He leaves, and I waste some time reading my paperback. It contains the unlikely reveal that the detective and the murderer he’s been tracking are actually the same person. I am incredulous at how long it took him to figure that out. I got it a lot faster when it was me.
A little while later I hear the far door to the suite open and some conversation. Then someone knocks on my door.
By the time I emerge, Brennan is passing out paper plates. The smell of grease makes my mouth water. I thought I wasn’t hungry, but I am suddenly ravenous.
“Did we get hot mustard?” I ask, and Jones passes a couple of packets in my direction.
As we eat, Yulikova puts a map on the table. It’s of an open area, a park. “Like I said in the car, this is a very straightforward plan. Complications are to be avoided. We wouldn’t allow you to be part of an operation we weren’t very confident in, Cassel. We understand that you’re inexperienced.
“Governor Patton is giving a press conference on the site of one of the former worker internment camps. He’d like to position proposition two as helping workers, but he’d also like to subtly remind everyone to be afraid.”
She takes out a ballpoint pen from her jacket and marks an X on a clearing. “You’ll be here the whole time, in one of the trailers. The only real danger is that you’re going to be bored.”
I smile and take another bite of my kung pao chicken. I get a hot pepper and try to ignore my burning tongue.
“They’re going to build a stage there.” She touches the page. “And a trailer for Patton to get dressed in will go here. Over this way are a few other trailers for his staff to work out of. We’ve managed to get one that we’re assured can be kept secure.”
“So I’m going to be by myself?”
She smiles. “We’ll have people everywhere outside, posing as local police. We also have a few people in Patton’s security detail. You’ll be in good hands.”
Which makes sense, sort of. But it also makes sense that if I’m alone in the room and I come out and attack Patton, I’ll look like I was acting alone. The Feds will be off the hook.
“What about security cameras?” I ask.
Agent Brennan raises her eyebrows.
“Because it’s outdoors, there aren’t any,” Yulikova says, “but what we need to worry about are press cameras.” She makes a blue dot in front of where she marked the stage. “The press pit is here, but there will be vans parked in the lot over there, where our vehicles will be too. If you stay in the trailer, you should be out of sight.”
I nod.
Agent Jones serves himself another pile of sesame chicken and rice, squirting sauce over the whole thing.
“Governor Patton is going to make a brief speech, and then he’s going to answer questions from reporters,” Yulikova says. “You’re going to slip into one of the trailers and stay there until Governor Patton takes the stage. We have a monitor set up so that you can watch the local news. They’re broadcasting the event live.”
“What’s the speech supposed to be about?”
Yulikova coughs discreetly. “Senator Raeburn has attacked Patton in the press. This is supposed to be his chance to redirect the conversation—and to reach out to the rest of the country. If proposition two passes in New Jersey, other states will start drafting similar legislation.”
“Okay, so I wait until Patton leaves the stage. Then what? Do I count to three and jump out at him?”
“We have a uniform for you. You’ll have a clipboard and headset mic. You’ll look like one of the crew backstage. And we have a specially formulated black ink that covers your hand. It looks like you’re wearing a glove, but your fingers will remain bare.”
“Clever.” I am eager to see that stuff. My grandfather would be happy to know that the government really has been holding out on us in terms of secret cool toys. Too bad I can’t tell him.
“While Patton is giving his speech, you will move to his dressing room and wait for him there. When he comes in, well, it’s a pretty tight space. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get your hands on him. We’ll be able to communicate with you through the headset, so if you have any questions or want to know the position of the governor, we will be able to give you all the support you need.”
I nod again. It’s not a terrible plan. It’s a lot less complicated than Philip’s whole lurk-around-the-bathroom-all-night scheme for killing Zacharov. It’s also eerily similar. I guess transformation work assassinations all have a certain pattern.
“So, okay. Governor Patton’s a borzoi. Everyone’s freaking out. Now what? What’s my exit strategy? I have a minute or two—maybe less—before the blowback hits. His bodyguards are right outside.”
She makes a circle on the paper where the trailer is. “Figure the confrontation happens here.”
Agent Brennan leans forward to see the mark.
“The bodyguard who’s in our employ—the man who’s going to be on the left—will explain that Patton doesn’t want to be disturbed. Patton will doubtless be in great distress, but—”
“Doubtless,” I say.
No one ever laughs at this stuff.
“We believe his erratic behavior makes it likely that our agent will be able to explain away the scuffle and the sounds that follow. When you’re ready, let us know through the headset and we’ll get you both out of there.”
“I won’t be able to go right away,” I say. Agent Jones starts to speak, and I hold up a gloved hand, shaking my head. “No, I mean I can’t. The blowback makes it so that I will be shifting shape. You might be able to move me a short distance, but it’s going to be complicated, and I won’t be able to help.”
They look at one another.
“I’ve seen him do it before,” Jones says. “As much as I hate to say it, he’s right. We’re going to have to stall for time.”
Yulikova and Agent Brennan are both eyeing me speculatively.
“It’s that bad?” Agent Brennan asks. “I mean—”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m not really looking. Sometimes I don’t really have anything to look with, if you know what I’m saying.”
She blanches. I think I may have successfully freaked out my first FBI agent.
Go me.
“All right,” Yulikova says, “we’ll change the plan. We’ll wait out Cassel’s blowback and then get him out. We’ll have a car standing by.”
I grin. “I’ll need a leash.”Agent Jones gives me an evaluating look.
“For Patton. And a collar. Can we get a really embarrassing one?”
His nostrils flare.
“That’s very practical thinking.” Yulikova seems sincere and calm, but Jones’s jumpiness is getting on my nerves. It might just be that he gets like this before missions, but it is driving me up the wall.
