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she wasn't sure why she felt that way.
    I won't ask what authority you have...but what excuse do you have?
    The words haunted her. She'd asked herself the same thing, more than once, since signing on with CCA. And somehow he knew that.
    There was an official rationale, of course. ShadowComm types were breaking a law that almost no one knew existed. Something you were told about once you were detained: a law against using paranormal abilities—the real thing, ShadowComm abilities, not the usual fake psychics and pseudowitches. Specifically, it was forbidden to use ShadowComm powers except in a contained and controlled government context. Otherwise, the government claimed, you were doing the equivalent of experimenting with plutonium in your garage. Thought to be that dangerous. Especially since the
    phenomenon started popping up all over, during the last thirty years. And who knew what political orientation any ShadowComm had? Suppose they were anarchists—or Jihadists? Too big a risk.
    But still, the question bothered her. Could the “containment” be justified? They were officially at war—always, always at war, with the Pan Jihad—and detaining ShadowComm, till they could be retrained, was a bit like the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II. But even so...
    Her cell phone buzzed. She reached for it, and its vibrating corresponded unnervingly with the throbbing in her burned hand. “Sarikosca.”
    “Loraine, the police are at the bar.” It was Dr. Helman, at CCA's Washington, D.C., office. His low voice almost like a man parodying an affectless monotone. He seemed to consider it a classy detachment. She pictured him, a chunky little man, perhaps forty-five, with slicked-back, dark black  hair and black eyes and old-fashioned, professorial suits, probably polishing his wire-rim glasses on his tie—usually a broad silk tie with hand-painted lilies and mums on it—as he spoke into a rather old-fashioned Bluetooth earpiece. She found him odious but he was her boss, and as expert as anyone in their most peculiar area of expertise. “We're sending people in to cover it for you, you won't have to go back in there.”
    “That's good.” How would she have explained it to the cops? “We screwed up. I guess I screwed up. He got away. But...1 got a good look at him.”
    “Oh, we have confirmed the ID. We know all about Mr. Gabriel Bleak. I was hoping you'd meet face-to-face. Did you...well. We'll discuss it later. I want a full report on your encounter with him. Everything—every last thing.”
    We know all about Mr. Gabriel Bleak. She opened her mouth to ask if she was being sent on assignments without a full briefing. Then she closed it again. You never got full briefings, at CCA. Which was typical of intelligence services—sometimes it had been like that when she'd worked at the DIA. But CCA struck her as particularly “Chinese boxes” oriented: every shut box always contained another. The agency's primary mission seemed to have another one tucked away inside it.
    Theoretically the CCA existed to prevent supernatural destabilization of the country—and to use specially talented individuals to deflect threats to the USA. Terrorists with WMDs were hard to detect —but with the supernatural on your side, you might catch them.
    Only, sometimes she thought there was another mission she hadn't been told about.
    “How's the hand?” Helman asked.
    “It's just a minor burn.” Close enough to true.
    “Good. Because you're going to be busy. Today, see if you can find Bleak, pick up his trail. This is straight from General Forsythe—Bleak's a priority.”
    “Why Bleak especially? There are a lot of other possibles out there.” “The general was adamant. We find him or we find another place to work.”

 
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    Brooklyn, the same day.
    At the worn end of the day, they sat on the wooden steps of the old man's back porch, behind his frame house on Avenue J, drinking a homemade ale.
    “You are