“That’s it?” Harraway asked, incredulously. “‘What underrated commonality did the Marines all have in common?’”
McIntosh frowned as she considered it, and Tan, happily, looked just as stumped.
“Well?” the ETA director finally asked. “What’s the answer?”
Jack chuckled. “I have no idea.”
“And yet this is what convinced you that man is Ethan Blade?”
“Amongst everything else.” Jack sobered. “I just know that whatever the answer is, it will stand up as proof.”
None of the directors looked particularly convinced, but then they hadn’t been there, hadn’t witnessed Ethan in action. Hadn’t felt the gut-deep, visceral reaction to his mercilessness. Hadn’t experienced the man behind the assassin.
“We could argue for another year about whether or not our man is Ethan Blade,” Harraway mused. “Short of matching him through DNA to one of his kills, we’re never going to know for sure.”
“Not even then,” Tan interjected. “We have established that not all kills attributed to Blade are his.”
The Intelligence director waved at Tan as if he were a rowdy youngster. “Regardless, according to the boy’s testimony, hopefully complete and correct now”—he cut Jack a playful smirk—“the man we have locked up is an accomplished assassin. Even if he is simply operating under the guise of being Blade, he is very good at what he does. And a man in that position is likely to have information we can use.”
Amongst the round of agreeing nods, Tan settled even further into his chair. “Then it appears we’re all on the same page. The interrogation of Omega Subject will commence at once.”
Jack fought down the instinctive reaction to the word “interrogation.”
“Which brings us to the next item.” McIntosh crossed her hands over her flat stomach. “Namely, negotiation of terms with Omega Subject. Usually we offer pardons in exchange for information. However, the subject is a professional killer. We have to consider the ramifications of releasing such a person back into the public.”
Repressing a need to roll his eyes, Jack merely said, “He’s not an uncontrolled psychopath. He doesn’t kill for pleasure.”
Tan steepled his fingers again and said dryly, “But he does kill for profit.”
Jack swallowed the urge to bite back. “My point is that given the opportunity, Blade might surprise you.”
Tan regarded him for a moment longer, expression unreadable. Jack didn’t have a lot of experience of the man. The only other interaction of any significance was a job interview when Jack had been recruited for the Office.
Discharged, unemployed, and drifting, Jack had been headhunted by the Office. Courted, he sometimes joked. As such, he’d had some flexibility in where he ended up. His CV had been handed out to every division, and those interested had set up interviews. Tan had been the first taker, offering Jack pretty much anything he wanted in order to take a field operative position with ETA. Even without the benefit of any other interviews, Jack had refused the offer, and not just because the man had turned him cold with his calm description of the work and results he’d expect from Jack. Two days later, he’d met with McIntosh and had yet to regret the decision to join ITA.
Harraway cleared his throat. “Regardless of the outcome, any information gathered from him will have to be confirmed before anything can be granted.” The Intel director sighed. “Which can take years, sometimes.”
Christ. What had Ethan got himself into this time?
“The subject will have to give us something up front, in good faith,” McIntosh said. “Once we have an idea of what he knows, we can begin to negotiate then. For now . . .” She turned to Jack. “I’m sure you know what we’re about to ask you, Mr. Reardon. It’s apparent Blade will only interact with you. Of course, every interview will be monitored and behaviour patterns scrutinised.”
Another piece in McIntosh’s game fell into place. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Donna McIntosh had admitted she wasn’t convinced of his fidelity to the Office and the Meta-State. Now she was trusting him with the sensitive questioning of an important subject. Was this just a test of Jack’s loyalty? Or something more?
Jack wasn’t an analyst. It wasn’t his job to look for patterns. He just acted on what the analysts gave him.
“Well, son?” Harraway asked. “Are you willing to interview the subject or not?”
Jack wondered what they would do if he said no. He was sorely tempted to refuse, to see which way McIntosh turned, but decided against it. If he was going to work out what his director was up to, he needed more information.
“Of course. Anything to help.”
“Will you require anything for the interrogation?” Tan asked.
Really disliking the man’s continual use of that word, Jack shook his head. “No, sir. I already have everything I need.”
McIntosh quirked a brow at him.
“A bribe, ma’am,” he admitted. “Don’t worry, Maxwell’s already scanned it six ways from Sunday. Blade won’t be able to use it for any nefarious means.”
And if they believed that, then they hadn’t been listening to his description of Ethan’s skills.
He was dismissed then so the directors could argue in seclusion. Outside, his watchdog had morphed back into Maxwell.
“You really are a sucker for punishment,” Jack said as they headed down the hallway.
“Yeah, and I like whips and chains, too,” the HoS muttered sourly. “I have things I’d rather be doing than babysitting your arse, Reardon. Like paperwork.”
“Hey, I was happy enough with the other guy. Feel free to send him back anytime.” Jack smirked as he opened the door to the stairwell. “At least he didn’t think Old Spice was the only cologne ever invented. Or is it the only one powerful enough to cover the smell of seaweed?”
