Chapter Text
If you could know in the morning, really know without ever leaving your bed what sort of a day it was going to be, would you want to know? Would you want to see that far into the future? Would you want the opportunity to stay in bed, skip out, and avoid the possibility of something really awful happening that day? What if by doing that, by staying home and hiding your head under the pillows, you let something really awful happen to someone else?
It was a good question. And one that ATF Agent J.D. Dunne had ample time to ponder. Yet pondering it didn't get him any closer to an answer. Or remove from him the simple, crushing truth—he didn't get that chance to decide. He had only acted. And the reality of that was purely and simply inescapable.
People came and went in the blue-gray foyer, dress shoes clicking on the granite flooring, stopping at the large reception desk, dropping off papers and picking up messages, most of them not even noticing him sitting in the chair. And he didn't know what was worse, to be here now, left entirely to himself and his thoughts, or to be back in the federal building enduring sympathetic words and gestures from agents and colleagues that he hardly knew.
But then it wasn't like he had a choice but to be here. It wasn't like he had a choice three days ago either.
Or maybe he had.
He had gone over it so many times in his head that he just didn't know anymore. All he knew was that three solid days of searching had not yielded a gun. Nor did he expect it to because, God help him, he was certain the boy had not had one.
Instead he sat in this reception area, avoiding the newspaper folded neatly on a table next to him, and waited for his name to be called, for someone else to take the reins in the next step of a series of events that was now well beyond his control.
His last moment of control had been the instant before he squeezed that trigger.
"Agent Dunne?" the receptionist's voice queried suddenly.
J.D. stood up.
A woman in a blue suit stood to the right of the reception desk. She gave him a smile and asked him politely to come with her.
"Give them another day to look for the gun."
"No."
The word was simple and short and, although not entirely without feeling, certainly not adequate for the situation at hand.
At his desk out in Team Seven's bullpen, Ezra winced, and wondered how even Chris Larabee could be so oblivious to that fact.
"Just one day."
Buck Wilmington's tone coming out of the Team Leader's office bordered dangerously on pleading.
The tone alone made Ezra wonder whether he shouldn't be trying quite so hard to listen in. But then again, he was not the one who didn't close the office door. His teammates, had any of them been present at the moment, would have done exactly the same as he was doing now.
It wasn't great justification, but the need to know outweighed the need to keep up appearances. Besides, to any casual observer, Ezra Standish was at his desk working away, while his team leader and the second in command happened to be in Chris Larabee's office having a discussion, which promised to turn heated in short order given Larabee's hardheaded refusal to even listen to Buck make his point and Wilmington's equally obstinate refusal to see the logic that was right in front of his face.
There was no way Chris was going to give anyone any more time at that taped-off crime scene to look for a gun that three days and two nights of searching every inch of storefront, linoleum, shelving, and concrete had not yielded. And Ezra knew it. Everyone on the team knew it. But what Buck Wilmington knew and what he agreed to acknowledge did not always run in the same circles.
Chris did not repeat his refusal.
No surprise there. Ezra wondered if Chris really thought maintaining silence would help Buck to see reason right now.
If Larabee could look past stone cold logic,he would see that this had nothing to do with reason. It had to do with J.D. Dunne. And where Buck's young protégé was concerned, Wilmington could be downright unreasonable.
"I'll look for it myself," Wilmington said, taking Chris's silence as a sign of making some kind of inroad into the problem. Typical. "I'll take Vin and we can…"
Ezra stiffened in anticipation.
"No," Chris repeated with more vehemence than was probably strategically appropriate, breaking off Buck's sentence right in the middle.
The sudden silence hung, almost palpable. Ezra studied his computer screen, and told himself the sudden chill in the room was only his imagination.
"The answer is no," Chris repeated more quietly. But there was no mistaking the steely tone.
Ezra slanted his eyes toward the office as Buck's head drew back in frustration.
"You looked two days ago," Chris reminded him. The Senior Agent's voice was calm, but the resolve in it had not softened a single iota. Ezra resisted the urge to shake his head as the Team Leader's unassailable logic continued in its doomed trajectory despite the obvious signs.
"Teams have been searching for three days," Chris pointed out. "It isn't there."
"It's got to be there," Buck repeated. Just as stubbornly refusing to see the signs himself.
Bridge out ahead, Ezra thought. He could hear the planking splintering as Chris rose from his desk chair.
Ezra wondered if it would look too suspicious if he suddenly found somewhere else he needed to be right that instant. But in the end, the point was moot, as he couldn't tear himself from the spectacle playing out before him.
Ezra was pretty sure that Chris wanted every bit as badly as Buck did for someone to just find the gun that kid was carrying.
Ezra had wanted it, too. Every man on the team did. But then the talk of finding the gun had turned to hope that they might find any gun—some random gun that could be ascribed to the kid and used to make a case that the boy was carrying like the others. Or maybe just something that looked like a gun. Something that a review board or a jury could be induced to believe might look like a gun under fire, under stress, under the circumstances.
That was when Chris slammed on the brakes. Hard.
Ezra supposed he could understand that. God knew the team had been accused often enough of drifting from the straight and narrow line they were duty-bound to walk. And sometimes steamrolling right over it without looking back.
Plus, meetings upon meetings with increasingly higher and wider levels of brass, may have had something to do with Chris's decision to terminate the search. There were certainly no shortage of increasingly strident voices ordering him to stop stonewalling and shut it down.
Unfortunately, when Chris slammed down the brakes, ostensibly to save the team, Buck saw J.D.'s career go flying through the splintered windshield, and Buck's bleeding little heart went right with it.
It was beyond Ezra why Chris, who was normally rather perceptive about his team's state of mind, couldn't get down off his high horse and acknowledge that cold logic had nothing to do with Buck's reasoning here. Then again, although Chris Larabee was often very clear about other people's points of view, for reasons known only to himself, that didn't necessarily keep him from antagonizing them anyway.
Buck broke the silence. Gone was the pleading for understanding. The voice was low, hard, and deadly. "You forget who we're talking about here." The threat in his tone was clear.
Ezra typed faster. Dumb move. Chris was not likely to respond well to threats. Not even for Buck, to whom, in Ezra's opinion, the man sometimes gave a shocking amount of professional leeway.
Larabee's voice, when it responded, was colder and harder than Buck's. "And you forget who you're talking to."
Ezra's eyes jerked toward the office. For a split second, he was certain that Buck was going to deck Chris—the kind of punch that was meant to do some damage. Chris braced visibly. And sitting in his chair at a safe distance, so did Ezra.
But Buck didn't hit him.
"You son of a bitch," Buck growled out instead. And this time, unlike all the other times Ezra had heard him call Chris by that particularly overused epithet, which was apparently useful in fun, in fondness, in frustration, and even in admiration, this time it certainly sounded like Buck meant it. And not in a good way.
Ezra flicked his eyes hurriedly back to his computer as Buck came storming out of the office. He grabbed his jacket and disappeared from the team bullpen, leaving Chris still standing behind his office desk, fists clenched. Buck was at the elevator by the time Ezra wondered if Chris was even going to order him to stop—as if it would have done any good.
A moment later Ezra realized that maybe Chris had no intention of telling Buck to stop.
Maybe he was going to let Buck hang himself this time.
Or maybe Chris really thought it was a good idea for Buck to take another look.
