Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(14)

But there was nowhere left to go.

I felt like somebody had punched a hole straight through me.

I’d seen her take a fragment of a god, roll it in her fingers, then slip it in her mouth . . . and any time, I could have stopped her. I could have reached out, snatched it from her. If I’d read her right. If I’d have guessed.

But had she really meant to kill herself?

Or had she wanted something else, some mystical transcendence, union with a god, something to lift her up, out of the world?

I’d thought her too hard-nosed for all that mystic bullshit. But who knows what you’ll do, or what you’ll go for, when you’re close to death?

One thing I did know that she’d wanted.

Someone to validate, to testify. Someone, perhaps, to be an audience, to force her, in her own mind, to go through with things.

Me.

I couldn’t shake the notion that, if we had never met, if I had never gone to her apartment, then she’d be alive. Angry, lonely and unhappy, but even so—alive.

“I have some questions that I need to ask, before you go.”

The doc who brought the news was young and handsome, like a doctor in a TV show. What the TV might have lost, though, were the gray rings around his eyes, the little twitch of sleeplessness pulling at the corner of his mouth, as if he were a fish on a line, forever tugged back to his work. “We found bruising to the abdomen and thorax. Frankly, she looked like she’d been punched. Repeatedly.”

I stood there, said nothing.

He prompted.

“Could be due to CPR,” he said.

He wasn’t accusing me. He just wanted it all over and done, so he could write up his report, tick the proper boxes and move on.

I said, “I tried a few things.”

“Uh-huh.” He looked down for a moment. Then, “Ambulance says she was ‘tied up’.”

“No, she wasn’t.”

He looked so tired his face was practically unreadable. His voice was soft and flat. He’d probably have failed the Turing test.

“And you’re . . . who, exactly? Grandson? Son?”

“No,” I said. “Apparently, I’m Indiana Jones.”



“You gotta be excited.”

“I’m thrilled.”

It was not the first time I had breakfasted at sunrise in Manhattan after an appalling night. The last time had been several years ago; I’d just seen a bunch of shriveled corpses in an 8th Avenue sex shop, the kind of thing that lingers in your head, even when daylight comes. I know they say that sex is good for you, but those guys might have disagreed.

So when Silverman suggested we “go eat,” I should have told him no, thanks very much. I barely wanted coffee. I definitely didn’t want the company. But I knew that, if I went home now, I’d lie there, staring at the ceiling and the thoughts would whirl around my head and never stop.

So I said yes.

“It’s the future,” Silverman said. “That’s what interests me. This source of energy, this power, and—well, I’m preaching to the choir here, right? But it’s guys like you bringing it in, and that’s just fascinating to me, you know?”

“Fascinating.”

“The human angle.”

“Human.”

“Look. I’ll be straight with you, Chris. I do the exhibition job, the museum gigs, but that’s not my main work. That’s what pays the rent. Fact is, I’m a filmmaker. I do camera, lighting, sound, and edit. I’m portable. I go places where a big crew can’t or won’t. You maybe know my work . . . ?”

“I maybe don’t.”

“Well, yeah. You’re not from here. I’ve been shown at the MoMA and Tribeca. Rikers was on PBS. I interviewed the guards, prisoners, anybody I could find. I’m interested in that human situation, you know? We’re human, we’re interested in human. What’s it like to do this job or that job, be subject to these sets of circumstances, or, or—” He looked at me. “What’s it like to work for the Registry?”

I sipped my coffee. Glanced out the window at a cop car on the corner of the block. Some early morning pigeons had gathered round it, looking for donut crumbs, or whatever it is cops eat these days. Everything looked leached out, gray.

“Lot of paperwork,” I said. “Though it’s all online, now. Like any other company, really. Rules and regulations. Dress code. Boss who sits in the office, drawing twenty times my salary. All that.”

“Ah—ah.” He wagged a finger. “Now you revealed yourself there.” He smiled. “’Cause that was bullshit, wasn’t it? The first part. Then the bit about the boss. The salary. You let go there. You said something real. That’s what I like.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Everyone says that, it’s not—”

“Sorry, sorry.” He raised his hands. “I’m rushing, aren’t I? I’m putting you under pressure. I apologize. You’ve had a bad night, and now, I’m doing this to you.” He shook his head. “That’s so bad of me.”

“You’re not putting me under pressure.”

I took another sip of coffee, then pushed it away, made to rise. He put a hand on my wrist.

“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry. I haven’t worked this out yet. I never thought I’d meet one of you guys, and then, you know, actually work with you.” He hunkered down, glanced at the booth behind as if he thought someone might listen in and steal his plans. “This is my elevator pitch, OK? I was thinking, see? You—me. I’m almost done with the display. If I can free up a few days, a few weeks? I follow you around, film what you do. I show the world—Field Ops. Yeah?”