Chapter 6: The Hand I've Dealt Us
Matt leaned forward as Donovan struggled to compose himself. The judge's gavel was ringing repeatedly, but it could hardly be heard over the excited chattering of the crowd. Matt wondered about that crowd. He knew there were reporters there, though cameras hadn't been allowed in. Among the general commotion he could pick out the sound of pencils scratching. Regardless of how this played out, his face would be on the front page the next day.
Or maybe it would be Glor-Erinn's. Erinn Dunham. The woman in question was not looking his way, and he understood that this was on purpose.
The judge finally got the crowd to calm down, although Mr. Donovan had perhaps a harder time of it. He straightened his jacket, cleared his throat, and met Erinn's gaze.
"Miss Dunham-"
"It's Agent Dunham."
"Agent…"
"Or Dr. Dunham, if you prefer…"
"Doctor…"
"PhD, Psychology."
Despite the terrible position they were in, Matt found himself smiling. Clearly, Erinn wasn't going to let Donovan get his feet back. It was a tactic that, as a lawyer, he admired, and as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen…he found it disconcerting that he had also underestimated her.
"Dr. Dunham," Donovan made another attempt at composing himself. "I was under the impression that you were Mr. Murdock's secretary."
"Until a few moments ago, so was Mr. Murdock. Thanks for blowing my cover."
Laughter, and another ring of the judge's gavel.
"She's good," Foggy whispered beside him.
"Very," Matt admitted.
He could tell Foggy was looking at him. "Did you know?"
"No."
"I thought you could tell when people are lying!"
Matt ran over the past couple of months in his head. I'm here about the secretary position…A friend suggested I needed a change…There are things you don't know about me, things that would make anything that happened between us…uneven.
"Maybe she didn't."
"Well, congratulations, you've met your match at secret-keeping."
Erinn was speaking directly to the judge now. "…you'll understand, Your Honor, that there may be questions I cannot, due to the nature of my position, answer at this time. My work here is classified, however, I believe I can shed a little light on this situation and save the court some time by addressing Mr. Donovan's concerns regarding Mr. Murdock."
"She knows," Matt said.
"What?" said Foggy.
"You may proceed, Mr. Donovan," the judge was saying.
"Agent Dunham, can you tell us what it is that you are here investigating?" Donovan asked. Matt could feel the tension in him, his entire body ready to pounce.
"The same thing you were, apparently," Erinn answered. "My mission was to find Daredevil."
"And you thought you could do this by posing as a secretary in Mr. Murdock's office?"
Erinn shifted a little in her seat, as if she were bored. "Correct. Like yourself and presumably Mr. Fisk, my superiors and I thought it a little too coincidental that Daredevil's targets so closely paralleled certain cases handled by the Law Firm of Nelson and Murdock. There had to be some connection. When both Mr. Nelson and Miss Page left the firm and the coincidences continued, it made sense that the connection lay with Mr. Murdock.
"However, it never occurred to us that Mr. Murdock himself might be Daredevil. I have to give you credit for your imagination, Mr. Donovan. I've seen a lot of strange things over the past several years, but a blind vigilante would certainly top the list."
More tittering from the crowd. Another rap for order.
Donovan didn't look happy. "Was your investigation successful, Miss Donovan? Were you able to discover Daredevil's identity?"
"I was," Erinn confirmed, and there was a frantic whisper. This time, however, the judge didn't try to suppress it. If Matt had to guess, he would have said that she too was interested in Erinn's answer. "And no, I'm not going to tell you his name. That is one of the things I am not able to disclose at this time."
Matt barely controlled his sigh of relief. Beside him, he felt Foggy relax as well.
Donovan's voice, as it concluded his questioning, hovered between anger and defeat. Matt was suddenly glad he couldn't see Fisk's face.
Tower was rising now, smoothing his suit as he went. "I have one follow up question, Agent Dunham, if I may."
Erinn nodded to him. "Of course."
"If you know who Daredevil is, why haven't you arrested him?"
"I'm not here to arrest him," Erinn said flatly. "I'm here to recruit him."
"Excuse me?" said Tower.
"What?" said Foggy.
The crowd murmured, but hushed quickly, waiting for more.
Erinn took a deep breath. "We've been keeping a loose eye on Hell's Kitchen for some time. Controlling what Secretary Ross likes to call 'the vigilante problem' hasn't been a top priority, given other recent events, however, with the rise in vigilante population over the past few years, certain parties felt it was something we could no longer afford to ignore."
"The rise in vigilante population?" Tower asked, stunned.
"You didn't think it was just here, did you? I count four in New York alone, five if you want to add Frank Castle. And I'm using the term vigilante loosely here, because what we're really talking about here are human beings with abilities and skills beyond the usual scope. I've got a guy in Tucson who can turn himself into a small tornado, a woman in Wisconsin who can saw through trees with her own hands, and just recently, we learned there's a man in Swaziland who can spit acid."
"I'm sorry…Spit acid?"
"Useful if you're fighting crime, perhaps. Not so much if you're trying to find a girlfriend."
Tower smiled. "Agent Dunham, you'll have to forgive us if this is a bit much to take in."
She nodded again. "I fully understand, Mr. Tower. The world is changing before our eyes, and at a pace most of us can't take. But what if it was you? What if you woke up one day, in your ordinary home, in your ordinary corner of the world that doesn't make the news much, and you suddenly found you could do things you couldn't the day before…Would you do them? Or would you wait for someone to give you permission?
"I personally think we need vigilantes, Mr. Tower. For every one of these men and women that decides they're going to embrace what's happened to them and make the world a better place, there are five more that don't care what they're leaving behind. Perhaps they're too bitter about what's happened to them, perhaps they've been told one too many times that they're a freak, or perhaps they just like hurting people.
