Wooster didn’t move to shake the hand that had been offered to him. He simply left it to hang in the air until Gabriel allowed it to fall. Screw you, he thought. Screw you, and Vallance, and good manners. Screw you all.
“You haven’t answered my question,” said Wooster.
“I’m here as a guest of Special Agent Vallance.”
“You work for the government.”
“I supply services to the government, yes.”
That wasn’t the same thing, and Wooster knew it. He was smart enough to grasp the underlying meaning of what had just been said. Suddenly, he got the sense that he was very much out of his depth, and that however angry he was, it would be unwise to ask any more questions of Gabriel. He had been trussed up like a hog ready for the spit. All that remained was for someone to shove a spike in his ass and all the way up through his mouth, and Wooster intended to avoid that fate at all costs, even if it meant giving up the boy.
He sat down in his office chair and opened a file. He didn’t notice what it was, and he didn’t read what was written on its pages.
“Take him,” he said. “He’s all yours.”
“Thank you, Chief,” said Gabriel. “Once again, my apologies for any inconvenience caused.”
Wooster didn’t look up. He heard them leave his office, and the door close softly behind them. Chief Wooster. The big fish. Well, he’d just been shown the reality of his situation. He was a little fish in a small pond who’d somehow drifted into deep waters, and a shark had flashed its teeth at him.
He stared at the closed office door, visualizing again the wall beyond, the observation room behind it, and the boy in his cell, except now it was Gabriel watching him, not Wooster. Sharks. Deep waters. Unknown things coiling and uncoiling in their depths. Gabriel watching the boy, the boy watching Gabriel, until the two blended together to become a single organism that lost itself in a blood-dark sea.