Greg Rucka - Critical Space

"How much is there?" I asked.

"Here? A little under fifteen."

"And there's money in every cache?"

"Always. The U.S. is expensive."

"Oxford works the same way?"

"I'd expect he does. Money is pretty integral to the work." She started loading the pistols. "It's time we talked about what we're doing."

"I want to get you someplace secure, somewhere that you can recover from your injury."

She had been sliding bullets into the cylinder of a Colt revolver, and now she stopped and looked up at where I stood. "I will not recover. My left leg below the knee is permanently crippled. It cannot support my weight, it will never support it again."

To prove the point, she extended and raised her leg, then set it on the bed, her foot pointed at me. She reached down and pulled up the cuff of her pant leg, folding it back quickly to just below her knee. A large gauze rectangle was taped to her shin. She pulled it free, then turned her ankle to give me the full view. The stitches ran from just above her ankle to almost behind her knee, a zigzag of thread thick and black with dried blood. Her calf was only half as wide as it should have been.

"I've lost a large portion of my lower leg," Alena said, her face entirely neutral. "It's possible that the tibia and the fibula were both splintered, if not broken. The doctor in Kingstown did the best he could without a hospital and without more skill, and there is no infection, and the skin is knitting. But I will never walk on this leg again, not without assistance."

"We can get you proper medical help," I said. "Not some backroom surgeon. We can get you someone who knows what they are doing."

She folded the gauze back into place over the stitches, began rolling her pant leg down. "Atticus, even if you are correct, what you are saying requires time and money. Money I have. Time I do not. Oxford is on his way here, if not in New York already."

"All the more reason to get you someplace secure."

"I have not disputed that." She picked up the Colt, slid another round into the cylinder. "What do you suggest?"

"I want to bring in my colleagues," I said.

She finished loading the revolver, closing the cylinder with a push, a calm motion, very controlled. "Will you tell them who I am?"

"Yes."

She turned the gun in her hand, looking at it thoughtfully. "I will not go to prison. I will not allow that."

"They're my friends. They'll respect my wishes. If I tell them to keep it quiet, they'll honor that."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Sure enough to bet my life on it?"

"Yes."

She smiled, setting the gun back onto the bed.

"You must have very good friends," she said.

"Absolutely not," Dale Matsui told me. "No way. I can't believe you'd even ask us to do this!"

He looked around the table, to Corry and Natalie, and then to Special Agent Scott Fowler, to see if they were going to offer him support. From their expressions, I suspected he would get it.

It was nearly midnight, and we were at the back of The Stoned Crow in Greenwich Village, the same bar where once, months ago, Lady Ainsley-Hunter was supposed to join students from NYU in merry pitchers of beer. All around us on the walls were representations of crows, paintings and pictures, some literal, some more loosely interpreted. Over Corry's head hung a poster from The Crow movie, and farther down the wall was a promotional flyer for a concert by the band of the same name.

It had taken a couple of hours to assemble everyone because I'd had to go carefully, unsure of who Oxford might already have under surveillance. In the end I'd made contact through Scott, thinking that he would be the most risky for Oxford to mark, and therefore the least likely to watch. Scott had taken it pretty well, saying only, "I was wondering when you'd call," and then he'd agreed to contact the others. He'd arrived at the bar first, with Natalie close on his heels, but he'd had just enough time to pull me aside.

"Gracey and Bowles are looking for you," he'd said. "We really need to talk."

Now he was staying silent, and I suspected he'd let the conversation run its course before weighing in with his own opinion and whatever facts he himself had.

Corry said, "I'm with Dale, Atticus."

"She's a paying client," I said. "Like any other."

"Uh, no, I don't think so," Dale said.

"Look, we take money to protect people we don't like all the time. It's never been our job to pass judgments…"

"Okay, hypocrisy readings are off the charts," Corry said. "Perhaps you may recall you're the guy who was complaining about spoiled-brat movie stars. Those are jobs you were all too willing to turn down."

"I never turned them down, I just never liked them," I replied.

Dale was shaking his head. "It's a personal choice, Atticus. I'm not going to protect the Grand Wizard of the KKK. I don't give a damn about how professional I'm being or not. I'd have thought you would agree with that."

"She's not who you think she is."

"She's the woman who nearly killed me twice," Dale replied. "So you tell me, Atticus – who am I supposed to think she is? How am I supposed to get past that?"

"I did," I said.

Natalie, who had been watching me closely the whole time, looked down at her beer, and I realized it had been the wrong thing to say.

"Yeah," Corry said, quieter. "Yeah, you did. And frankly, that's a problem for us."

"You've put us in a really bad position," Dale said. "You've put the whole firm at risk. If this gets out, what you've been doing, of what happened to Havel, of where you were and who you were with…"

"Wait just a fucking second," I said. I hadn't gotten as far as telling them about Havel. I hadn't told them about Oxford yet. I'd gotten only as far as telling them who my principal was and that I needed their help.

Natalie turned the glass of beer between her hands. "Bridgett came by the office this afternoon. She had us call Scott."

Hell, I thought.

"She told us everything that happened," Corry said.

"No, she didn't. She told you what she thinks happened. But she's got her facts assed up."

"Is Havel dead?"

"Yes."

"Were you living with Drama for over three months?"

"Yes."

"Was it more important to you to keep Drama from the authorities than it was to report the murder of a woman who was, ostensibly, if not a friend, at least an acquaintance?"

"Where are you going with this, Corry?"

He didn't like my tone, which was understandable, I suppose, because I certainly wasn't liking his. He put his elbows on the table, leaning forward, and Scott had to adjust how he was sitting to keep his eyes on me. I still couldn't get a bead off of him, of what he was thinking.

"You've abused your friendship with everyone at this table," Corry told me. "We've spent over a quarter of a year worried sick about you, waiting for a word or a sign that you were all right. We were your friends, and you abused our friendship. Did you even consider us?"

"I thought about you guys all the time," I said. "I wasn't in a position where I could just pick up the phone and call."

"You were absent for four months, dammit! Four fucking months! You should have found a way!"

"I couldn't! God dammit, if I had she would never have trusted me! If I had you wouldn't have understood! Don't you think I fucking agonized over this?"

Corry straightened, leaning back in his seat. He moved his beer around on the table, then lifted it and drained the glass dry.

Dale said, "Did you really think we'd greet you as the conquering hero?"

"I thought you'd give me the benefit of the doubt."

"We are giving you the benefit of the doubt," Corry said. "We're here, now."

"And when we're done, is Scott going to throw me down and slap the cuffs on?"