Ezra wasn't likely to find out either way. And neither was Buck.
Buck was right about one thing, Ezra reflected, Chris Larabee could be a stone cold bastard.
And, Ezra supposed, that might be what it took to ride herd on his clabbered-together team of misfits.
Ezra thought Chris would make a similar exit from the bullpen. But he didn't. Ezra watched from the corner of his eye, as Chris appeared to make a rather long inhale through his nose before sitting down behind his desk and picking up a pencil. He unclenched his fists, rolled his shoulders back and turned his attention to the papers on his desk.
Chris did not close his door either.
Ezra had to give him credit for that.
The last thing anyone needed now was for J.D. to wander back from the lawyer the ATF sent him to and find another door closed in his face. Or for any other member of the team to look at the Team Leader's closed door and decide to go it on their own the way Buck just did.
As if that wasn't going to come back and hit them all in the face, Ezra mused sardonically.
A pencil snapped in Chris Larabee's hand.
A few moments later, Nathan came cautiously through the bullpen doorway. He and Ezra exchanged a glance full of meanings but neither man put those meanings into words. Nathan sat down and picked up his work where he left off, as silently as he had come in.
Beyond Chris's door, it was so silent in their bullpen that he could hear the tapping of their keyboards. No one was talking. Not even Ezra Standish—and that was saying something. He shouldn't have been surprised. It had been getting progressively quieter and quieter out there over the last three days.
At first, the tight-lipped quiet had been masked by a flutter of activity. Searching for the hoped-for missing weapon, or for surveillance that nobody had, or for ballistics reports that were typically slow in coming until Assistant Director Travis had bellowed in someone's ear. But the ballistics reports hadn't helped their position any.
The members of Team Seven were manning their battle stations now. They were circling the wagons. They were battening down the hatches, and they were bracing for impact. Everyone else in the building knew it, too. It was exactly what they would do in Team Seven's position.
Of course, everyone else in the building was glad not to be in Team Seven's position. Just like every agent in the building was glad not to be in J.D.'s position. Every agent, except possibly Buck Wilmington, who was perhaps the only fool in the world who'd reverse time, if he could, and put himself inside that convenience store just to save J.D. some pain. Chris knew that, too.
And it didn't help.
J.D. waited in another, smaller, carpeted waiting room to tell his story to one more person. In the last few days, he must have spoken to a dozen or more people he hadn't really wanted to have to speak to. First there was Chris, arriving on the scene right on Buck's heels. J.D. had begun a verbal report, but Chris held up his hand and told him to think it over real carefully before he said anything. Then Buck sat beside him in the back door of an ambulance bay, quietly, unofficially asking him how it happened. J.D. had watched the ambulances and the police, swarming investigators, and dimly, past the too-bright flashing lights of police and EMS vehicles, the shadows of uniformed officers asking people to stay beyond the hastily thrown up barricade. There was sobbing and a guttural moaning sound.
Slowly, very slowly, J.D. began to tell Buck what had happened, how it had happened, what they did and what he did. But when he looked up, what he saw in his friend's face seemed to condemn him.
"Dammit, Kid," Buck had blurted out. "Didn't I tell you a hundred times…"
The opening of the big wooden office door drowned out the memory of Buck impressing on him something he should have known, something he should have done, something that might have made the entire incident go away, but far too late to make a difference.
The incident. That's what they all called it. The incident. The event. The issue. It. All nice clean terms that helped him avoid saying it out loud. And God how he had avoided making himself come right out and say it. "I shot a civilian. I shot a boy." Three of them, in fact. And was that worse than just one? Or was just one enough to damn him?
He stood up and swallowed.
The assistant in the blue suit ushered him into the office of a diminutive woman named Reesa Connors. She sat in an impressively large leather chair behind an impressively large wooden desk. She rose up to introduce herself and shake his hand, a perfunctory and capable shake. Then she gestured to a smaller leather chair drawn up across the desk from her, straightened her impeccable suit and sat down again. She folded her manicured hands beneath her chin and regarded him a moment, while he tried hard not to twitch, or jiggle, or twist and turn in his chair.
This was his legal counsel. Specifically arranged for him by the ATF. Travis had assured him at least twice that she was very good or she wouldn't have been selected. Chris had told him that he had dealt with her before on several very different occasions and he found her to be smart, informed, and highly capable.
J.D. hadn't bothered to ask whether Chris had dealt with her over something like this. Partly because he was afraid Chris would say no. And partly because he was afraid Chris would say yes. Either option was equally bad.
If Chris said no, then J.D. would have to face the fact that no one else on his team had ever made a mess like this for themselves, which was likely. If Chris said yes, then Chris should have had more advice and counsel to offer and was choosing, instead, to keep it to himself. And J.D. couldn't come up with any reasons why Chris would do that didn't mean something even worse.
He stared glumly at the degrees on the wall behind Reesa Connors' head and waited for her to offer something other than that long, appraising stare.
"So," she said after a moment. "I won't beat around the bush. You're here because in a firefight three days ago, you shot three minors, and it presently appears that one may have been a bystander. Am I correct?"
And there it was, stated simply and right out loud. No pretty terms. Just the facts of the matter.
Connors nodded, as if he were taking some sort of oral exam and got the first answer right. She leaned back in her chair. "I have a lot of questions," she said.
J.D. nodded.
"I need you to answer them to the best of your ability. I need to know the truth whether it is good, bad, or indifferent. I'll let you know if it's irrelevant. I'll let you know if it's good. But if it's bad, then I need to know it, so I can help you through this mess. You understand?"
He nodded again.
"Good," she said and smiled, but something hard as steel glinted in her deep brown eyes. "Don't jerk me around, Agent," she said, her tone hard. "Because I'm your best hope right now. And if you screw this up, you're on your own."
In that second she sounded so much like Larabee that J.D. didn't know whether to gulp or grin. He managed to do neither one. Just felt suddenly much more confident that Reesa Connors would know what to do, no matter how bad this got.
He gave her his solemn promise to tell her all he could. Truthfully, he had never thought to do otherwise.
Then she smiled again, satisfied that she had made her point. She flipped open a very fat folder on her desk and found the page she was looking for.
"Let's go over the events," she said. "From your point of view."
J.D. took a deep breath and began to tell it all again.
In the last two days, Chris had been in and out and in and out and in again to the 13th floor assistant directors' offices more times than he cared to count. He'd been chewed out by the director of the lab who didn't like the way he spoke to his technicians in ballistics. He had been threatened by two other Assistant Directors, who told Travis that if he didn't rein Larabee in, they would. He had been strongly advised by his own senior chain of command on several points now, not least of which included Agent Dunne's duty status.
And then there was Travis. It was Travis who gave him stark realism, the view from the top of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and his unvarnished, unadulterated opinion and suggestions. Travis, who was handling God only knew how much flak from other AD's over Chris's point blank refusal to confiscate J.D.'s badge and gun until the shooting could be ruled on. And no matter how stubbornly he refused to acknowledge it, Chris knew damn well how it looked in the papers—and how much worse it got each day the papers continued to report the fruitlessness of their investigation at the crime scene and on the growing public discontent. It was entirely conceivable that Travis alone was single-handedly holding the directors above him from coming crashing down on Chris and his team. For this, Chris was grateful, but there was still precious little to offer relief.
