by John Ringo
George grimaced, as if more than used to being fussed over. Harrison was on the team for more than one reason. Clothes and make-up might seem trivial to the uninitiated, but the smallest oversight in appearance could blow a cover. World War II allied spies had gone so far as to make sure the buttons were sewn onto their coats the "right" way before inserting behind the lines into France. The job of "Schmidt One" was not to make them look good. Harrison's job—one hat of many—was to make sure they looked right.
"Showtime." Cally nodded, getting behind the wheel of the Fed car as Sands climbed in as shotgun, in this case literal as there was a short-barrel twelve gauge under the seat. She heard the loud slam of the door behind her as George got in. He had to slam it, as there were no handles on the inside and momentum had to carry it.
Tommy and Harrison had climbed back into the gray Buick sedan. It was cramped as hell for Sunday, but he wasn't complaining. The car didn't look like much, but it this model had the most aerodynamic body within the range of conservative and boring, given that it also had to fit a grand national engine under the hood. The windows also were something special. Nano-polarized, there was a set of dimmer switches on the dash that controlled the tint, from none to dark. It made the vehicle as good as a van for camping near a run, but much, much faster. A built-in electric heater under the hood kept the engine warm even in a Chicago winter.
Everyone hoped they wouldn't need the car's special features. Get in, get out in the Fed car was the plan. Yeah. It was good to have a plan. It was essential to have a backup.
At the station, Cally did exactly what real Feds would do. She parked in one of the reserve spots right near the building—but she was a nice Fed. She didn't park in the chief's space.
The station was typical for the age, with parking lot and cement walkways crumbling. The building was an ugly box of faded, stained brick and dingy mortar with "Greenville City Police" tacked on the side in aluminum letters. Two "e"s and an "l" were missing. The parking lot was also, given the time of day, damn near deserted.
As she and Sands took up flanking positions to escort George in, Cally noted the exits carefully, along with the lights and the collapsed bit of curb outside the emergency fire exit they planned to use. The chained and padlocked exit.
"Hold up," she ordered, detouring to pick the lock and unthread the chain from the double door's handles. She started to put the offending items on the ground, but then got a quick mental image of some helpful soul coming through and noticing that someone had left the door unlocked. She jogged over to the car and shoved chain and lock underneath it before retaking her spot on Schmidt's left.
In accord with their story that Bryan Cane was one of the coed's ex-boyfriends who had come in "voluntarily," George walked slightly in front of the two FBI agents who, while they were not actually touching him, walked almost exactly where they would have been had they been hustling him in by the arms. The implication was clear, displaying the typical unsubtle and humorless attitude of the modern Bureau Field Agent. If they carried the stereotype a bit far into HD true crime drama, so much the better. It would fit the locals' preconceptions; people didn't question what they didn't notice.
Inside the building, the brand new, orange, plastic chairs reflected off a white institutional-tile floor, which was buffed until you could almost see your face in it. The rest of the room contrasted unfavorably, as the walls were scuffed and marked, long past the need for a new coat of paint, and the old-fashioned drop ceiling showed the stains of a current or one-time leak. The room was small, as befitted a town that barely met the population requirement for a city charter.
A counter stretched across the middle of the room and doubled as the front desk. A door had been cut to one side and was clearly the locking kind you had to be buzzed through, which was a nice little piece of security if you were keeping out blue-haired old ladies too frail to just vault the counter.
The rather chubby officer behind the counter was obviously very busy, and was presently playing a holographic game of multicolored blocks in various configurations, falling from the top of the virtual screen. He looked up as they came in the door and tapped the front of his buckley, which obediently switched off the game and brought up a screen of something that looked very serious and industrious. A boss program.
As they approached the counter, Cally let her eyes meet Sands', and they both affected the attitude of federal agents who hadn't really expected any better from local law enforcement. Near simultaneously and seemingly from nowhere, they pulled out little black leather folders and flipped them open to display their credentials to the embarrassed man.
"Special Agents Wilson and Brannig. We need an interrogation room, and then I'll speak to the senior supervisor on duty," Cally said, a slight nod of her head indicating that George was to be the person interrogated, as if the man behind the desk were too stupid to have figured that out on his own.
"That would be the chief. He's working late tonight," the officer said, clearly glad to be able to say something that might make the city police look good.
"Satisfactory. The room?" Cally reminded him as if he'd already forgotten. His slight flush deepened as her eyes noted the open box of donuts on the table behind him, and then returned to rest on him. She raised her eyebrows as if to ask why he was still just sitting there.
"Uh, yeah. Here." He reached under the counter and they heard a buzz and a click as the small door unlocked.
Cally gestured for George to precede them, meticulously avoiding touching him, perfectly courteous, and yet managing to convey the clear message that if he wasn't yet under arrest, that was a technicality that could be corrected instantly if she or "Brannig" became displeased.
Sands, on the other hand, looked at their not-prisoner, if not quite sympathetically, at least as if she hadn't already convicted him in her mind as an ax murderer. As she followed Cally through the gap, she turned to the cop behind the desk. "Thank you, officer . . . Hardy," she read off his badge.
