“Are you crazy?” I stood and walked over to the apartment’s nice sized kitchenette, keeping my back to them to shut out the absurdity of their expectation. I realized I was still holding the phone and the pouch of knives, and I set them down on the counter with a dull thud. “You heard what Siron said. There’s no way I could—”
“Siron is wrong,” Halluis interjected. I could hear the heat in his voice.
I turned to face them. “What Siron said about you, Hal—I mean, that was my fault, you know? She was just angry because you were sticking up for me. But what she said about me…” I bit my lip to keep the emotion from welling up again. “What she said was right—going after the pickpocket is a naïve plan, and only someone as young and dumb as I am would ever think it could work.”
Halluis shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but Ace beat him to it. “I think it can work.” He stood up from the bed and shoved his hands back in his pockets, pulling out a bag of sour gummies and handing them to me. “And I’m pretty much a registered genius, so—there’s that.”
Halluis stood too. “Look, Christy. If she were talking about any other agent, maybe I would agree with her. Finding one pickpocket in all of Paris is an impossible task, but not for you. The very traits Siron attacked you for—your impulsiveness, your willingness to follow your instincts—she thinks they are your liabilities, but I think they are your strengths.”
I shook my head. “I followed my instincts with Dufor.”
“And how are you to know that you did not do the right thing? How do you know that if you stayed with him, you would not have simply ended up dead yourself?”
I stared at him in disbelief. I had never thought about it that way.
“I don’t know. A man is dead—I left him there to die.”
“Dufor knew the risks,” said. “He was willing to accept them. He believed it was important enough.” Ace whipped out a crinkled piece of paper and smoothed it out on the coffee table. Dufor’s doodles. And there it was. This cannot go on.
“You saved it?” Ace was the best.
“It’s important. It’s one of the many, many things I know.” He flashed a mischievous grin.
“Thank you.” I said it with as much feeling as I could. I didn’t want him doubting how much I appreciated his help.
“Siron has us chasing our own tails—we will never uncover what Dufor knew if we continue down her line of investigation. The only way we will ever find out what he gave his life for is to find that pickpocket. Siron will never let us do that; she’s made that very clear. Our only hope now, honestly, is you—since Siron was kind enough to remove you from her oversight.”
I glared at him. The look on his face was just so unbearably smug. “So, you’re telling me that my getting kicked off the team is a good thing?”
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged lazily. “Sometimes these things happen for a reason.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “Does Rosabella know you guys came here?”
“Rosabella would deny all knowledge of our activities,” Halluis said. “But she sent you her love.”
His words reminded me of the danger of what they were suggesting. “If Siron knew you were here, we’d all be in a lot of trouble, wouldn’t we?”
“You know that’s never bothered us before.” Ace grinned, his eyes flashing with impish pleasure.
“It’s different this time, guys. Siron isn’t a corrupt director—she’s just doing what she thinks is best.”
“But she’s wrong. And you know it,” Halluis said.
Before I could argue, he pulled on Ace’s arm, dragging him toward the door. “Come on, Ace. We’ll leave her to mull it over.”
“Wait, you guys!” I felt a sudden wave of panic. Were they actually expecting me to defy Siron’s authority, to go rogue?
Halluis pushed Ace out the door, then turned to me. “Do the right thing, Christy. Oh, and that residue? It was ash. We couldn’t get anything from it, though.” He winked and pulled the door shut behind him.
Do the right thing. Of course. If only I could figure out exactly what that was.
***
Hours later, sitting on the little veranda at the back of my apartment, I watched the rising sun turn the sky a hazy orange. The veranda overlooked an open, hilly courtyard full of trees, vines, and bushes. It was too steep to walk through, so it had become an oasis of nature—a little slice of green between apartment buildings. Sitting out there almost made me forget my situation. Almost.
I still hadn’t slept. The doubt that had swirled around in my mind ever since Ace and Halluis’s visit had finally resolved itself into one firm conviction: I couldn’t let Dufor die for nothing. If that meant I had to go out on my own, probably risking my career and my future as a spy in the process, well so be it. I gritted my teeth. That’s why I’d risked my butt in some cramped ducting on a plan that was destined to fail.
Henri Dufor was extremely paranoid and making one copy of the information was almost too much for him. He wouldn’t have a second copy. And, he wouldn’t have left a trail on his laptop even if we’d been able to get our hands on it. I glanced at the crumpled paper containing Dufor’s doodles. At least I was able to uncover something. And, that man in the uniform. He definitely worked there. If Division couldn’t get in Sécurité Un by imitating an employee, no one else would be able to either.
I’d been so sure that I could find the pickpocket, but where was I even going to start? I stared at the knives and the phone the boys had given me. At least I had a few tools—what else did I have?
I went back into the