"The Avengers…" Erinn sighed. "Well, you've heard about all that. But even if they were still a healthy operation, they would still be too few. What I am proposing is an...understanding. In exchange for some oversight, by which means we ensure vigilantism doesn't get out of hand, and perhaps becomes something other than vigilantism, these extraordinary individuals would have access to more resources. Should they need it, as I imagine even Daredevil sometimes must, they could call in backup. In turn, if the Avengers do not possess the numbers to handle any of the many 'larger' issues facing our world, they could call on Daredevil, or Luke Cage, or whomever. Perhaps by working together we really would be able defend this world from any threat, both from without or within."
"It's a noble idea, Agent Dunham," said Tower.
"Admittedly, some of the logistics need working out," she said dryly, "but the first step was to make contact."
"And have you made contact? Have you been able to present your offer to the Devil of Hell's Kitchen?"
For the most fleeting of seconds, Matt felt her eyes on his face.
"I have."
"And?"
"Such an arrangement would imply a great deal of vulnerability on Daredevil's part. I imagine it will take him some time to decide whether or not he trusts me."
DD***DD
They rode back to the office in silence. The trial had been adjourned until the following day, with, the judge had been clear, "no more tangents." Matt had accepted Erinn's arm as she guided them out, and the contact felt something like a white flag. She doubted any of them would get much sleep that night.
Foggy locked the door behind them and opened his mouth.
"Not yet," Erinn said, crossing to her desk. She fumbled in the lower left drawer, retrieved a small object. This she placed carefully in the center of her desk before activating it.
"There," she said. "If this place isn't bugged already, it probably is now. This will stop any prying ears."
Foggy leaned over to stare at it. "I've never seen anything like it."
"It's a Stark prototype."
"So," said Matt, who was not to be distracted by technobabble.
"So," said Erinn.
Foggy looked back and forth between them. "How about all cards on the table…and maybe some Scotch?" Silence. "I'm sorry, I don't really know how to lighten this mood."
Erinn opened her mouth, and her cell phone rang. Frowning, she retrieved it from her pocket and, with a sardonic glance at them both, answered.
"I take it you heard?"
Yeah, loudly and clearly.
She set the phone in the middle of the desk. "You're on speaker, Tony. Murdock and Nelson are both here."
I take it from that performance that Murdock actually is Daredevil?
She winced. "Does Ross know yet?"
Thunderbolt or Everett?
She scrunched her entire face up.
"I take it neither is good?" Foggy asked.
Well, neither is great, but Everett still likes you, Erinn, and he's smart enough to keep the Secretary occupied elsewhere for the time being.
"But he's not happy."
He's not happy.
Matt spread his hands on her desk and leaned over the phone. "So where does that leave us?"
Honestly, nowhere. Everett doesn't want to deal with the Yakuza, and about that…Erinn, you were right, there is some connection with Fisk.
Matt's eyebrows had shot to the ceiling. Erinn wilted a little under the look.
Basically he's leaving the cleanup to you folks for now.
"Which means if Fisk gets out, we're on our own."
Foggy was staring at her. Matt's thoughts were hidden behind his glasses, but she could feel…not his eyes, but his awareness of her. Straightening a little, she reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose.
I won't let it come to that, Erinn. If Fisk gets out, I'll be there. Don't let him get out.
"That's not the plan. Tony, keep digging. I don't think we know the half of this yet. And let Everett help you. He may not seem like it…but he's smart, and he'll have your back."
Guess I'll take your word for that. Watch your back, Dunham.
She hung up with a swift flick of her finger.
"So that backup you were promising?" Foggy said.
She sighed, pulling up her chair. "It was an idea, not an official offer. As I said, we were still working out the details."
"Who's 'we?'" Matt asked, also sitting.
"Tony and me, mostly. Foggy, how 'bout that Scotch?"
When they were all seated, she looked up at them steadily. "Here's what I know. Fisk spent some time in Asia, a little in China, a little in South Korea, but mostly in Japan. What happened while he was there is a mystery. He was off the map for several months. I asked Tony to do some digging into that time. My gut tells me that Fisk's plan…whatever deal he had with the Yakuza was likely not to his benefit. They have some sort of interest in New York. They've been moving more and more people into the city, almost like they're mustering. We don't know for what. I think that…whatever is it Fisk had planned for this place…wasn't really his plan at all. I think it was theirs. He just picked the location."
"For what? And why? Why here?"
Erinn could admire that Matt, despite the rest of it, was still focused on the mission, on the city, on the endgame. That a man without, as far as she could tell, an endgame of his own could still ask the right questions was impressive. She wished she had the right answers for him.
She shook her head.
"She just shook…Never mind. She already knows you already know," Foggy said. "This is weird. In fact, I don't which of you is more messed up."
Erinn looked at him. "Do you want my help or not? If you don't, I'll pack up and go."
"Why are you here?" Matt asked. "I mean really. Why don't you go back to your superiors, report what you've found, and let them handle this?"
"Because that could take months, and Fisk is on trial now," she said.
"What…what about me? What if I tell them?"
Erinn stood just enough that she could drag her chair as close to his as it would get. She looked him in the eye, or the lens. She reached out and gripped one of his hands.
"Listen to me very carefully, Mr. Murdock, because if you understand nothing else I've told you today, you need to understand this. Red tape aside, Secretary Ross has a plan for people like you. He believes you are a weapon. And weapons to Ross are nothing more than tools in his hands. If you turn yourself in, he will lock you away in a box until he believes you're the best tool for the job. And while he makes up his mind about which job to use you for, while Tony and I try to go over his head and arrange for a fair trial, a fair arrangement, you will stay in that box, and Fisk and whoever else will have free run of this city."
