Setsuna settled into her chosen seat, leaning her intricately carved rosewood cane that doubled as an artifact against the chair beside her. “It appears we are running out of time.”
Reed leaned back in his chair and scratched at the edge of his jaw. “Indeed.”
“We need to make a decision tonight on who best to sign over the invitation to. If we wait any longer, we’ll lose our window of opportunity.”
Patrick chewed on his bottom lip, thinking about the invitation he’d left Chicago with back in February. It was technically evidence in a criminal case concerning the Westberg family, but also a vital clue to finding the Morrígan’s staff. The spelled invitation was their access to a black market auction the joint task force had finally managed to pinpoint a tentative location for. The break found through signals intelligence indicated it would go down in London within the month.
Patrick was trying very hard not to think about traveling to his partner’s birthplace. When Jonothon de Vere had left London because of what Marek Taylor had promised him, the god pack there had exiled him. The pack politics involved in going back was enough to give Patrick an ulcer.
Being separated by half a country back in February hadn’t been easy on the soulbond tying them together. Patrick didn’t want to know what going across the Atlantic Ocean would do to them if he had to go alone, but it was becoming glaringly obvious they would find out soon.
“We need someone with criminal bona fides who won’t be questioned in the black market community,” Franklin said. “Forgive me, but your agent isn’t going to work.”
“Neither will yours,” Setsuna replied.
“I have a deep-cover agent who has the background needed to get this job done.”
Patrick tried not to wince at the icy way both of them discarded him and Nadine as possibilities. “Special Agent Mulroney and I may not be able to go undercover, but we should still be on the field for this.”
Franklin ignored him and turned to look at Reed. “General?”
Reed’s brown-eyed gaze moved from Franklin to Patrick, impossible to read. Patrick instinctively sat up a little straighter. Four years out of the Mage Corps meant he might have lost the urge to salute, but he’d probably never give up the urge to stand at attention before his former commanding officer.
“Collins is correct in that we need him on the field. He fought Ethan Greene at the end of the Thirty-Day War and knows how to counter that mage better than anyone in your agency, director,” Reed said to Franklin.
Franklin raised a single finger, not looking at their side of the table. “He seems to be in the midst of every problem we’ve had with the Dominion Sect and Ethan Greene lately.”
The unspoken accusation made Patrick clench his hands into fists beneath the table, but he kept his face expressionless. He knew the rumors that dogged him these days in the SOA about his track record with the Dominion Sect. They were starting to outpace the ones that followed him due to his ability to hunt demons and monsters because of a damaged soul.
He’d been at ground zero for the past two attacks against the veil on domestic soil. That was a fact Patrick couldn’t escape, not when it was written down in the case files he’d handled. It wasn’t a surprise some people looked upon those incidents with suspicion. He ran his cases by the book when he could, but he couldn’t say no to the gods when they came around. What the gods wanted didn’t always mesh with his job.
“I have the utmost faith in Collins,” Reed said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of the inner pocket of his jacket. He tapped out a cigarette and a lighter that had been stuffed inside.
Franklin’s disapproval was writ clear across his face. “The Pentagon has a no-smoking policy, General.”
“I know.” Reed lit his cigarette before offering Patrick the pack. “Cigarette?”
Patrick eyed the pack for a moment before he shook his head. “I quit last year.”
Reed arched an eyebrow before chuckling, a curl of smoke escaping his lips. “At least one of us has.”
It had taken boxes of nicotine patches, Jono’s unwavering support, and complaining to his VA assigned therapist about the lack of a crutch until he learned to not want it anymore. Patrick handled stress in better ways these days, usually at the hands of Jono while in bed.
Patrick got up to get an empty glass from the credenza and set it near Reed to use as an ashtray. Franklin sighed deeply but didn’t say another word about Reed smoking in the conference room.
“My agent is our only option,” Franklin said.
“Can you be certain their deep cover will be believed amidst the criminals who will be at the auction?” Setsuna asked.
“My agency knows how to do its job.”
The silence that followed was filled with the implication the SOA did not. Patrick shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “Is your agent someone who is known in the criminal underworld, with enough clout and money at their disposal, and who won’t be viewed as a plant or outright killed?”
“We built them an identity they’ve inhabited for nearly a decade now. It will hold up,” Franklin said coolly.
“They may hold up for your agency’s needs, but your agent is not going to work for this mission,” Setsuna said.
“Then what, pray tell, is your suggestion?”