He had bargained, pushed, cajoled, coaxed, threatened, wheedled, and outright begged every second of delay and search time that he was bound to get. He managed to get the search extended two more days—over Travis's good advice, stretching Travis's willingness to accommodate him, using any favors he had left with the crime scene boys and girls, pissing off the AD's for Teams Three and Twelve respectively, and letting two or three active cases get that much colder on Team Seven's collective desks.
There was no gun.
Ostensibly the team was working on those cases that were getting cold.
Chris was aware of his professional obligation to go out into the bullpen to see what they were really doing. But he wasn't sure he really wanted to know. He was tempted to go down to the crime scene and kick a reporter in the teeth. But that would probably look bad. He considered drinking another large cup of bad coffee as the safest next move.
But the phone rang.
In the outer office, Vin Tanner and Ezra Standish heard the muffled swearing. A few feet farther away, Josiah Sanchez and Nathan Jackson only heard the clatter of Chris's phone being sideswiped off his desk.
Chris said nothing to them as he stormed from his office like a nasty-tempered tornado. They heard the stairwell door slam open.
"He took the stairs," Nathan remarked.
"Yes," Standish drawled. "The elevator is apparently too slow for his purposes."
"He keeps doin' stairs like he is, an' he's gonna tear a muscle." Tanner observed, never looking up from his desk.
"Better he take it out on the stairs, than on us," Josiah Sanchez offered sagely from his own desk.
"Amen to that," Jackson replied, as Ezra and Vin both nodded their heads in agreement.
And in the absence of Chris and Buck both, the tension in the air eased just a fraction.
Upstairs was a different story, however. Walter Brennerman, Senior Site Supervisor for the Crime Scene Unit had clearly already given Assistant Director Orin Travis an earful of his problem by the time Larabee brushed his way past the secretary and into the office itself.
Travis was holding the bridge of his nose.
"Here he is," Brennerman said, frustrated sarcasm falling off his tongue. "Ask him."
"Ask me what?" Chris hedged, but his eyes glittered at Brennerman like a snake eyeing a juicy rat.
"Gentlemen," Travis intoned, fingers still clutching the bridge of his nose.
He raised a hand to silence Brennerman and then lifted his head to look at Larabee appraisingly. "Did we not agree this morning that it was time to wrap up the scene?"
Chris never shifted his gaze from Brennerman's face. "We did," he said, and Travis noted that the tone was less than conciliatory.
"Three days we've been looking," Brennerman repeated, turning to make his case toward Travis and avoid the unnerving glare leveled at his head. "There's no gun. There are no weapons unaccounted for. There are no bullets not identified. We were asked to look for ricochet. There's no evidence of a ricochet. We were asked to look for any surveillance footage. The film from the security camera at the store provides no evidence of a third gun. We've gone over it twice, three times, four times. We spent an entire extra day looking."
He sent a sidelong glare at Larabee before pointedly telling Travis, "And we can look another ten, fifteen, or forty times and it's not going to change the evidence."
"So wrap up the scene," Travis said impatiently. He was speaking to Brennerman, but his sharp gaze was directed at Chris.
Brennerman's face screwed up in frustration. "As soon as Larabee calls off his agent, we can do just that, sir."
Travis's hard stare turned somewhat surprised.
A number of swear words rushed right up to the tip of Chris's tongue. But he didn't open his mouth. He looked back at Travis with as ignorant a stare as he could manage.
"My agent?" he inquired, hedging. Not like he didn't know damn well which agent was down at the crime scene, grasping at straws in full view of passersby, reporters, cameramen and curious civilians with nothing else to do.
Brennerman looked at Chris as if he wanted to strangle him, which was probably nearly the case.
"Your agent," Brennerman growled, "Wilmington, who is currently running around my crime scene, interfering with my crew, and keeping us from finishing up our job."
Chris's eyes narrowed. He did not ask what "interfering" meant. He supposed if Buck had actually hit someone for trying to pack up, Brennerman would have mentioned that straight off. Still, "interfering" could come in many shapes and sizes where Buck was concerned. God damn him.
Chris kept his seething carefully contained.
Brennerman lowered his voice and turned back to Travis. "We all understand the issue," he said. "We've worked as hard as we know how. The evidence just isn't there to find."
"We understand," Travis said succinctly. He put his hands on his desk and rose to his full height. "Have your team finish up. Agent Larabee will take Agent Wilmington in hand."
Chris felt the back of his neck burn, as Travis calmly showed Brennerman the door. Taking Agent Wilmington "in hand" was his decision. His call. He glared at Travis.
Travis was not impressed. He didn't say anything until he returned to his desk. Collecting his thoughts, Chris knew.
"We discussed this," Travis stated. His voice was calm, but Chris could hear the strain beneath.
"Yes, sir," Chris replied. He was dimly aware of having pulled himself up to his full height. Standing at attention. Standing Captain's mast for disciplinary infractions. Like his body still knew exactly what to do, despite the intervening years since he had left the Navy.
"I thought we came to an agreement," Travis said, his tone implying much more threat than his words.
"Yes, sir," Chris responded.
Travis glowered at him, fingers splayed on the desktop to bear the weight of those broad shoulders leaning threateningly across the desk toward Chris.
"Then why is Wilmington down there?" he asked between his teeth, and Chris considered, not for the first time, what it must have been like to have been in Travis's court room back when he was just a judge.
He was not intimidated. But he was aware that Travis was doing a damn sight more than most to support J.D., to support the team, to support Chris himself. And he knew, like he seldom had cause to realize, just how much they all needed Travis in their court right now.
He tried to choose his words carefully, but he had run out of patience a long time ago. "What did you expect him to do?" Chris retorted. Buck could be as predictable as night following day—if you knew him well enough. What else would Buck be doing but trying to help out his friend, his teammate, his surrogate brother? Whether it was a smart idea or not didn't come into it. Buck's heart was almost always in the right place but that place wasn't always wired to his brain. Of course, Chris didn’t mention that to Travis. If you know Buck Wilmington well enough, you knew already knew that.
Travis's voice was cold, hard, and deadly when he answered. "I expect Agent Wilmington to follow your orders, Agent Larabee," he snarled.
The dark grey eyebrows came down together like thunderheads piling up in a still summer sky, and the insinuation was not lost on Chris that Travis, like Brennerman, believed Chris had sent Buck down there to delay the closing of the crime scene, to take one last look, to second-guess the crime scene crew one more time. It would be pointless for Chris to explain that he had not. Because maybe in some small way he had. He sure as hell hadn’t lifted a finger to stop him.
"Do I make myself clear, Agent Larabee?" Travis growled.
"Perfectly," Chris replied, as coolly as he knew how.
"Get Wilmington back here. In this building. In your bullpen. And under control," Travis ordered. "I don't care if you have to knock him out and drag him back here. Just do it."
"Yes, sir," Chris replied, his tone anything but conciliatory.
Travis stopped him as he turned to leave. "I don't have to tell you," he said, still snarling, but his voice gone quieter now. "If you don't get control of your agents, the brass will."
Travis was right when he said he didn't have to tell Chris that. Higher ups had been itching to rein them in for years. And didn't this whole fiasco just provide the perfect opening? Travis was right, too, that Buck wasn't helping matters.
But getting Buck back was a whole other issue.
