in the open here. He remembered that sniper that Seline had mentioned.
“He said someone would recognize us,” Seline whispered.
“I know who it is… I think. Seems like he works for more people than I knew.”
He led the way over to Blank but was careful not to look at Blank directly. He cleared his throat as he walked past, and in his peripheral vision was aware that Blank looked up. He led Seline about thirty steps past Blank they sat down on the facing bench.
“Gotta rest my legs,” he said.
He looked up at the cameras on the columns of the ornate room, then looked at his feet. After a few moments he took the device out of his coat pocket that Pearce had given him—the one that looked like a remote control. “Here,” he said, handing it do her. “I found this. If you ever get a TV you can control it.”
She pulled the woolen scarf down, glanced at him in brief puzzlement, then took the device and put it in a pocket.
He caught a motion in the corner of his eye, saw Blank getting up, walking out. Under the bench, where Blank had been sitting, was a plastic bag. Wolfe kept an indirect watch on the bag, making himself sit there for a couple minutes.
Maybe too long, he thought. Seline has her face exposed.
Wolfe got up, and Seline followed him over to the plastic bag. He acted like he’d just seen it. “Hey, that old guy left this bag… maybe it’s worth something…” He picked it up, looked in it. A laptop taped up in bubble wrap. He shrugged and carried the bag to a side exit from the building.
When they were in a secure hallway just before the exit door, Seline whispered, “It’s in the bag?”
“It’s there.”
“What’s with the TV remote?”
“Not what it looks like. It’ll blot out your face, on a block by block basis, when you go into the range of the ctOS camera.”