“And that’s it,” Yulikova says, reaching for another egg roll. “The whole thing. Any questions, Cassel? Any questions, anyone?”
“Where will you all be?” I touch the map, pushing it a little toward her.
“Back here,” she says, her gloved finger tapping against the table, indicating a vague place distantly in front of the stage. “There’s a van we can use as a command center where Patton won’t be threatened by our presence. He’s requested all his own security, so we can’t be too obvious. But we will be there, Cassel. Very close by.”
Very close by, but not anywhere I’ll know about. Great.
“What if I need to find you?” I ask. “What if the monitor isn’t working or the headset shorts out?”
“Let me give you some very good advice that was once given to me. Sometimes on missions things go wrong. When that happens, you have two choices: Keep going because the thing that went wrong wasn’t important, or abort the mission. You’ve got to go with your gut. If the monitor goes out, just stay in the room and do nothing. If it doesn’t feel right, do nothing.”
That is good advice—and it’s not the kind that seems useful to give someone that you want to get caught. I look at Yulikova, drinking her diet soda and chewing her food. I think of my brother. Am I really trying to decide which of them is more worthy of my trust?
“Okay,” I say, and pick up the map. “Can I keep this? I want to make sure I know the layout.”
“You act like you’ve done this before,” Agent Brennan says.
“I come from a long line of grifters,” I say. “I’ve pulled a con or two.”
She snorts, shaking her head. Jones glowers at both of us. Yulikova cracks open her fortune cookie and holds up the fortune. Printed across the ribbon of paper in block letters are the words: “You will be invited to an exciting event.”
I turn in shortly after that.
Looking at the hotel phone by my bed, I itch to call Daneca and find out how Sam’s doing. Even knowing that it’s probably bugged, I am tempted. But he should be resting, and I don’t even know if he’ll want to talk to me.
Any mention of him being shot would have the Feds making all the wrong guesses and asking too many questions. One more thing no one can afford.
I shouldn’t call Lila, either, even though last night seems more dream than real. Just thinking of her as I sit on the scratchy hotel comforter, remembering the slide of her skin on mine, the way she laughed, the curve of her mouth—it feels risky. As though even the memory of her will give the Feds something they can use against me.
Now that she knows I’m working with the agency, I wonder what she’ll do with that information. I wonder what she’ll expect me to do.
I get into bed and try to sleep, my thoughts careening between Lila and Sam. I hear her laugh and see his blood, feel her bare hands and hear his scream. On and on until everyone’s laughing and everyone’s screaming all the way down into my dreams.
The next morning I stumble out into the main room. Agent Jones is there, sitting on the couch and drinking a mug of room service coffee. He glowers in my direction in the manner of a man who has taken a shift that started many hours ago. I bet the three of them traded off all night, to make sure I didn’t skip out.
I find another cup and pour myself some coffee. It’s terrible.
“Hey,” I say, thinking suddenly of my mother and a hotel nothing like this one. “Can you really cook meth in a hotel coffeepot?”
“Sure,” he says, looking into his cup thoughtfully.
Guess Mom was right about one thing.
After I take a shower and get dressed, the rest of them are there, ordering breakfast. The whole day stretches in front of us with very little to do. Jones wants to watch a basketball game on the big plasma television, so I spend the afternoon playing cards with Yulikova and Brennan at the table. First we gamble for candy from the vending machine, then for spare change, then for choice of which film we rent.
I pick The Thin Man. I need a laugh.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MONDAY MORNING I wake up not remembering where I am. Then it all comes rushing back—the hotel, the Feds, the assassination.
Adrenaline hits my bloodstream with such force that I kick off the covers and stand, pace the room with no idea where I am going. Corralling myself into the bathroom, I avoid my own gaze in the mirror. I am nearly sick with nerves, doubled over by them.
I don’t know whether to believe Barron or not. I don’t know if I’m being set up. I don’t know who the good guys are anymore.
I thought that the people I grew up around—mostly criminals—were different from regular people. Certainly different from cops, from federal agents with their shiny badges. I thought grifters and con men were just born bad. I thought there was some inner flaw in us. Something corrupt that meant that we’d never be like other people—that the best we could do is ape them.
But now I wonder—what if everyone is pretty much the same and it’s just a thousand small choices that add up to the person you are? No good or evil, no black and white, no inner demons or angels whispering the right answers in our ears like it’s some cosmic SAT test. Just us, hour by hour, minute by minute, day by day, making the best choices we can.
The thought is horrifying. If that’s true, then there’s no right choice. There’s just choice.
I stand there in front of the mirror, trying to figure out what to do. I stand there for a long time.
When I get it together enough to go out into the main room, I find Yulikova and Jones already dressed. Brennan isn’t with them.
I drink crappy gray room service coffee and eat some eggs.
“I’ve got your props,” Yulikova says, disappearing into her room. She comes back with a paintbrush, a small tube of what looks like oil paint, a brown hoodie, a lanyard with an ID tag hanging from it, and a headset.
“Huh.” I turn the ID tag over in my hands. The name George Parker is on it, underneath a blurred picture that could pass for me. It’s a good piece of identification. The photo is forgettable and would be useless on a wanted poster or blasted across the Internet. “Nice.”
“This is our job,” she says wryly.
“Sorry.” She’s right. I have been thinking of them as amateurs, honest and upright government employees trying to pull off a scam they’re unused to—but I keep forgetting, this is what they do. They con criminals, and maybe they’re conning me.
“I’ll need you to take off your gloves,” she says. “This stuff takes a long time to dry, so if you need to do any last preparations, do them now.”
“She means go take a piss,” Agent Jones says.