Devil's Bargain

Borden perched on the corner of the desk, not behind it. “Sorry you came all this way,” he said. “There’s nothing I couldn’t tell you over the phone just as easily.”

“I like to do my deals face-to-face. Less chance of…misunderstandings,” Lucia said pleasantly, as if she hadn’t just implied, oh, a world of things. “Nice offices. Criminal practice?”

“Not really. We have two criminal attorneys on staff, and one’s a full partner, but we specialize in tax and corporate law,” Borden said. “I’ve never taken on a criminal case in my life.” He made it sound like a failing. “Not really cut out for it.”

“No?” Lucia let her head fall to one side, watching him. “Why not?”

“If you want to practice criminal law, you end up spending a lot of time with criminals,” Borden said, and shrugged. “Not really my thing.”

“I’m sure associating with corporate polluters and tax dodgers is much better,” Lucia agreed. “How did you get my résumé, Mr. Borden?”

“James,” he said, and flicked his eyes toward the door as it opened. “Coffee?”

The assistant—Pansy? Did anybody really name girls Pansy anymore? — entered burdened by a black lacquer tray, and passed out delicate little cups of espresso. Jazz sipped and thought her veins would explode. The stuff was like black oil. She knew she was making bitter-coffee face and set the saucer and cup aside on a small octagonal table. Borden didn’t even try to drink his.

“I repeat the question,” Lucia said once Pansy had withdrawn. “My résumé. How did you get it?”

“It was provided to me,” Borden said, and held up a hand to stop her from going on. “I can’t tell you, Ms. Garza. I’m sorry. If I had to guess, I’d say that it was passed along from within the FBI, but that’s just a guess.”

“You use information without knowing its source?”

Borden sent Jazz a look. Not quite a plea, more of an assessment, trying to see where she stood in all this. “I trust the source. He’s very reliable.”

Lucia’s eyebrows indicated sarcastic doubt. Jazz drummed her fingers on leather, and said, “Yeah, okay, fine. You got the résumé from a file clerk at Quantico. Let’s talk about this deal you’re offering.”

Borden straightened up and met her eyes again. “It’s simple enough. The initial funding, plus we pay five thousand per case you take for us. Do you want to review the partnership agreement?”

“No, I want you to explain to me whose money is funding this,” she said. “Or there’s no deal.”

Borden let several dry ticks of his mantel clock go by, then slid off the edge of his desk and went behind it to open a drawer. “You know the check is valid,” he said. “You verified that with the bank.”

“Yeah, I did. I know it’s drawn on your corporate account. I also know that no law firm in the world fronts money for its clients without a damn good reason. You specialize in tax cases, right? Trying to hide some money the feds want to confiscate? This is all some bullshit designed to get the two of us to take the heat as accessories. Somebody wants us brought down.”

Lucia flicked her an unreadable look. Borden let out a slow, aggrieved breath. “Look, I’m not saying nobody’s out to get you. I’m sure that between the two of you, you might have charmed your way into a few…trouble spots. But this is a legitimate deal, offered legitimately. I’m an attorney. Believe it or not, I take my fiduciary responsibilities seriously.”

Lucia’s mock surprise was really too fu

He looked from one of them to the other, brown eyes bright. “You two really were separated at birth, did you know that?” Borden reached into the drawer, pulled out a thick manila folder and slid it across the highly polished surface. He had lovely long fingers, Jazz noticed against her will. Well manicured. No wedding ring, and no sign there’d ever been one.

“I’ll leave you to look it over,” he said. “I’ve got a meeting down the hall. Back in about thirty minutes. Oh, don’t try to walk out with any loose change or files or anything, Pansy’s tougher than she looks.”

He left them without a backward glance. Jazz knew her eyebrows were soaring, and her lips compressed against a laugh. She caught the same glitter in Lucia’s eyes.

“Well,” Lucia said in the silence after the door had clicked shut, “he’s not what I expected.”

“Taller?”

“Smarter.” She edged her chair closer to the desk and reached for the folder. “Oddly, that does not make me feel better about this.”

The folder contained loads of legal paperwork about the partnership. Jazz blurred out after a couple of pages, but she was pretty expert in shaking wheat from chaff, when it came to legal papers, and flipped through the thick sheaf until she found what she was looking for.

“Looks like the money’s coming from a nonprofit organization called the Cross Society,” she said, and scooted over to give Lucia a lean-in on it.

“A religious thing?” Lucia hooked silky black hair back over her ear.

“Um…no idea, actually. Why. Are you a zealot?”

“I’m religious, I’m not actually militant.” Lucia shrugged. “You?”

“Define religious.”

Lucia gave her a warm, quick smile. “And that answers my question. So, what do we know about them?”

“Not a damn thing.” Jazz flipped through the rest of the paperwork. “Address is care of the law firm. I don’t see anything else to go on.”

“Ah.” Lucia nodded, and went around Borden’s desk to test the drawers. Locked. She reached into her neat little designer purse, came out with lock picks in a zippered leather case, and set to work. It took her about ten seconds flat to open up the file drawer and start flipping through. “Hmm, he works for some interesting people—do you want to know about Donald Trump? — never mind, here it is. The Cross Society.”

She pulled out a fairly massive-looking folder and spread it open on the blotter, on top of the partnership paperwork. Jazz came around to take a look as Lucia’s elegant fingers fluttered pages.

“Here. Not religious, apparently. The Cross Society is a nonprofit organization established seven years ago with a mandate to research time, physics and causality.”

“What the hell is causality?” Jazz asked.

“I was hoping you’d tell me. They seem to have given out quite a load of grants and loans over the past couple of years. Take a look at the list. Anything look familiar to you?”

“Nope, but I’ll bet if we did an Internet search, we’d turn up with science stuff.”

“Not all of them,” Lucia murmured, and ran her finger down the list to stop on one name. Gregory Valentin Ivanovich. “I know this one. Definitely not a scientist.”

“Who is he?”

“Spy,” she said absently. “Once upon a time. He’s in security these days. Or that’s the euphemism for it. Actually, I think he more or less works for the highest bidder…. What would you say, there must be a few thousand names listed here, right?”

Jazz felt her eyebrows quirk again. “Seems to be a lot. This Ivanovich guy…you know him from business or pleasure?”

“Both,” Lucia said, and ran her fingertip over the name again, as if it was a bar code she could scan. “Although you mix those together often enough you get something that doesn’t fit the definition of either. Anyway, Gregory isn’t a scientist by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Neither are we,” Jazz pointed out, and pointed at the footnote on the page.

Offers extended to Jasmine Evelyn Callender and Lucia Imelda Losano Garza on March 23…

“Interesting.”

“Yeah, no kidding. I’d call it more like shocking. Imelda?”

“Shut up, Evelyn.”

“If they’re researching egghead stuff, why do they need spies, cops and whatever the hell you are, anyway?” Jazz asked, and tapped the paper nervously.

Lucia said, “Let’s find out,” and flipped through the files again.