Greg Rucka - Critical Space

The answering machine finally caught my attention while I was debating with myself, and I saw that there was a message waiting. I was about to play it, when the phone rang.

"You're still awake," Moore said when I answered. "What's with all these messages?"

"You on an open line?" I asked.

"Yes. If we need to be secure this'll have to wait."

"No point."

"I'm assuming there have been developments in our situation?"

"Yeah. Your girlfriend with you?"

"She's nearby, out of earshot, but she's moving about. What's happened? You find more about Keith?"

"Not about Keith, no," I said, and then laid out the situation with Drama as succinctly as I could. If she truly was listening in, she'd at least be amused.

"Where's this coming from?" Moore asked when I finished. He didn't sound all that concerned, more annoyed.

"Company men."

"Odd."

"In a word."

"No, I mean that doesn't match with what I've got. I checked with Interpol and the people I know at Six before leaving, and they gave me a pointer, but it wasn't about our lass Drama. They say there's another one on the move, a bloke they've named Oxford, they think he's in the States, somewhere on the East Coast. Don't know if he's hunting, just that he's been moving about."

"Are you saying there are two of them on the prowl?"

"There are at least ten of them, you forget. And they're usually hunting."

I felt very tired, suddenly. "Jesus, Robert."

"Was going to wait until we were with your lot and on the ground before sharing the news, but you sounded insistent in your messages."

"Insistent was then. Verging on panic-stricken is now. What's the deal with Oxford?"

Moore made a hissing noise into the phone, then said, "It'll have to wait 'til I'm there."

"She's back in earshot?"

"You could say that, and you'd be correct."

"You trust your source on this?"

"Hold on," he said, and for almost a minute I heard nothing but the slight hiss from the line. It occurred to me that he was calling from the plane, that he and our principal were already over the Atlantic. When he came back on the line, he resumed as if there hadn't been a break. "I've known my people for years. No mention of your lady friend. Far as that goes, word is she went on hiatus after your last dance. You trust your information?"

I gave it about two seconds of consideration. "I saw pictures," I said.

"Easy enough to fake those," Moore said, and he was getting testy. "Awfully convenient that the Company shares this tidbit with you a mere twenty hours before we're to arrive, don't you think?"

"I do think. But given the nature of the intelligence, I felt it was kind of important that I pass it on. I don't see how it's going to change the operation as it's been defined so far. Unless you decide it's cause to abort."

"I do not. Way I'm reading it, situation is the same, Keith is still Threat One."

"I agree."

"I'll call my people again, see if anything's developed."

"But you doubt it."

"I do, I truly do. Action as before, Atticus."

"Are you going to tell her?"

"Are you daft?"

"Everyone keeps asking me that. See you soon."

"G'night," Moore said.

I set down the phone, then rose and replaced the screwdriver in its case and put the case back in the drawer by the sink. I filled a glass with water from the tap and drank it, wondering if we weren't teetering on the brink of a disaster. Of the intelligence available to me, I was more inclined to trust Moore's than that of two men I'd never met until today. And Moore was Ainsley-Hunter's PSA; even more than myself or my colleagues, he was responsible for her welfare. If he felt that we were safe in proceeding, then he was making that determination with her best interest at heart. Whoever Oxford was, whatever threat he posed, it hadn't been enough to keep Moore from putting Her Ladyship on a plane to cross the ocean.

Except that Moore was also ex-Special Air Service, and the SAS didn't strictly train bodyguards, even though they had an Executive Protection program. They trained men to be soldiers, "complete soldiers," as Moore himself called it. Soldiering and protecting are two different beasts, and while elements of the work exchange, the jobs are nowhere near identical. And Moore wasn't one to back down, I knew that from past experience. It wasn't that he didn't take threats seriously; it was that he had absolute certainty in his ability to ultimately control and conquer any situation he might face.

I finished my water and started for the bedroom, and again saw the light blinking at me from the answering machine, so I stopped and finally played back the message. It was from Bridgett. She left a number and told me to call when I got in, "no matter how late."

The clock on the coffeemaker said it was eighteen minutes past two, but I took the directive seriously, and dialed the number she'd left. When the call was answered, a receptionist told me that the Embassy Suites Hotel in Philadelphia would be pleased to assist me. I asked for Bridgett Logan's room, and after a slight pause for the switchboard to route the request, the phone began ringing. She got it between the third and fourth rings.

"Hummf?" Bridgett said.

"Hey, it's me."

"Dark," she said, and then mumbled something that I took to mean she wanted me to wait. I heard the phone get bumped down and the sound of her moving, then silence. Then there was what might have been water running. Then the phone got picked up again.

"It's two-thirty, you know that?" Bridgett asked.

"It's two-twenty, and you said to call no matter how late."

"I did say that. Yes, I did indeed say that. I'm trying to remember why I said that."

"Because you missed me."

"No, that wasn't it. Hold on." I heard her yawn. "Okay, I remember now. Joseph Keith has a brother named Louis. I talked to him this evening. He's worried about his brother."

"Worried how?"

"Louis Keith says that Joseph has had, and I'm quoting, a thing for Lady Antonia Ainsley-Hunter since he was in college."

"Where'd he go to school?"

"Philadelphia Community College. He was a member of the Together Now chapter there. Brother Louis tells me that Joseph ran for chapter president not once, not twice, but four times. Lost each time."

"Does that qualify him as a disgruntled worker?"

"Not as such, no, but the last time he was defeated, his membership was revoked. Shortly afterwards, he was expelled."

"More details, please."

Bridgett yawned again. "Don't have them yet. It was Sunday, the school offices were closed. I'll go by first thing tomorrow morning, see what I can see. There is something else, though. Not certain what to make of it, but it could shed some light."

"Go ahead."

"Louis Keith told me that his brother believes in past lives. And that, about a year ago – this was Thanksgiving – Joseph told Louis that he and Ainsley-Hunter were married."

"Married," I said.

"Right. This would have been, oh, roughly five or six thousand years ago, in ancient Sumer."

"Sumer," I said.

"Ancient Sumer. Apparently, and Louis was a little embarrassed to relay this last bit…"

"He wasn't embarrassed to relay the first bit?"

She ignored that. "Apparently Joseph was not only her husband, but they were royalty. And Louis reports that his brother said that – I quote once more from my notes – 'the sex was amazing.' "

I stared at the front of my refrigerator. Erika had given me a Magnetic Poetry set a couple of months back, and houseguests were forever messing with it. Bridgett herself could spend upwards of an hour mixing and matching words. The phrase "beautiful but without rice" caught my eye.

"Wow," I said.

"Yeah. The sex must have been really something if Joseph can still conjure it after six thousand years."