Greg Rucka - Critical Space

She hung up, and so did I, and I stared at my spare gun and then set about loading the extra clips. I didn't have any immediate plan to use it; I didn't even have any immediate plan to wear it. But it kept my hands busy, it was something to do until the others arrived, until the phone rang again. Drama had as much as said we were now playing the waiting game, and I expected that she would make us wait long, to try and wear us down before she made further contact. The best thing to do would be to use the time well, and that meant getting ready for whatever might happen next. When the others arrived, we would discuss it, try to work out a strategy, a plan.

But just thinking that, I knew that there really wasn't anything we could do at all.

The pepper burn had finally relented, and now my insides felt raw. The illness I'd felt earlier seemed to have gone too, though if that was a result of the unending supply of adrenaline I seemed to have tapped or because I was actually healthier, I didn't know. I didn't much care. My face throbbed from where Drama kicked me, and when I touched my cheek, I could feel the swelling beneath the skin.

Dale came back with the maps, and a couple minutes later the intercom buzzed, and Natalie told me that she was downstairs with Corry, Moore, and Chester. I let them into the building, told Dale to cover the hall, then went out my apartment door to the top of the stairs. After a minute I heard them coming up, and when I saw Natalie leading the way, I waved Dale off. Wet hair clung limp around her head like sodden newspaper, and the swelling across the bridge of her nose had already begun turning purple and red. She swiped at a weak trickle of blood from her left nostril as she crossed the threshold.

Once everyone was inside, Dale shut and locked the door. Corry put Chester on the couch, sitting down beside her, and Natalie took the chair in the corner by the stereo. Moore remained standing. He waited until Dale joined us before asking if we'd received the call.

"She called," I said. "Her Ladyship's still alive, I heard her voice, not a recording."

"How'd she sound?" Chester was moving a glare over each of us, while the fingers of her right hand pulled at the upholstery on my couch, making a small hole larger.

"Scared." I looked at Moore. "They explained it to you?"

He nodded.

"We did everything we could."

He nodded again, and I knew he accepted what I'd said, but I also knew knowing it gave him about as much comfort as saying it was giving me. "Has she made demands?"

"She's primed the waiting game," I said. "Orders are to stay by the phone, wait for her call. If word gets out…"

"I heard," Moore said. "She hasn't said what she wants?"

"No."

"Doesn't make much nicking sense, then, does it?"

"Not so far."

Moore scratched at his eyebrow with his thumb, squinting as if trying to read small print. I waited for him to chase the thought, to see if he ended up at the same destination I had.

"How much time you figure?"

"It won't be until midnight at the earliest," I answered. "This is psych one-oh-one stuff; she's going to try to unbalance us. She can afford to make us wait, she knows that'll only make her position stronger, but she can only play that for so long – otherwise she risks the balloon going up whether any of us want it to or not. My feeling is we won't hear from her again until the long hours tonight. But we should start prep now."

"I agree. Natalie?"

She was already pushing out of the chair. "Dale and I'll go clean out the office. Anything in particular we should grab?"

"We don't know what we'll need," I said.

"So all of it?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"We'll be back in an hour."

After they left, Chester asked, "Now what?"

"Now we wait," I told her. "We can't do anything until we hear from Drama."

"At which point what?" She was pulling pieces of stuffing from the hole in the sofa, apparently unaware she was doing it.

"She either tells us what she wants for Lady Antonia, or she'll tell us to keep waiting."

Her fingers stopped moving and she got shrill again. "We can't keep waiting, someone is bound to notice she's gone missing! I should be making calls as it is, I should be making excuses for her absence…"

"Soon as we get this sorted you'll be on the phone, lying through your teeth," Moore interrupted. "We have to wait until after the Fed is dispensed with."

She straightened, indignant. "I wasn't planning on saying that Her Ladyship had been kidnapped, Mr. Moore."

"She's got a point," Corry said.

"Of course not." Moore sounded annoyed. "The story should be that Her Ladyship has fallen ill, food poisoning will do fine. I'm not asking for any grand fabrication."

"That's not what I mean," Corry explained. "Drama's window is as limited as ours. She can't tease this out for too long, because as much as we try to keep the lid on, something's going to leak out. With all the media attention Her Ladyship gets, we can't have much more than twenty-four hours."

"Maybe a little longer," Chester said. "I can be very convincing."

"Good," I said. "Her life will depend on that."

Chester smiled ice at me. "At least she can rely on me."

The intercom went off again just before two, Scott Fowler asking me to please let him inside, and I responded by telling him instead that I'd be right down. I came off the button before he could ask why, told Moore I was going to be gone for a few minutes, and that if Drama called, to tell her I'd call her back.

Chester, still slowly destroying my couch, didn't think that was very funny at all.

Fowler was leaning against the side of the building as I stepped out, and the first thing he said was, "What the hell happened to your face?"

"Keith caught me with a wild arm," I said.

"Thought Moore bagged him."

"Hey, I helped."

One of his eyebrows rose slightly as he took another look at my jaw. "Why don't you want me coming upstairs?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why isn't Lady Ainsley-Hunter at the Edmonton?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why did you call Bridgett and try to pretend you were someone else?"

That threw me for a moment.

"Her cell phone identifies the incoming number." Scott tapped his forehead with an index finger. "Nothing escapes the ever-vigilant eye of the FBI."

"You're thinking of the Pinkertons."

"I'm thinking there's something going on and you're freezing me out. And I'm thinking there are a couple of reasons you might do that, none of them good, and one of them might have to do with the Backroom Boys." He shoved his hands into his pants pockets, frowning at me. "I'll ask again, and you can give me an answer."

"No, I'll give you a response, and it'll be the same one you just heard."

"What's going on, Atticus?"

I looked him in the eye and said, "I'm in a bad position, Scott. I know you're on the job, but so am I, and right now I've got a situation with my principal that requires my discretion."

"I'm listening."

"She's upstairs right now. She's well protected. She's also got company."

"Company how?"

I didn't say anything, hoping he'd do the math for me. He did.

"Male or female?"

"I can't say."

"You can tell me."

I shook my head. "I can't, Scott. I've already said too much. She's afraid you'll report something back and that it'll leak out of the Bureau office and to the media…"

"We don't do that kind of shit, Atticus, you know that."

"I know you, Scott," I said. "She doesn't. She's used to dealing with the British tabloids, you understand? She's gun-shy, she's scared of being discovered, and my job is to protect not only her person, but her reputation. The thing with Keith this morning really rattled her, we got her back to the hotel, she told me that she wanted this arranged. She's young and in love, what can I say?"