Storm Front

Storm was sitting on a bench in a park in lower Manhattan. He was still wearing a good portion of the fluid that Xi Bang had bled out on him. It had started to dry and congeal, making his pants rigid. His hands and face were a mess of blood smears; some of it was hers, some his, from the glass cuts he had suffered. To anyone passing by, he must have looked like a deranged killer. It had not occurred to him to let any of this bother him yet. At the moment Jones had called, Storm had been looking at a tree, wondering how it was that the tree — a stupid, nonsentient piece of greenery — was allowed to still be alive and photosynthesizing while Ling Xi Bang was dead.

“Storm, are you going to say anything?” Jones demanded.

“Mistakes were made,” he said, quietly.

“You bet your ass mistakes were made. And the first mistake was hiring you. Do you have any explanation for this incompetence?”

“No.” At least none that he felt like giving Jones.

“And, I’m sorry, what the hell were you doing in New York City anyway? I thought you were in Iowa.”

“There was a change of plans.”

“And when were you going to inform me of this change of plans?”

“There wasn’t time.”

“I see. And when were you going to inform me of… Get me that surveillance camera footage again.” Jones interrupted himself to bark at one of the nerds, who complied with his request. “I’ve got some footage here that makes it look like you’re in cahoots with a Chinese agent, the Asian woman you intercepted in Paris. You want to tell me what the hell is going on with that?”

“No.”

“You know that’s not our deal. If you need help, you come to me. I’ve got all the manpower we need. I can’t have you triangulating in outside help, especially the Chinese, fer chrissakes. Are you still working with her?”

Storm was only barely paying attention to his boss. The moment he mentioned the “Asian woman,” Storm’s thoughts went to that moment when he spied Volkov inside the deli. That’s where it all went wrong, and there was no doubt about whose fault it was. She had asked him to wait before charging in. She had told him they should make a plan. Don’t just charge in like an idiot… Derrick, for God’s sake, wait… How long would it have taken for two smart agents to come up with a workable plan? Three minutes? Two?

Instead, her blood was on his hands literally and figuratively: first, because he hadn’t listened to her very sensible commands, and then because he had placed her directly in the path of a wild sociopath. She had told him she didn’t often do fieldwork. She didn’t have the training to take on a beast like Volkov. He never should have made her do it.

“Damn it, answer me: Are you still working with her?”

“It’s a moot point,” Storm said.

“I don’t even want to know what that means. I probably don’t want to know anything about what happened this morning. But I do have to ask about another report I got, something about you traipsing through a homicide scene? According to one of our station agents, there’s an NYPD detective named Nikki Heat who thinks you’d make a great suspect if only she could figure out how to make you one. Maybe I should just turn you over to her?”

Storm had no reply. He was absentmindedly opening and closing his left hand. He had jammed one of the fingers when he made the leap into the parking garage. He was working it to make sure it wasn’t broken. His ribs were also starting to stiffen up from when he slammed into the concrete. It didn’t matter. The physical pain was a distant tickle compared to what he was feeling emotionally.

“Actually, you want to know what’s a moot point? You and this case,” Jones continued.

“As of this moment, you’re fired. Go back to snorkeling or knitting or whatever the hell it was you did while you were dead. You’re officially dead again.”

“What’s going to happen to Whitely Cracker?” Storm asked.

“That’s none of your concern.”

Storm sat up, actually engaging in the conversation for the first time. “How can you say it’s none of my concern? I’ve developed rock-solid intelligence that Whitely Cracker has masterminded a plot to engineer a financial catastrophe. First, he bribed a senator to implement a change to Federal Reserve policy, then he unleashed Volkov on six innocent men and their fam—”

And then Storm stopped himself. The moment he said the name “Whitely Cracker,” Jones should have asked what Whitely Cracker had to do with this. He should have fussed and fumed and acted like Storm was tossing in a random name from some other part of the universe. Storm hadn’t told Jones about Cracker being the money behind Donny Whitmer’s new PAC; nor had Storm told Jones he saw Cracker and Volkov sitting together in the deli. Jones shouldn’t have known the two were connected.