Cold

by Robert J. Crane

  Mike suppressed a smile. “Look…everything you’re saying is fair. Especially about the cat gifs. We should definitely go back to doing more of them. But at this point, I’m part of the serious, investigative news portion of the publication—”

  “Do you hear yourself? Next thing you’ll be telling me Buzzfeed has a serious news division.”

  Mike looked torn. “They do. Sort of. Sometimes. But that’s not the point—”

  “The point is you’re a serious guy who works on serious stories for a cat gif website,” I said, keeping my eyes on the check-in line I was headed for. It wasn’t too busy, yet, but if I saw a swell of people headed that way, I was going to pick up my suitcase and sprint to beat them into the line.

  This time he managed to subdue his surprise. “If you know who I am on sight, then is it a stretch to imagine you’ve read my stories? About you?”

  “You mean the only ones on flashfunk-dot-suck that weren’t incredibly vicious hatchet jobs about me? Pre-Revelen, I mean.” I raised an eyebrow and finally looked right at him. “Since Revelen, I practically have to pry your website’s collective tongue off my lady parts. And, no, I haven’t read any of your work, but my mom posts the links on my Facebook wall.”

  He paused, thinking as he watched me, evaluating my deadpan delivery before finally pronouncing, “Your mom is dead.”

  “See, this is why you’re the best investigative reporter on flashfunk’s staff, because you actually know that,” I said. “Most of the ad pumping, slideshow-creating chair jockeys you work with have probably authored a piece at one time or another offering up such excellent options as Cruella de Vil and the Evil Queen as possible moms for me.”

  He cringed, ever so slightly. “I did see that one, and I’m sorry. Genuinely. I’m just a reporter and not an editor, but I wouldn’t have run that piece.”

  “Look at you, the unsung hero of my life. Just don’t expect me to start singing your praises now; I left my lute back at my shoebox of an apartment.”

  He launched right into the interview. “How’s Manhattan treating you?”

  “Like a toddler treats a diaper,” I said, folding my arms in front of me.

  His eyes bored into mine. “You don’t like interviews.”

  “Not since that one I tried with Gail Roth, no,” I said, smirking a little. “And on the advice of the FBI general counsel, whose judgment I defer to, I do not presently accept interview requests.”

  “You know what your problem was during all that mess you went through the last couple years, Nealon?”

  “That the entire US government turned on me and tried to hunt me down?”

  He smiled, just a little. “Yes, that was, indeed, your biggest problem. But just behind that was the fact that your story about how you didn’t do any of the things you were accused of never made it out. At least until that video of the Eden Prairie event hit the web and went viral.” He sidled one step closer, and I eyed him like any other threat. He didn’t back off, and I didn’t feel threatened, which is why his spine stayed intact and within his body. “Wouldn’t it have been useful to have just one reporter in your Rolodex you could have called to set things straight? Someone who would have listened? Who would have looked into your story?”

  I blinked a couple times. “Wow. This is the first time I’ve had a reporter admit that the news media didn’t bother doing their jobs because they didn’t like me.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “No, it was implied, and I heard it loud and clear because I knew it as I lived it,” I said. “You don’t think I figured it out after two years? Almost the entire establishment media had people camped out on my office lawn, and that meant everybody in your little priestly caste of ‘truth-defending crusaders’ had a friend or a friend-of-a-friend there when things went down. That’s a lot of people that caught up in that criminal meta’s feral power, a lot of very connected people who suddenly had a compelling reason to hate the hell out of me. Couple that with a well-admired White House producing a toxic cloud of talking points about how evil I was, and you guys just went right to sleep for that story.” I chuckled ruefully. “It must have been like a bomb going off in your offices when that video broke and you realized how wrong you’d been about me.”

  Credit to Darnell, he gave a nod and a shrug, no sign of contrition. “I tried to warn them. I wrote a dozen stories that argued the opposite of the conventional wisdom that was circulating. It went hard against the narrative, and like you said, everybody in my field had at least one friend who nearly died in Eden Prairie. That might have tilted the coverage against you somewhat. But again—wouldn’t it be nice to have an outlet you could go to in order to set the story straight when we get it wrong?”

  “And that’s you, guy who didn’t manage to get a story published defending me when I needed it?” I mimed a shrug. “If you couldn’t do it last time the mob turned against me, what good are you going to be next time it happens?”

  “Look, I didn’t get anything through the editor last time, but I didn’t write anything intentionally hostile, either,” he said, turning real serious. “I’m a facts-first guy. I’ll call it down the middle; you’ve done some really bad things in your time, things I consider to be very objectionable. You’ve been pardoned on most of them, but the fact remains—you’ve committed murder.”

  “And might again, very soon, if you keep leaning closer to me while wearing that cologne.”

  He smiled, then backed off a little. “I’ve heard meta senses are highly attuned.”

  “This isn’t anything to do with them being highly attuned. Drakkar Noir just smells like ass water to me.”

  He chuckled. “The point remains—you are not a nice person.”

  “I’m perfectly nice; I just don’t like your cologne. People love me.” Someone shouted, “SLAY QUEEN!” from somewhere behind me and I chucked a thumb in that direction without looking. “See?”

