in his late twenties, primly dressed in a pressed mint shirt and slacks, with something hard in his eyes. Questioning more than welcoming, as he gave the newcomers a once-over.
“Morning,” he said to his only customers. “Looking for something in particular, or browsing today?”
“Looking for something in a particular pattern,” Nell told him.
“If we don’t have it, we can probably order it. We have traditional Kashan rugs, floral Tabriz—”
“The Rebellious Stripes,” she said.
His sales patter fell silent. His hand drifted left of the cash register. There was a cubbyhole there, out of sight from their side of the counter, big enough for a gun.
“Before you do anything you can’t take back,” Nell told him, “think about this: Dieter Rime works alone.”
He looked from her to Tyler to Seelie and back again. His lips parted, uncertain.
“Who are you?” he said.
“You don’t recognize me?” Nell pretended to take offense. “I mean, I’m the perfect media weapon. I’m amoral, unscrupulous, and I’d shank my own mother for a scoop.”
“Oh,” he said. “Shit.”
Tyler stepped closer to the counter. “We’re not here for a fight. We’re looking for answers. And we’re willing to trade.”
“Trade?”
Nell held up the slender USB stick. She wagged it at him.
“You know what the Loom really is,” she said, “which is why you wanted to use me to throw a wrench in the Weaver Group’s gears. But I bet you don’t have your very own copy. All the criteria they’re using to hunt you people down, all the triggers Arthur tripped to draw Rime’s attention. It’s all right here. The data on this stick could keep the rest of you alive. All we want in return is a little honesty.”
He thought about it, but not for long. He pointed to the door.
“Do me a favor. Lock up, kill the lights, and flip that closed sign around so we’re not interrupted. I’ve got some things to show you.”
The shop lights died with a hollow click. Sunlight glowed through the dusty window, casting the curled rugs in faded bronze. The clerk led the way. He stepped around the counter, waving them to the wall, and crouched to lift the bottom corner of a dangling rug. It was the one Seelie had noticed before, and now a faint breeze—and the rattling hum of an electric fan—washed through the concealed gap. A narrow stairway veered sharply left, heading downward.
“You know who we are?” he asked, wooden steps creaking under his shoes.
“You’re the Culper Ring,” Seelie said. “The same one George Washington founded, back in the seventeen hundreds.”
He gave a faint chuckle. “Well, not the same one. It’s been a hereditary deal since the war ended, and we pick up new recruits here and there along the way. My dad was a member, and he got sworn in by my grandma. We keep it going. Name’s Clay, by the way.”
“How many of you are left?” Tyler asked.
“Hard to say. We hived off in the eighteen hundreds. Somebody figured it was safer that way. A dozen or so stayed put in New York, a handful went down to Philly, and a few more jetted over to Texas and the West Coast. We’ve been running like rabbits for over two hundred years. Every time we risk open communication…well, that’s like a rabbit sticking his head up when the fox is on the prowl.”
A keypad guarded a stout oak door at the foot of the stairs. Clay shrouded the pad with his cupped hand and tapped a string of numbers in. The pad chimed and the door swung open. The room beyond wasn’t Seelie’s idea of a super-secret spy headquarters. Just an old root cellar, cold stone with a dank, musty smell. Mismatched bookshelves lined one wall, and tables in the heart of the room acted as a stash for notebooks, tablets, maps festooned with a rainbow of highlighter lines. Guns. Seelie’s gaze slid across a small arsenal: compact pistols fitted with sound suppressors, a couple of shotguns, and bricks of plastic explosive wrapped in sleek black mylar. The black iron face of a safe fit snug into the rough stone of the opposite wall. Whatever it was hiding, it was more valuable than the firepower.
“What about three-fifty-five?” Seelie asked. She knew she was jumping the gun, but since yesterday…since yesterday, she’d had magic on her mind.
Clay glanced back and gave her a sly smile. “You know, that was Major Tallmadge’s inside joke. The reason ‘lady’ didn’t get a seven-series number like all the other agents.”