by Eileen Wilks
Rule broke in. “It is, as Lily said, complicated. It’s also moot, because Lily says she can’t leave the reservation.”
“Mika needs me here,” Lily said. “I promised I’d stay.”
“Why does she need you here?”
For some reason that startled Lily. “She?”
“Mika,” Demi said impatiently.
“Ah . . . I can’t go into that. It’s part of my promise. But among the powers granted the Unit by Congress is one most people aren’t aware of. I can temporarily skip the paperwork and bring someone into the Unit immediately on my own authority. They’d have to be approved later, but until they were recalled for that procedure, they could act with full authority.”
“Lily wants to induct me,” Rule said. “I think that’s a bad idea.”
Demi nodded. “You’d just get arrested yourself, wouldn’t you? Probably before you ever got to Mr. Smith. Your face is pretty well-known.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” piped up Dirty Harry. “That’s where we can help. We can spread dul-dul around a little bit. Not for very long, but if he can do most of the sneaking himself, a couple of us could go along and hide him when he needed hiding.”
Rule shook his head. “As I was about to say when Danny told us about her idea, arresting Smith isn’t enough. He has to stay arrested. No law enforcement officer or agency in D.C. is going to believe me when I claim to be a Unit agent—particularly,” he said with a quick glance at Lily, “since I won’t have a warrant. They’ll let him go and keep me.”
“Who, then?” Lily demanded hotly. “Who could I tap? The same problem arises no matter who it is. If I inducted Jason into the Unit, they’d probably arrest him for impersonating a Unit agent. They’d have to drop the charges later, but they’d take Smith’s word over his. Smith would still go free.”
Everyone was very quiet for a moment. Lily spoke first. “We’ll just have to get in touch with another Unit agent.”
“Who?” Rule asked. “Abel and Martin are among the ones who’ve been relieved of duty pending the results of the investigation. Doesn’t that mean they currently lack the authority to make an arrest?”
“I didn’t know that.” Lily sounded discouraged or mad or something. She was frowning, but frowns didn’t always mean anger. “Did you tell me they’d been relieved of duty? I don’t remember it.”
Rule ran a hand through his hair. “Perhaps I forgot. I can’t think of anyone else who’d listen to us.”
Lily shook her head and didn’t say anything.
Demi did. “Mr. Brooks would, I bet. Has he been relieved of duty, too? Or put under arrest? Or was he just removed as head of the Unit?”
“I don’t know,” Rule said slowly. “The press didn’t use that term—‘relieved of duty.’ Officially he’s still under investigation, but he hasn’t been arrested. Being lupus isn’t technically a violation of the law. Some of the television pundits claim that he can’t be employed by the FBI at all due to his status as a lupus, but that would have to be litigated. Lily?”
She was still frowning. “There are procedures that have to be followed. It’s possible that Ruben was removed as head of the Unit without actually being relieved of duty. It depends on . . .” Her voice drifted off. “Ida! Did Ida stay on as secretary to the head of Unit Twelve?”
“I have no idea,” Rule said. “How would that help? Are you thinking of making her a Unit agent?”
“No, I’d have to go there to do that—can’t do it over the phone. I’ll bet she’s still the top guy’s secretary. Smith wouldn’t think she was a threat. People don’t think of secretaries as having power, but even this idiot they brought in to run the Unit must know he has to keep the monster fed. The bureaucracy, I mean. Bureaucracies can’t function without paperwork, which means secretaries and clerks who know how to feed the monster the proper forms.” She grinned. “Or not. If anyone knows how to delay or bollix up the paperwork, it’s Ida.”
“You think she did?” Rule asked.
Lily’s fingers were tapping her thigh. “She may not have needed to. The way the Unit is set up is so different from the rest of the Bureau. On an organizational chart, Unit Twelve looks like part of MCD, but if you read the fine print, the head of MCD has no authority over us. The director of the FBI does, but it’s largely limited to appointing or removing the person who runs the Unit. He can tell that person to remove agents from duty, but he can’t do it himself because the paperwork has to originate with office of the head of Unit Twelve.”
