“You can’t be on your laptop,” Dane said.
I spoke directly into the phone. He would have heard the exchange. “Eamon, it sounds like you’re behind and trying to catch up.”
“We’re leveling the playing field.”
That was as close to an admission as Eamon Price would get.
“Keep us updated,” Dane said.
“Every thirty. Sooner if anything moves. If you don’t hear from me by the half hour, assume disrupted comms and reduce your footprint. Don’t open the door for a runner you don’t recognize. Reed has the list.”
The line went dead.
Wiley sat back hard on the couch. He leaned back and looked up at the ceiling.
Cabot let his shoulders drop into the back of his chair.
Dane didn’t sit. He moved back to his angle at the corner, sightlines reestablished.
“I should call Samuel,” Wiley said to the ceiling.
“You can’t,” Dane said.
“I know that. I was only naming what I should be doing. Naming and doing are different things.”
“I was thinking the same about my mother,” Cabot said.
“Does your mother know you’re working?” Wiley asked him.
“My mother knows I’m always working. She considers it a character flaw.”
“Mine considers it a calling. I prefer your mother.”
I went back to stand by the window.
I practiced looking around the room without focusing on anything. The standard rule was not to look at your focus. Either look past it or around it.
Then, I turned to the window and pulled a different slat aside just enough to see out. Across the street, a man came out of the house directly opposite, locked the door with one hand, and started down the steps. He wore a brown leather jacket. Mid-fifties and glasses. He turned south toward Beacon.
A second man came around the far corner from Charles, walking north. Mid-forties with a dark coat and empty hands.
It wasn’t the watcher, but they shopped at the same Men’s Wearhouse. This man had a different jaw and a different stride. He walked past the front of the house and kept his eyes forward. He didn’t look at the house or the window before he disappeared around the corner.
“They’re rotating,” I said.
Dane crossed to me. There was nothing left to see. I turned back to the room.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“It was a different man. Same body type, but a different walk.”
“They already know we’re here.”
“They do,” I said. “Now they’re confirming.”
A cold sensation settled at the base of my spine. We weren’t waiting for the Harcourt wedding. We were already part of it.
Dane addressed the room. “We operate on the assumption that the perimeter is hostile. Reed remains at the front. He will check the courtyard gate every fifteen minutes . I will check my phone every fifteen minutes . Otherwise, no phones or digital traffic of any kind.”