Page 27 of The Company We Keep

“Youwoundme,” Vashvi said, smiling. “Of course I saved you half the pie.”

He winked at her and turned away. Herron, Vashvi, and Wayles reacted immediately, standing to follow him, filing out of the living room after stopping in the kitchen to drop their dirty plates in the sink. Dust scrambled to keep up.

They led him down a hallway at the south wing of the penthouse that dead-ended into an open room that had to be Carrow’s office. Along one wall, there were floor-to-ceiling windows and a plush leather couch flanked by a simple desk with an array of computer monitors. The rest of the room was meeting and planning space: a long wooden slab table scattered with maps and notebooks, several panes of glass inset into the wall so that they could be slid this way and that, covered with writing from past meetings — or maybe preliminary work for this one, Dust realized. The meeting area of the room reminded him of the classrooms back at the AIIB training facilities where he’d spent so many days of his life so far — only the penthouse room was nicely appointed and had technology that wasn’t terribly outdated.

Everyone but Carrow and Dust took a spot around the meeting table. Wayles gestured for Dust to sit down beside him.

This is really it,he thought.

Without the slightest hint of ceremony, Carrow waited for him to be seated and began the meeting.

He paced along the wall with the panes of glass and began to explain their latest job.

Dust watched Carrow with the same fascination that he used to feel, squatting above those seining nets in the dying light on the opposite coast. Then, he had held back his excitement — but in the meeting room with its expansive table and expensive details, Dust let his feelings show plain on his face.

This was his destiny. This was his shot at becoming part of The Company, and they were already treating him like apartner, an insider, a member of the team he so desperately wanted to join.

The job, Carrow explained, was a small score: just half a dozen items from the California Museum of Anthropology, nestled in the tourist district of Las Abras’ midtown.

"You know our targets," he said, selecting several glossy photographs and sticking them to one of the panes of glass behind him. "They'll fit into a pocket. Leta, you're on retrieval for this one, since we won't need air support."

Leta nodded.

The objects were small and, Dust had to assume, priceless. They were just trinkets: a fat little woman carved out of turquoise, something that looked like a coyote plated in gold and encrusted with jewels, a serpentine bracelet made of what could be onyx. There were six targets in all.

None of them were taking notes, but Dust had produced a small pad and was jotting down the rough details. The rest of the crew, he assumed, had been through the details often enough that they would have committed it all to memory by now.

One by one, Carrow went through their duties.

Russell Wayles would remotely disarm the museum’s security systems before accompanying Leta, covering her from start to finish. (And, Dust thought, he would be responsible for securing their score if something were to happen to Leta. Carrow didn't have to say it aloud, but it was clear that redundancy was important when it came to the actual score.)

Herron Dent and Carrow himself would be covering them from outside of the museum, both arriving in the fastest vehicles The Company owned, since they would also be responsible for the crew's exit.

Vashvi Dhillon would be, as she always was, their eyes on the outside. She would arrive on her own motorcycle, enter the closest tall building, and keep watch through the scope ofher rifle. They would all stay in constant communication throughout the job.

Then, once the items were secured, the team would split — driven by Herron and Carrow and Vashvi on her bike — and take different routes to join up at one of their safehouses half an hour south of Las Abras.

The client would meet them the following morning to accept the artifacts.

Tess McBride, The Company's physician, would be on standby in case of injuries.

As Carrow paced in front of the glass, it occurred to Dust that he was finally seeing the man in his element. His muscles moved under the dark suit with a potency that didn't seem to be there at any other moment — the way that a leopard's muscles looked different to a bystander when the cat is stretching than they did when the beast was preparing to ambush its prey.

He was smiling, too. Not at any of them in particular. But the white grin flashed after every point he made, understated and satisfied. This was a man with supreme confidence, someone eager to get going, someone closer to getting what he craved.

Dust began to understand the picture of A.R. Carrow that had eluded him before. He thrived on this — on breaking the law, on the thrill of making a score. Everything else he did was, in some way, related to making these moments happen for the man — and if somethingwasn’t gettinghim closer to this goal, then it must feel like it was getting in the way.

A shudder rolled through Dust. It was like looking in the mirror. Hadn't this been the way Dust had felt all this time? Hadn't this been just the same for Dust since the first moment he heard the name Ansel Carrow, since he'd gotten that fat binder in his hands? Everything he'd done had been leading up to this moment.

And though they were on opposite sides, Dust Wrenshall and A.R. Carrow met in the middle in that moment, in the meeting room, in the midst of hardened criminals who smiled and joked with each other. Carrow and Dust were the same: driven and wanting and sodeeply satisfiedby what was about to happen.

The realization was something like falling in love.

Yes, Dust thought. The two of them would be doing important things together from here on out. This was the meeting of destiny and destiny — and though Dust didn't pretend that his life was anything as monumental and important as Carrow's had been up until that moment, he could feel his own short trajectory swell with purpose as the two goals met and mingled.

He could barely keep the flush of manic joy from sweeping across his face.

This is it. This is it!

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