“Ruben didn’t remove himself from duty.”
“No, and this guy who’s taking his place is regular FBI. There’s a good chance he wouldn’t realize that when Ruben was removed from command, he wasn’t automatically removed from duty, too. He might not know that was up to him to do. And Ida wouldn’t point it out.”
Rule seemed excited about that possibility. So did Lily. They wanted to call Ida, but weren’t sure how to do it without the NSA listening in. Ida would be at work and that number was bound to be spied on, and maybe her personal phone was, too.
Normally Demi would have spoken up because that was her kind of problem. She didn’t. She was thinking again.
This problem was a lot harder. She didn’t like the answer she kept coming up with, but no matter how she looked at the data, she got the same thing. So she started listening again, hoping that someone would say something that changed the data. They didn’t. They’d decided there was no safe way to talk to Ida over the phone, so someone would have to go there in person to find out if Mr. Brooks had been relieved of duty or not. The question was who to send.
Demi sighed. No way around it. “Me. You need to send me. First, I’m the only one of us who knows Mr. Smith on sight. Second, it’s possible he’s used some of the Lodan potion himself, increasing the strength of his charisma Gift, which might be a problem for someone else—but his Gift doesn’t affect me. Third . . .” She sighed again. She did not like this part. “It might be important to stay in touch, and Lily can do that mindspeech thing with me even when there’s a lot of miles between us. We know that because she did it. Twice. She talked to me in my head and she heard me, too. We don’t know if she can do that with anyone else when they’re far away, and we don’t have time to find out.”
* * *
TWO hours later, Demi was an agent of Unit 12 heading for Washington, D.C., in an old Buick. She’d had to tell Lily the name she’d been born with: Demi Alicia McAllister. She’d told everyone they could still call her Danny if they wanted to. She liked being Danny.
Mike had Changed back to being a man so he could drive and, when they got there, so he could explain to Ruben Brooks who she was and why Mr. Brooks should listen to her. Four brownies went with them—Dirty Harry, Mallum, and a pair of twins called Twix and Hershey. They’d named themselves after their favorite candies.
Rule had argued about sending her. That made her feel good. He made it clear he didn’t want to risk her, and he couldn’t protect her personally if she was in D.C. But he couldn’t come up with data that changed her reasoning, though he had made one good point. The brownie reservation was almost twice as far from Washington, D.C., as it was from where Demi had been when Lily mindspoke her before. They didn’t know if Lily would be able to reach her in D.C.
Still, Lily had a better chance of reaching Demi than anyone else. Like it or not, Demi had won the argument.
“You sure this gas gauge works?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know,” Dirty Harry said. “Do you know about gas gauges, Twix?”
Twix didn’t. Neither did Mallum or Hershey.
The car belonged to the brownies. Sort of. Who’d have thought brownies would have a car? They were too small to drive. A tourist had abandoned it in their parking lot a few months ago and they’d claimed it. Demi didn’t think they’d actually taken care of the paperwork to put it in their names, but it hadn’t been reported stolen. She’d checked. So it should be okay for them to take it to D.C.
&
nbsp; They knew the car worked because, while they didn’t drive the car on roads, they did drive it, going around in circles in the parking area after the reservation was closed to tourists. Doing that involved two of them steering, two manning the brake and gas pedals, someone whose job was to shift gears, and someone else perched on the hood, calling out directions. Dirty Harry claimed that no one had been seriously hurt playing with their car. Sometimes Dirty Harry didn’t have a lot of sense.
Lily had practiced mindspeaking with her before they left. Several times. That was to get Lily used to finding her mind, and so Demi could get better at talking back to her. It seemed to work best if she spoke her response out loud and paid close attention to what she was saying. She still didn’t like the way mindspeech felt, but it wasn’t as creepy now that she knew it wasn’t Amanda talking in her mind. That was good. She was going to be experiencing it a lot because Lily would check with her pretty often.
