Evenfall (59 page)

She had been eyeing his family for most of his life but it had grown even more pronounced the last few years. He was fairly certain she'd witnessed a time he and Lou had messed around in the living room, one night when they'd forgotten to close the shades. The memory was bittersweet and filled with the weight of loss, and he sighed when he put his car into reverse. He couldn't think too much about Lou or the pain of it all would distract him during the meeting.

When he walked into the conference room, he saw that most of them were already there and seated. He paused very briefly before deciding to take his usual spot at Sin's side.

"Hey Boyd," Ryan greeted him with a smile.

"Hi," Boyd replied. He sat back in the chair, his fingers absently tightening around the flash drive in his pocket the way they had on and off since he'd been given the information. He was anxious to give it over to Carhart.

"I'm busy right after this," Ryan said quietly, when the door opened and Carhart came in. "But can I call you later? I wanted to see if we could set up a training thing like we talked about before."

"Of course," Boyd said with a nod, although his eyes strayed to Carhart like a magnet. The flash drive was burning a hole in his mind. He was tempted to give it to Carhart immediately but decided to wait until the appropriate time.

"I was think--"

"First of all, good job Boyd," Carhart cut Ryan off as soon as he sat down.

He glanced over at Jeffrey and nodded. The analyst seemed to take that as a cue because he began going through whatever documents he had before him. Jeffrey was one of the rare people who still preferred paperwork to electronic copies in some circumstances.

"Not only did Thierry come through for us for the first time, but you managed to develop a romantic relationship with him that may be helpful to us in the future."

Jeffrey's fingers paused briefly in flipping through his papers and he looked sidelong at Carhart before returning his gaze to Boyd with a raised eyebrow. He somehow managed to look disparaging and smug at once, without saying a single word. Meanwhile, Ryan looked at Boyd in surprise, his expression mirrored by Owen.

Boyd kept his expression perfectly blank, although he couldn't help a spike of irritation by the cavalier way Carhart had mentioned that. He hadn't planned to tell everyone since it wasn't really anyone's business anyway. And as far as that went, what did he mean by it being helpful in the future? He hoped Carhart simply meant they could play on the way Thierry had seemed to like him, and not that they expected any of that to happen again.

He dug into his pocket, wondering also why Carhart seemed so confident about information they hadn't even seen yet. The flash drive had been too heavily encrypted for Boyd to even know what was on it. He avoided eye contact with the others and held the flash drive out to Carhart.

"Do you want this now or later?"

"Jeffrey will take it. He's been decoding the information since early yesterday, but it is always good to have a hard copy."

Boyd felt the room go still around him. Early yesterday? How could they possibly... The flash drive felt heavy in his hand as he stared at Carhart.

"Yesterday?" His voice came out surprisingly even considering the way his mind was racing.

The General nodded, not seeming to notice anything was amiss. "Yes, Thierry e-mailed the information early yesterday morning. We haven't gotten far yet, but judging from the level of encryption-- well, Jeffrey can explain it."

Sin turned his head and stared at Boyd for a long moment before letting his pale green eyes drift away.

The information made Boyd's mouth go dry and he dropped his hand to the table, the flash drive still clutched in his hand. When he calculated the time difference in his head, that meant Thierry must have sent it to the Agency after their lunch but before Boyd had gone to his loft.

Anger coursed through Boyd. That bastard. Thierry had refused to talk business and had strung Boyd along until he'd felt the crunch of time-- until Thierry's advances had been what Boyd had felt were his sole hope for getting the information-- And all along it had already been sent?

Had the wine been to make him more compliant? All that talk that had made Boyd feel sympathetic toward him, all those times Thierry had changed the subject to a topic that Boyd could identify with, all those times Thierry had acted like he liked Boyd--

Had anything been real or had he been playing Boyd all along?

He'd gotten Boyd to have sex with him based on needing information he'd already sent, and then had the audacity to ask Boyd whether it had all been about work for him-- and Boyd had even felt bad for the man. He'd felt like he was the one being an asshole by not reciprocating affection toward Thierry-- affection he was now doubting had ever been anything more than part of a carefully crafted game.

All that second-guessing and the hesitation and the arguments with Sin and the possible degradation of their partnership-- for nothing. For a man who'd manipulated everything just so he could fuck an agent he wanted to fuck-- And the whole time Boyd had known Thierry was known to be manipulative, he'd known he could be a seducer, but he'd thought he'd been in control. He'd thought it was the only choice he had...

He felt like he'd been punched in the gut. He sat back in his chair, hardly hearing a word of the meeting around him as he brooded about how furious and disgusted he was with the entire situation.

He started paying attention around the point that Jeffrey talked about the information more in detail.

"There are essentially two files I'll need to decrypt; what looks like a public-key cryptosystem and a one-time pad. The public-key will take a bit but I should be able to crack it. But the OTP will be a hassle." He looked up at Carhart with a serious look. "If they did that right, it's unbreakable."

Carhart stared at him flatly. "So then it's pointless?"

"Not necessarily," Jeffrey replied, straightening his back and looking very much in his element. "Thierry plays games but I doubt even he would have given us information we could not decipher. I have some ideas for dealing with this, including checking into some extra files on here that may be nothing. If I were a betting man, I'd say I'm going to have to decipher both main files and somehow combine the information between the two before I can fully understand what exactly is on here. But this is the level of encryption I would expect from Janus, so it lends credence to the idea that it may be legitimate. I just won't know until I'm done."

There was a brief silence as Carhart rubbed his chin and seemed to take in this information. "How long are we looking at?"