  “They love you for now,” he said, taking another step back and peeling a card out of his pocket and offering it to me. “But you have this tendency to make a mess every now and again—”

  “Geez, you wreck the Javits Center one time and all of New York suddenly thinks you’re trouble.”

  “—so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this hero worship fade,” he said, nodding at me. He offered the card again. “I won’t promise you favorable coverage. But I won’t slant things against you just because everyone else starts to hate you again, either. I try to be fair in my stories, and base them on the facts.”

  “Keep your card,” I said. “If I want to get ahold of you, I’ll pull your contact info off flashfunkadelic-dot-douchery.”

  He just shook his head, still smiling, as he put his card away. “Sure you will.”

  “Oh, and by the way,” I said, turning to leave him, “you might want to tell your Uber-driving source not to text and drive next time.”

  His eyes sparkled. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about—and I’d never reveal a source.”

  “I bet,” I said, heading over to the line and getting in, snaking my way around the pylons until I reached the front. Holloway was there waiting, next in line, and I slowed as much as I possibly could, pretending to check my cell phone for nonexistent messages as I walked the last ten or so feet to him.

  “Who was that?” Holloway asked, his suspicious eyes on Darnell, who was already on his way out the door. The old school reporter flagged down a yellow cab and hopped in, disappearing as it accelerated out of sight.

  I looked up from my phone, right into Holloway’s eyes, and tried my best imitation of shock. “You don’t even recognize your own father? How unsurprising.” And I went back to looking at my phone.

  The attendant at the counter called, “Next!” and Holloway left me behind without another word. Hopefully I could avoid him at the security checkpoint, at the gate, maybe even on the plane.

  Otherwise, the flight to New Orleans was really going to suck.

&
nbsp; 11.

  Brianna Glover

  How did I miss?

  The question echoed in Brianna’s mind, over and over, the quiet of her safe house outside Baton Rouge echoing around her. It hung like a pall, a funereal feel except the funeral wasn’t happening—yet.

  She’d set everything up perfectly. Practiced until she was flawless. Lined up her shot…

  And missed, somehow. Governor Ivan Warrington was still alive.

  Brianna rubbed her fingers against her palm. The sparkle of ice appeared in the darkness, forming a snowball out of the air’s humidity. She tossed it up, felt the wet smack as it came back down. Hardened it there, solidified the water vapor into a crystalline structure, threw it up again.

  It came down hard on her palm, solid now. Not a snowball anymore, it was a block of ice the size of a softball. Brianna had been good at softball, once upon a time. Long, long ago—or so it felt—before she’d honed in on a sport she liked better.

  She bolted up out of bed as the ice came down. She caught it flawlessly, thoughtlessly as she rose, striding across the darkened room to her laptop in the kitchenette.

  This safe house didn’t feel safe now that she’d failed. She’d left little sign behind in her flight from New Orleans, but perhaps enough. She’d need to move again. She had a backup, and a backup to the backup. The plan was never to get caught, after all, and she’d certainly worked hard at making sure that she wouldn’t—unless she wanted to.

  She didn’t want to. Not until the thing was done, and preferably not even then.

  A touch of her finger against a button on the keyboard woke the laptop, and she lifted the screen from where it had been folded nearly closed. It made a tone, then came alive, no password necessary. She tapped the keys quickly as she activated the Virtual Private Network, then a private browser window, selecting the Governor’s event schedule from the bookmarks—

  NO EVENTS SCHEDULED.

  Brianna leaned back and nearly fell off the stool, forgetting it didn’t have a back. She caught herself in time.

  He’d cancelled all his events?

  Of course he had.

  She squeezed her hand closed on the ice ball, and heard a crack.

  Blinking, she looked down. It was shattered in her palm, broken into six, seven, eight pieces, perhaps. She didn’t count because she didn’t care, but it was an interesting metaphor for what she was going to do to Ivan Warrington.

  “Cancelled,” she muttered, looking at the screen. Well, that wouldn’t last. Warrington was a glory hog; he’d show his face again in public before too long. Something quiet, probably, something low-key, but he’d be out there, collecting his kudos. He wouldn’t be able to stay away.

  And when he did, she’d be waiting, and looking through the scope at him. But this time she wouldn’t miss.

  12.

  Sienna

  The New Orleans airport reminded me of one I’d been to in Virginia Beach once upon a time—very old school, an almost sixties or seventies style of architecture but with updates to bring it a little closer to the modern world. I had no idea when it had actually been built, but that few-windows, utilitarian vibe hung off the place.

  I strolled through to the baggage claim as I perused my messages. Only one text had come in while I’d been in flight, and it was from Shaw, directing me to meet up with a local FBI agent named Burkitt down at the baggage claim. Whoever he or she was, it seemed like Burkitt was going to be our chauffeur, at least for now.

  Holloway had, to my extreme joy, been booked a good ten rows away from me on the flight, owing either to the last-minute nature of the booking, Shaw being wise enough to know we shouldn’t be seated next to each other, or the universe in general looking out for me. Whichever it was, I was thankful, because it meant I didn’t have to interact with him until after I’d retrieved my bag from the claim and he was still standing around waiting for his.