He didn't tell Travis that either. He simply gave a toothy, "Oh, I understand, perfectly."
Travis didn't feel at all optimistic about the immediate future as he watched Chris leave as brusquely as he came in.
It did not surprise Buck Wilmington to see that, indeed, someone had come to fetch him, to bring him back to the bullpen. What did surprise Buck was who he saw passing through the crime scene tape and coming calmly toward him.
Time was, Buck reflected, rising from where he was minutely examining a scratch on a nearby fire hydrant, since he had been ejected from the actual crime scene within the store, that Chris would have had the balls to come himself, not send someone to do his dirty work for him.
He brushed his hands on his black ATF jacket as he turned to face the man coming toward him.
"Ezra," Buck greeted him flatly.
It wasn't exactly a warm welcome, but it wasn't exactly hostile either, so, Ezra decided, so far so good.
Ezra slipped his own hands placidly inside the pockets of his long, non-official, ATF-logo-less raincoat. "Buck," he returned calmly and stood facing his teammate, waiting. Buck was not stupid, after all. He would know exactly why Ezra was here.
"Chris send you to bring me back?" Buck asked, the way his lips twisted almost into a sneer told Ezra exactly what Buck thought about that.
Ezra was not stupid either. He knew when to go into deeper cover and he knew when to abort. He had done his homework on his teammates a long time ago, and he made it a point to know where each of them stood on the chessboard, no matter what the game was. So he smiled enigmatically and told the truth.
"Yes."
The sneer turned into a grudging and all-too-fleeting glimmer of a smile.
Ezra shrugged. "He figured I'd be the least likely to arouse your suspicions."
Buck's lips curved up a little higher in recognition of Ezra's betrayal of the truth—although the smile was not what Ezra would call reassuring. He simply waited patiently for Buck to decide what he wanted to do with that information.
Buck regarded Ezra silently for a beat, mulling over his teammate's unusual candor. He could concede easily enough that Chris was probably right about that. The way Chris and Vin were joined practically at the hip these days, he doubted Vin would have gotten even this far. Nathan and his self-righteousness were more than he could stand right now, and the last thing he wanted today was wise words of advice, psychobabble, or God forbid, a sermon from Josiah. Chris could have come down here himself, and forcibly dragged him back to the office. But Buck would have offered his best resistance, at which he was no slouch, and there would definitely have been blood.
All of that, he reflected, flicking his eyes toward the yellow tape and the blue barriers, would have made a nice show for the voyeurs and some good pics for the front page.
Ezra followed the flick of Buck's gaze to the barriers and tape that cordoned off the area, and beyond that to several reporters, who had been taping from their staked out spots for two days, a clot of photographers pressing against the barriers, and a number of unidentified people who probably had no business being here but were craning their necks or straining to get some part of their faces into a camera shot, or worse, invoking their right to be heard, looking for their fifteen minutes of fame by offering up their dubiously considered opinions on this terrible tragedy in their community.
Ezra looked at Buck and wondered what he was seeing. Then he turned back again and considered the milling people once again before taking a silent deep breath. It had occurred to him that Chris had sent him precisely because he'd spent so much damn time creating the impression that he was as likely to not do what Chris Larabee told him to do, as to actually deign to follow orders. He chalked it up to some perverse self-defeating flaw in his character, this need to show other people that he was still an independent operator and that he could be trusted only to act in his own best interest.
Chris basically regarded it as a load of crap—and gave Ezra more hell than he had ever taken from any other person when this attitude occasionally came back to bite both of them in the ass. But for the most part Ezra's hard work paid off. People tend to believe what you want them to. And occasionally his carefully crafted pretenses even came in handy with his own teammates, when they were too preoccupied to think too hard.
He should feel guilty about manipulating his friends, he knew. But at the moment he didn't. There was too much at stake. And besides, he was good at it, and he was pretty sure that was another reason Chris asked him to come down here. He had a job to do. And he would use the many tools he had at his disposal to get it done. Ironically, at the moment, the best tool to accomplish his task, appeared to be the truth—applied judiciously, of course.
"I wonder if it has occurred to our fearless leader yet, that keeping this crime scene open the last two days has only fed the media circus," he drawled, letting no small note of disgust creep into his voice. Let Buck decide who the disgust was for, Larabee and his "I Know Everything" attitude, or the various piranhas of the local and national press.
Buck turned his head only far enough to regard Ezra from the corner of his eye.
Ezra did not give any sign that he had noticed. Instead he added, irritatedly, "Not like the sight of all these personnel still crawling around a crime scene days after the fact plays right into their insinuations that law enforcement is just protecting itself instead of the public it's supposed to serve."
He jerked one hand reflexively at the members of said public just beyond the barriers, a dismissive, belittling gesture that he had perfected so long ago it was like second nature. He realized only belatedly that he hoped no one had caught that on film.
He continued on without waiting for a response. "Of course, Chris won't have to account for the expense of keeping all these people on scene himself, so I'm sure it won't matter." Truth to tell, he could work himself into a nice little snit over that one, if he thought about it. The miserly bean counters in the Accounts Payable Office questioned every last niggling item he put in his expense reports, yet no one was likely to lift an eyebrow at the mere thousands of taxpayer dollars the ATF was spending right here to find a gun, the existence of which was growing more dubious by the minute.
He winced. He needed to remember the "agent involved" was one of their own. Not a mere colleague. A teammate. A friend, if you had to get technical about it. Even now he could hear his mother's poison-tipped southern tongue sweetly drawling out, "Ezra, dear, when will you learn that sentimentality is a trap? Relationships are messy entanglements we can't afford."
He winced again. Since when did friendship turn into "messy entanglements."
He turned his thoughts back to Chris Larabee and damned him soundly for sending him down here to push, pull, pry, lure, and otherwise manipulate a teammate away from this crime scene. Consigning Chris to eternal flames had the benefit of making Ezra feel more properly directed. He turned to face Buck and returned to the task at hand.
"The talking heads and the media, will of course, all have something to say about the hypocrisy of law enforcement putting itself above the law," Ezra said with a derisive snort. "The hypocrisy is they don't give a damn how this turns out. They're only here because they've still got something to look at. As soon as we leave, we'll be yesterday's news."
He turned and wandered back away from the edge of the sidewalk and back to the building, not waiting for Buck to follow him.
"Forgotten," he continued, without looking back. "Relegated to some back column, a paragraph space on page eleven."
He stopped at the edge of the shattered glass door to the drugstore.
"If they still write about it at all," he added in afterthought.
Shards still glittered on the concrete, as if illuminating the lurid stain where one of the bodies had fallen. He gazed down at the glass, twinkling like so many tarnished stars. This time he was waiting. Waiting for Buck act-first-think-about-it-later-especially-when-I'm-protecting-my-friends Wilmington to put the pieces together. Ezra knew he would, with proper direction. After all, he reminded himself, Buck was not stupid, just impulsive—and at present, very worried.
It took a moment or two, but sanity prevailed, and Buck ambled up next to him.
"Let's go then," Buck said. He jerked his head back toward the crime scene unit, as they continued to pack up around him, or stood, blatantly waiting for him to get out of their way. "The sooner we get out of here, the sooner the crime scene guys can pack up this show."
