CHAPTER 74

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, THE hydraulic door to the cell-like room where Bree had been kept slid shut behind us. There was a bunk above hers but hardly any room to move around.

And I don’t think I’d ever been as frustrated with my wife as I was right then. “You’re honestly thinking of joining Maestro?” I demanded.

“That comes second,” Bree said before throwing herself into my arms. She pulled my head down and murmured in my ear, “I got to believe we’re bugged, baby.”

I sighed, kissed her, and drew back. “I love you too. But Maestro?”

“A lot of Malcomb’s arguments make sense. And it’s not like we’d be foot soldiers. All we would be doing is helping them from time to time.”

That was how Edith sold it after Bean wheeled Malcomb off. She said that Malcomb wanted us to return to our lives as if nothing had happened other than a series of unfortunate circumstances that had separated Bree and Sampson from their vehicle during a snowstorm and ultimately resulted in Officer Fagan’s crash into the canyon. Back in our respective investigative organizations, we would work for Maestro’s aims and have unparalleled access to the power of Paladin’s supercomputers and vast databanks to root out injustice and corruption.

“And you will be paid well enough to ensure you and your families are comfortable for the rest of your lives,” Edith said. “More important, you will see the direct result of your crime-fighting efforts. The bad guys behind bars if there’s enough compelling evidence on the record.”

“And if there’s not enough on the record?” Bree had asked.

“Debate and then a vote,” Edith said. “Majority wins. Appeals are possible. You would have a say and a vote. All of you would.”

In the cell with Bree, I thought about that and said, “Once you help them, you’re caught in their web.”

My wife yawned. “No, you’re part of the web. Sleep on it before you say another thing. I’ll take the top bunk.”

She turned off the light, pushed me gently into the bottom bunk, and climbed in beside me. She snuggled in my arms and whispered in my ear, “We have no choice but to join, Alex. Think about it. If we refuse, he’ll kill us.”

Maybe it was the multiple days with little sleep. Maybe it was the strange, wired feeling that had been pulsing through me since I surrendered and followed Lucas Bean’s snowmobile. Whatever it was, I had not thought the downside through, but it was clear that she was correct. We knew who M was, what Maestro really was, and its secret location. At least I did. Sort of.

Unless Malcomb believed we were total converts to his cause, we would not leave this place alive. But even that seemed off to me. I murmured in her ear, “If we agree to join, why would he let us go? What’s to prevent us from turning on him and Maestro once we’re out of here? Unleashing the FBI and the Mounties on the killers of the Supreme Court candidates?”

She stiffened a little in my arms, then whispered, “He’s playing us?”

“I suspect in every way he can.”

“What do we do?”

“Like you said, we have no choice. We bend the knee. We sell it. We buy time.”