Cally focused on the man again, her expression calculated to make him feel like an idiot that he was still seated and still hadn't gotten them their interrogation room.
He almost stumbled over his feet in his hurry to get up and comply.
The police chief looked distinctly less than happy to have a pair of Feds on his doorstep, even if they did come bearing what might be a major break in his case. He also looked resigned, and uncritically swallowed their story about the ex-boyfriend aka person of interest.
"We've been ordered to coordinate and cooperate with you," Cally said, with a hint of sourness under the professional mask. "Strictly speaking, since there is no hard evidence of linkage across state lines as of yet, it's your case, but I'm sure you'll understand how much pressure we're facing from above." There was no evidence of linkage across state lines. Or, more accurately, no evidence the Bane Sidhe was going to let civil police authorities in on.
"Frankly, most of the reason we brought him up here was as an excuse to drag him on a three-hour road trip and get him tired and hungry," Sands admitted. As if on cue, her stomach growled.
"Okay, so what have you got?" he asked.
"The ex-boyfriend from high school. Word is the breakup was not friendly. This one used to work for a grocery store. In the meat department," Cally said.
The chief turned a little green around the gills.
"You saw the body," she said, unsurprised when he nodded, swallowing hard, and his eyes narrowed grimly at George.
"Time to shake him until his teeth rattle." The ersatz agent didn't wait for a reply from the chief, but turned and entered the room vigorously, slamming the door behind her.
The interrogation that followed was a skit played out entirely for the chief's benefit, the characters being the good cop, the bad cop, and the suspect. Said play continued until the buckley vibrating on Cally's hip told her part two of the operation was kicking loose on the PD's emergency lines.
The beauty of the whole drama was that none
of them had to do a particularly good acting job. George's character could be believably bad at pretending total innocence, while Cally and Sands could get away with a bit of overacting. They were playing agents playing good cop, bad cop. Cally was, thus, free to make a dramatic production of losing her temper and slamming out in a huff when Sands bodily kept her from assaulting the "suspect."
She ran a hand through her hair as she walked into the observation room with the chief. "That always winds me up. I really do need a time out," she said.
Right on cue, a pleasant female voice issued from the other man's hip pocket. "Chief, you have a call. Chief you have a call. Please see the screen for details," it said.
He pulled the device out and glanced at the screen casually, doing a quick double take. "Oh, shit," he said.
"If you need to go take care of something, she's not going to be asking him any real questions for at least another five minutes as she tries to build a bond," Cally told him. "I'm gonna take a walk and get my head back in the zone before we really start up again."
"Uh, sure, if you wouldn't mind." The chief didn't even look at her as he took off for the front office at a pace just short of a run. Step one accomplished. She now had the freedom of the station.
She didn't dither, but made a beeline for the probable locations of the evidence room. There were several candidates because she only had the building plans to work from. Unfortunately, the small room on this side held a broom closet and assorted junk that was quite clearly not evidence, unless you considered it evidence that somebody had a pack-rat problem. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and prepared her excuses as she backtracked to the front of the building, which was laid out in a horseshoe pattern. She would have to go through the front desk area to get to the other side of the building. It was also the side with the fire exit she'd originally prepped. She would, no doubt, have to unlock their side's exit to get Sands and George out.
In the front of the station, she smiled apologetically at the cop working the desk. "Do you mind if I grab one of these? I haven't eaten in five hours," she said.
His eyes glinted at her, amused, and roved over her body. For once, his eyes didn't even stop at her breasts, but skimmed on down to the thighs men seemed to like but she fought a constant battle with.
"Sure," he said.
"Thanks." She could practically feel him watching her butt as she walked on through the front and around the other side, through the emergency call room where two other cops and the chief were dealing with the frantic spate of calls. They barely looked up when she waved at them and sashayed on through. Ass man. That would explain it.
The evidence room was as jumbled as the broom closet had been. It didn't really qualify as a room, more a large closet. The lock was laughable, and she picked it in three seconds. It took her almost half a minute to find the bagged articles she was looking for. The fingers would be in the pathologist's lab at the hospital, of course. Greenville being too small for a hospital of its own, that was at the county seat six or seven miles away. Those weren't her problem. The Bane Sidhe had made other arrangements. All she needed from here was a plastic zipper bag with a used tissue in it. It took her almost five minutes to find it, but with the air squeezed out of the bag, it was easily concealable on her person. She repressed a laugh as she realized that technically this counted as stuffing her bra, and the visual image of herself carrying twice the ample amount of cleavage was just too much.
"Hey, what are you doing?" a suspicious female voice asked behind her.
Without missing a beat, she palmed a Hiberzine injection from a pocket and turned to face the cop. "Checking something the scumbag told us. This is interesting; have a look," she said. It was out of character for a federal agent to offer free information to anyone, but curiosity kept the woman from noticing, and she leaned over to peer into the closet, turning her back on Cally O'Neal
Who then had to prop the unconscious body rather awkwardly because of the pack-rattishness of the evidence room.
Hiberzine was so cool.