Ezra nodded. Precisely. He knew Buck could be made to see reason. It just took delicacy, subtlety. After all, Chris had picked him for a reason. Still, Ezra did not change his disgruntled and irritated demeanor as he walked side by side back to Buck's car. He had had to circle a nearby block twice to find a spot near enough to Buck to make it look coincidental if necessary. The assignment nearly finished, now all Ezra had to do was make sure Buck was headed back to the office.
Ezra looked at his watch and gave a dramatic sigh.
"You don't suppose he'd care if we stopped for some decent coffee, do you?" he asked, giving Buck a hopeful glance.
Buck laughed for the first time in two days. "Who cares?" he asked, clapping Ezra on the back. "Long as you're buying."
Ezra's eyes widened only fractionally at the suggestion, but he gritted his teeth, metaphorically, and grudgingly agreed. He'd just work on Chris later to shell out the money this was costing him in parking fees and caffeine.
He watched Buck get into his truck and then followed him toward Starbuck's and the federal building. Mission accomplished, he thought with satisfaction. He only wished their other problems could be resolved so easily.
Buck and Ezra returned to a half-empty bullpen, occupied by the three men who had been left to hold down the fort.
Ezra did not have to ask where Chris was. It was a certain bet that he was where he had been all morning, and most of yesterday, and a good chunk of the day before: Upstairs, where the classic conundrum of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object was being played out in the offices of successively higher members of ATF command. Of course Ezra knew that in reality, physics precluded the existence of both an irresistible force and an immovable object in the same universe. And knowing that, Ezra wondered with a curious mixture of dread and suspense whether it would be the irresistible force or the immovable object that would have to give.
Buck showed no outward inclination that he was pondering anything even remotely as philosophical in nature. He also showed no inclination to work on their outstanding cases. He shoved the folders roughly aside, opened up his browser and began scanning the day's news transcripts and articles, all featuring the shooting by the "as yet unnamed federal agent." And even though Buck said nothing, it did not take someone with great people-reading skills to feel the temperature around his desk growing icier and icier even as the flush around Buck's collar grew hotter and hotter.
Ezra exchanged one glance with Vin Tanner, and that glance alone was enough to tell him Vin was already deep in his foxhole and ready to duck and cover when the bomb came down. Wise man, Vin Tanner.
Ezra began planning his exit strategy.
Upstairs, Travis's office was full to bursting with people Chris did not want to see—in addition to AD Travis himself, glowering even harder and more darkly than he had been earlier. They had left one empty chair for Chris to sit in. As they closed the office door behind him, they gave instructions to Travis's assistant that they would be in conference for some time.
"For some time" was open to interpretation. And Chris suspected it meant until he could be made to see reason—their brand of reason. He waited until introductions were made. In addition to Travis, there were two directors: Director Hofstader, whom he knew; and another one that Chris had seen but never met. There were also a representative from Internal Affairs, a lawyer for the ATF, and a spin doctor from PR.
No lawyer for the defense, Chris noted sardonically. Of course not. Because Buck had advised J.D. to call the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association just in case he might need a lawyer instead of flat out telling him to get a laywer, which let J.D. think that maybe he might not have to resort to that because he didn't really do anything wrong. Kind of like he ignored Chris's advice to make an appointment to get some real counseling besides the mandatory "Go see the bureau shrink because you shot someone" memo. Of course, Chris wasn't strictly allowed to make further counseling an actual requirement until it became a matter of job performance and taking J.D.'s badge and gun. J.D. balked at the idea of seeing a shrink, so he didn't make that appointment either. J.D. was too shaken up to be thinking quite that straight.
Chris got his own thinking straight the moment he looked around at Travis's office. And before taking his assigned seat, he asked for a legal representative from the FLEOA to be present in the meeting. The ATF's laywer had the nerve to try to tell him that would just take up more valuable time. Chris sure as hell hoped that turned out to be true because he, J.D., and all of Team Seven really needed the time to figure out what to do next.
Chris had to give them credit for being efficient. While they all waited for the lawyer to arrive, they used the time to prod, coax, cajole, push, pressure, and even threaten him. They informed him how enthusiastically the vultures in the journalism field had latched onto the shooting of "a teenage bystander" by "a federal agent, whose name has not been released." They informed him with videotape, with audiotape, with live broadcast from CNN, with freshly inked newspapers, and with every piece of media they could slap convincingly onto Travis's desktop, that the press was aware that "no action" had been taken yet, , and that, depending on which radio stations a person listened to, "the agent involved has been suspended from duty, pending the investigation into the fatal shooting" apparently didn't constitute action.
They told him in the most exact of terms how bad this situation was for public relations. It did not play well with the community that first a white federal agent had shot an unarmed teenage boy in a convenience store in the boy's own neighborhood, and now the ATF had hardly exacted even the minimal possible actions against him. This was simply a matter of procedure. It wasn't a witch hunt.
They reminded him how important community support is important to effective law enforcement. They impressed upon him how hard the law enforcement community in general, and the ATF in particular—after their very conspicuous failure at Waco, Texas—had worked and continued to work to build and re-build their image as servants and protectors of the public interests. They told him again how this incident affected more people than just J.D. Dunne, or Team Seven, or even the families of the injured parties. There were larger stakeholders to consider.
They told him all of this as if he had been in a coma or on another planet for the last three days and was not aware of what had happened on his team, to his agent, or how it sounded in the press. Their clean, vanilla terminology stuck hard in his craw. "The agent involved" was J.D. Dunne. He had a name and a reputation and hopes and dreams for his future. The "injured parties" had names, too. Radim Taylor and Kyle Lebec had certainly had guns. Taylor, all of 16 years old, had a bullet in his chest and a drawer in the morgue. Lebec, only 15, had not regained consciousness and was not expected to. It was Tyson Morton who was the focus of all this trouble. Tyson, who had no gun that anyone could find evidence of. Tyson who was supposed to have a birthday in three weeks. He would be turning 15—if he made it—a kid who Chris was pretty sure had some dreams for his future, too.
Chris was only too well aware —even without the newspaper and video images the media assaulted him with morning noon and night—that Tyson Morton also had a mother. And she, no doubt, had her own dreams and hopes for her boy's future. Right now those hopes had likely been reduced to a simple prayer for her boy's life.
It galled Chris to know that the ATF was talking image and public relations, stakeholders and spin, when this was really about people. No matter what they said about simple matters of procedure, it was far from a simple matter. Clearly the public at large wanted to see punitive action, or at least a semblance of disciplinary action, long before the agent's actions were conclusively shown to warrant discipline. So, the Bureau concluded, just take his badge and gun away. Just temporarily. Just so the public can see that we take this seriously. He'll still be suspended with pay. What's the big deal?
Chris clenched his jaw so hard, he could feel his teeth protesting. Ironically, at least in Chris's mind, if any of the people in this room could have seen J.D.'s face at the prospect of being sent home for the next several days, they might have realized that suspension from duty was already pretty damn punitive for Dunne. Until Chris had been shown that J.D. Dunne had acted inappropriately, he was not about to ask him for his badge and gun. To do that would be to say that he was no longer one of them. No longer part of the team. Guilty until proven innocent.
How was he supposed to spin that in any way that J.D. wouldn't hear and understand as "The ATF doesn't believe your story. And I don't believe it either"?
There was already a whole division dedicated to spin and public relations. They could worry about the ATF's relations with the people at large. He had team relations to worry about.
