Finch parked his car just outside the steel building that was grandly labeled “NorthEast Aviation Air Hub”. The larger part of the building could probably house five or six small jets. The attached entryway, which a smaller sign said was the boarding lounge, was no bigger than thirty feet on a side.
There were two black sedans with federal government plates parked next to the building. There was no one with them.
Harold sat very still for a moment, eyes closed, gripping the steering wheel, trying to fight down the panic that threatened to crush his chest. These were not the government men had betrayed him, that had killed Nathan. They were different men, and they had no quarrel with him. They didn’t even know who he was. He was just an insurance man, significant only because he was listed as next of kin to a hot-headed young billionaire. All he had to do was go inside, wait for Will to arrive, and get him out safely.
In his ear, a deep and comforting voice said, “You okay, Finch?”
Finch made himself take a deep breath, and then another one. “I trust you’re close by, Mr. Reese.”
“Close enough.”
“Good.” He opened the door and slid out of the car, then reached back to retrieve the gold foil box. “Cameras receiving?”
“Just fine. Audio, too.”
Finch took one more deep breath and walked into the building.
They had made the interior as plush as possible, with a deep pile carpet, dark wood trim, and oversized leather furniture. It still looked like a well-furnished tin box.
Finch’s two visitors from the previous day were there, together with two other men. One was older, quite tall, and wore a good suit; the other, slightly younger and balding, was clearly dressed off the rack. All four of them looked at him expectantly. But there was no sudden drawing of weapons, no hurry to detain him. Only Ware moved toward him, and he did it casually. “Mr. Wren. Thank you for coming.”
“I’m glad to be here,” Finch lied.
He followed Ware to the other men. “Mr. Wren, this is Mr. Waldman, our … supervising agent, and Mr. Kemp.”
Finch shifted the candy box awkwardly to his other hand and shook hands with both of them. “The plane isn’t here yet?”
Walkman looked over his shoulder to the counter. “ETA?”
“On final approach now,” the young lady there reported.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Serra asked.
“No, thank you.” Finch wandered over to the windows and looked out. He could see the tiny speck of a plane against the gray sky, distant and tiny. He held his breath, waiting for a hand on his shoulder, a harsh voice in his ear. If you’re going to do it, he thought, do it now, before the boy gets here. He glanced over his shoulder.
None of the men had moved.
Reluctantly, he moved back toward them. “I want to thank you … to thank you all, for your part in bringing Will home safely,” he said.
Waldman nodded. Whatever his title, he was clearly more important than a supervising agent. “I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Wren. In light of recent events, we need to have a serious conversation about Dr. Ingram’s future travels.”
“Ahhh … yes.”
Harold had a good idea what the conversation would entail, and his nephew was not going to like it. But if that was the reason they wanted him here, to placate Will Ingram, he would consider himself extremely lucky.
“I hope that you can help him see that traveling under his own identity had become intolerably dangerous.”
“I will certainly be happy to stress that point with him,” Harold agreed. “He can be, however, quite stubborn.”
“We can be more stubborn,” Kemp said gruffly. He gestured. “They’re almost down.”
The men all moved to the windows together. Finch felt crowded, confined among them, but there was still no move to arrest or detain him. He scratched at his ear, touched his earwig for reassurance. Whatever happened, Reese was there. He made himself focus on breathing.
The plane landed without incident and rolled casually to the gate. It was, Finch noted, a Challenger “ the trans-Atlantic big brother version of the Lear Jet “ a distinction that he’d learned from Nathan Ingram. Ingram preferred the Challenger for its additional headroom. It was not an issue Finch would have noticed on his own. He was …
Distracted.
He took another breath and forced himself to stay alert. The man around him were still relaxed, almost bored. The plane stopped, and there was the usual interminable, unexplainable delay in opening the door. Finch juggled the candy from one hand to the other. He looked down at it, checked that both cameras were undetectable. Except that they weren’t, of course, for him; he knew exactly where they were. He set it on the windowsill and looked out the window again.
