“Now,” Bell said, “I’m a nice fellow but I can be a bit muley when it comes to looking after who I’m s’posed to.” He gave Percey a faint smile. “You look a bit muley yourself but just remember that everything I tell you t’do’s for your own good. All right? All right. Hey, I think we’re going to get along just fine. Now lemme show you our grade-A accommodations.”

As they walked upstairs he said, “Y’all’re probably dead to know how safe this place is . . . ”

Hale asked uncertainly, “What was that again? ‘Dead to know’?”

“Means, uhm, eager. I guess I talk a bit South still. Boys down in the Big Building—that’s headquarters—fool with me some. Leave messages saying they’ve collared themselves a redneck and want me to translate for ’em. Anyway, this place is good ’n’ safe. Our friends in Justice, oh, they know what they’re doing. Bigger’n it looks from the outside, right?”

“Bigger than a cockpit, smaller than an open road,” Hale said.

Bell chuckled. “Those front windows? Didn’t look too secure when you were driving up.”

“That was one thing . . . ,” Percey began.

“Well, here’s the front room. Take a peek.” He pushed open a door.

There were no windows. Sheets of steel had been bolted over them. “Curtains’re on the other side,” Bell explained. “From the street it looks just like dark rooms. All the other windows’re bulletproof glass. But you stay away from ’em all the same. And keep the shades drawn. The fire escape and roof’re loaded with sensors and we’ve got tons of video cameras hidden around the place. Anybody comes near we check ’em clip and clean ’fore they get to the front door. It’d take a ghost with anorexia to get in here.” He walked down a wide corridor. “Follow me down this dogtrot here . . . Okay, that’s your room there, Mrs. Clay.”

“Long as we’re living together, you may’s well call me Percey.”

“Done deal. And you’re over here . . . ”

“Brit.”

The rooms were small and dark and very still—very different from Percey’s office in the corner of the hangar at Hudson Air. She thought of Ed, who preferred to have an office in the main building, his desk organized, pictures of B17s and P-51s on the wall, Lucite paperweights on every stack of documents. Percey liked the smell of jet fuel, and for a sound track to her workday the buzz saw of pneumatic wrenches. She thought of them together, him perched on her desk, sharing coffee. She managed to push the thought away before the tears started again.

Bell called on his walkie-talkie. “Principals in position.” A moment later two uniformed policemen appeared in the corridor. They nodded and one of them said, “We’ll be out here. Full-time.” Curiously, their New York twang didn’t seem that different from Bell’s resonant drawl.

“That was good,” Bell said to Percey.

She raised an eyebrow.

“You checked his ID. Nobody’s gonna get the bulge on you.”