loved his country, and his loyalty ran deep. His older brother, Matt, had often made fun of him for it, but Sullivan was at heart a patriotic man.
'There are Grimnoir in every country. We'd never ask any of them to do anything that goes against conscience. Listen, I can't tell you too much. I've been asked to make you an offer. Your talents would be invaluable. But if you turn us down, the less you know, the better off you are. You join us and then I can answer all your questions.'
'What's in it for me?' Sullivan asked, expecting the usual answers for when someone was trying to hire out some muscle. Cash, booze, dames…
Daniel cleared his throat and leaned forward, looking him square in the eye. 'You get to learn more about magic than you ever thought possible and you get to make a difference.'
That wasn't the answer he was expecting. That answer felt good, but it also made him suspicious. He checked his head again, but unless Garrett was the best Mouth ever, he could sense no intrusion. But life had bit him too many times to not be apprehensive. 'Who runs the show?'
'What?' Heinrich gave a sardonic laugh. 'So maybe when you take that bit of intelligence back to J. Edgar Hoover, all will be forgiven?'
That was a sore spot. 'Screw you, Fade.'
'So, you're ashamed that you hunted down your own kind? Aren't you?'
Sullivan raised his voice slightly. 'I agreed to help the BI, but I only went after murderers. That was the deal.'
'Like Delilah Jones?' Heinrich spat.
It was being lied to about Delilah that had sent Sullivan down this path to begin with. 'They told me she was a cold-blooded killer. I bought it. How is she?'
'Alive. Which is more than I can say than if you'd succeeded. All she had done was defend herself from the men that had already shot her father to bits. Good work there. If we had not come to save her, she'd be dead by now, picked out of the jail cell you put her in for the convenience of the Imperium.' Heinrich's face was getting red. 'And you question our honor? Our judgment? I think not, Heavy.'
Something he'd said had set the young German off. Maybe Sullivan had finally met somebody as distrusting as he was. 'Easy, Heinrich,' Garrett cautioned. 'I can't answer that yet, Jake. You must understand.'
Damn it. He was tired of being lied to, sick of being kept in the dark by everyone around him. His patience was done.
Sullivan lurched out of the booth, hands on the table to hold himself steady. His body ached beyond comprehension and he was in a foul mood. 'I'm not taking a job if I can't even know who I'm working for. So I'll just be getting off at the next town. Thanks for the dinner and the duds, but I consider them payback for the ones I wrecked falling off that blimp.'
Garrett shook his head sadly. 'Sorry to hear that, pal. I'd say that this was a wasted trip, but we did kill an Iron Guard, don't get to do that every day… What are you going to do about the BI?'
'We'll work something out…' Sullivan muttered, dreading the thought of Rockville. He'd need to come up with a story that would satisfy Hoover as to why he'd gone to visit Torrio and then managed to destroy an entire hotel. Easy as pie. 'So long, boys. Thanks for helping me ice that Jap… And tell Delilah I'm real sorry.'
'So long, Heavy,' Heinrich said. 'I knew this was a mistake from the-' He froze, looking down at his fingers. Garrett suddenly flinched and curled his hand into a fist.
Sullivan paused, noticing that both men were looking at their rings. Heinrich suddenly rose and swept all of the dishes and cups onto the floor, spilling coffee across the linoleum. The other patrons startled, and the old lady glared at them disapprovingly.
Daniel jumped into the aisle and shouted. 'Attention passengers, everyone needs to go back to their cabins, right now. This is not a big deal, and you will remember being asked to move by the conductor.' The other passengers got up and headed vacantly for the exits. Sullivan felt the words slamming around inside his skull. Garrett's Power was staggering, and he felt a strong urge to walk right out, but he focused on a spot on the wall until the feeling subsided.
'Thank you, everyone. Have a pleasant evening.' Garrett made eye contact with Sullivan as he passed, as if surprised to see him sticking around. 'Hey, waiter! Lock the doors and get out. You need a ten-minute smoke break.'
'Right away, sir!' The waiter complied without question. There had been no finesse there, just the Power of suggestion wielded like a club. Garrett may have looked like a balding, nebbishy librarian, but he was one of the strongest Actives Sullivan had yet encountered.
Heinrich grabbed the saltshaker, unscrewed the lid, and poured it onto their hastily cleared table. He stuck his finger into the pile and stirred, until he'd made a circle four inches across. 'Don't just stand there, Heavy. Fetch me a glass of water.'
Curious, Sullivan complied, picked up a cup from the next table and handed it over. Heinrich stuck two fingers in the water and swirled it about, then took them out and drew two symbols in the center of the circle of salt. Garrett returned from checking the doors a moment later. 'You better get out of here. We just got the kind of signal that means one of those things that you don't want to know about is going down.'
'Well… now I'm curious.'
Heinrich said a few words under his breath as he stared into the circle. At first Sullivan thought it was German, but it was something different and unfamiliar. There was a drumming noise, at first indistinguishable from the wheels on the track, but it grew in pitch, until it was just a ringing in the ears. The room seemed to flex, almost like when Sullivan was testing his own Power, and then a white glow appeared as the salt seemed to ignite. It burned brightly, as if it were being fused into a solid object. It floated up from the table, and rotated, until it was facing them at eye level.
It was like looking at a tiny motion picture, like one of those new television devices. There were people moving in the circle, but they were slightly hazy, and he could see the train's window through them. 'Daniel, Heinrich, this is Lance. Can you hear me?' A face appeared in the floating circle, a blunt-nosed man with a lumberjack's beard.
'Got you, Lance,' Garrett replied.
Injuries forgotten, Sullivan moved around to the side. No matter where he stood, the porthole seemed to turn to face him so he could see the same picture. He couldn't believe it. This wasn't a Power that resided inside someone. This was magic on its own, like something from an old fairytale. Heinrich had just cast an actual spell! Which, according to everything he'd ever read, was totally impossible.
'Do you remember the stories about the Geo-Tel?' the man in the circle asked.
'Of course,' Daniel replied. 'Oh no… did he find part of it?'
'It looks like he got part of the Portagees' and probably the blueprints from Jones.'
The Mouth swore under his breath. 'This is bad, very bad. Will he be able to build one?'
'The Geo-Tel? What's that?' Heinrich asked.
'No time to explain,' Lance said. 'We don't know if the Chairman's got enough to figure one out yet or not. Where are you?'
'We're on the Pullman, Denver to Ogden, we're almost in Utah now,' Garrett responded.
'You're the closest to Christiansen. Make sure he's all right. Hold on, the General needs to speak with you.' The view of the circle shifted, careening wildly about, and Sullivan saw several other people, including an old bald man who looked strangely familiar, and a young girl in a rough dress. Then the view seemed to lift, and settle downward, so that it was looking into the face of a man lying flat on his back in bed.
The man had to be over a hundred years old. His face was like a skull, crossed with purple veins, milky cataract-filled eyes, with grey skin stretched tight over it, mottled with blotches and bruises. Tubes had been run into his nostrils. 'Garrett…'His voice was almost a whisper and Sullivan was impressed that he could do that much. 'Get to Sven as quickly as you can. Recover the device that was in his protection.'
'Yes, General.'
Apparently those eyes could still see. 'Is this the Heavy?'
He stepped forward. 'I'm Jake Sullivan. Who are you?'
'We've met before, Sergeant Sullivan. Turns out I pinned a Citation Star on you myself after the armistice. It was too bad you served under General Roosevelt, because from your reputation, I certainly could have used a man
