Rob studied people. Jorge had known how the Service trained couriers and agents, and generally approved, but he’d also had some choice observations over and above that. Seasoning the pan, as he had called it one night when they were both alone and a little drunk.
Good, cast iron skillets should never be fully cleaned. You left some of the old grease in place to flavor things, layering them over the years like sedimentary rock.
Most agents were bright, clean pans, polished nicely, with nothing stuck to them. To a man like Jorge Royo, they stood out because normal humans didn’t ever look like that. Most agents and agencies never saw that, though. They saw other agents, all alike.
All standing out.
So Jorge had suggested a small library of books, a couple of classes, and several weird, late-night-high-end cable channel movies—a few of them his—each of which had been found to contain some really interesting observations about human nature.
Rob had been walking liesurely, sliding seamlessly in and out of the slowly-building morning foot traffic. Not a lot of people, but enough to hide him from his target. Enough that he wasn’t really visible to his target. This was a job where agents tailing someone might show up as anomalies to an aware person.
She came to a stop so suddenly he was certain he’d been made, except that she seemed to be staring at the horizon. Rob found a nearby donut shop and considered slipping in to buy himself one, but that might take too long if she’d spooked. He wanted to keep her in sight, so he watched her out of the corner of his eye in the glass front over the cases as though arguing with himself about diet or something.
Seasoning the pan. That woman appeared to be having a sudden crisis. Emotional, most likely. Moral, maybe, but there weren’t any morals in this game. Hardly any ethics other than to protect your side, regardless of what you thought of them individually, while doing dirty to the other side, no matter how polite and friendly they might be when you weren’t on an opposing operation.
No, she was suddenly staring at metaphorical oncoming traffic as she stood paralyzed in the crosswalk of the universe, about to be a bug on a windshield.
Or something like that.
Rob watched the woman almost literally walk herself through the clinical stages of death. Eerie. He did that occasionally, but only late at night, in the privacy of his secured flat and his mind.
Never on a street corner in front of God and everybody.
She shimmied. Turned around to look at everyone, without once alighting on him.
Rob watched her reach for a comm in her pocket ,so he stepped to the door of the donut shop, pulling the door open as the woman did something.
He pulled out his own comm and dialed. Now was not a good place or time to do this, because there was always a chance he would blow his cover if another agent had gotten the munchies this morning.
At the same time, he didn’t have much choice.
Alicia answered instantly.
“Yes?”
“Down six blocks, at the corner of Madison and Fourteenth,” he said quietly. “She might be summoning a ride. I need you to track her from this moment if she is.”
“You certain about the cab?” Alicia asked.
“Gut instinct,” Rob replied.
Looking out the window, the woman was standing there holding her comm like a divining rod seeking water.
Or salvation.
“Okay, I have a request call from that location for one rider,” Alicia said. “Now what?”
“She’s yours,” he said. “I’m out of the game, so I’ll grab some donuts and walk back in a few minutes. Make sure Mac is awake and down with you when I get there.”
He hung up and got into line with a few other bleary-eyed folks. A dozen of various things would be nice, though he’d already eaten.
Something strange had just happened and he didn’t know what.
It did not fit the pattern of a field agent doing field agent things, but he needed to talk to Mac to understand what had happened last night. And this morning.
Something wasn’t right.