Blood List(39)

Despite Paul Renner's unwelcome presence, Carl felt pretty good. They had a massive amount of data, and it felt like they were glutted with clues and leads. It was a pleasant change of pace.

At dinnertime most of the team called it a day. While the others went out to eat or to their hotel rooms for some shuteye, Carl stayed behind. He worked with Sam to create bulk classifications for the data. After ninety minutes, Carl yawned and looked at the clock. He hadn't done anything productive in two minutes.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"I think I'm going to cut out, grab a bite, call my wife, and get some sleep. It's been a long day."

"No worries. We're about past where I need you anyway. I'll wrap the rest of this up in the next couple of hours. Should give you a lot more to do on the plane tomorrow."

"Sounds good. Goodnight, Sam."

Sam giggled. "Goodnight, Ralph."

Ralph? Carl thought. Whatever. He shut down his computer and headed out in search of food.



* * *



January 8th, 10:20 AM CST; Central Air Flight 1551; Somewhere over the continental United States.



For all the whining, Paul thought they'd made it through security in no time. The small jet was neither crowded nor cramped and had reasonable legroom even for people using laptop computers. Gene sat in the front, with the most legroom possible to accommodate his swollen feet, the seat next to him empty except for his crutches. Paul found it a little strange how none of the paper files followed the team to D.C. The entire kit and caboodle was now digital. Soon everything everyone has ever known will fit in a wristwatch, he thought.

Not a fan of plane travel even without cracked ribs, Paul had dressed for comfort—elastic-banded jogging pants, an overlarge T-shirt in nondescript gray, and a comfortable pair of tattered Reeboks. He looked more like someone out for a morning run than traveling across the country on a plane stuffed with federal agents.

The team spent their time doing data classification, which to Paul seemed a lot like turning a needle in a haystack into thirty needles in thirty haystacks. Only in this case haystacks are called "bulk classifications." Apparently there were computers in D.C. that automated much of the process, but it still looked like a never-ending pile to Paul. The manual boredom of the previous day became digital boredom.

After an hour of click-drag-drop ad nauseum, Paul stood to stretch his legs and rest his eyes, if only for a moment. A mini-fridge sat at the front of First Class, right next to the cockpit door, so he grabbed himself a can of Coke, flashing his eyebrows at Gene as he slid past. Jerri looked up when he popped the tab, and, as Paul slurped his first taste, she signaled for him to bring her one.

He grabbed a second can, ignored the look of reproach from the stewardess, shut the fridge with his foot, and walked to the back of the cabin. "Thanks," Jerri said as she took the offered beverage. Paul noted that she didn't look at him with the disgust or disdain of the past few days. At least for this fleeting moment, he had evolved in her mind from pond scum to guy-who-grabbed-her-a-Coke. Looks like I'm moving up in the world.

He sat next to her and looked at her screen. She was working on the same thing they all were, sorting data and shoving it into piles. Click-drag-drop. More as a reason to forestall a retreat back to his own private click-drag-drop hell than to start a conversation, he said, "How long is this step supposed to take?"

"Oh, I don't know," Jerri said. "As long as it does. I hope we're done before we land, but probably not. Not too long after, anyway."

"What was that?"

Jerri looked from her screen to Paul's face. "What was what?"

"You just looked at my hands, shuddered, and looked away. Why?"

"I—" She paused. "I probably shouldn't get into it."

"Does it have something to do with why you asked me about the Burnhardt job?" Paul could tell he had hit a nerve.

"Mr. Renner—"

"Call me Paul."

"Mr. Renner, you strangled a man to death with your bare hands." Her shudder was more pronounced this time. "Frankly, I find your hands to be positively creepy."

"Why?" Paul asked, holding them up for examination. "They're just hands. Just like yours, or Gene's, or anyone else's."

"Look, even if I found myself in a position where I was going to kill someone, I could never choke the life out of them. It's too…personal."

Paul grunted as his ribs shifted. "I told you yesterday that was a CIA job." He leaned in a little, almost too close to her. "Let me educate you a little about my industry." He tried not to sound patronizing. "There are three types of contracts. Dead, looks-like-an-accident dead, and CIA dead. Most CIA jobs are just another version of the first two types, but sometimes they insist on a certain method. Daniel Burnhardt was one of those cases." Jerri opened her mouth to ask a question, but he kept talking. "I don't know why, I don't ask why, and Langley doesn't tell why.