And what if they’d lied? What if Will wasn’t on the plane at all? What if the plan was to rush him out and throw him onto the jet? Reese was good, but he couldn’t catch an airplane … and if Will wasn’t on the plane, was he already dead somewhere? The idea cut through him like a blade of ice.
And then, mercifully, Will Ingram came through the door of the plane.
Finch’s head felt light. His heart felt light. The boy looked thin, tired, dirty. But he was obviously uninjured. He stopped on the third step and looked back, waiting. A young woman followed him out of the plane; Finch was a little relieved that she was, in fact, the young woman in the picture in the library. Will took her hand and led her down the steps. They were both smiling, clearly sharing some small joke.
They looked good together. Comfortable, happy.
They looked like young people in love.
It was a lie, and Will was the only one who didn’t know it.
Kemp opened the door for them. The girl paused; Will kept walking and threw his arms around Finch.
Harold held him as tightly as he could. The boy felt thin. But he was Will, familiar and real, and Finch felt like his heart would explode. Whatever else happened, the boy was here and safe. He felt like he could take a deep breath for the first time in more than a day.
When he opened his eyes, the girl was still standing in the doorway, watching him or maybe Will. Kemp was whispering in her ear. She nodded, moved toward them.
Will broke the hug, kept one arm around Finch, and turned with the other to draw the woman in. “Uncle Harold,” he said, with his father’s beautiful grin, “this is Julie Mullins. Julie, this is my uncle, Harold Wren.”
She smiled with genuine warmth. Her eyes were brown and bright; her nose had a tiny and frankly adorable little crease in the center of it. She’d broken it, he realized, and although it was barely noticeable, it wasn’t quite perfect. The small imperfection enhanced her beauty. She extended her hand and Harold took it. And then, entirely on impulse, he drew her into an embrace instead. He expected her to resist. Instead she returned the hug warmly.
Where Will was just skinny, Finch noted, the young woman was firm, compact. Solid. It was a little like hugging a miniature version of Reese.
Julie drew back, still smiling. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”
“And you. I …” Finch looked around, located the box of chocolates on the window sill. He picked them up and gave them to her. “Will asked me to bring these.”
She took the box. Her smile faltered. She met Finch’s eyes for a moment longer, and he saw regret. “You’re going to make this really hard, aren’t you?”
“I don’t understand,” he murmured.
Julie probably didn’t hear him; she had already turned to Will. “Band-Aid question.”
“Huh?”
“If you have a big bandage on your arm and you have to change it, do you pick one corner and then peel it slowly, or do you just rip it off?”
Will’s forehead creased with confusion, but he played along gamely. “I rip it.”
“I thought so.” She glanced at Finch again, then turned to face Will squarely. “My name isn’t Julie Mullins, and I’m not your girlfriend. I work for the government. And I’m here to help you.”
Ingram’s grin broadened. “Funny, Jules.”
“I wish I was kidding.”
The smile fell away. “Julie …”
Joe Kemp joined their group. “She works for me, son.” He pulled a badge and flapped it open, showed it to Will and then gave it to the young woman.
Finch could see Will coiling with anger as the truth sank in. “You lied to me,” he said quietly.
“I did. I’m sorry.” Julie tucked her badge into a pocket.
“You lied to me,” Will repeated, louder. “You lied to me from day one. You lied to me all along.”
“Settle down, son,” Kemp said.
“Everything,” Ingram continued. His voice grew louder with every word. “Everything was a lie. Was even a single word you said to me true? Was there anything you didn’t lie about?”
Harold looked around. The other government men were watching, but none had gotten any closer. They’d been expecting this; they were unimpressed by the show of temper.
“How could you do this?” Will was shouting now. “What kind of person are you, that you could just … just use my … I thought you were special. I thought you were … but you’re just like the rest of the government. You just lie, you just use people, use your …”
“Will,” Harold said sharply.
“She made me think she was … that we were … how could you do that? How could you let me fall in love with you, when you knew none of it was true?”
“She was trying to keep you safe,” Finch snapped.
Julie touched his arm lightly. He looked at her, and she shook her head very slightly. “It’s okay,” she murmured.
