It took Eli another half hour to actually sit at his desk and look at the files. After all, there was mediocre coffee to consume, stale snacks to hunt for, other agents to avoid…

“Are these all of them?” Eli picked up the stack and frowned. It was thinner than he had expected.

“All the ones you requested,” Dawn said, typing furiously away at the desk behind him. “Hey, I never did ask—how did you get Beake that false tip at the museum?”

Eli cleared his throat to fight down a blush, grateful that their chairs faced away from each other. “Would rather not talk about the museum again, honestly. I’m sure the full report will be out soon, if you want to read that and re-live my mistakes in detail. Could make a drinking game of it, if you want.”

For once, Dawn didn’t push him. “Fair. Let me know if you need access to anything else.”

“Sure.”

Eli set aside his coffee and began to organize the folders. It had taken some verbal gymnastics, but across the three days of de-briefing, he had managed to avoid telling the agency about the dance with Beake. Wouldn’t have looked good in the report, he told himself.

He had also omitted Beake’s last words to him, which the other agents in the alley hadn’t heard. No mind control, he had said. Eli tapped his pen against the desk. That would have looked even more damaging in the report—not against him or Beake, but against Pearce.

He pushed the words aside. The man had been under the influence of icefall when he said it—a lot of icefall, if the glowing veins were any indication. Eli knew better than to believe anyone chugging that much of the addictive, unstable substance.

For a brief moment, he felt the pressure of Beake’s fingers against his wrists, how they had tightened when he had spoken. Eli shook out his hands, ran them through his hair, and opened the first folder.

#

The folders didn’t take long to get through—Eli had been through most of them several times since he had taken the Icefall case, and thanks to his failures, the agency hadn’t added much to it since.

Beake’s file was nothing but an extensive name-drop of illegal organizations, all dedicated to icefall retrieval and experimentation. There were photos of him in Brazil, in France, in Turkey, hopping from team to team as one dissolved and another took its place. Eli thumbed through one of the most recent files. The last organization he had been affiliated with had fractured two years ago when its leader was captured by the agency. Beake had unfortunately escaped arrest.

“This the latest file you have on affiliations?” He held up the folder. Dawn glanced at it.

“Yep.”

“Hm.” He tossed the folder back on the desk. A moment later, Dawn rolled up next to him in her desk chair.

“Whatcha thinking?”

Eli chewed his nail. “He’s technically a lone wolf, right?”

“Sort of.” Dawn shrugged. “No employer, but we know he has a team.”

“But we’ve got next to nothing on them.” He pulled out a single grainy photo of Beake standing next to an old woman with curly hair. “One photo, no names, no estimate on headcount.”

Dawn sipped her coffee. “Pearce seemed to think he has at least twenty operatives.”

Something about that didn’t sit right with Eli. After all, Lorenz hadn’t pin-pointed a single enemy agent at the museum. Not a one.

And Lorenz didn’t miss a thing.

“Operatives, sure. But I want to know about the core team.” Eli gestured to the photo. “Like this woman. If we could find her, get some information…”

Dawn choked on her drink. “You kidnapping little old ladies now?”

Eli shot her a look. “She’s working with Beake, how little old lady can she be?” He waved a hand. “Whatever. Let me just…let me work backwards for a second.”

Eli flipped his way to the beginning of Beake’s file, where he was hardly a footnote in a report on an early icefall organization. A base agent, a grunt, it seemed, with not nearly as many sins under his belt.

But grunts never started out that way.

“Hey, Dawn…” It was his turn to roll his chair over to her desk, where she was on her third cup of coffee. He picked up one of the empty cups and shook it. “Okay, first off, I’m concerned about this. We haven’t even hit lunch yet.”

“Shut up.” She took the cup from his hand, set it away from him, and resumed typing. “What do you want?”

“What do we have on Beake before his illegal activity?”

She frowned, then pulled up his file on her computer. Scrolled up to the top. Typed in a few keywords. “Nothing, I guess.”

“Seriously?” Eli leaned against the back of the chair. “Come on, the last three people I brought in, I could find out what their favorite color was when they were in kindergarten. Right now, it looks like Beake didn’t even exist seven years ago.”

“I’m sure we’ve got something.” Dawn ran another search, then recoiled at an angry-looking pop-up. “Huh. I…don’t have access.”

The mediocre coffee was starting to give Eli a headache. “But you’ve got access to everything.”

“Not this, apparently.”

“How about the previous agents on the Icefall case?” Eli asked. “They’ve gotta have something.”

Dawn nodded and ran another search. Same pop-up. Another name, then another, all without results. “What the…”

She squinted at the screen, tapped her chin, then turned to Eli. They looked at each other for a moment, as if the reason for the restriction was written on the other person’s face.

Eli was first to break the silence. “I’m gonna call Pearce.”

“Bad idea.”

“What? I need the info.” He rolled back to his desk and picked up the phone, tapping in a number without looking at the console.

“What is it, Valenz,” Pearce answered flatly. Eli ignored the tone. Pearce’s anger burned hot, but fast. He’d get over the museum in a day or two. Maybe.

“Hey, I need everything we have on Beake from eight years ago and earlier. Can you get me clearance?”

Pearce paused. Dawn quietly rolled up to Eli’s shoulder to listen in.

“We don’t have anything.”

Eli and Dawn shared another look. “But I—“

“I said we don’t have anything, Valenz. You have all the intel you need. Don’t waste it.”

An angry click sounded on the other end of the line. Eli set down the phone.

“We don’t have anything,” he repeated to Dawn, louder than necessary, then flicked his gaze to the security camera in the corner of the room. Dawn narrowed her gaze, then nodded.

“You’re right. We don’t.”