She tapped her buckley, unnecessarily as it was listening. "Buckley, call Sands. Transmit 'coffee.' " She offered the code word without waiting for the call to pick up. "And leave the connection open."
She and Sands were both wearing ear dots. They hadn't dared put any on George, as there was the slimmest possibility those might be noticed.
"I don't think we're getting anywhere," she heard Sands say as if talking to the room. "I'd really hoped we could be done before my partner came back, Mr. Cane."
That meant there was a hitch. Uh-oh.
"I want my lawyer," Cally heard George say in the background. Then he started making a credible fuss.
"I'll take you where you can call one," Sands said. "Just a little walk."
The latter was code among law enforcement for a little corporal persuasion of a reluctant suspect. It was a prearranged ruse designed to separate the other two operatives from any local cops who got clingy. Okay, now that she had some idea what the problem was, Cally proceeded to the exit and around the side of the building, adrenaline starting to sing as she heard a blurred mumble in the background.
"Oh, you really don't have to come along, Chief," Sands said. "Mr. Cane might be more comfortable the fewer people are present when he calls his attorney." The words were couched to communicate to the police chief that he need not be involved or culpable in the beating of the suspect.
Another mumble.
"Okay, if you're really sure you want to come along," Amy's voice had developed a slightly sweet note, and Cally filed the information away as a "tell" for when Sands was getting annoyed.
On the other side, the door appeared unlocked. The reason was immediately apparent from the collection of cigarette butts all over the ground. Made sense. The chief was using the suspect's walk as an excuse to grab a smoke.
"After you, of course, Chief," Sands offered politely, letting Cally know the man would be first out the door. She palmed her second Hiberzine. Unless it was absolutely impossible, she never went in on an op without half a dozen of the things tucked away somewhere or other.
They featured prominently in her standard go-to-hell strategies, and did not fail her now. Looking down to tap a cigarette out of his pack, he never even saw her before Cally had him injected. George's hand was wrapped around from behind, covering the man's mouth in case he got out a yell before going down. Cally suppressed a twinge of pique that he didn't think her competent enough to take care of one man herself. Didn't George ever lighten up?
They were in the back of the building, about ten yards from the tree line. "Leave him," she ordered as he and Sands emerged through the doorway.
George laid the man down against the wall and the three sprinted to the corner of the building and stopped. Cally peeked around the corner and ducked back, turning to plant a fist squarely in George's left eye, followed by a solid gut punch.
"Ow!" he yelped.
"For effect," she hissed. "Limp a little."
They turned the corner and walked briskly back to the car, Sands and Cally again flanking George, only this time Cally reached out and shoved him forward a couple of times before they got to the vehicle and climbed in. There was nobody in sight to witness this playlet, and no windows on this side of the building.
"What the hell was that for? Nobody was looking," George protested as they drove off.
"Well, they might have been," Cally said defensively. It had absolutely nothing to do with the implication that she couldn't handle one damn guy by herself. It didn't.
Chapter Fourteen
Tuesday, January 5, 2055
Michael Sunday Privett, also known as "Cargo," walked into Nathan O'Reilly's office, took one look at the skinny brunette girl and shook his head. "Oh, no. Fuck no. Father O'Reilly, with all due respect, sir—"
"Hush, son. Just come in and sit down," the priest ordered him.
As he walked in awkwardly, he looked curiously around the office while trying to get
as solid a grip on his professional dignity as he could. At the age of twenty-three, he'd been operational for three years, and he was dead certain he was going to need all his professionalism to deal with this situation. The brunette was wearing contacts and was made up and everything to look about seventeen, but he knew better. Cargo had spent most of his teenage years with little Denise Reardon following him around adoringly and hanging on his every word.
She was a smart kid, and she was damned cute, but the last couple of times he'd been home he'd been all too aware of how precocious little Denise was. She might be skinny, but the kid had a full load-out of hormones and he felt goddamned ridiculous dodging a seventh-grade girl all over the island.
"Sir, I don't know wha—"
"I said hush, Privett. Sit."
"Yes, sir." Cargo sat unhappily on the front half of a chair, back straight, unconsciously drawing on "proper" bearing to get through what he anticipated was about to become a very uncomfortable—more uncomfortable—situation.
"I know you know Miss Reardon, Sergeant Privett. What you may not know is that Miss Reardon is a candidate for professional school." The head of the Bane Sidhe focused a grave stare on him, as if waiting to see if he needed to be shut up again.
"There is no way, at all, Miss Reardon will be assigned onto a team at her age and without full training. However, just now she has a skill that is very useful. She's a damned good driver, has a peerless sense of direction—"
Boy, did she ever, Cargo acknowledged. The kid had some kind of weird intuition or something, because she always seemed to guess where he was going next and get there before him.
"—importantly, her, um, tracking skills are exceptionally useful in this case, because she can get you back without a tail more reliably than anyone I've got on base. I believe you have the personal experience to appreciate it when I tell you that she is one of the individuals able to effortlessly transfer simulator experience in this type of task to real life." O'Reilly held a poker face, but Cargo had the uncomfortable certainty he was being laughed at.
