Not a question. Not asking for anything. Saying it because he wants to, because the saying of it has become something that belongs to him.
"I know," I say.
I keep my eyes closed. I listen to his breathing slow, and I listen to the compound. I listen to the Mississippi dark outside the window, and I memorize all of it. The weight of his arm, the specific smell of his skin, the sound of my own name in his mouth, which I have never heard said that way before and which I intend to carry with me regardless of what the morning brings.
Tomorrow there will be the operation and the Chalmette facility and whatever the day delivers.
Tonight there is this.
I stay exactly where I am.
Chapter 14
Judge
At three thirty in the morning, Sisco lays it out with no excess, no hedging, just the shape of the arrangement. He made contact with Agent Dana Carr three days ago through a channel that doesn't connect back to the club directly. Carr is FBI, organized crime division, has been building a case on Delacroix's network for two years, and has been waiting for something actionable to drop into it. Delacroix is actionable.
"The handoff is at a truck stop outside Laplace," Sisco says. "Neutral ground. We bring Delacroix, she brings a vehicle and two agents. We transfer custody, we hand over the evidence package, we leave. Nothing connects us to the chain of custody."
"She knows where it came from," I say.
"She knows enough to know not to ask questions that would complicate her case." Sisco looks at Templar. "She wants the network above Delacroix. He gets her one thread of it. She'll take the thread and not look too hard at the hand that gave it to her."
Templar is quiet for a moment. He's been sitting behind his desk looking at the operational map: the Chalmette facility, the approach routes, the specific geometry of what tomorrow morning looks like. He looks up.
"The photographs," he says.
"Jesslyn's turning over copies of the evidentiary frames," I say. "Not everything. The ones that put Delacroix at the operation and establish the route. Carr gets what she needs to build the case. The rest stays ours."
Templar nods once. "It's done," he says. He looks back at the map. "Get ready to roll out.”
I nod once and leave his office.
The argument starts at four in the morning.
I find her in the common room with her camera bag packed and her boots on, sitting at the end of the table like she's been there a while. Like she made a decision and has been sitting with it long enough that she's done negotiating with herself about it.
"No," I say.
"I know the facility better than anyone in this club." She holds my gaze. "I built the map. I know the approach routes, the sight lines, the dock position. I've been in my head walking through it for days."
"You're not a shooter."
"I'm not asking to be a shooter. I'm asking to be in the support vehicle and document what happens."
"The support vehicle is forty feet from a facility we're about to breach, Jesslyn."
"I know where the support vehicle is, Judge. I've looked at the layout approximately a hundred times." She doesn't move from the table. "I have been in situations more dangerous than this. I have documented things that were actively trying to kill me. I know how to stay low and stay out of the way and stay alive while things are happening around me."
"This is different."
"You keep saying that. You said it about Lake Borgne and you were partially right and you said we'd do it together and we did. This is the same argument with different geography."
"This isn't surveillance. This is a breach of a facility with armed men in it."
"I know what it is." Her voice doesn't change. "I know exactly what it is and I know why you don't want me there and I know you're not entirely wrong. I'm asking you to weigh that against what I can do that nobody else in this club can do."
The compound is moving around us. Brothers are gearing up, the low controlled noise of men preparing to do something violent and necessary. Templar is in his office. Recon is running the equipment check. The clock on the wall reads four-twelve.
