Elliot’s stomach twisted.
In other words, if the DVM will be disbanded. If Anthony and I will be out of work, or incarcerated along with Bea.
“I’m pretty sure if someone wanted to arrest us, it would have happened by now.” Not that Elliot was sure of that... but maybe saying it would help him believe it.
“Sure, okay,” said Daria. It sounded very much like she was humoring him. “Any messages for O’Leary?”
“None that I’m going to pass along.”
“Obviously. I’ll tell him Bea’s taken up knitting. Maybe I’ll get a sweater out of it. You should see the scarf Cicero sent me last week.”
Elliot snorted. “How’s Zayna?”
“Molting,” said Daria, which was frightening enough that Elliot was perfectly happy not to ask for any additional details. “Call me when it’s over, okay?”
“If they let me,” said Elliot, glancing at the doors again.
“They’ll let you,” said Daria, with far more confidence than Elliot felt. “Don’t worry, Elliot. Anthony Dare’s gotten out of tighter spots than this one.”
“I haven’t.”
“Always a first time,” said Daria.
“MR. DARE, THANK YOU for your participation. It has been extremely instructive.”
“Of course, Senator,” Anthony said into the microphone. The reporters and other observers rustled in a way that made him think that maybe, just maybe, the inquest was nearing an end.
It’d be a relief. For four hours that day, plus the two days prior, Anthony had testified before a few select Senators. The things he knew about the DVM’s operations, the things he didn’t know... the things he knew he didn’t know and the things he’d never known he didn’t know.
There were far too many of that last category. Every one made Anthony more and more exhausted.
In the month since returning from Bulgaria, there were a lot of things that made Anthony exhausted.
The Senator, however, didn’t care a whit about Anthony. Not really. She shuffled the papers in front of her before folding her hands and leaning into her microphone. She was young, pretty, and whip-smart. Anthony might have been the focus of her intense scrutiny, but he’d gleefully watched her take down Senators with thirty years’ seniority over her until they looked more like kindergarteners than seasoned political professionals.
He hadn’t expected to be on her hot-seat, though. It was not entirely comfortable, even if he thought she was on his side. Mostly.
“I have just one more question before we wrap up this session,” said the Senator, still focused on her papers.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Anthony, his heart sinking a little. It wouldn’t be a softball, whatever it was. He’d long since stopped believing that any of her “last questions” would be the last.
There was so much to explain about what had happened within the walls of the DVM for the last twenty years. Anthony, despite being the most senior employee left, was also one of the very few who hadn’t been involved in any of it.
“This is what the country needed!” Bea had shrieked during her arrest. “You asked me to do this! All of you! And now you claim you didn’t know?”
Anthony had heard her testimony about the DVM’s origins. A single conversation at a political garden party some thirty years before, when a presidential hopeful had jokingly suggested creating a hero who could galvanize the country, inspire them to vote for a certain ideology come election time.
It wasn’t Bea who’d acted on it, but a random government flunkie who’d invented the original scheme with the poorly named Mr. Meanie, and his arch nemesis, the extremely competent Jack Robinette. It had been meant purely as a publicity stunt – and originally, everyone involved thought everyone else understood that.
Unfortunately, no one had told the public about it being a publicity stunt, and the creators thought a fifteen-second announcement at the beginning of the show would suffice. It didn’t. Anyone who tuned in halfway through were convinced of its authenticity, and by the time it was over, the entire world was convinced that Jack Robinette had saved them. Sensing a good thing, the government decided to keep up the ruse – and instead of letting Jack go on to star in children’s programming, hired him as the first director of the DVM.
Jack had gone on to hire additional secret agents and run additional supervillains. He’d hired Bea, who had hired Winston, who had remembered his schoolyard chums Syl and Archie.
And Winston, in turn, had trained Anthony... but never told Anthony the truth.
“It’s not that we couldn’t trust him,” Bea had testified. She’d been allowed to wear one of her good suits: the blue one, with the square collar, though the pearls were noticeably absent. Her hair wasn’t as neat as usual, either, but it was difficult to have hairdressing in prison. “We trusted Anthony implicitly—but we learned very quickly, he would never have agreed to the circus. In a way, we ran him as much as we ran the villains he fought.”
Anthony had left the hearing room and raced to the restroom, where he’d tried to throw up in the toilet, Elliot patting his back and murmuring comforting words that didn’t comfort him in the slightest.
Bea would never leave her prison. It was a lovely place, for a prison; Anthony had seen photographs online. Trees, green lawns, a running track. A prison library that was heavily stocked with law books, and movies every Thursday.
“You could visit her. Get some answers,” Elliot suggested, once. He knew better than to suggest again, just as Anthony knew he was perfectly content never to see Bea again.
Anthony’s therapist thought he might change his mind one day. For now, however, their twice-weekly sessions were more a chance for Anthony to spend an hour kicking pillows around her room, rather than actually talk out the complex psychological toll of having been part and parcel of Bea’s international deception. Anthony was unconvinced that talking would be any more satisfying than kicking the pillows – though it’d certainly result in fewer destroyed pillows. (The current pillow death toll was seventeen.)
“Mr. Dare,” said the Senator, leaning into her microphone, “here’s what I don’t understand. There are already at least three organizations under the umbrella of the U.S. Government that cover international relations. Do you really believe there’s a place for the DVM in today’s society?”
She’s going to ask, you know, Elliot had warned him that morning. The sunlight had been pouring through the windows on the tiny kitchen in Anthony’s apartment. They’d been sitting at Anthony’s tiny table, cups of coffee and toast untouched, because neither of them could stomach anything, not with the nerves coursing through both of them.
Elliot had made a gloriously huge breakfast the first day of Anthony’s testimony. Even he agreed, later, that it wasn’t worth the effort.
Anthony took a breath and remembered what they’d both determined was the sensible answer.
“Yes, Madam Senator, I do,” said Anthony, speaking as clearly into his microphone as he could.
The Senator looked unimpressed. “Really. Explain to me why.”
“Well, ma’am, as you say—there are at least three departments that cover international relations. And they’re fine organizations, they do good work within their sphere. But that’s the trouble, ma’am—people like Cicero and the Minimizer and Mr. Meanie weren’t ever exactly in their sphere. Not entirely, anyway. And they were by far not the only people we monitored.”