Christ, he'd already caught enough hell for putting the gun J.D. used that day into evidence. Not from J.D., of course, who swallowed everything he was thinking and feeling in one huge gulp and handed his gun over with a dignity that made Chris's chest cramp.
No, it was Buck who gave him hell. As if there were any kind of choice. As if Buck would have somehow found a better way to collect J.D.'s gun. Like that famous Buck Wilmington charm could somehow smooth this over. Like Chris should have somehow come up with some other way to collect a gun for evidence.
Chris scowled. He was well aware there were no real choices here, either. Eventually, they would probably demand the confiscation of J.D.'s badge and gun. But damned if he couldn't squeeze out as much wiggle room in the rules as possible, carving out a space and a delay with the brute force of simple obstinacy. Chris was frankly surprised he'd gotten by this long, but he refused to budge until they forced him. Forcing him was only a matter of time, and he knew it, but he also knew it wouldn't happen right at this moment. So he resolved to tie a knot and keep hanging on.
By the time the representative arrived from the FLEOA arrived, the atmosphere in Travis's office was deteriorating rapidly. Dressed in a suit, and carrying a well-worn briefcase, the new arrival did not close the door or sit down. He simply looked through his small round spectacles at the other people in the room, calmly stated that he understood the basics of the case, and would prefer to meet with the agent whose career was currently under siege before entering into any kind of conversation regarding how the ATF would like to proceed. Turning to go, he paused and looked back once to ask if the ATF had provided their agent with a lawyer and would they be so kind as to send him said lawyer's contact information to his office.
He left silence in his wake, and Chris gratefully added one more mental tally mark in J.D.'s allies column. Not that it tilted the scales much, but it helped.
Of course it didn't help Chris much.
Perhaps he had been too swept up in his moment of minor surprise and gratitude for the arrival of a FLEOA representative who actually seemed to have both brains and balls intact because, although he was aware that he was under siege and surrounded with no reinforcements on the way and in danger of having all supply lines cut off, he did not see the two-pronged attack until both missiles were incoming.
On his left, Internal Affairs reiterated that no gun had been found in the extensive—and expensive—three-day search at the crime scene. It was now necessary to open an official investigation and therefore, time for Senior Agent Larabee to do his duty and order Agent Dunne to hand over his badge. She informed everyone present that Internal Affairs had extended all the patience they could in this matter and were going to open their official investigation, with or without Team Seven's cooperation. Warning words directed specifically at Chris about obstruction buzzed in his ears like so many mosquitoes, as did a none-too-subtle reminder that there was no need for any other agents to get stupid either. After all, this was simply standard procedure, she said, and the opening of an investigation does not imply that the party will be found guilty of misconduct.
Chris's hands gripped the arms of his chair until the knuckles turned white, the skin pulled so tightly over the bones that it was a wonder it didn't split. For people so concerned about image and spin, Chris sincerely doubted the agent from IA really believed her own words. Just the whiff of IA sniffing around gave almost any agent unfortunate enough to have attracted their attention the air of being tainted. Even when no official investigation was opened, the suspicion hung in the air long after IA went sniffing somewhere else.
Just ask Standish. The FBI in Atlanta practically drummed him out of their ranks based on a campaign of rumors and lies. Denver and the ATF were supposed to be a fresh start. And it was, as well as it could be when even half a continent away, here in Denver, there were FBI and other federal agents who suspected that Ezra Standish might be on the take or would be as soon as someone made him a tempting enough proposition.
Chris didn't have time to say any of that, though, or to respond to IA's pronouncement in any way because on his right, the PR division launched their attack, their demands dovetailing nicely with IA's, as if they had planned it all out earlier. The representative from PR, who was far too shiny looking and seemed far too impressed with himself for Chris's taste, declared that once Agent Dunne's badge had been handed over, they would be able to move forward to counter the increasingly negative press coverage. They could issue a statement, but it would be better to hold a press conference.
The PR rep went on, looking at the two directors, who began a perfunctory discussion weighing the pros and cons of releasing the agent's name, and Chris had a sudden, violent urge to remind them that "the agent" had a name and a reputation, that he was a person of flesh and blood, one of their own, and not just some statistic in a file somewhere.
A covert look at Travis showed him to be glowering down at the top of his desk, his forearms pressed across the width of the blotter, his hands tightly folded together, as if forming one large fist. He said nothing. Apparently, Chris deduced, Travis's role was simply to be a witness at the execution, to be able to sign off that it was discharged properly. It crossed his mind that at least in the old days a man was given a blindfold and a cigarette.
The PR rep went on, confirming and clarifying what actions were to be taken next and how to spin it to the press. The directors went on nodding. Travis went on witnessing, his face growing darker.
And Chris made a decision. Silence fell instantly across the room as he rose from his seat. The PR rep's voice trailed off. Travis raised stony grey eyes.
It was only a few steps from his chair to the door, and Chris headed right for it, the stunned silence behind him so complete that for a second he thought he might actually make it into the hallway. He was nearly in range of the doorknob, when someone finally blurted out a demand to know just where the hell he thought he was going.
Chris barely managed to turn and look over his shoulder at the bureaucrats busily discussing how best to spin a horrible tragedy for both a family and one of the few people left for Chris to give a damn about in this world. But out of respect for Travis, and not least because the former judge had attempted to hold this off long enough that it was riding roughshod over him, too, he turned and spoke to his direct superior, alone.
"Sounds like they have everything all decided," he said, his tone clipped, brusque, an unintentional caricature of the certain tone of the discussion of a moment before. "If you don't need me for anything, I can think of a few more useful places I can be."
He didn't think it was possible for Travis's brows to lower any farther in the center. He was wrong about that, too.
"Sit down," Director Hofstader ordered.
Chris looked at Travis, whose knuckles had grown substantially whiter in the last thirty seconds.
Redfaced to the tips of his ears, the other director, who was not even in Chris's chain of command, gladly offered to write Chris up for insubordination and suspend him for several days, should he take another step toward that door. Worse yet, he seemed to know something about both Chris Larabee and the judicious application of blackmail because in the next breath he told Chris that he was sure he could find someone else to accept Agent Dunne's badge during Chris's suspension.
Chris's inhale stuck hard in his windpipe, his chest constricting on a white hot lump. The two little words that had shot to the front of his brain foundered under the roaring in his ears, the sound of blood rushing upward into his head.
Travis realized thankfully that it was probably a good thing that Larabee appeared to be temporarily rendered incapable of speaking. As it might give him time to think about what he was about to say and to whom. And most importantly, time to think about the consequences of being relieved of duty when his team needed him most.
Hazel green eyes, still sparking with anger, turned on Travis like twin sights for a deadly weapon. Travis glared back. He didn't really know what it was that Larabee wanted from him. Someone had to play ball here. He couldn't help Team Seven if he put himself in an adversarial position with the brass, with IA, and with the PR department. He didn't have the luxury of getting angry, of riding roughshod over everyone until he got his way, of climbing up on his high horse and declaring himself right and everyone else wrong. There needed to be some semblance of cooperation from his office, or he would be shut out of the loop completely. If that happened, if the higher level brass took matters directly into their own hands, Larabee and Team Seven could expect their lives to change swiftly and suddenly for the worse. Travis was all too aware that he needed to stay in the loop and in the game. He was the only advocate Team Seven had.
