Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(15)

“Not up to me.”

“Whoever. We clear it with your rich boss. I understand you can’t make a decision now, but—”

“Like I said, not up to me. In fact, a few years back, I’d have denied it all. I’d have told you I worked for an organization devoted to energy efficiency strategies, and that’d be the end of it.”

It was probably a mistake, but I reached for my coffee cup again, and sat back.

I said, “Going public’s quite a novelty for our lot. Plenty of ’em still don’t like it. But, that’s the way the wind’s blowing.”

“And I can help! Believe me, I can be respectful about this. I already know plenty, just from working on the exhibit. People talk.” He dropped his voice. “I know what happened in Chicago. And—yeah. Indiana.”

I bet you don’t, I thought. But I nodded, and he got all bashful for a moment, then he smiled, and for no real reason, I smiled back.

“I’ll tell you something—something kinda weird, shall I? Kind of a confession.”

“If you want.”

“Earlier, when all that stuff was happening, with the old lady . . . know what I was thinking?”

“It looked more fun in The Exorcist?”

“No—and, listen, I was concerned for her, of course I was. And you, though we’d only just met. But at the same time, there was this little part of me, all the time, thinking . . . wish I had a camera here.”

He kept his eyes on me, and when I didn’t answer, he said, “Is that . . . is it creepy, or something?”

“Yeah, it’s creepy.”

But I smiled when I said it.

“If I had your OK—if I could tell them you were on board, just in principle, when I make my pitch, then—”

“Hey. I’m Field Ops. Lowest of the low. What kind of power d’you think I’ve got?”

It took a moment. I could almost see the quip arriving, dawning in his eyes. And then he leaned towards me, aimed his index finger, and in a voice like James Earl Jones’s, said, “You have the power to command the gods.”

He freeze-framed, posing there, then sat back, grinning at me.

“How’s that for a strap-line, then? I mean, we are halfway there now! How is that?”





Chapter 13

Mr. Appleseed




I left him in the café. I had the Registry send out a car for me. It was hard not to reflect on how much trouble I’d had trying to get a flask when I’d desperately needed it, while just a thirty second call this morning netted me my very own chauffeur.

We took the Holland Tunnel, presently arriving at the holding center outside Newark—a big old warehouse with the windows all bricked up. The staff had changed since I was last there, which was a relief. I filled in forms. I typed, into official files, my own “account of the retrieval,” required for legal reasons, since we’d suffered a fatality. My fingerprints were scanned. I handed in the flask. I’d drained a fair amount of power, as it turned out. I wondered, if I’d started sooner, whether I could actually have saved her. But I’d never know.

The same car swept me back to my apartment. The driver talked the whole way, asking about London and the Royal Family, as if he thought I knew them personally (his wife was just the biggest fan, he said), and I would zone out, then ask him to repeat himself, and this jerky, broken dialogue was probably the only thing that kept me conscious. By the time he’d let me out and I’d negotiated the foyer, the elevator, and my own front door, the apartment had acquired a near-hallucinatory brilliance, the windows blazing with a light both crystalline and dream-like. If you’d told me I’d been taken up to Mars and that it looked a lot like Jersey City, which was just across the water, I’d have probably said, “Fine,” and toddled off to bed.

Which, around 2:00 p.m., I finally got chance to do, suffering a broken, fitful sleep for the next fifteen hours or so.



What followed should have been a joy: a whole day in New York, and only one appointment left to keep. But all I wanted was to leave.

I strolled round town, just killing time, avoiding anywhere I’d been with Melody Duchess. I ate lunch in a bagel place, ordered lox and cream cheese, then found myself on Christopher, idling. It was all a little straighter than it used to be, but you could still buy a dildo and a set of leather chaps, and a perm for your dog, if you wanted such things. Though not all in the same shop.

Three o’clock, I had a debriefing in a rented office up on 22nd. The last tenants still had their names up on the door. They’d called themselves “Financial Therapists,” and by the look of it they’d also left their furnishings. I passed through the waiting room with its soft chairs and softly murmuring TV into an inner office with a desk, computer, and a framed picture of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was even more impersonal than my apartment.

Helen Ramirez, the sole worker here, was young and in a suit. She didn’t smile when I walked in. She didn’t ask me to sit down, so I sat myself. She didn’t offer me a coffee, so I gestured to the Keurig.

“Please, go ahead,” she said, staring at the screen in front of her.

When I sat again, she folded her hands upon the desk between us. They were very small hands, the nails perfectly manicured, hands that had been moisturized frequently and kept out of the cold.