Chapter 55: The Search
Chuck and Casey arrived at the Buy More at noon, which was approximately four hours after Big Mike had stopped being angry and started being the kind of quietly furious that was considerably harder to navigate.
"Big Mike's past the yelling phase," Simon said, when they came through the door. "That's the more dangerous zone."
"Where's Jeff?" Casey said.
"Thumb wrestling with Lester near what used to be the gaming section," Simon said. He pointed to the two men sitting on the bare concrete floor of the emptied store. "They've been at it for forty minutes."
Casey crossed the floor at a pace that communicated nothing good and inserted himself into Jeff and Lester's afternoon with the conversational warmth of a man who had none. Thirty seconds later he was directing them toward the home theater room with a grip on each of their collars.
Simon pulled Chuck aside. "What's happening?"
Chuck ran it quickly: twenty-nine listening devices found inside the Buy More during last night's sweep. Short-range receivers — whatever they were transmitting to had to be physically inside the building. The most likely candidate was the Piranha fish tank that had lived in Big Mike's office and had been inexplicably removed during the overnight emptying.
"Jeff and Lester took the fish," Chuck said. "Along with everything else, apparently, because they're Jeff and Lester."
"And the receiver is inside the fish?"
"We think so."
"Okay," Simon said. "Good luck."
Chuck went toward Big Mike's office, which was now functioning as an interview room for the police detective who had been patiently working through the employee roster all morning.
Twenty minutes later, Chuck and Casey came back out of the home theater room at a pace that meant they'd gotten an answer and it wasn't the one they wanted.
"Morgan has the fish," Chuck said.
"Of course he does," Simon said.
"Have you seen him?"
"Bartle-ski!" Big Mike appeared in his office doorway with the energy of a man who had been counting down to this moment. "You're next."
Chuck looked at Simon.
"I'll find Morgan," Simon said. "Go."
Chuck went into the office. The door closed.
Casey and Simon looked at each other.
"Morgan," Casey said.
"Morgan," Simon confirmed.
They found him near the loading dock, which was now just a loading dock rather than a loading dock behind a stockroom, sitting with his knees up and a look on his face that suggested he was processing something significant.
Casey and Simon flanked him with the coordinated ease of two people who had, at various points, coordinated in situations considerably more demanding than this.
"Hey," Morgan said. "What's up, guys?"
Casey crouched in front of him. "The fish. Where is it."
Morgan looked between them. "What fish?"
"Morgan." Casey's voice had the quality it had when he was deciding how patient to be. "I'm going to ask you one more time."
"I genuinely don't know what—"
"We don't have time," Simon said. He crouched down to Morgan's level. "Morgan. I'm going to skip the intimidation sequence, because I think you know something and you're holding onto it for a reason, and I'd rather know what the reason is."
Morgan looked at him.
"What did you hear?" Simon said.
Morgan's expression shifted — from deflective to something more complicated. "I heard them talking about Chuck," he said. "About him leaving. About how the situation—" He stopped. "You guys are moving him somewhere, aren't you. Something happened and now he's going somewhere and he's not telling me because he doesn't want me to — and the fish, the fish is just the thing I could actually hold onto, you know? Like if I had the fish and you needed the fish then you'd have to—"
"Morgan," Simon said.
"Yeah."
"Whatever is happening with Chuck," Simon said carefully, "it's not finalized. And Chuck not telling you something isn't Chuck deciding you don't matter. It's Chuck trying to protect you from information that would complicate your life." He held Morgan's eye. "You know him. You know that's how he operates."
Morgan was quiet for a moment.
"The fish is in the hot dog restaurant's walk-in cooler," he said. "Lizzie let me put it in there this morning because I didn't know what else to do with it."
Casey stood up.
"I'll handle Big Mike," Simon said. "Go get the fish."
Casey went.
Simon found Big Mike.
"Casey had to step out," Simon said. "Something came up with the detective's request."
Big Mike looked at him. "Why does everything here always have something that just came up?"
"It's retail," Simon said. "Something's always coming up."
Big Mike pointed at him. "You. Interview room. Now."
Simon went.
Casey was out the door and across the parking lot in the direction of the hot dog restaurant before Simon had finished his own interview.