Travis wanted to believe that Chris might realize that once he got his hot-tempered head out of his self-righteous ass.
Travis didn't say any of that, of course. He simply adjusted the clasp of his hands to restore circulation and directed Chris toward the chair with a burning glare of his own.
Chris's face hardened another two degrees, jaw shifting stubbornly sideways, and the green eyes eloquently demonstrating their disgust, as Chris broke his gaze with Travis, eyes shuttering, blinking away from him as if he had disappeared, only to fasten on a blank space on the wall away from Travis and everyone else—as if they simply were not there.
The expression happened so fast, Travis doubted anyone else in the room had even seen it, despite the fact that all eyes were riveted on Larabee. Hardly an instant later, the Senior Agent's face was calm, glacially cool, frighteningly composed, only the hard intensity of the eyes betrayed anything of Chris's thoughts or feelings.
He lowered himself back into his chair, one leg crossed casually over the other and turned that calm face toward the two directors. The collective sigh of relief was very nearly audible, as if those gathered in Travis's office had thought that Chris would defy them completely, and then they'd be forced to take steps Travis doubted they were completely prepared to take.
Travis did not share in their relief. He knew better. At least when Chris showed his emotions on his face, a person had a chance to predict which way the man was going to fire and find decent cover. This frozen façade only predicted trouble that Travis, Team Seven, Larabee himself, and especially J.D. Dunne could ill afford.
Chris regarded his adversaries coolly. Clearly, there was going to be no hope of escape until they had finished their little farce of working out a plan that they had quite probably already carefully laid out the structure for well before this meeting. Presumably the directors were there to provide leverage for strongarming tactics. The other director in the room Chris still had not placed. After ordering Chris to sit down under threat of suspension, he did not even deign to look at Chris, sparing any questions he had for Hofstader the PR rep, and, occasionally, Travis.
Hofstader was one of several directors that Travis reported to these days. Chris could unequivocally state that Hofstader was not an idiot. He was not inclined to be so kind about the others. But he wisely kept his assessment to himself.
They all acted their roles in their little pretense. It was clear to Chris that the gist of their plan had been laid out cooperatively. He could hardly believe he needed to be present for working out the details, especially as he already knew they were going to just order him to do what they wanted to anyway, regardless of what he had to say about it. Had he not been in such deep shit already, he might have enjoyed putting on his best imitation of Ezra Standish's bored face and winding them all up until they were at least as tense as he was. But unlike Ezra Standish, Chris was clearly conscious of when he had used up the last of his superiors' good graces. And judging from Travis's face, this was one of those times.
There was a moment's pause and Chris seemed to feel the air contract, as too many gazes flicked simultaneously in his direction, the same sudden charge in the atmosphere as the instant a soldier realizes from some subconscious sound that an incoming shell is approaching even when he can't actually see it. It was a good analogy. When the air expanded again, the shell exploded in the sound of the words from the talking head from PR. And like being deafened by an incoming shell, Chris was momentarily struck dumb by the concussive shock. And even then when the moment passed and he thought he could think clearly again, he still wasn't sure he had really heard what he thought he had heard.
Oblivious, PR continued on. "…once more stringent disciplinary measures have been taken, the Bureau would be in a better position to participate more proactively with the press regarding this case…"
Apart from Travis, no one seemed to have noticed the way Chris's body abandoned its artificially relaxed pose. His spine jerked hard at the suggestion that they could take measures to control damage to their image by playing ball with the various elements of the local press. For a fraction of an instant, the green eyes flew wide open and Chris's hands clamped down again on the arms of the chair they had given him.
The PR rep began to outline a press conference format that would involve representation from several levels of the bureau but be limited in the scope of the questions that would be fielded by the personnel on the podium. It wasn't optimal, but it was a start, and he was quite certain the major papers would accept the invitation and its limitations.
Travis saw Chris's hands clamp down hard on the arms of the chair, as if he were holding on for dear life. Then again, perhaps he was, because every other tense line of muscle in his body seemed aligned to catapult him out of the chair, in which case those hands would probably grab onto someone else in the room just as mercilessly—most likely the sorry little bureaucrat who happened to be speaking. Travis wondered just how fast he would be willing to get up and intervene if that should happen.
In total ignorance of the danger he faced, the PR rep continued placing people on his precious podium. He seemed actually shocked when Chris Larabee's voice stated over top of him, firmly, clearly and loudly enough to drown out whatever else was being said in the room, "I'm not going to your press conference."
The IA rep turned and looked at Chris as if she had forgotten that he was even there. Hofstader crossed his arms and looked at Travis, the look he got in return telling him that they should have all expected this.
Now that he had their attention, Chris seemed to want to be certain they understood. "I'm not going to a press conference. I'm not standing on the podium. And I'm not answering questions from the press."
Travis's own knuckles turned a shade whiter as he clenched his hands just that much more tightly. Stupid, stupid, he thought.
"If questions are an issue, we can give you a prepared statement," the PR rep offered—a nice, neat standard solution.
Travis had to give Chris credit that only his eyes moved, leveling a glare at the PR rep that made the man stop involuntarily and swallow audibly.
"No," Chris said succinctly.
The guy from PR must have been higher up the food chain than Chris suspected because he reared his head back and said with an air of authority that surprised even Chris, "You seem to be under the impression, Agent Larabee, that you have a choice here."
Travis looked up at Hofstader. Hofstader looked over at the senior director on his left.
PR went on. "If you had handled this situation with more professional competence, then we wouldn't be discussing this at all.
Chris tensed, twitching forward, and Travis felt himself move involuntarily, reflexively, forward in his seat—just in case Chris let go of the chair.
The unnamed director held up his hand. "Enough," he said.
To Travis's surprise the PR rep shut his mouth immediately, despite the fact that there was obviously much more that he had wanted to say. Chris didn't say a word. He didn't have to. There was no way Larabee was going to back down from either his blatant refusal or his belligerent bearing.
The senior director looked expectantly at Hofstader, who was distinctly unfazed, and then the two of them looked at Travis.
Travis pressed his lips tightly together, trying to gather some thoughts that might smooth things over at least for this second. PR's surprise at Chris's knee-jerk refusal to appear before the press spoke volumes about what they didn't bother to find out. It should have been patently obvious that Chris was going to refuse. Travis had informed Hofstader of Chris Larabee's deep-seated—and not entirely unjustified—suspicion of reporters the very moment the ugly discussion of preemptive press conferences had begun to be bandied about the PR division.
Larabee's poisonous regard for the press was practically a matter of public record, there for the examining for anyone with half a brain. The press had made a field day out of the spectacular murder of his wife and child. They had misquoted him and taken his comments out of context on more than one occasion. He had been painted as both hero and thug, both—oddly enough—equally abhorrent to the man.
Too many times bitten, Larabee had no stomach for the press. He would not dignify what he saw as the crucifixion of one of his agents by appearing on the platform to witness the statement that the PR division would prepare. And if they tried to force him, there would be more damage than PR was ready to handle.
Travis waited the directors out with gritted teeth and willed someone else to see the handwriting on the wall.
At last, someone decided to take the reins. A very calm, very decided voice inserted itself into the tense atmosphere. "PR's going to have to go back to the drawing board," it said.
