36
Liam
The following day, Mick sent Junior’s confession to IPB Headquarters, and they initiated a retrieval to bring him into custody. The IPB had us helicoptered back to Washington, DC, where we met with Agent Renning for a briefing—everyone except Ty, who stayed in a nearby office. It was unsettling being back at the place I’d said goodbye to just a few months earlier—a place where most of my memories involved some suit like Renning barking orders at Spencer and me.
We waited in a boardroom with an oval table that took up most of the space. Renning entered with two fellow agents I didn’t recognize, and therefore didn’t trust. She sat at the opposite end of the table, several chairs from Tara, Mick, Kyle, and me. We glanced at one another, all of us equally unenthused about having to play the game. We were made for the sort of extraction and arrest we’d pulled off, not the office world that this part of our company participated in. Although, I had a few choice words for them, and even as Renning tried to review the information and start a sort of Q&A with Tara, I found it necessary to cut through her red tape bureaucracy bullshit.
“Glad to see you guys were on top of this investigation,” I said, my tone dripping with sarcasm.
Renning’s face twisted up. “We had the Blackmore lead, same as you, but with F5 on the case, do you really believe I was going to send some F1s running around to take care of this? I knew if you guys needed anything, you’d be in touch.”
“Well, Renning,” I said, intentionally leaving off her title as a slight—finally getting to show her the irreverence I’d wished I’d been able to show when I worked under her. “I think it’s great you guys are finally on this, but as far as I’m concerned, we have our guy, and we have our leads. He may be lying about Spencer’s involvement to cover for someone else, and that’s what I’m interested in getting to the bottom of. Outside of that, I’m curious why the IPB doesn’t know about the current state of the Body Network and the member groups involved.”
“Always to the point,” Renning said, gazing at me through her specs. “McKinney, first off, you wouldn’t even know what we’ve been investigating here. You were retiring. There was no reason—”
“So you guys have known about this, and what? You’re standing by and—”
“No one’s standing by and letting anything happen. Is the US government letting terrorists run rampant internationally? Is the FBI letting serial killers run amuck in the States?”
“I’d say the answers to that are somewhat debatable,” Mick chimed in, which earned him one of Renning’s classic glares before she continued.
“How do you destroy a cancer, McKinney? Do you tear out symptoms? Or do you perform an MRI and find the root cause to extract? Come on, you’ve been doing this long enough to know as well as I do that just like the first time it cropped up, we have to find the root cause, not just the symptoms. That takes time and manpower. This is not some small-time network. The first cell took us a decade to dissolve, to find all its parts. And even then, we always figured there was an appendage to the spider we hadn’t discovered, which appears to be the case. Now CIA, FBI, and the IPB are working on this new cell, and that mission is bigger than Ivan Blackmore Jr. and his vengeance against the people who put a hit on his father.”
She was right, but I didn’t have to like it.
“Now, Agent Lancaster,” she said to Tara, “you know we will alert F5 the moment we need your assistance on the current cell behind the Body Network and the Lorigan Trials, but as of now, we’re working with special undercover agents who are helping us sort through the initial leads. Obviously, with the present case, I understand why there was a need to recruit Former Agent McKinney, so there will be no penalties.”
“Oh, ‘recruit’?” I said. I knew what she was getting at. “You know, Maria, I’ve spent a lot of years kowtowing to suits like you, following your bullshit, but now that I’m technically aformer agentandrecruit, I’m gonna tell you that you can go fuck yourself if you or the powers that be at the IPB think you deserve a pat on the back for not issuing out penalties. My team and I came in and saved your asses. Not to mention that in this case, F5’s jurisdiction surpasses yours, so don’t even think about trying to call foul about Ty Winslow’s involvement either. Consider him immune to whatever bullshit rules you have in your fancy policy manuals.”
She knew we had authority with regard to the investigation, so I wasn’t going to let her dick us around.
Renning smiled, a sort of conceited expression across her face. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to placate or annoy the hell out of me, but it was definitely leaning toward the latter.
Kyle and Mick were stifling laughs, apparently enjoying the fact that Renning had to sit there and take my fit.
“You’re not wrong, McKinney, so why don’t we just get through the facts here, and we’ll try to take up as little of your time as we can.”
A.k.a., she wanted me out of her hair, which was fine by me.
“Yeah, that’s kind of the idea behind retirement, right?” I said, picking at her.
We reviewed the facts, Tara taking the lead and Mick covering data. Kyle and I stepped in when we needed to, but not much, since I knew we could get into the details during our individual meetings. After the briefing, Renning asked me to stay behind with her two colleagues. Figured she might give me a piece of her mind, but when she closed the door, she said, “I’m sorry about Spencer. I know you were close.”
I pushed to my feet. “We’re not having this conversation.”
“Okay, Liam. Just a moment,” she said, approaching me. That she stood nearly two feet shorter than me became more apparent the closer she got. “By next month, you’ll be back to retirement, moving on with your lifesafely, like you should.”
“You must realize that now that it’s happened once, I can never really feel safe.”
She sighed, folding her arms. “We all knew a security breach like this would happen at some point. We’ve been lucky. Any other government agency would have had far worse by now. Certainly, it’s just a matter of time before our existence gets leaked to the media, and then we have a whole other beast to deal with on that front. On the plus side, the IPB is willing to negotiate your contractor rate.”
“My what?”
“For helping us with the case. You can pretty much name your price. That should be some consolation.”
I cringed at the thought, turning my gaze on the agents seated at the table. “Money gonna bring Jamie back?” I asked. “Fuck your money, Renning. Just call me when you need me to chat or sign some bullcrap paperwork to keep your asses in the clear. I have a man to get to.”
I headed for the door.
