with a drink in one hand and a glower in his eye. The lines of the black face were sharp, and lacked the usual smile of familiarity that Jake had come to know. The drink was obviously something Susan had planned to take the edge off of Laney’s smoldering anger. Even though it was late, he was dressed to crisp perfection as usual.
“So, Bob Trask makes another appearance,” Laney said when Jake crossed the room. “Or is it really Jake Waters, or maybe even Stan Mathews?”
Laney knew of him as Bob Trask, although had never learned of just who Trask really was, at least not in a way where he retained the memories when all was done. Jake had always looped around events to clean up such awareness so that only he and Susan knew the full extent of his involvement. They had taken great care that only Susan was aware of the Jake Waters name. Laney, of course, knew of Stan Mathews. He and Susan had worked for several years trying to locate the mysterious killer who had committed crimes around the country before he had simply disappeared a couple of years ago. The fact that Jake was Mathews, and that Susan had kept the knowledge from him, was one reason that Laney had to be so upset.
“Look, Laney,” Jake said, standing close to the angry agent.
“You look,” Laney interrupted. “My inclination is to pull out my gun and arrest you on the spot. Only because Susan insists that you are essential to stopping this terrorist threat and I respect her opinion and have been her partner for a long time that I’m not doing that. She has told me a tale I can hardly believe. When this is over, however, we are going to resolve this once and for all.”
“I know you feel betrayed,” Jake said, “but whatever Susan did, she did it because I made it a condition of working with her. I operated alone as Stan Mathews for years because I didn’t trust my secret with others, and when Susan learned of me, we agreed I could be more effective working through her. But I insisted on maintaining my secrecy. This particular event changed that, and as a result, you were the second person who became aware of what I could do and shared the secret.”
“You’re saying I was willing to overlook the crimes you are guilty of. I don’t see myself doing that.”
“You came to understand that what I was doing was saving the lives of dozens of innocent people, the only way I could. That was what mattered.”
“This was done somehow with a marvelous ability that Susan has told me about that you conveniently are unable to demonstrate at the moment?” Laney asked.
“Unfortunately, that is the case,” Jake agreed. “In the past you have always learned about me and had a hard demonstration that my claims are true. This is the first time you’ve been faced with taking it all on faith. Hopefully with Susan to back me up, you are willing to accept for now.”
“And if I believe you’ve somehow conned Susan?” Laney asked. “What if I don’t believe all this foolishness?”
Jake looked at the dark angry eyes of the agent. He turned to Susan.
“I made a mistake,” Jake said. “I shouldn’t have had you bring him in early. I should have let his awareness come slowly as it did the last time around. It’s just that Laney and I have worked so well together of late, and with the added burden of watching for those who are likely to find out about me, I believed this would be for the best. Clearly, I was wrong.”
“Perhaps you should pair with someone else this time around?” Carlson asked.
Jake shook his head. “That’s a major change. I’m not sure how it will play out that way, and unfortunately, the ability to fix mistakes isn’t available as it’s been in the past.”
“Can you even do this?” Susan asked. “That ability has been all that made things work before.”
“Clearly, the answer would be no if I hadn’t already done this. I think I can use the information gained last time, to function as if I were back-tracking. If that fails, then we will have to hope simply revealing what is going on and going straight to the source of the problem won’t have adverse consequences.”
Susan shifted her gaze from Jake to Laney. “Jim, you’ve got to try to make this work. For me, for all of us.