6

Finch stared at his desk for a while after he’d read the last page. A kind of primal horror rose even as he tried to tamp it down. Mixed up with a question: What does Stark want me to take from this? How does it help him for me to have this?

Wyte finished. Handed the pages back like they had been dipped in poison. “How’d they think they’d get away with that?” he said. Voice haggard. “Killing a—”

“Don’t say it.” Finch stood. “Let’s go for a walk.” Took the file with him. Wyte trailed behind. Down that emerald carpet, past the crumbling marble tables at the front that once served as cover for receptionists. Through the massive, worm-riddled double doors, gold leaf long since peeled off and sold. Along with the inlaid iron bars.

Walked out into the light. Onto Albumuth Boulevard. Above them rose a sharp finger of red bricks, jutting. Only sign the building had ever had five stories instead of two. Ahead, the rough stone barricades that discouraged suicide bombers. Lichen sensors in purple-and-green dotted their surface. Beyond that, the dirty street. Just a few people in gas masks walking past. Huge black insect eyes. Trench coats. Gloves. Hunched over. Not looking in their direction.

Finch pulled Wyte to the side. Against the faded brick wall. Who knew if it was safer. But it felt safer. Reminded him of when Wyte used to bring him out here and patiently explain how he’d screwed up back when he worked as a courier.

“Why don’t you tell me what you think.”

Wyte looked at him for a second as if to say “You really want my opinion?” Then, slowly, “Two Stockton agents kidnapped a gray cap who came out of a secret door. Maybe a door leading to the underground? One of the agents worked for Stockton before Stark arrived. The other probably came with him. There was a third agent outside as a precaution while they interrogated the gray cap.”

“Water torture,” Finch interjected. “Take note of that. Not something I’d’ve thought to use.” Thinking of his encounters during the war.

“So they interrogate the gray cap. Pretty brutally. And they ask him about the door, and the gray cap seems to make a connection between this door and the towers.”

Agent #2: For the record: Subject was intercepted and brought to this location after stepping out of a strange door. Like a secret panel or something. Closed up after him.

“And there’s another connection, Wyte. If you can appear out of a strange door that disappears, you can disappear out of a door that appears, perhaps.”

Wyte: “Bliss?”

Bliss or Dar Sardice. Warming to this task now. Relishing the idea of figuring it out. “Remember that Bliss knew exactly which mushrooms to use for his wounds.”