“It’s not,” he answered. His nephew was spinning out of control, on his way to a full-fledged tantrum. “Will, she was trying to protect you.”
“To protect me. Why? Because I’m rich? Because I’m too dumb to be able to take care of myself? I need people to lie to me to make sure I’m safe? I’m too spoiled? Too stupid? What?”
“All right.” Waldman stepped up and put a hand the size of a bear paw on Will’s shoulder. “I understand you’re upset. The girl made you feel like an idiot. That’s what she does. That’s her job, to get right next to you and never let you suspect that she works for us. She’s very good at it. And you know what? It saved your ass. So put your hurt feelings under the seat and listen up.”
It helped, Finch noted, that Waldman was roughly the size and build of Nathan Ingram. Something in Will responded to him at an instinctive level. It helped, too, that Julie retreated from the group. She went and stood by the door again, watchful, available, but out of the way. Out of Will’s immediate line of sight.
“Here it is, Dr. Ingram,” Waldman continued. “I don’t know what the hell you were thinking.” He looked up to include Finch in the discussion. “Either of you.” He looked back at Will, but took his hand off his shoulder. “Your father was a billionaire, and now you’re one. And yet you run all over the world using your own name, and you don’t think a dozen different nutjobs are going to come after you, trying to get at some of that money. Are you just out of your mind? Or are you really that naïve?”
Will sputtered; the man cut him off. “Eight good men and that woman put their lives on the line to get you out of Mali safely. A hundred analysts and agents and other people put their time and energy into the effort. So if you want to stand there and bitch about how unfair it is that you were lied to, you go ahead. But you put yourself in that position when you put yourself in danger. And I am telling you right now, Dr. Ingram, it’s not going to happen again.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that we’re flagging your passport. Unless you submit a security plan that’s acceptable to the Department, you will not be allowed to travel to any country where we consider your safety to be at risk.”
“What?”
“We saved your ass this time. We don’t want to have to do it again.”
“You can’t do that!” Will shouted. “You have no right to do that. You can’t tell me where I can go and where I can’t. You can’t.”
Waldman continued to be unimpressed. “Actually, we can. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Ingram turned to Finch. “They can’t really do this, can they?”
“I don’t know, Will. We can have an attorney look at it …”
“Do that,” Waldman agreed. “But in the meantime, you’ll have to find people here at home to help.”
“You can’t do this!”
Serra cleared his throat. “Gear’s off the plane, sir.”
“Good.” Waldman gestured to the counter. “Dr. Ingram, we have some documents for you to complete. Then you’re free to go.”
“We “ I did all your damn paperwork in London.”
“We have more.”
“You can’t do this,” Will said one more time. “I swear …” He turned to glare at the young woman one last time, as if their decision was her fault. Then he stomped over to the counter.
Julie Essex quietly checked her phone. Finch turned his back to her, drew his own phone out and quickly cloned hers. Then he tucked it away and moved to her side.
Without a word, Julie held the gold box out to him.
“No, no,” Finch protested. “Please, I want you to keep it. I’m very grateful for all you’ve done for Will. Even if he isn’t, at the moment.”
She put the chocolates back on the windowsill beside her. “He’s not wrong, you know. I’ve been lying to him non-stop for weeks.” Like the men, she was calm, unimpressed by Ingram’s outburst.
“You saved his life.”
“Actually, the big guys with the big guns saved his life. I just kept his head down while they did it.”
“In my book it’s the same,” Finch assured her. “I’m a bit confused, though. Why did you tell Will who you really were? Why did you, er …”
“’Burn my cover’ is the cool-kids phrase you’re looking for.” She shrugged. “It’s cleaner this way. The cover was a year old, so it’s stale. And,” she met his eyes again, “we figured you’d already burned it anyhow.”
“Me?” Finch said, with as much surprise as he could fake.
“You’re in insurance, right? You have resources? If I were you, every time the words ‘I met this girl’ came out of Will’s mouth, I’d start running a background check. Yes?”