“Not the time to be talking about someone else’s personal hygiene, soldier.” Maxwell added a pointed look up and down Jack’s wrinkled suit. “Plan for today?”
“Right now, breakfast,” Jack said, though he didn’t really feel like eating. Not while he had a talk with Ethan hanging over his head. A potentially problematic undertaking at any time, but with McIntosh and the other directors watching for the slightest hint Jack was less than loyal to the cause? Queasy didn’t begin to cover it. “Do you still smoke?”
Jack hadn’t smoked in years. Had, in fact, only smoked while on deployment. The nicotine had become part of his pre-op ritual. Half a dozen chain-smoked just before going active. Outside of those times, he’d never craved a smoke, but if he missed it before an operation, he felt incomplete and dangerously underprepared.
“Not for years. Miller does, if that’s your choice for breakfast.”
Miller was two flights back up, sitting at his desk outside McIntosh’s office. It was a flimsy excuse but good enough to convince Jack he didn’t really need the nicotine.
“Coffee will do.”
The eighth floor was buzzing with the usual workday chaos as Jack and Maxwell weaved their way to the tearoom. Lewis and Lydia were already in there, bickering over the last slice of birthday cake.
“But I’m hungry!”
Lydia slapped Lewis’s hand away from the plate holding the lonely wedge of sponge, cream, and rather wilted-looking strawberry-half. “Cake is not breakfast food, Lew. Besides, it’s a day old. Who knows what these slobs did to it overnight.”
“I didn’t touch it,” Jack offered on his way to the coffee machine.
“I actually went home last night,” Maxwell said as he sat at the table. He nonchalantly shrugged off three death glares.
While Jack waited for his coffee to trickle into a mug, Lydia snatched away the cake and handed Lewis an apple. The unit leader scowled at it, but bit in regardless.
“How’d the meeting go?” he asked when Jack sat opposite him.
“Same as usual. Endless repetition, couple of questions, and a ‘thank you for now, mwhahaha.’” Jack cast Maxwell a sidelong glance. The HoS usually wasn’t present for the asset-level dissection of these situations.
There were two nods of sympathetic understanding and one mildly raised eyebrow.
“Maria was here earlier,” Lydia told Jack, wincing as Lewis crunched through the core of the apple. “Looking for you. She was wondering if she’ll be given access to Blade.”
“Omega Subject,” Maxwell corrected.
“Eventually, maybe,” Jack hedged. “He’s not talking to anyone at the moment.”
Lewis snorted. “So we heard. Apparently he won a staring contest with Tan last night.”
Jack nearly spat out his mouthful of coffee, but managed to swallow it without choking. “Tan spoke to Blade?”
Giving Maxwell a wary side-eye, Lydia said, “Well, he tried. According to Maria it was a one-sided conversation.”
“Yeah, for once, he didn’t get results.” Lewis snickered with a total disregard for Maxwell’s presence.
The HoS merely gave him a withering look, then got up to get more coffee.
While Maxwell’s back was turned, Jack leaned closer to his friends. “Did Maria say what Tan was trying to find out from Blade?”
Lydia shook her head. “She said she only saw some footage, no sound, but that Tan looked pretty pissed when he left the cell, too.”
Jack suppressed a smile. Ethan could irritate a saint with nothing but politeness, and Tan was far from a saint. Of all the directors within the Office, Tan was the one with the biggest reputation for ruthlessness. He was the very embodiment of “the ends justify the means.” While Jack had little experience of Tan personally, he had run afoul of the man’s methods a couple of times. Namely ETA field operatives with job parameters so wide they were barely any better than the bad guys they were hunting, and anything short of open warfare on the streets in front of a dozen news cameras was retroactively approved. Basically, when Tan wanted something, he got it, with very little regard for the cost.
He probably would have gotten Jack when he offered him a job with ETA, as well, but for one very strong reason why Jack would never have accepted it.
“I bet,” Lewis said, his voice lowered so much Jack had to lean even closer, “Tan’s after something connected to the Valadian op. McIntosh got you inserted so quick no one else knew about it, and when Tan found out, it was like WW3 here. He claimed McIntosh’s rash actions would endanger some of his own operations.”
Lewis had a talent for intuitive leaps that proved correct, but this wasn’t even a stretch for Jack to credit. Valadian’d had a lot of contact with criminal organisations outside of the Meta-State, and some of those organisations would be on Tan’s watch list. Jurisdiction on such cases could get messy and usually required some level of collaboration between ITA and ETA. If Tan hadn’t known about Valadian before Jack was sent in, that meant McIntosh had bypassed even more SOPs than Jack had initially suspected.
On top of that, if Tan had been so pissed off he’d abandoned his usually reserved attitude and confronted McIntosh openly, then whatever connection he had to Valadian had to be something very important.
While trying to work out what McIntosh’s angle was, Jack now had to consider that Tan was involved in it all beyond sitting in on a review meeting.