Making Demi a Unit 12 agent was a fallback thing. Lily said the appointment wouldn’t stand up because she was underage. But for now, she was a law enforcement officer, an agent of the FBI, sworn to uphold the constitution of the United States. It thrilled her. If for some reason they weren’t able to connect with Ruben Brooks, she would try to arrest Mr. Smith herself.
She was hoping hard that they found Mr. Brooks.
“You’re sure quiet,” Mike said.
“There’s a lot to think about. I don’t understand why Lily didn’t make you a Unit Twelve agent, too.”
“Conflict of interest.”
“That’s what Rule said, but I don’t understand it.”
He gave her a small smile. “You’ll honor your duty. You may be a very new, very temporary agent, but you take it seriously, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“I can’t make the promise you did. I’m not going to follow anyone’s orders but my Rho’s, and my job is keeping you alive. If I have to violate the constitution to do that, I will.”
That made her stomach feel really weird. Not bad exactly, but weird. “I’m breathing, but I don’t feel like I’m doing it right. Do you think I’m having a new kind of panic attack?”
“Don’t.”
She put her hand on her stomach and paid attention to her breathing for a few moments. This wasn’t panic, she decided. It was what Lily called ordinary fear, only it was a really big big ball of ordinary fear because she was scared for so many people. For herself, sure. She didn’t want to die. But for Mike, too. In trying to keep her alive, he might get killed himself the way Saul had. Plus she was scared for Rule and Lily, who were facing some kind of attack from Mr. Smith back at the reservation. And the brownies. She was scared for them, too.
She had lots of friends now. She hadn’t realized that having lots of friends meant a much bigger ball of fear in her gut.
“I brought cards!” Dirty Harry called from the backseat. “We should play gin rummy. Not you, Mike, because you’re driving. Do you know how to play gin rummy, Danny?”
Demi swallowed. “Sure.”
“Better watch out,” Mike said. “Brownies cheat.”
“It isn’t cheating,” Dirty Harry said, “unless you get caught.”
FORTY
THE conference room held five people when Edward Smith walked in with Greg—Sharon, Chuck, and Barry, plus a gray-haired woman and a young man with hair the color and texture of straw. Tom Weng wasn’t there. Most of them were talking. Voices ranged from anxious to angry to excited.
Smith’s lips were tight as he went to the head of the table. Barry pulled out the chair on his right and sat. Smith remained standing. One by one, the others fell silent. He let that silence drag out for a moment before saying, “Operation Retrieval is about to commence.” Before they could respond, he added, “That is not, however, why I asked you to come here.”
That startled everyone.
“You all know your tasks in Operation Retrieval. You don’t need me to tell you again what’s at stake or what part you play. Unfortunately, you do need another sort of reminder. We have accomplished some of our most important goals. Target Prime has been revealed for the inhuman monster that he is. Public opinion is shifting toward a more sensible attitude about werewolves, and Unit Twelve is virtually paralyzed. It will continue to degrade once we have time to turn our attention to other Unit Twelve agents. However, some matters have not proceeded as we intended.”
Smith shook his head, a schoolmaster unhappy with his students’ performance on a test. “Many of you seem to regard this as a crisis. Indeed, a few seem to be only a breath away from panic. Did you believe everything would unfold precisely according to plan? In what world does that ever happen?”
“This is more than a minor hitch,” the gray-haired woman said. Her voice was deep enough to pass for a man’s. “Target Duo has Demi. The two of them have escaped and we can’t find them. Target Tres is still missing, and we have to suspect she might be with Duo. And we are now out of time to look for them.”
