"No," I said truthfully. I had to hold on to my own hand to keep myself from rubbing the implant.
"It's a hematite bead." He dropped it on to the table.
"It's a what?" I asked, stunned.
"A bead, for a necklace or something." The agent dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "Take a look."
With numb fingers, I picked it up to examine it. On the top and bottom were holes for a string. I turned it over and over in my hands and prayed its true nature would be revealed. It was just as the agent said: a bead, nothing more.
"Where's the real item?" I tossed down the bead hard enough that it bounced. "What kind of idiot you take me for?"
The agent smiled. There was gloating around the edges of his curled lips. The good cop persona was slipping. "I'm not sure. Maybe you should tell me." Crossing his arms in front of his chest, he continued, "Tell me something, Deidre. If I had the 'real' item, why wouldn't I use it against you? Were you after a data chip? Something else?"
I looked at the bead and tried to remember what Jibril had handed me. I picked it up again and pressed it into my palm. The bead was cool, almost as cold and heavy as the dead receiver in my head.
"Do you have any idea why Jibril would set up a clandestine meeting to pass you something so useless?"
"Fuck," I breathed. "It was all for nothing."
"So it seems," the agent said with a smirk. He moved around the table. His hard-heeled shoes clicked on the linoleum floor. "Now why don't you tell us what they wanted from you, and what you thought you were getting in exchange?"
I gripped the smooth bead tighter. Did Michael intend to set me up? It seemed likely. Jibril wouldn't even let go of my hand as the FBI broke down the door. All he would do was talk about the will of Allah. Yet if they intended to be caught, why were they surprised? And, why did Michael resist arrest? Was it just a show for me? To make me think it wasn't a setup? It didn't make any sense. Dorshak said they didn't want me, but Michael. Otherwise, I might've believed Michael double-crossed me. But, why would the FBI want me? I had no real political power to wield against Letourneau or anyone else for that matter. I was a celebrity, sure, but without the LINK, I was a nonplayer.
I still didn't trust this FBI agent enough to tell him anything. There was something deeper going on here, and I wasn't going to give an inch until I found out what. Besides, I had an old score to settle. Looking up at the agent, I slowly shook my head from side to side.
"Look" the agent sounded exasperated "you were duped. Not only that, but right now you're facing a pretty serious charge of resisting arrest. You owe these people nothing."
No, I thought
silently, but I still owe myself some dignity. Last time, I chose to save myself, and I've regretted it ever since. Michael might still be in a position to bring Letourneau down if he could get out of this somehow. For Danny's sake, I had to give Michael that chance.
The agent tapped his finger impatiently on the wooden desk. "Maybe you don't understand why we want Angelucci so bad. Let me tell you something about him. Angelucci is a vigilante." The agent pressed. "He's trying to take the law into his own hands. You and I both know how dangerous that kind of behavior can be."
I nodded despite myself. As much as I had loved Danny, that was what he had become. When he shot the Pope, whatever his reasons, he acted above the law, and I had had a responsibility to the truth. Daniel had changed, had kept the passion I loved, but lost the sensibility. Worse yet, I saw the passion turning into something angry, something that verged on uncontrollable. I could have kept it to myself, stayed silent, but that was a sin. The sin of omission. And having denied truth, how could I sleep at night?
"If you have any feelings of loyalty to this guy, it's misplaced." The agent frowned. He stared at the oneway glass, considering something. Leaning closer, he continued in a conspiratorial tone, "He has more dotted lines to antigovernment groups than ... I don't know what. Angelucci has his fingers in all the radical groups: Hasidim, Muslims ... possibly other heathens as well. Not to mention the liberal fringe like ACLU, human rights campaigners which we know is a front for queers and God knows what else. He and his pals, like Jibril Freshta, have been stirring the pot of dissension for the last year. They're gaining ground, too. If left to their own devices, they could bring back an era of secular presidents. Think about that, McMannus. Do you want the return to the kind of government that fostered the science that brought us the Medusa?"
In my mind's eye, I saw the result of science's most horrible creation a frozen form that was once human, now a statue of glass, in a silent, but deafening, scream. "No," I whispered, my voice hoarse.
"I didn't think so," the agent said softly. "But that's what Angelucci wants: a world without a moral backbone. A world like our grandparents and parents suffered through, when drugs and violence were commonplace, when children were raised in schools where religion was outlawed, when the world had no common spiritual view..."