Everyone's eyes shifted toward the senior director. The PR rep's face betrayed an indignation he struggled to hide. IA's expression simply grew a fraction more grim.
"Agent Larabee isn’t going to appear in front of the press," the director continued, simply, nonconfrontationally, as if stating that Chris would have the flu and would be out that day. An unapologetic statement of a simple fact.
Travis nearly blew out a breath at that and was gratified to see something that looked suspiciously like surprise on Chris's face—with a touch of disbelief on top of it. Naturally, Larabee had assumed he was in the enemy camp and surrounded. It wouldn’t occur to him that just maybe the people in the room were not actually arrayed against him. That in some ways they were on his side.
Chris glanced uncertainly toward Travis. It was all the AD could do not to call him a few choice words right there, starting with paranoid idiot. Aggravating to think that Larabee might actually have thought that Travis would hang any of his agents out to dry after all the work they'd done together, after all the criminals that Team Seven had pulled off the street? Did he really think that Travis and Team Seven's chain of command would leave a good agent like J.D. Dunne out in the cold? Or throw Chris to the wolves of the press corps? Wouldn't one think that Chris might have learned to play ball by now?
Travis didn't say any of that. Instead, he glowered at his Senior Agent instead and let the slight quirk of an eyebrow do the speaking for him.
Chris got the message, bending his posture fractionally toward the back of his chair. It was at least conciliatory.
The lawyer who had been all but forgotten took up the banner of the importance of demonstrating a unified front to the press.
Travis snorted derisively. "Past precedent would support not placing Agent Larabee and the press in the same room," he ground out, throwing a thunderous frown in Chris's direction.
The agent from Internal Affairs, coughed suddenly into her hand. And the senior director's eyes flicked from the surprised lawyer to the PR rep to Travis and then settled on Chris. If PR could read body language at all, he might have noted that Chris's posture indicated something far more visceral simple obstinance.
Apparently PR couldn't really read body language. Ironic for someone so concerned about perceptions. He looked somewhat confused as he turned to the IA agent.
"Past precedent would suggest that Agent Larabee and journalists don't mix," the IA agent said drily.
"That's putting it nicely," Hofstader said gruffly, looking purposefully at his shoes to hide his amusement at IA's succinct summary of Larabee's history in Press Relations.
Both directors looked at the PR rep expectantly. He, in turn, cast an unpleasant glance at IA and then at Larabee. And Travis found it hard to feel sorry for him.
Travis resisted the urge to point out to the man that if he had done his job with more professionalism, he wouldn't be in this position.
"All right," the man said reluctuantly. "We'll leave Agent Larabee out of the press conference." He shrugged, as if was of little consequence. And perhaps it really was. The man was only a Senior Agent after all.
The tension emanating from Larabee seemed to diminish a shade or two, but Travis was pretty sure that didn't mean the man wasn't still planning the fastest way to get out the door. Truthfully, Travis could hardly blame him for wanting to be elsewhere—or for needing to be elsewhere. From what Travis could see, damage control in IA and PR was in high gear, but it was nowhere near as intense as damage control downstairs in Team Seven's bullpen.
Frank Lawford, attorney, detached himself from the spot where he had been leaning against the wall the moment the agent reached the corridor. The man came to an abrupt halt. Definitely on edge, Frank decided.
Chris turned to find the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association lawyer standing right behind him, blinking calmly at him. He wasn't nearly as tall as Chris and between the slight balding and the wire-rimmed glasses, he looked like he would be more at home in a nice paneled legal library than loitering here in the federal building corridor. Chris forced himself to remember that the FLEOA had finally been called because he had demanded it and that the man was therefore standing here at his own behest, for J.D., who should have called FLEOA two days ago, dammit, before Reesa Connors swooped in and persuaded him to just trust it all to her.
For that reason alone, Chris unclenched his jaw just enough to be polite. Thinly polite, to be sure, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.
The man was just as cool under the pressure of Larabee's glower as he had been in a room full of brass, and Chris was glad all over again that he had forced them to make that call
"Chris Larabee," he said, putting out his hand.
Frank felt his lips tilt upward in mild amusement. "Frank Lawford," he replied, "Federal Law Enforcement—"
That was as far as he got.
"I know," Larabee interrupted stiffly. Frank examined the face before him, the lines of tension, a spark of fierce intelligence behind the eyes. He struck Lawford like a man hunkered down and preparing for a battle he refused to believe he couldn't win.
"You called me," Lawford said mildly.
"I did," Chris answered, feeling his own lips twitch upward. The man had more stones than he would have given him credit for.
Lawford cleared his throat. "But you are not the agent in trouble," he clarified.
The grin that flashed across Larabee's face seemed to indicate otherwise. "Not that kind of trouble anyway," he said drily.
"We'll take the elevator," Larabee said, as if expecting Lawford to simply follow his direction. And apparently he did, as he did not look to see if Lawford was following as he moved toward an elevator bank up the hall. "I'll fill you in on the way down," he added, now several steps up the hall.
Lawford lengthened his stride a little to catch up, following after as expected. He shook his head a little at that, wondering how many people ever bothered to argue with the man.
"J.D.," Chris said the moment his feet breached the bullpen air.
J.D. startled, nearly dropping the lunch he hadn't even opened yet. But he caught himself quickly.
Technically Dunne wasn't supposed to be in the building at all, but three days of sitting at home wringing his hands or taking long bike rides to avoid hearing the same news bites over and over again was all the kid could take. Chris wasn't surprised when his two-wheeled wandering eventually brought him right back into the heart of the bullpen. They were the only support group J.D. had. It would look bad, of course, when Dunne was discovered to be serving his suspension hanging out in the bullpen he had been suspended from. But Chris wasn't overly inclined to care.
However, J.D. sitting here attempting to eat lunch with his surrogate big brother did offer an immediate opportunity, so Chris seized it.
"My office," Chris ordered the young agent, ushering Lawford into the office with his left hand.
Buck glowered up at Chris from his desk and opened his mouth to speak.
Chris kept walking.
J.D., moving around the desks toward Chris's doorway, shot a look toward Buck. A moment later, Buck was right behind J.D., in time to hear Chris introducing Lawford.
J.D. looked confused. "I have a lawyer," he said.
A sour look twisted Buck's face. "Connors is the ATF's lawyer," he supplied.
Chris's glare was a clear warning to get out of the doorway and back to his desk.
Buck chose to ignore it.
J.D. looked from Buck to Chris. "What do I need another lawyer for? Ms. Connors thinks she can clear me of misconduct charges."
Lawford looked at him blandly. "Will the ATF continue to retain her in the event of a lawsuit?"
J.D.'s face turned a new shade of white. "Lawsuit?" he asked. He stared at Lawford and at Buck and at Chris. "You mean even if they decide I didn't do anything wrong, I can still get sued?"
"Yes," Chris answered curtly, and Buck glared daggers at his head for his complete lack of tact.
"That's correct," Lawford said. He looked over Agent Dunne's head at the two men who were engaged in a silent glaring contest. "Would you gentlemen excuse us?" he asked.
Larabee blinked at him for a second. "Of course," he answered after a moment.
Buck barely gave enough ground to let Chris leave the office, closing the door behind him.
"Conference room," Chris announced, trying his best to ignore Buck's belligerent presence only inches from his shoulder.
They did, at least, have to make a pretense of working on their other cases.