After a short negotiation that satisfied nobody completely and both parties adequately, Snart and Jude agreed: the money stayed put for now. He'd come back for it when he had a car and a plan that didn't involve two canvas bags of small bills on a commuter rail.
"You were seriously going to take the train out of the city."
"I have contingencies."
"And you knew I'd call the police about this too."
"I have another contingency."
"Don't push it." Snart's voice had the particular flatness of a man stating a policy rather than making a threat. "I've agreed to not kill anyone. That's a long-term principle, and very few people could've bought it for three hundred thousand. Don't get greedy."
"Fair enough." Jude leaned against the cart. "So — are we back to the six-month cycle? See you at the next major heist?"
Snart smiled — brief, genuine, slightly unsettling. "Sooner than that."
He left.
Jude watched the dark street swallow him up, then looked at the two enormous bags of ten-dollar bills still sitting on his cart.
That is a lot of ten-dollar bills.
Satsuki's engine idled thoughtfully. "What about the cyclotron assembly in the freeze gun? Shouldn't we be acquiring that for analysis?"
"I tried. He's not interested in parting with it." Jude sighed. "You have access to Cisco's experimental logs, don't you? Work from those. Reverse-engineer it."
"That will take considerably longer."
"What's the rush? There aren't any out-of-control speedsters on the streets right now." He picked up his phone and dialed. "Joe. It's Jude. Snart's on foot, no car, heading out of the city — probably using rail. Has the diamond. You didn't hear this from me, but I've never not called you."
He hung up, rode home, and went to sleep.
The next morning's paper had the headline centered and unambiguous:
HIGH-SPEED RAIL DERAILMENT — SUSPECT SNART FLEES WITH STOLEN DIAMOND
Jude read it twice, confirmed the subheading ("No casualties reported"), and put it down.
Barry was on that train. Had to have been. Nobody else could've gotten there in time. Which meant Barry had spent his night getting frozen, punched, and then racing to evacuate a derailing locomotive, and had probably done all of it with frostbite.
Who's winning?
"Jude—"
A voice, slightly pained, slightly sheepish. Jude looked up from the serving window.
Barry Allen was approaching the food cart at a distinctly un-Flash pace, one hand pressed to his lower back, wearing the expression of a man who has endured a great deal and is trying to be cheerful about it.
"Rough night?"
"The lower back," Barry said, with heroic understatement, "took a little frostbite. It's fine. I'll recover fast." He managed a smile. "Can I get a liqueur chocolate?"
"You've got taste. Consider it medicinal."
"What else is on the menu today? I'll take something too."
"Handmade spicy strips," Jude said.
Barry blinked. "I've never — what are spicy strips?"
"Try one."
A voice in Jude's earpiece: "Even Barry's looking at you like you've given up entirely."
"Nobody asked you," Jude replied, through a smile that didn't move. "Just watch me sell out before noon."
Barry left with a paper bag of spicy strips and the slightly uncertain expression of someone who'd been convinced by confidence alone. He'd bring them back to the lab, let everyone weigh in, and trust the track record.
One-off items don't build repeat customers, the tricycle noted.
"Nagisa's group chat already asked me to make these. They've been excited about it for a week."
Before Jude could finish the sentence, an explosion rolled through the air from somewhere close — not distant, not muffled. Close.
Yomogi, who had been sitting on top of Jude's head with a strip of spicy snack hanging out of her mouth, looked up with mild interest. "Meow?"
"That's an actual explosion," Jude said. "Not you chewing."
Satsuki had already pulled up the city surveillance feed. "No visible detonation point in the local camera grid. But I'm picking up — military units. Multiple squads."
"The army." Jude stared at the feed. "Why is the army in the city center in broad daylight—Yomogi, get your greasy paws off my head. Go scratch your own ears."
"You're disgusted with me, meow."
The three of them were still mid-chaos when a woman came around the corner of the alley at a dead sprint.
"Hi. Handmade spicy strips—"
"Not now!"
She was striking — black leather jacket, black tactical pants, long blonde hair with faint purple ends that caught the morning light. The kind of face that suggested she'd won several arguments by default. She blew past the serving window without a second glance, made it six steps down the street, saw the wall of military uniforms coming from the other direction, and came straight back.
"Spicy strips?"
"Please hide me. Don't tell anyone you saw me."
Her eyes swept the interior of the cart — shelving, storage, a gap on the lower level just large enough. She folded herself into it in about two seconds and went completely still.
Half a minute later, boots. From both ends of the alley. Two squads completed a clean encirclement of the food truck with the practiced ease of people who did this professionally.
"She go inside somewhere?"
"Nothing on this end. Maybe one of the buildings."
The ranks split. A man walked through them — tall, broad, white buzz cut, the kind of posture that had spent decades reminding rooms that he outranked them. His face carried a specific expression: the look of someone who expected the world to move out of his way and was mildly disappointed when it needed encouragement.
He walked directly to the serving window.
"You were here the whole time?" It wasn't really a question. "General Wade Eiling, U.S. Military. I'm pursuing a deserter. Where did she go?"
Who in the world is asking.
Jude kept his expression neutral and scratched Yomogi's chin with one hand.
"So you'd like my help?"
"I'm asking you to fulfill your obligations as an American citizen." Eiling took a half-step forward. The implication was architectural — he was large, and he was choosing to be large in your direction.
It probably worked on most people.
"Obligations," Jude repeated, turning the word over like he was checking it for defects. "Right."
He looked at the general — really looked at him. Then he looked down the street, at the two squads standing in a neat cordon around his food cart.
"You know, you've been a general for — I don't know, a long time. And I've been a citizen for a long time." His voice stayed easy. Conversational. "And somehow we've never met before today."
"This is actually the first time the U.S. military has ever come to me personally. For anything." He tilted his head. "I genuinely cannot remember the last time I saw a uniform at my window."
Yomogi made a small sound and settled more comfortably in the crook of his arm.
"Let me be honest with you, General. The U.S. military has never had much use for the friendship of individual citizens. That's not a criticism — it's just the arrangement. You have the government, you have the budget, you have the guns. You've done very well for yourselves. You haven't needed friends like me, and you've never pretended otherwise."
Eiling's eyes had gone very still. "Answer the question."
"But now you're here," Jude continued, at the same conversational pace, "and you're telling me it's time to fulfill my obligations." A pause. "Without asking my name. Without a please. Without acting like I'm a person you've ever thought about before this moment."
He met Eiling's eyes.
"You won't even call me Jude."