White frowned. “Why haven’t you mentioned that?”
Kavon hid his flinch. Whatever issues Kavon had with Dave, they were not for public consumption. “Sir, it’s no different than hiding behind a wall. If the wall is solid enough to stop a bullet then it’s equally effective at making it impossible to watch the suspect.”
“That makes sense. Even if it made it impossible for you to identify your attacker, I’m glad you were there to shield your partner.” White projected a weary relief. “And at least we know we’re looking for a shaman. That doesn't narrow the suspect list down much, does it?”
“No, sir. A lot of shamans have reason to hate us, or fear us because they're afraid of getting caught.” Kavon wasn’t exactly lying, but he didn’t feel good about implying untruths.
White stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Do you think that's what this is? Is this about your work with the FBI, or is this about your position on the Shamanic Council?”
“I can't say for sure,” Kavon said. “Hopefully an investigation will be able to get to the bottom of it.”
Disappointment crossed White’s face, but he nodded as though he’d expected that answer. “I've already called Unit Three. They’ll interview you as soon as Darren is released from the Center. I asked them to avoid separating you two because Darren isn’t strong enough to protect himself from this sort of perp, so we’re going to bend a few rules on this one.”
Kavon had a flare of temper, and Pochi blinked into existence over his head. Kavon took a calming breath and tried to control his own emotions before Pochi started blowing people up based off Kavon’s fraying temper. “No offense sir, but Unit Three is violent crime. They have no experience investigating Talent.” Hell, they wouldn’t even know what questions to ask. While that would make it easier for Kavon to hide the existence of the durance, it would also make the investigators next to worthless.
White’s expression turned hard. “I can't have the Talent unit investigating an assassination on one of its own. We’re going to have to make do with the resources we have,” he said firmly, but Kavon wasn’t about to let this slide.
“Assign it to Coretta’s team. Isn't that why we divided the Talent team into two separate units, so we would have more flexibility in assigning cases?”
“Is there some place where we can speak in private?” White gestured toward the hallway. Two nurses sat at a desk at the far end and a young man pushed a large cart down the corridor, stopping to deliver meals at each room. Because this was a Djedi center, the floor was quieter and calmer than a normal hospital. No one wanted an emotional or injured shaman startled by a loud crash or shouts. However, it still had an undercurrent of activity throughout.
“There’s a small lounge this direction.” Kavon led the way. In the past, the lounges were used as places for people to make phone calls on public lines and perform small spells that might help a loved one. These days, cell phones made the first function obsolete, but plenty of visitors would still conjure the illusion of butterflies to swirl around a bouquet or use the small spaces to transfer energy to a healing crystal. If Kavon could do something similar to help Darren recover, he would, but sometimes the body simply needed to heal on its own.
He didn’t even wait for the door to close before asking, “Why can’t Coretta investigate this attack? She’s already on the scene and is in a better position to contain the damage.” Kavon had trained her—she was the best agent he knew and denying her jurisdiction felt like an insult to both of them.
White sat on a narrow loveseat and leaned back to study Kavon. “All of the experienced investigators with the sole exceptions of Anne Peters and Joe Kaslov have worked under you. One shaman straight out of California and an analyst with a background in interviewing cannot run an investigation into an attempted homicide of one of our agents.”
White’s posture softened and he rubbed a hand over his face. “If this happened six months down the road, I would listen to your argument. I don't know if I would let you investigate one of your own, but I would consider it. But right now, the separation between your two teams is nothing more than a legal fiction. If Coretta investigates, any competent defense lawyer, hell any incompetent defense lawyer, is going to point out that she was your second-in-command for years. She has a motive to push past the boundaries of acceptable investigation in order to find out who targeted you and Darren.”
“She would never violate the law or a suspect's rights, and I wouldn't ask her to,” Kavon said sharply.
“I don't doubt that,” White said in a tone that was almost amused. “I sometimes question your good sense, your diplomacy, and your inflexibility, but I have never questioned your ethics. However, this isn't about impropriety—it's about the appearance of impropriety. I recognize that we have an investigative problem because all of our serious Talent is on your team or they worked for you before getting booted off the team. Didn't you say the Djedi Center was going to hire a couple of investigators to loan out to various agencies who found themselves in need of help?”
Kavon hated that White had essentially dismissed the whole argument and moved onto logistics, but Kavon couldn’t dispute the White’s facts. “Yes. I know the local police departments hire that sort of consultant, but I didn't think the FBI was set up to bring in outside investigators.”
“Leave the paperwork to me. I'll figure out a way to make it work one way or another. Do they have good investigators available?”
Salma had arranged hiring them, and she had failed to attract her top few choices. That had left them with two older shamans who had retired from federal agencies and a young magic user who had incredible skills but who also had a disability that made her physically fragile and almost uninsurable. It was a motley group, but all of them had incredible Talent.
“They'll be able to help team three investigate. However, if you tell the Council what happened, you may have a larger problem.”
White went straight for the heart of the problem. “Halverson and McLean are going to try get in the middle, aren't they?”
“Without a doubt. Halverson wants to be in the middle of everything, and McLean is going to worry about whether this was the beginning of an attack on the Council as a whole,” Kavon said. In the case of Susan McLean, she could even guess who had launched the attack. She’d been scheming with Thuya Sherif before the woman had even died.
“For the sake of expedience, I’m going to assume this is an attack on you because of your work with the FBI. If someone was upset about your work on the Council, I wouldn't expect them to go after agent Oberton. As a consequence of that, I feel justified in withholding any information from the council.”
“Anyone with shamanic Talent would recognize the flaw in that logic,” Kavon said.
White leaned forward with a quizzical expression.
“Darren functions as my anchor in the physical world. If I don't have him to guide me back to the place where the two worlds connect, I cannot effectively spirit walk. I have too much power, and there are too many distractions. So even if this was related to my work with the council, a shaman who wants to damage me may target Darren, assuming he is more vulnerable.” Kavon was implying an untruth, but he was not outright lying. Every word was technically correct.
White looked startled. “I didn't realize that. I knew you needed and adepts in order to use your powers, that's why I approved so many transfers, but could you die without Darren?”
“The probability is that I would if I used my power too much. The chance of being distracted is too great.”
“Does that mean Halverson and McLean have partners?” White asked.