Simon emerged twenty minutes later, nodded to the detective, and crossed the lot himself.
The hot dog restaurant was a small counter-service place that had occupied its spot in the retail strip for as long as the Buy More had been there. Simon had eaten there approximately once, found it acceptable, and moved on.
Sarah was behind the counter in her cover uniform when he came in.
"Where's the walk-in?" Simon said.
She pointed. "Behind the kitchen. What's happening?"
"The fish is in there. It has the receiver."
She was already moving.
"Watch the counter," she said over her shoulder.
Simon stepped behind the counter and looked at the menu posted on the wall. A man came in thirty seconds later and ordered a chili dog. Simon made the chili dog with the competence of someone who had once worked a grill and had not forgotten how.
The man seemed satisfied.
The bell above the door rang again.
Simon looked up.
The woman who came in was in her mid-twenties, carrying a takeout bag from somewhere else, wearing a uniform from the taqueria two doors down. She was attractive in a specific, deliberate way — the way of someone who had learned that being noticed for how they looked was a useful professional tool.
Simon recognized her face.
Not personally — he'd seen her around the strip. She delivered for the taqueria. He'd clocked her twice in the past month in ways that hadn't seemed significant at the time.
The Intersect gave him something now.
Fulcrum asset. Embedded cover, six months minimum. Primary objective: monitor Bartowski operation.
Simon smiled the smile of a counter-service employee who was filling in for a colleague.
"Can I help you?" he said.
She looked at him with a micro-expression of surprise — she'd expected Sarah, or someone else, and had gotten Simon. "I think I left something in the walk-in cooler," she said. "I know the woman who works here, she let me use it earlier."
"The cooler's being used right now," Simon said. "Staff only at the moment. Can I help you with something else?"
She looked at the door behind the counter.
Then at Simon.
"I'll wait," she said. She smiled. "It'll just be a minute."
Simon put his hands on the counter and looked at her pleasantly.
The taqueria bag was in her right hand. Her right hand was inside the bag. There was a particular way of carrying a bag when you were holding something in it that didn't want to be visible, and she was carrying it that way.
"Of course," he said. "No rush."
He kept his eyes on her face.
She kept her eyes on the door to the kitchen.
The situation had about thirty seconds of comfortable pretense left in it before one of them stopped pretending.
"Got it — and Devon's ring is in here too—"
Sarah came through the kitchen door at a pace that was faster than relaxed and stopped short when she saw the woman at the counter.
Both women looked at each other for exactly one second with the mutual recognition of people who had been occupying the same operational space and had just confirmed that the other one knew it.
Simon moved.
He was around the counter and between the woman and the kitchen door before Sarah had finished processing the situation — not to block, but to change the geometry, because the woman's hand was still in the bag and changing the geometry cost her the clean angle she'd had.
"Here's the thing," Simon said, to the woman, conversationally. "You came in for the receiver. We have the receiver. Sarah's holding it." He glanced at Sarah, who was holding a compact electronic device in one hand and a red ring box in the other. "So whatever you were planning to do with what's in that bag — you're too late. And we're in a public space with a police detective ninety feet away doing interviews."
He spread his hands.
"I'd suggest just leaving," he said. "But that's your call."
The woman looked at him. At Sarah. At the device.
The calculation ran.
She took her hand out of the bag.
She walked out.
Simon watched the door close behind her.
Sarah set the device on the counter. Then the ring box.
She looked at Simon.
"She was Fulcrum," Simon said. "She'll report the receiver is compromised. Probably pulls back to an alternative position."
"I know," Sarah said. She picked up the ring box and turned it over. "Devon was proposing tonight."
"He still can," Simon said. "Ring's right there."
Sarah looked at it.
"Chuck needs to know about her," she said.
"I know."
"How did you know she was—"
Simon looked at her steadily. "I pay attention," he said.
Sarah studied him with the specific look she used when she was deciding whether the answer she'd received was the complete answer.
It wasn't.
She decided not to push it.
"Thank you," she said. "For the counter. And the rest."
"Send the invoice to Casey," Simon said. "He knows where to find me."
He went back to the Buy More.
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