Bayliss picked a few more bites of eggs from the burrito and gave up. “If you’re so great, how is it you don’t know why Babylon wants the box?”

“Who said I don’t? He wants it for the same reason we do. It’s important. Only he doesn’t know what’s inside, which makes it one more reason we have to get it. The idiot might open it.”

“What’s in the box?” said Bayliss.

Nelson shook his head. “That’s classified.”

“I have level nine clearance, you know,” Bayliss said.

“Really? No one tells me anything.”

“So what’s in it?”

“What’s in what?”

Bayliss shook her head. She wadded up her burrito and napkins and threw them in an overflowing trash can. “I don’t know why we don’t just get the box ourselves.”

Nelson picked up his burrito and pointed it at her. “That’s how I know you don’t have level nine clearance. Any level nine would know that it’s way better to leave strangers’ fingerprints at a scene when you’re obtaining evidence by extralegal means. It’s also more fun.”

“You just don’t want protecting the world to eat into your precious drinking time.”

“And just like that, you’re back on the top-secret list. Keep up the good work, rookie.”

“Oh, no,” said Bayliss. “I’ve taken every kind of shit from you, but I won’t put up with that word.”

Nelson held up his burrito in what Bayliss took as a sign of truce. “I understand,” he said. “Woolrich used to call me that when I started.”

“Back when dinosaurs walked the Earth?”

“Two passive-aggressives in two minutes. You’re on a roll,” Nelson said.

“That was actually straight-up aggression.”

“I stand corrected.”

As Nelson worked diligently on his burrito, Bayliss sat quietly thinking. “What if Cooper or Morton opens the box?” she said.

“It makes our jobs easier. We just sit back, relax, and kiss our asses good-bye,” said Nelson brightly.

Bayliss turned her head around as far as it would go, then gave up. “I don’t think you can both sit back and kiss your own ass.”

“Three knives in the back. A hat trick,” said Nelson. He set down his burrito and clapped.

“What do I get?” asked Bayliss.

“You get to fall on the sword. If anyone asks, you punched Woolrich downstairs.”

Bayliss sat back in her seat. “You’d tell him that, wouldn’t you?”

Nelson shrugged, wiped burrito ichor from his fingers. “Probably. Maybe. I don’t really know what I’m going to do moment to moment,” he said.

Bayliss pursed her lips and looked out the window. She longed for Cooper to open the box. Anything was better than this.