Chapter 8: What Ray Owed
Marcus was in the back of the command unit when Harlan returned to the garage.
The foil blanket was gone.
Someone had found him a department hoodie that was three sizes too large.
He was eating a sandwich with his good hand and had his phone in his splinted hand at an angle that the medic had almost certainly told him not to use.
He looked up when Harlan climbed in.
"Is it done?"
"Most of it." Harlan sat across from him.
"The documents reached the judge.
Fitch is moving on the warrant.
It'll take a few hours to process, but the transfer order has already been blocked."
Marcus set the sandwich down.
"And Callahan?"
"He walked out of the building twenty minutes ago.
His credentials were flagged at the exit." Harlan paused.
"He won't be going far."
Marcus absorbed this.
"And Uncle Ray?"
The door of the command unit opened.
Ray climbed in, ducking slightly under the frame.
He looked at Marcus.
Marcus looked at him.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Ray sat down on the bench along the side wall.
He put his elbows on his knees and looked at his nephew directly.
"I owe you an apology," he said.
"Not an explanation.
An apology first."
Marcus said nothing.
"What I asked you to do was not fair.
You didn't have enough information to understand the risk, and that was deliberate on my part, which makes it worse.
Not better." Ray's voice was steady but not easy.
"You got hurt because I put you in a position no seventeen-year-old should be in.
I'm sorry, Marcus.
Genuinely."
Marcus looked at his splinted wrist.
"Why didn't you just tell me what was actually happening?"
"Because if you knew, and someone asked you — officially, under pressure — you would have told the truth.
You're not built to lie to authority.
That's not a flaw.
It's the opposite." Ray glanced at Harlan briefly.
"But it meant I couldn't read you in.
So I gave you the smallest possible piece and told you to trust me."
"And I did."
"I know."
"And then I got thrown onto a car."
"I know that too."
Marcus looked up.
"Was it worth it?"
Ray was quiet for a moment.
"Three sealed indictments are going to hold.
Voss is going to trial with the full evidence package.
Callahan is going to face a federal investigation that will probably end his career and his freedom." He paused.
"And the people Voss was going to hurt if he walked — they're going to be okay."
"That's not what I asked."
Ray held his nephew's gaze.
"No.
It wasn't worth it.
Not the way I did it." He leaned forward slightly.
"If I had it to do again, I would have found another way.
I should have found another way."
The command unit was quiet.
Outside, the garage had been partially reopened, and the distant sound of normal airport traffic had returned — tires, announcements, the ordinary noise of people going places.
Marcus picked up his sandwich.
He took a bite.
Chewed.
Set it down again.
"Dad said it depends on whether you still remember which side you're on."
"Your dad is usually right."
"Are you?
On the right side?"
Ray looked at him for a long moment.
"I think so.
But I've been out in the cold long enough that I'm not always sure I can tell anymore." He paused.
"That's probably the most honest thing I've said in six years."
Marcus considered this.
"Are you going to come back?
Officially?"
Ray glanced at Harlan.
Harlan said nothing.
But he didn't look away.
"That's a conversation for another day," Ray said.
"But it's a conversation."
"Yes.
It's a conversation."
Marcus nodded slowly.
He picked up the sandwich again.
"For what it's worth," he said, mouth half-full, "I'm glad you're not actually working for the bad guys."
Ray looked at him.
Something in his face shifted — not quite a smile, but close.
The kind of expression that lives just behind one.
"That is genuinely the nicest thing anyone has said to me in six years."
Marcus snorted.
"That's sad, Uncle Ray."
"It is," Ray agreed.
"It really is."
Harlan looked at his son.
At his brother.
At the ordinary, impossible fact of the three of them sitting in a government vehicle in a parking garage, alive and present and more or less intact.
He reached over and took half of Marcus's sandwich without asking.
Marcus stared at him.
"That's my sandwich."
"You've been eating it for forty minutes."
"I was savoring it."
"You were interrogating your uncle."
"I was doing both."
Reyes appeared in the doorway.
He looked at the three of them.
He had the expression of a man who had seen a great many things in eleven years and was choosing not to comment on this particular one.
"Sir.
Fitch is on the line.
The warrant has been signed."
Harlan stood.
He straightened his coat.
He looked at Ray.
"Stay here until I call you.
Don't use the app.
Don't use any card.
Don't buy anything."
"I know how to disappear, Harlan."
"I know you do.
I'm asking you not to." He held his brother's gaze for one moment.
"Not this time."
Ray looked at him.
Then he nodded.
Harlan stepped out of the command unit and took Reyes's phone.
May you like
"Dana," he said.
"Tell me about the warrant."
