Chapter 17 #2
“Proof? What more proof do you need? We’ve maintained operational security for years, and then she comes along and our safe house is blown, and then not only does our target get away from here, but the hostiles turn up minutes after she’s on site.
” Mel’s voice was full of scorn and confidence.
He believed what he was saying. Hallie’s truth sense told her that much.
He’d never had a high opinion of her, which was completely mutual, so she supposed it made a certain kind of sense to him that she might betray the investigators.
“That is ridiculous,” Girard said, before Hallie had managed to channel her reaction down into words. “We were both under fire here. Hallie was as much at risk as I was.”
“And yet she’s fine,” Mel pointed out, with a nasty little smirk, eyes travelling between Girard and Hallie, as if measuring the distance between them. “And I can’t help think she’s leading you on, Abbott.”
“Come over here and make those accusations again,” Hallie invited, taking a step forward, feeling a flush of anger surge up her neck.
There was something about Mel that prompted her to violence, more than anyone else she’d ever met.
And he’d just insulted not only her but Girard.
Under her fury was the prickle of humiliation.
What she had with Girard felt real and private and new, and Mel was the last person she wanted to bring it out into the open.
“Easy enough to prove you weren’t involved. Hand over your phone,” Mel said.
“No,” Hallie answered, the refusal expelled from the deepest part of her. “It’s my personal device.”
“Oh, how convenient. Won’t let us look at it?” Mel taunted.
“Why don’t you turn over yours?” Hallie snapped back. “You seem very full of ideas with nothing to back them up. I can’t help wonder where the ideas came from.”
“Think I’m afraid of you?” Mel asked, stalking across the room towards her.
“That’s enough.” The director’s voice cracked through the air, and both Hallie and Mel stopped where they were.
“There’s enough going on without you two behaving like children.
” He looked exhausted again, Hallie realised, and guilt washed away the last of her anger.
He was having a difficult enough time without her unbridled contempt for Mel making matters worse.
“Miss Talbot, I hear that although you’re not injured, you have run down your energy.
Perhaps you’d head back to the offices and review the evidence we’ve gathered so far?
As I said yesterday, I want fresh eyes on it. ”
“Sir.” Hallie wanted to argue. She wanted to keep her feet planted where they were, to find out what information Mel might have uncovered about Zurine and what Jasper and Dudon had learned about the sweet wrapper.
But she recognised an order when she heard one.
And she wasn’t going to openly challenge the director’s authority.
Even if she did want to smack the smug look off Mel’s face.
So she looked across at Girard. “Could I take the car?”
“Of course,” he said, and handed the keys over. “I’ll get a ride back with the others.”
“You’re cleared to pass through the checkpoints, and reception at the offices has your security pass,” the director added. He seemed relieved that she hadn’t argued.
“Alright. Thank you,” she said, feeling something was needed. She nodded to Girard, and then headed out of the room, past the director, to where the floor-to-ceiling window had been left open, finding that there was a fire escape outside leading to the ground.
Not wanting to risk looking back and being overcome with the urge to turn around and smack Mel, Hallie made herself head down the stairs and around the corner of the building, heading for the street where Girard had parked the car.
There was a row of black vans there, doors open, which must have been brought by the tac team and director.
Various members of Commander Rojas’ team were securing the five would-be attackers into the vans, ready for transport.
Keeping them as separate as possible, Hallie noted, and approved.
She also noted that the activity had drawn the attention of what seemed to be the whole neighbourhood and her skin prickled with more humiliation as she headed for the car.
Even though the director’s tone had been calm, she still felt as if she’d been dismissed under suspicion, Mel’s accusations hanging in the air around her.
She didn’t look around until she was inside the car, and with the bare shield of the windscreen to protect her, looked at the gathered crowds while she started the engine.
Ordinary people, drawn to something extraordinary in their neighbourhood.
Hochlen were a rare sight here, and guns were banned.
Movement at the edge of the crowd caught her attention.
A man, dressed in ordinary clothes - an old leather jacket and jeans - was slipping out of the back of the crowd.
That wasn’t what caught Hallie’s attention.
It was the sense that she had seen him before.
Somewhere. Then she shook her head. Between her work in low city and the travelling that she and Girard had done, she had come across hundreds, if not thousands, of different faces.
She was bound to come across the same one now and then, or similar features.
She flinched internally as she imagined Mel’s reaction if she went after a face in a crowd.
So she put the car in gear and drove away, letting her body sink into the comfortable seat.
It was only when she was threading her way through the narrow streets of low city, heading for the boundary with midtown, that she realised she’d never driven herself to the investigators’ offices before and had no real idea where she was going.
She pulled over at a convenient point and called up the car’s navigation system, hoping that the offices might be programmed in.
Just as she was about to press the button to start the journey, movement in the back seat of the car startled her.
She looked around, gasping, and saw Zurine Halinburn straighten up, a handgun steady as it was pointed straight at Hallie.
Zurine’s voice was as steady as her hand as she met Hallie’s eyes. “I’ve lived that cover for over ten years and you and your boy toy managed to destroy it all in one morning. We’re going to have a talk, you and I, and you’re going to tell me who betrayed me. Now, drive.”