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"In a few months," Crawford says, "you'll need our help with more than information."
Her blood chills: she'd already known that Abyssinian's old initial report had been... not entirely accurate, given that the twice they'd met before, he'd given complete details of events a week in advance, but months? It's almost unbelievable, almost frightening.
He continues, watching her from behind those obscuring glasses. "We'll need to work together with Weiss... to accomplish both of our goals."
Automatically, Manx shakes her head. "That's impossible. They would never agree to it. Abyssinian, Bombay, Siberian..." She trails off; he's smiling again, head tilted back slightly.
"That they object to myself, Schuldig, and Farfarello, I don't doubt. They don't need to work with all of us." His emphasis is slight, but obvious.
"The boy?" It's possible - barely. "After your last fight, I'm not sure..."
Crawford flicks his fingers dismissively. "They'll underestimate him." His smile sharpens, becomes dangerous, cold. If there's humor there, Manx thinks, it's entirely at someone's expense; she isn't entirely sure whose. "His age will work in his favor... especially when you establish that he came to Kritiker on his own."
From anyone else, that would have been overconfidence. From Crawford, it might be no more than the truth. Still, if she were to arrange something like this (carefully guarded, of course, despite the fact that Crawford's information has already saved several agents' lives)... "If he were to come to us," she ventures, "looking to leave you. To give information on you, in return for a place...?"
He looks at her, long and searching. "Yes," he says, eventually, "that will work. You'll need to begin working on it soon. If you need him to actually contact you, I can arrange it within the week."
Manx keeps eye contact throughout, despite that eerie feeling that he's seeing more than he should. "Within the week?" she asks, suddenly, impulsively. Their meetings before have always been brief, formal - hardly more than a passing of information, and only what he chooses to give. He's deliberately broken that convention three times over: with the location, his casual appearance and behavior, by engaging her in conversation. Perhaps he'll go further, give her more... "Are you leaving?"
"Perceptive." Crawford reaches for the shotglass on the table between them, empty as it is, and picks it up, running his finger along the rim. "We'll be going to Germany soon."
Her lips part in shock - she hadn't honestly expected it - and he laughs, a quick huff, which does nothing to diminish her surprise. "You'll have to have some information from Nagi, if he's to be believable as a spy working against us," he says. "And I imagine that his information will be checked rather thoroughly. No?"
"You're right," she acknowledges. "He'll be expected to give regular status reports...." She trails off, still in disbelief at what he's offered. What could he possibly plan to ask in return?
He fills the glass, sets it down, slides it across the table to her. She picks it up instinctively, looks at it, at him.
"Then he will."
The glass is cool between her fingers, hard, a link to reality. "And he'll report to you on us when he comes back to Japan."
Crawford spreads his fingers, as if to demonstrate he's holding nothing. "Will that be a problem?"