Finch let a rueful smile play around the corners of his mouth. “Well. Yes.”
“Good. Because God knows he’d never think of it.”
“You know him very well.”
“Well enough.” Julie looked over to where Will was signing papers “ and still complaining. “He has a trusting heart. It’s a damn shame that sooner or later the world will burn it out of him.” Then she brightened. “But not today.”
“No,” Finch agreed. “Not today.” He touched the woman’s arm. “I wouldn’t have told him, if you’d asked me not to.”
“Thank you. But I think Will deserves one person in his life who’s not lying to him.”
Finch took a deep breath. He’d come to expect that Will could occasionally and quite by accident say something that sliced right to his heart. He hadn’t expected it from a stranger. I have lied to Will Ingram every day of his life, he thought bleakly. I have lied to him about small things and about important things. About who I am. About how and why his father died. About everything. And I will keep on lying to him, until the day I die.
He blinked and looked away.
“That being said,” Julie continued quietly, “I don’t think there’s any reason he needs to know about the Skydd team right now.”
“For all the good they did him.”
She put her hand lightly on his arm. “They did him a lot of good. They got him out of trouble he never even saw. And … they’re probably all dead. When he decides he needs to be out in the world again, I highly recommend that you use them to get him a new team.”
Finch frowned. “Your supervisor just said that he wouldn’t be allowed to travel internationally.”
“Sure. And that will last until Ingram remembers that he has billions of dollars and can therefore do pretty much any damn thing he wants to in this country.”
“I suppose so.”
The paperwork, he realized suddenly, was all for show. It was an excuse for the woman to be alone with Finch. They’d given up on convincing Will before they’d even started. He was the one they wanted to win over. And Ms. Essex, they’d determined, had the best shot.
She specialized, after all, in dealing with the wealthy and those around them.
They weren’t wrong, he had to admit, in their assessments. Any of them. Her forthright, common-sense approach made her a very persuasive young woman.
“Take this,” Julie said. She drew out her badge, and from behind it produced a business card. “He’s a cobbler, probably the best in the country.”
“A … cobbler? He makes fake ID’s?”
“In the old days. Now they create whole identities, electronic and all. He can make Will a passport and driver’s license, but also re-create his college record, his medical license, whatever he needs.”
“Is that legal?”
“Not really.” She glanced over at Will again. “Of course, the cobbler will then provide us with Will’s new name.”
“And you’ll start watching him all over again,” Finch completed.
“Not me, personally, but someone, yes.”
She was telling him this, Finch knew, because they assumed he’d figure it out anyhow. Certainly Will’s new security team would notice a new State Department minder on the scene and alert him. They were being, for a government agency, remarkably frank with him. They were also making him complicit in deceiving Will.
They knew they couldn’t control the boy, not for long. So they’d appealed to someone they thought could. Whether that assessment was correct remained to be seen. Finch had never been confident in his ability to do any more than gently steer the boy’s headlong charges. He nodded solemnly and tucked the card away. “Thank you. For everything. I’m very sorry that Will’s being so … unreasonable.”
“He needs to hate me for a while,” Julie said simply. “That’s how he gets past this. Please don’t try to talk him out of it.”
“You’ve been through this before,” Finch realized. He studied the young woman. Almost against his will, he liked her. Her calm. Her understanding. Her kindness. Certainly he would see what Will saw in her, well beyond her physical appearance. He found himself believing what she was said, taking her words at face value.
It set off alarms in his brain.
“It comes with the job.”
“It can’t be easy.”
She looked toward Will again. “He’s home, he’s safe. I don’t really mind listening to him bitch about it.”
Despite her words, Finch could see the pain in her eyes, in her posture. There was a sad resignation about her. She cares for the boy, he thought. Maybe it wasn’t the way Will thought, or the way he wanted. But whatever else she might be lying about, Will Ingram was more than an assignment to her.
She drew back again, and a moment later Will was at his side, snarling. “Let’s get the hell out of here, Uncle Harold.”
Finch took his elbow and gave it a squeeze. “Yes. Let’s go.”
_____________________________________________________________________________
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