“Have we fooled you before?” Foreman asked, folding his arms in front of him as he leaned next to the window.
“Not you, specifically,” I said, “but one of your employees, apparently, since you just admitted the Directorate was your metahuman policing unit.”
“Unofficially,” Foreman said with a smile. “It generated its own revenue, had no ownership ties that could bind it to the government, and didn’t share a single employee with us.”
I puckered my lips and moved them to the side, contemplating. “But you gave them sanction?”
He bobbed his head. “We gave Erich Winter the latitude to do what needed to be done in that department. We provided him with full access to our databases, allowed him to use our agencies to create covers for his operatives, opened the door for him to do insider trading with government intel so he could keep the Directorate funded, and gave him a free hand to do what we couldn’t after the Agency was destroyed. Imagine our surprise when he went rogue on us.” Foreman gave me an unsubtle look. “I suppose you know a little of what that feels like.”
I felt a subtle pressure of my teeth grinding together. Except it wasn’t subtle at all. “Yes. I know what it feels like to be betrayed by Erich Winter.”
“Like I said, we’re in a bind.” Foreman pushed off the wall and drew up to his full height. “See, we’ve read the tea leaves—also known as the screaming of every single intelligence agency with any intelligence at all, planetwide—and we know the basics of what’s happening in the meta world right now. But knowing what’s coming without having the means to stop it is pretty damned useless.”
“You want me to join you so I can be the means?” The weight of the handcuffs seemed to have vanished.
He nodded his head by inclining it sideways. “It’d be awfully tough for me to fight Century all by my lonesome.”
“Give it a go,” I said. “It could be fun.”
Foreman grinned. “I don’t think so.” The smile vanished. “I’m not fond of the idea of giving a murderer an out, but I like it a lot better than the idea of walking into a fight with an organization composed of a hundred of the world’s mightiest without at least one top-scaler on our own side. Especially when that top-scaler seems to be one that Century has taken a keen interest in for some reason. No, I like to hedge my bets, gamble as safely as possible.”
I let it get quiet for a minute while I thought about what he was saying. “If I jump through your hoops and join your little version of Directorate, Part Deux ... once this is over, I get to walk free?”
Foreman looked suddenly wary. “You’ll be given a pardon for any laws you may have broken while in the Directorate’s employ and afterward, specifically with regard to the murders of M-Squad and Zack Davis because in a legalistic sense you did kill him, even if you didn’t do it in a moral sense. You’ll also be given a lot of free rein in the performance of your duties, meaning if you accidentally were to cause a civilian death in the course of fighting off this Century plot, or if you were to kill every single one of the members of that organization, you wouldn’t be charged with those crimes—though you will be subject to oversight.”
He paused, and I couldn’t help but see the appeal of what he was offering. Still, I said nothing. He spoke again. “Let’s think about this for a minute and assume somehow you broke out of custody sometime in the near future. You’d be on the run, the full weight of the United States law enforcement apparatus hunting you down. Let me tell you something: it ain’t that easy to hide within our borders anymore when everyone’s looking for you, not for long. You could try running to another country, but there aren’t that many without extradition treaties that’d harbor you. Plus, you’d still have Century after you. If you want to fight them,” he took a step toward me, looking down, arms still folded, “your best chance is with us.”
I looked up at him and the staring contest recommenced. He was right, of course. Even if I broke out, the FBI would have a task force sniffing after me within hours. Air travel would become a virtual impossibility, which meant I’d be down to stealing cars and driving cross country like ... I paused, and thought of Mom, who had done something similar not that long ago. I put the thought out of my mind and focused back on Foreman. “If I do this, I walk free at the end?”
“If you help us stop Century from carrying out their plot, you will get your pardon, you have my word,” Foreman said.
I wasn’t much for trusting the word of a stranger at this point, but what choice did I have? I was bound hand and foot by metal cuffs, unable to move or walk effectively. Hell, I could just barely shake his hand if he were to offer it to me right now, and this was how it was going to be from now on. I looked from side to side, weighing my other options, which were laughable. My other option—and there was only one—was to say no. “What happens if I say no?”