Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(35)

And maybe he was right.

Angel asked, “You going to phone him?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t either.”

“You think he did it? Or just knew about it, then claimed credit?”

“Either way,” she said, “this was coming, way before he offered us a deal. You don’t set stuff like this up in an hour or two.”

“Dead right.”

“And it means,” she said, “we get a crack at the pond.”

“It means we can . . . consider our options, anyway.”

She watched me. She kept watching me.

Then my phone rang.

It was Silverman. “I got a text from the Ballington kid. Do you want to hear it?”

“Yeah.”

“It says—” he cleared his throat. “‘Happy birthday, guys. Give it your best. I’ll see you soon.’”

“‘I’ll see you soon,’” I said.

That irked me, somehow.

It wasn’t an immediate thing. But the more I thought about it—that awful, egotistical self-confidence, that absolute belief that all he had to do was hold out a few bucks for everyone to fall in line—the more I thought: I want to do this. If I can. If it’s even possible. I want to make this retrieval just so I can drive away and leave the stupid bugger empty-handed. Fuck him, thinking he can boss the world around. Fuck him.

Then, out loud, I said, “Fuck him.” It sounded good, and so I rolled it round my mouth, said it again: “Fuck him.”

I can be childish, sometimes.

It’s one of my better qualities.





Chapter 32

Confession




We slept a while that afternoon. I had laid it all out, straight: it was my retrieval. She’d help, yes. But she’d do the jobs I asked her, and no more. I told her we’d see how it went. How safe it was.

We didn’t fight exactly. But it was close, too close.

“I can do this,” she said.

“I don’t even know that I can do it.”

I tried to tell her: I didn’t want the complication, I didn’t want the extra worry.

I didn’t want to sound like a patronizing oaf, either. But I probably did.

And that’s the subtle and insidious way that work and personal life intertwine. Retrievals require calm, and focus. No distractions. People get hurt when they can’t keep their minds on the job. One slip, an error they don’t catch in time, or just looking the wrong way at the wrong moment, and that’s it. Suddenly, it’s not a little problem anymore. Suddenly, it’s life or death.

And there’s another factor, too. Especially when the god’s roused up.

There is debate on this. Officially, no, the gods cannot “get inside your head.” They cannot winkle out whatever’s bothering you and turn it into some huge, crippling, psychological obsession that will render you helpless, stupefied, or dead. Officially, they can’t do anything like that.

But they can have a damn good try.

None of which would have been more than routine problems, if it weren’t for the location.

In a good retrieval, there’s precision. You place the cables so; you power them up, you play your quarry, drive it, fight it if you have to.

Water ruins that. Water turns it all to mush.

Water, generally, is not the place you want to find your god.

I brought the flask and cables and control box into our motel room. I checked them over. I had Angel check them over. Then we joined the cables into several lengths we thought would span the pond. Another, much longer, to circle it. I used Google Maps to estimate the scale. We made a plan.

“You get the next one. Honestly,” I said.

“I better,” she said. And gave me a look I hope I never, never see again.



Silverman, too, had been preparing. He showed me his night vision gear. “Military issue. It’s what they used in Iraq.” He bounced from foot to foot. “Makes everything look green. But, you know, sometimes, that’s more dramatic, don’t you think?”

He tipped the monitor so I could see.

“I’m curious,” I said. “I’d like to know why Eddie sent you that text.”

“Pretty obvious, I thought. Claiming credit, so we’d think—”

“Back up a bit. He’s got your phone number. He’s not got mine, he’s not got Angel’s. But somehow, he’s got yours. Why’s that?”

The silence went on just a bit too long.

“Oh yeah,” he said, and rubbed the back of his neck.

“You’ve dealt with him before.”

“Like I said, the exhibition, and . . . some other stuff.”

“What ‘other stuff’?”

“Not him, exactly. One of their companies. And, yeah. His father, just briefly. Ballington . . . senior.” He put the camera down. “I was trying for funding. I mean, these people, they’re, like, stupid rich. You won’t believe. So I thought, since they’re interested . . .”

“You know Eddie’s dad?”

“No! I don’t know him. Not know know. But, half this job, half of it’s trying to raise the money. I mean, I tried hundreds, maybe thousands of potential sponsors. I lose track. And he was, you know. He was one of them.”