Jeffrey shook his head and pushed a sheet of paper back in place on top of the pile. "Hard to say, sir. It could be weeks; it could be months..." His lips turned down on the edges. "If I didn't have access to the sort of equipment I do here at the Agency, it could have potentially been years. A lot of it depends on how difficult or random the algorithms are. The one thing I know for sure is the OTP will take awhile. I'll have to rely on Thierry to have given us a clue for that or we will get nowhere with it. But I'm confident I can figure something out."

The General shook his head in disgust. "Leave it to that bastard to give us information that may be out of date by the time it's decrypted. I guess we will just have to take it on faith that he didn't screw us."

Jeffrey smirked at that and looked over at Boyd; his tone light when he spoke. "Oh, I think some of it could be taken for fact."

Boyd's eyes narrowed slightly but he didn't say anything.

The rest of the debriefing passed without incident, although Boyd noticed Jeffrey glancing at him in amusement now and then. He seemed to have taken some amount of delight in knowing what had happened between Thierry and Boyd. When the debriefing ended, Ryan reminded him about calling but had to rush off. Carhart and Owen were next, with Jeffrey glancing over his shoulder with a smirk one last time.

Boyd hadn't felt like walking out with any of them so he let them all leave. He planned to do the same with Sin, but his partner didn't leave right away. After a second of waiting, Boyd stood and turned to go.

"I hope you realize how badly you fucked yourself," Sin's deep voice rang out.

Boyd was half tempted to keep walking but Sin's words made him pause and look over his shoulder. "What do you mean?"

Sin scoffed and looked at him flatly, pushing his chair back to stand. "I mean you should have listened to me instead of disregarding what I had to say."

Boyd shook his head impatiently. He felt like he'd already received enough slaps in the face with what he'd learned and the looks he'd received during the mission. He didn't want to have to stand around while Sin rubbed it in his face even more.

"Look, if you just wanted to keep me behind to tell me I told you so, I don't see why we need to talk about it. You said I would regret it. Knowing now how everything turned out, I do." He spread his hands. "Happy?"

Sin shrugged as he looked at Boyd scornfully, moving around the table to approach him. He looked his partner up and down, green eyes moving over him slowly before focusing on Boyd's face once again.

"It's strange how I thought I had you figured out, only to realize you're nothing like you appeared to be."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Boyd asked, irritation rising. He wanted to walk out of there but for some reason couldn't; not with Sin talking to him. "Weren't you the one trying to get me to go off with that girl in the diner? Why was one time of casual sex so acceptable to you there but suddenly so terrible when I made a mistake thinking I had to do it with Thierry?"

"Because doing something for yourself, and doing something for the Agency are entirely different things, you idiot." Sin stopped and stared at Boyd before shaking his head. "You pretty much submitted a resume to become a valentine, and you're attempting to compare that to sleeping with a waitress?"

"Valentine?" Boyd echoed blankly. The term sounded only vaguely familiar to him. "What are you talking about?"

There was a long silence as Sin glared at him with increasing impatience and hostility. "You are the worst. So willing to do anything for the cause, but you don't even know basic things about the cause you're rushing off to do anything for."

He walked closer to Boyd, until they were once again face to face. Sin raised his eyebrows, not looking at all sympathetic as he said coldly, "A valentine is a usually young, more attractive than average field operative who is sent on missions that require things of a sexual nature. And you put your name in the fucking hat."

Boyd's eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. "What?" he burst out incredulously. "Why the hell would they-- But no one ever said anything about that. I don't want to have my name in for that kind of assignment."

"Too late, idiot. You basically asked for the title. Why the hell do you think I kept telling you not to do it? Because I was so desperate to ensure that you stay chaste?"

"Well a little more fucking information would have been helpful," Boyd shot back testily. Although he was largely angry with himself, he couldn't help lashing out at Sin. He made an easy target for his frustration. "I just thought you were pissed at me because it involved Thierry and the Agency, neither of which you seem to like. Why didn't you mention valentines before instead of being so vague in your warnings?"

Sin gave him another unimpressed stare. Judging from the look on his face, he seemed to think Boyd was a hopeless idiot.

"Because I didn't know you were completely ignorant. Don't blame me because you were so quick to fuck for information. I tried to warn you, and you didn't want to hear what I had to say. Take responsibility for your own bullshit. Or maybe next time, inquire as to why I'm so against it instead of just assuming whatever nonsense it was that you assumed."

Boyd grit his teeth and he looked away with his arms crossed. His eyebrows drew down broodingly, his eyes narrowing. He felt so incredibly frustrated by everything that had happened that he didn't even know what to do with the overwhelming feelings.

And the worst part was that he really didn't have anyone to push the blame on. He was furious with Thierry for manipulating him like that, for being so evasive and playing with Boyd until he was put in a position where he thought he had no choice. But he was also upset with himself for the possibility of that one mistake becoming something that could haunt him. With Thierry not there and himself otherwise to blame, there was no release for his anger and frustration.

After a moment he restlessly pushed his hair back from his face. "Well-- How do I tell them not to mark me that way? I only meant it to be a one-time thing, and even then it was because of the circumstances."

This earned him a completely incredulous stare and Sin grabbed his arm, appearing to lose all patience with him. "Don't you get it? Are you fucking oblivious? It's not up to you. Now that you put the idea in the air, they'll take it and run."

"But there has to be something I can do," Boyd nearly shouted back, the frustration making his eyes shine when he stared up at Sin. He jerked at his arm and made a sharp gesture while his other hand curled into a fist. His body thrummed with tension. "I don't know, a-- a review board, or-- what if I talked to General Carhart? What if he put in a word for me? I'd be terrible at that kind of assignment. They wouldn't even want me for it anyway. There has to be some sort of oversight that I can contact or lobby... Even if it's the Marshal."