“Target Duo is not superhuman,” Smith said dryly. “He’s not any sort of human. True, he’s likely to complicate matters. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t have authorized the use of Cerberus. But realistically, what can he do? He has two useful skills and one significant resource. He can fight. He can summon other werewolves to fight with him. And he performs well on television.” A small smile. “He won’t be going on the Tonight Show anytime soon, though, will he?”
Some of the tension in the room eased. Barry actually chuckled. “Like to see him try.”
“Exactly. Let us look at the worst-case scenario. Assume that somehow Target Duo has managed to locate the dragon, which I think we all agree could only happen with help from the brownies. It’s unlikely that a bloody-minded werewolf and a timid, defenseless people like brownies would be friends, but for the purpose of our assumption, we will say that this is so. Perhaps Target Duo once rescued the brownie chief’s son from certain death and earned his everlasting gratitude.”
More chuckles greeted that sally.
“In this scenario, the brownies helped Target Duo escape the National Guard and—for some unguessable reason—made him aware of their other guest. I’m afraid I can’t come up with a story to explain how Duo then became aware of our plans. My imagination isn’t sufficient for that task.” His voice was very dry now. “Have any of you a better imagination?”
“Demi,” Chuck offered. “Something she told him made him suspect it.”
“What?” Smith asked pointedly. “I believe you were present at other meetings when we discussed what Demi knew or might guess. We concluded that there is simply no way she’s aware of Cerberus. She might have heard of the Lodan potion. It’s unlikely, given her ostracization from the children, but possible. Amanda might have said something to taunt—no, Sharon, don’t object. Amanda insists that she didn’t, but we all know the child is difficult to control. But it is quite a leap from hearing vaguely of Lodan’s existence to guessing at what we undertake in Operation Retrieval.”
The others gave Chuck slightly hostile looks. “Hey, I just wanted to cover all the possibilities,” he protested.
“That is one of the things we value you for,” Smith assured him. “Now, back to our scenario. I can’t explain why Duo might decide to risk his life, and perhaps those of his men, in defense of the dragon’s clutch. Unless one of you would like to suggest that the dragon is herself aware of us and our plans, and passed that on to Duo?”
Sheepish looks now.
“Good. Because my imagination truly falters at the prospect of explaining why, knowing about our intentions, she has done nothing.” Another look around the table. No one spoke.
He nodded. “We can conclude that Tom’s information about her was accurate. Still, in order to construct our worst-case scenario, we will factor even that into our assumptions—that Duo means to stop Operation Retrieval and gathers some of his men to oppose us. What happens then? Some of the troops we send will die.” He lo
oked grave. “That would grieve us all. But even in this, the worst-case scenario, we will still accomplish our goal. He and whatever men he might call upon cannot, with tooth and claw, stop troops armed with M16s, grenades, and missile launchers.”
Tentatively, Barry spoke. “And Duo will be in real trouble then, won’t he? He’ll have killed U.S. soldiers.”
“Very true. Though we hope to avoid that outcome, if it should happen it only strengthens our position.” Smith smiled faintly. “Tom is, I suspect, the reason for some of your unease. He’s not one of us, however useful he has been. He’s contrary, arrogant, and he enjoys baiting people. That makes it difficult to have confidence in him, but I keep a close eye on Tom. Do any of you lack confidence in me?”
“Of course not!”
“—complete confidence—”
“Never!”
“—ridiculous. Of course we trust you.”
“We’ll follow you to the end, Edward. You know that.” That came from the gray-haired woman with the deep voice. “One thing does worry me, though. Your safety. Duo’s a born killer. We know that, even if the general public needed to be forcibly reminded of the fact. Because of Demi, he knows who you are. What’s to stop him from coming after you?”
This smile was fuller now. “Thank you for expressing that concern. I am only one man, however, and hardly the most vital. I—” He had to stop while they all assured him that he was indeed the most vital and his safety meant everything to them. “Thank you,” he said again. “Your words touch me, even if I can’t agree. If it eases your mind, Sharon, I’ve implemented additional security at home.”