Mr Hook's Big Black Box

«Guilt»

"It didn't happen like that, did it?" Destinee asked, "It didn't end there?"

"You know that already, Dee," Kris reminded her.

"No, it didn't," Dwayne shook his head, "That was when you started playing a more active role, but we didn't notice right away because everything happened at once. The Box started ticking, and Spenser's goons went in guns blazing to try and take it for themselves."

"They did _what_?" Kris was suddenly outraged, "I never heard about that! I thought it was just the Americans who convinced you Spenser couldn't keep them out."

"No, they were shooting almost at random. I would never have trusted you again, if I'd known at the time they were involved with your family. But now, well..."

"Ferrari?" Marco interrupted, "Is everything alright?" The others turned to look at her, and realised she hadn't even made any witty asides for a few minutes. She nodded in response, but looked shaken, almost shocked. Not as bad as Dwayne had felt fifteen years before, but she'd heard something there that had shaken her beliefs.

"Is there something there you didn't know?" Dwayne asked, "We're all learning new things. Maybe better to get it out in the open, and we can work through it together, do you think? I mean, telling you guys about Cassie all these years later was so therapeutic."

"You're going to hate me," Ferrari muttered. She was looking down at one of Monty's sketches on the desk, but she wasn't really seeing it. She didn't want to make eye contact with anyone right now.

"We won't hate you," Kris spoke softly, with very little emotion in his voice, "I nearly got Monty and Dwayne killed, thinking about my family business and my academic success instead of my friends. Marco too, they were all in danger. What could you say that's worse than realising my wife almost wasn't here with me today, because of my selfishness?"

"You did what you thought was right at the time," Destinee squeezed his hand, "It's the best anybody could do, that's the whole point. You didn't have time to make proper plans, to test what you were being told, so you just believed it. You trusted your instincts and that turned out to mean you did the right thing. And that goes for you too, Ferrari. Whatever it might be that you think's going to upset us, it just makes you part of the group. People tricked all of you, had you going behind each other's backs, because you didn't have time to think about it properly. I'll forgive you, and you know these guys will too. Because you're our friend, no matter what."

"Yeah," Ferrari nodded slightly, but still didn't raise her head to look at the others, "You will. I'd better level with you then, I knew about this a while before the rest of you. I didn't know all this would happen to us, I didn't know we'd be the ones to get the Box, and they certainly never told me what was really in it. But I had vague details about the other groups who were involved. I knew the Russians, the Greek Circle, and the CIA were all trying to get their hands on Mr Hook's Box, and I knew that maybe two weeks before the rest of you."

This time even Destinee was shocked into silence. Ferrari wanted to continue, but she couldn't find the right words. Eventually, it was Dwayne who asked: "How?"

"I don't know if I'm even allowed to tell you, but if I can't trust you I'd never tell anyone. I've been working for CIA, training in secret. Against the day there might be some terrorist group rising up in Europe, and they'd need people with a clean record and a real paper trail who'd grown up in the right parts of the world. Undercover agents, ready to be sent into enemy organisations, just in case. I couldn't believe it when you mentioned Trevor Halett. I knew him. I trusted him. He told me they would hold off on the brute force option until I'd exhausted the subtle options."

"You were working with them?"

Ferrari just nodded. She'd never felt so bad about helping people she'd been sure were the good guys.

"Don't feel bad," Destinee tried to console her, "Everyone believed different things, and everyone did what they thought was right. And it turned out well, we needed you in the end. If you hadn't done what you did, I wouldn't even be here. Would it make you feel better to talk about it?"

She punctuated that last sentence by sliding another of the old pencil drawings onto the pile in front of Ferrari. It showed her standing on the back of an alligator like she was surfing, motion lines giving the impression of speed as she fell between a dozen Nazi paratroopers who were shooting at her with machine guns. It was a scene straight out of an action movie, but Monty's intricate pencil lines made it look so realistic, and the contrast brought a faint smile back to Ferrari's face.

"Yeah, I'll follow the herd, just this once. This is my story."