“I am,” he said. “We’ve kept our powder dry long enough. Things are starting to snowball out of control. It’s time to make a move.”
“You don’t usually torture your metaphors this badly, Chief,” I observed. “I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Beckett shot me a sidelong glance, kind but unapologetic. “There are lots of things I don’t tell you Alex. Unfortunately, it’s part of the job description.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that when things inevitably go tits up, you’re not going to be able to protect us, no matter how careful you think you’re being. What doesYou-Know-Whothink about this current mess?”
Beckett’s expression soured at the mention ofthe person who shall not be named. “I’ll be sure to ask, next time I talk to them.”
I stared at him, unblinking. He ignored the weight of my alpha glare, just like he always did.
“I really hate this, you know,” I told him in a monotone.
“I know,” he said, not unsympathetically. He turned right, pulling into a modest parking garage. “Here we are. Remember—federal jurisdiction, sensitive political situation, blah, blah, blah. You know the drill.”
In my case, ‘the drill’ was to look stoic and intimidating while mostly keeping my trap shut. I’d had more than a decade of practice to perfect that act, after all.
“Understood. You’ve got the vehicles organized?” That was my nerves showing through, and I silently cursed myself. Ofcoursehe had the damned vehicles waiting for us.
“All ready to go,” he assured me. “We just need to pick up our passenger.”
This day had always been coming—even if I hadn’t expected it to happen quite so soon. I squared my shoulders as Beckett pulled the black government-issued sedan into a parking spot and turned the engine off. “Right,” I said. “Let’s get this done.”
We exited the car and marched toward the entrance of the precinct, the picture of official business with our straight spines and dark suits. Once inside, my boss headed directly for the front desk and placed his badge on it.
“Agent Rhys Beckett, federal security,” he said in clipped tones. “I need to speak with the duty officer in charge, please.”
The female desk sergeant blinked at us, evidently not used to federal agents barging in at six in the morning and demanding things of her. “I’ll, uh, tell him you’re here, sir. Can I let him know what this is about?”
“Official business,” Beckett replied unhelpfully. “We’ll wait here while you get him.”
Still looking somewhat flummoxed, the sergeant turned and picked up a phone, speaking into it quietly. There was a brief exchange that involved several uncertain glances being thrown in our direction, and in due course, the officer in charge appeared. He was a big man, perhaps in his late fifties, and while he’d let himself go after too much time as a desk jockey, he still dwarfed Beckett in terms of both height and breadth.
Beckett extracted the manila folder that had been tucked under his arm and set it on the desk. “Good morning, Lieutenant...?”
“Dupont,” said the man. “And you are?”
“Rhys Beckett, federal security service. There seems to have been some confusion about jurisdiction during a recent arrest. I’m here for a prisoner transfer.” He scooted the folder toward Dupont with an air of expectation.
The lieutenant’s expression closed off abruptly, leaving no question that he knew exactly which prisoner Beckett was talking about. That, at least, answered the question of whether or not we were in time to get her before the Committee did.
She was still here.
“I wasn’t informed of any such transfer.” Dupont opened the folder, glancing down at the contents. “This was strictly an MPD operation. We acted on information relayed directly to police detectives from a trusted source.”
Thattrusted sourcewas almost certainly a Committee operative. If that was the case, the truly disturbing part was that the information on Leona McCready could only have come from the so-called Beta Liberation Front. The fact that the terrorists and the Committee were apparently in bed together was... not good.
“Indeed,” Beckett replied, giving the man a tight smile. “However, you may not be fully aware of the...delicate political situationinvolved in this particular arrest, shall we say. The feds’ jurisdiction on this one trumps local jurisdiction. You’ll find all of the paperwork in order.”
Though it looked convincing, the paperwork in question was not, in fact, in order. It was one hundred percent forged. That little factoid would come back to bite somebody in the ass soon enough. Whether that ‘somebody’ ended up being us or the lieutenant was an open question at this point.
Dupont frowned over the sheaf of documents. “I’ll need to speak to the precinct captain.”
“Of course,” Beckett said, unperturbed. “We’ll wait while you do that.”
* * *
In the end, it tookwell over an hour for Beckett to politely but firmly bully the station commander into acknowledging federal jurisdiction. I was viscerally aware of the increasing number of hostile looks we garnered from the other officers on duty, as muttered gossip spread through the station. I ignored them. My gender presentation as a female alpha wasn’t exactly subtle, so I was used to a certain background level of hostility.