  I checked my emails, even the spam folder, waiting for Holloway to get his damned bag, but the carousel ran dry and he was still waiting around, staring at the ramp where the luggage dumped out like he had heat vision and could see his suitcase waiting just beyond it. The carousel had stopped, and I was out of the things to do on my phone other than browse the comment sections of internet sites, so I decided to skip getting hostile to total strangers who might or might not deserve it and bring it right to bear on Holloway, who definitely deserved it.

  “What’s the hold-up?” I asked, stopping about twenty feet from him. “Did the TSA deem your fifteen-inch ‘marital aide’ to be too much like a weapon to allow it on board? Should have gone with a less threatening model than the Dev-ass-tator—”

  “You think you’re so damned funny,” Holloway said, not looking up.

  To his bad luck, two ladies standing close by cut up into a wicked case of the giggles at my sick burn, looking up at him with mouths covered to suppress their laughs.

  “Lots of people think I’m funny,” I said, giving them a nod. “If this FBI gig doesn’t work out, I might give stand-up comedy a try.”

  “Try it elsewhere,” Holloway said, still glaring at the door to the carousel, probably willing it to open and dump out his stuff. “I don’t like you, you don’t like me—there’s no reason for us to trip all over each other on this jaunt. You keep your distance, I’ll do the same, we’ll both be happier for it.”

  “That may be the smartest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth, Holloway,” I said, giving him a mocking salute. “Good show, old chap. I’ll go find the car. You meet up with us once you get your dildo collected.”

  And off I went, very sure he’d transferred his lead-melting look to my back the moment I turned it. Holloway was the kind of guy who would have done it to my face if I’d been turned toward him; it was his bad luck I was too quick to catch his glare before leaving him in the dust.

  “I know who you are,” a suited agent said as I walked up to a black SUV in the NO PARKING zone outside the baggage claim.

  “The feeling is not mutual,” I said, looking him up and down once. Thin, looked like a runner, bald head, same black glasses as mine. His suit was grey, though, and pinstriped. “What’s your name?”

  “Burkitt,” he said, and held out his hand to take my bag.

  “I got it,” I said, nodding at the car as he hit the button to pop the rear hatch.

  “Where’s your partner?” Burkitt asked as I threw my bag in.

  “I don’t have one of those,” I said, settling the suitcase as much as I could. “I’ve got a remora, a seething little pissant who follows me around attached to my belly, sucking the life blood out of me while watching my every move.”

  Burkitt’s eyebrows moved, causing his sunglasses to nearly fall off his nose. “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” I said, taking the passenger side as Holloway appeared at the baggage claim door. I couldn’t fully see his expression, but I caught enough of it to watch it change from pissed to pissed-er (a word I just made it up) as he watched me resign him to the back seat. “It’s a new thing the New York office is trying. Remora are cheaper than full-fledged agents, I guess.”

  “I’ve got longer legs than you,” Holloway said, a little snappishly, as he reached us.

  “I’ve got a punch strong enough to break through concrete,” I said evenly.

  “You threatening me?” Holloway turned beet red behind those sunglasses.

  “I thought we were making random observations about ourselves,” I said. “Otherwise why would I care that your legs are longer than mine?”

  “Because you should sit in the back seat,” Holloway said, fuming. “Shorty.”

  “And you should not be a throbbing, pulsating member,” I said, “but here we are, me in the front seat and you being a giant dick. Alas, fate is cruel to do such things to us.”

  “Uh…I could sit in the back,” Burkitt offered, a little feebly.

  “You’re driving,” I said. “Holloway doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. There’s
no chance I’m trusting him to navigate New Orleans during rush hour.”

  Holloway went redder, if such a thing was possible. “Sure, I’ll drive,” he said, shooting me a mean smile.

  “No, you won’t,” I said, looking at my fingernails.

  He stared at me from behind those black sunglasses. “Why not?”

  “Because I have this precognitive sense that something terrible would happen if you did,” I said, putting my hand to my forehead. “Yes, yes, I’m seeing it now. If you drive, we’ll get into a hundred-mile-an-hour collision that only one of us will survive,” I said. “And it’s not going to be you.”

  “Good God,” Burkitt whispered.

  “You heard that, didn’t you?” Holloway’s shade had now increased to the point that it looked like someone had poured tomato juice over his face.

  “I hope so,” I said, looking innocently at Burkitt. “You’re not deaf, are you? You use your hearing protection at the range, right?”

  “Hey, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t want to get in the middle of it—” Burkitt started to say.

  “It’s a simple power struggle, Burkitt,” I said, looking back at Holloway. “See, Remora here wants to run the show—and run me. The problem he’s up against is I don’t get run by assclown tough guys. I kill them. I just want him to back off, but his pride can’t handle that, so he’s gotta keep ramping up the antagonism.” I glanced at Burkitt. “You know what the problem is with a power struggle?”

  Burkitt looked like he didn’t want to bite, but he finally answered. “What?”

  I pushed my glasses down my nose so I could stare straight at Holloway. “That shit only works if you have a prayer in hell of overpowering the person you’re playing against.” I didn’t blink, just stared him down.