He’s been carrying his own version of this conversation for the last hour because Ronan has been on a phone call with him from somewhere over the Atlantic, and he mentions Padraig sent him a letter from Walpole prison last week that he has yet to read.
"What do you need from me?” Cormac says.
"Door cover."
"Done."
"Witness on the back end."
"Done."
"Cormac."
"Yes."
"I am going to do something today, and I want you to know that I am going to do it."
Cormac is quiet for a long second. Then he says, "Lex. I am Irish. We have our own version. You do what you have to do. I will tell you when you are wrong about it."
I nod once. We drive.
Petrov calls at 11:14 AM.
"Andreev," he says.
I do not respond. I let him keep talking.
"Marcus Andreev. Federal employee, witness intake, eight-year tenure. He’s been on the Marshals' rotation for Eleni's apartment for two months, ever since the protective detail was put in place after the contract on Maeve was confirmed. He proposed the timing of the rotation two weeks ago. The proposal was a small adjustment, twenty minutes earlier than the previous schedule, but the new schedule put the rotation gap during the exact window in which the breach happened."
"Daughter."
"Sick. Cancer. Currently in an experimental treatment program at Dana-Farber. The treatment costs $80,000 per month and is not covered by federal insurance. Andreev has been paying out of pocket for the last fourteen months. The math is the math."
"Federal salary."
"Ninety-four thousand a year."
I close my eyes for half a second.
Andreev. The man at the desk, Maeve walked past on Tuesday morning when she asked about his daughter, and he said, ‘Anya,’ and she said, ‘I will be thinking about her,’ and told me he is one of the people she trusts. The man whose grief I had been told about by Maeve at the breakfast table on Wednesday morning at the brownstone, with the particular tenderness she reserves for parents in worse circumstances than her own.
Andreev sold Maeve. Andreev sold Eleni. Andreev sold my daughter.
For Anya.
I file that information in the precise corner of my brain where I file the things I am going to deal with on the day I am not currently doing the task in front of me.
Today's task is Nora.
Andreev is tomorrow's thing. Andreev doesn’t know I know. Andreev is at his desk right now in the federal building doing the small, careful work of a man who has done something horrible and is waiting to see if anyone has noticed.
Nobody has noticed yet.
Tomorrow I will deal with him.
"Petrov."
"Yes."
