Page 36 of Heart and Soul
“Put it on. All of it. And take your hair down. We’re going for sultry. Like a seductress, you know?”
Hillerman pulls me toward the door. “We’re done here.”
“Meet us downstairs,” I call over my shoulder.
“She’s not authorized, I told you.”
“Well, then you better authorize her, and now, because I need her for this to work.”
“You just met her two seconds ago.”
“Which is exactly when my whole plan came together. So what?”
“So what? So what were you going to do if you hadn’t seen her? What was your plan going to be then?”
“Something else, obviously.”
“You think geriatric Arael Moaz, hooked up to ventilators and chained to a bed, is going to respond to seduction? He’s not a glutton, he’s a warmonger, dammit. This is the best you can think of?”
“It’s nothing so obvious or simple as you’re thinking, and you know it, or you wouldn’t have brought me here. You’re just pissed because I won’t tell you, and little Miss Control Everything can’t stand it. Now do your job and order that nice cafeteria worker to meet us in the prison block looking like she’s ready for sexy time.”
Hillerman skewers me with a glare before turning to the cafeteria worker and barking, “You’ve got five minutes.” The girl drops her tray and scurries out a back door.
Downstairs, we enter an operations room full of monitors showing video feeds of different prison cells full of underworld lowlifes. Most are in human form—men and women dressed in orange prison garb—but some are shifted into various animals. I see several wolves and, in a double-size cell, a giant grizzly bear.
Hillerman’s sudden appearance in the room sets the FBI staff on edge. Conversations abruptly cut off. One lady scrambles to take a seat in front of a monitor. A guy with his feet up on a desk nearly falls backward in his chair upon seeing us approach. At his desk is a single monitor showing a massive cargo hold with nothing but a small hospital bed under a spotlight. An old man lies unmoving on the bed.
“There he is,” Hillerman says.
“He gets an entire cell block?”
Hillerman turns to address her staff. “Listen up. This is unscheduled and unauthorized by Washington. If anybody is uncomfortable with that, take a lunch break right now.” Nobody moves. I don’t think anybody has dared to breathe since Hillerman came in. “Divert all audio-visual to our VIP. We’re going in.”
“I’mgoing in,” I correct.
“We’re going in,” Hillerman presses.
“Weare going in eventually.Iam going in first.”
Hillerman clenches her jaw. I see several eyes widen and jaws drop. Apparently it’s not a usual thing to see some girl in a Detroit Tigers jacket talking over their boss. How fun.
“This is Agent Davies, FUA Double-D.”
I clap Hillerman on the back. “Otherwise known as the girl who crashed Arael’s party and gift-wrapped him just for you.”
“They’re aware,” Hillerman says flatly.
“Oh, we know all about you,” one guy says with a goofy grin. “C’mon, is it true you actually jumped your car through a second-story window?”
A woman adds, “Yeah, but that was after chasing the bomb car all the way through downtown Detroit and ramming it off the road.”
Another guy continues the story. “Yeah, but that was only after she and Detective Brenner took down a baphomet. Right?”
All eyes look to me, and at this point I’m practically glowing. “They got all this from you?” I ask Hillerman.
With a humorless smile, she says, “I took your asset, Agent Davies, but I would never take your credit.”
“Wow, so…thank you, I guess?”
