“From now on,” Eamon said, “your movement happens after approval. Your public exposure will be minimal. We need twenty-four hour notice, minimum, of any planned travel. Longer if it’s outside the metro area. That means no coffee with a source because they texted you twenty minutes ago. We assume both your phones are dirty until we’ve cleared them. Same for personal email.”
Wiley shook his head. “Not happening.”
“It’s happening.”
“I can’t work on a leash.”
Eamon’s jaw clenched. “You can’t work from a hospital bed either.”
“You don’t understand how I work—“
“I understand. You meet people who don’t want to be seen meeting you, in places they choose, on no notice, and you go alone because anything else spooks them. I know. That’s the part we have to change.”
“If you take that out, I’m no longer a reporter. I’m funneling press releases.”
Farrow leaned forward and spoke. “Or we work it the other way.”
He drew the attention of everyone in the room.
“If you lock him down, he runs. They both will. He’ll meet a guy in the back room of a Vietnamese place in Fields Corner, and he won’t tell you because that’s the way he’s been working for fifteen years. It’s the only way the source will talk. You’ll find out about it three days later when somebody asks questions.”
Wiley and Cabot said nothing.
“They don’t move without coverage,” I said.
“They move.” Farrow didn’t raise his voice. “That’s what they do. You move with them, or you watch them go.”
I gripped my chair with one hand, but my voice remained calm. “You’re wanting to run this as improvisation.”
“I’m suggesting we be honest.”
Eamon watched the exchange. He was silent for one more beat, and then he closed us down.
“You’re both right. Dane builds a structure that keeps a principal safe when events go south. That’s why he’s a Guardian. You, Farrow, immerse yourself and read the threats before the rest of us. No firm can control that. It’s why you work alone.”
The corner of Farrow’s mouth turned up briefly.
“In this case, we don’t have to pick one,” Eamon said. “We’ll run both with joint coordination. Neither detail runs separately. If you can’t work it that way, tell me now and I’ll find another arrangement.”
“I can work it that way,” Farrow said. “Wiley stays alive. That’s my priority.”
Wiley leaned back and addressed the ceiling. “Wonderful.”
Cabot nodded. “Understood.”
The meeting broke up with no specific announcement. Eamon stood. His phone was already in his hand, and he turned toward the window. Wiley pushed up out of his chair. Cabot sat for another beat.
I stood and arrived at the door at the same moment as Farrow. He didn’t crowd me, but he moved close.
“We need to talk,” he said, meant only for me.
“Not here.”
He looked past me as Wiley stepped forward and spoke louder. “You and me are going to be trouble, Fletcher.”
It wasn’t a warning. He said it loudly enough for everyone to hear. He held the door for me on his way through.
Out past the conference-room glass, the harbor had gone a deeper grey and the tanker that had been clearing the channel when we walked in was only a smudge against East Boston now.