Dee frowned as the intern slowly finished tying off the stitches that he had been putting in her scalp. The careful knots were the last of the repair work being carried out on the tall detective after Hawkes' RRT had finally managed to extracted her from the OR core. She now sat on a gurney down in the Foothill's ER with Duffy sitting directly across from her, an ice bag pressed against a massive bruise forming on the side of his haggard face.
All around them the hospital seethed with almost frantic activity as flak-jacketed and helmeted RRT officers, both from the CPD and the RCMP went floor to floor to determine if any more of the mysterious Brotherhood intruders still lurked in the hospital. For his part, Mordecai, the final survivor and now wearing a name, was under heavy guard in the ICU. There he lay under close supervision, doctors stunned that not only had the bullets had been removed from his body but his internal injuries were also mostly repaired during the chaos that had reigned supreme for close to an hour within the hospital's venerable walls.
Dee had hesitated at that point to tell them it had been some sort of energy field that had done the healing, projected by the yet unknown third party who had intervened in time to save Mordecai's life. Events surrounding the Brotherhood's penetration of the hospital already smacked of the Twilight Zone. No use muddying the waters with additional information to further weird the situation.
"Odd that our good Councilor Simpkins hasn't yet made an appearance," Duffy deadpanned as he pulled the ice pack from his face with a grimace. Which immediately produced a wince of pain, the muscles of his face badly bruised.
"This sort of thing seems made for the 6 o'clock news."
Dee could only grimace in reply as the intern finished his stitching and turned away without a word to attend to another one of the RRT officers that had managed to survive the initial assault on the hospital. Two had not, including the one that had been struck by the lightning bolt up in the OR. The other had died of a broken neck, received when he was roughly thrown into a wall by one of those shimmering walls of energy.
Still, Duffy made a good point. Simpkins should have been all over this one, with her taskforce toadies following in her wake as they made vain predictions about having the case solved any day now. And she hadn't even smelled as much as the woman's perfume wafting through the septic atmosphere of the ER, its heavy and cloying scent irritating even in memory.
"At least we have some tangible stuff to go with now, Duffy," she rasped, her throat dry from the painkillers the doctors had poured into her to counteract both her low-grade concussion and the various cuts and contusions her body now sported.
"Perhaps," Duffy husked in reply, pressing the ice bag back against his face. "A couple of rather cryptic names and a label for our half-dead witness upstairs." His eyes abruptly narrowed. "We do know now, however, the methodology behind most of the destruction on 16th Avenue, the Sheraton and the other sites in the city. If we could just determine how those destructive forces are generated ..." He raised bleary eyes to Dee's frowning face. "Or the relationship this 'Brotherhood' has with the rest of the world and what its ultimate purpose is in stirring up all this trouble."
Abruptly the grizzled Brit groaned and rubbed the back of his head with his free hand as he closed his eyes in a grimace of pain.
"Bloody hell, I feel like a hot spike is being driven into my brains!" He popped open one eye. "Can we swing by Callahan's for a bit o' the liquid painkiller after we're done here?"
Despite her own pain and discomfort, Dee had to chuckle out loud at that. Figures the sodden Brit would turn to the bottle as soon as they were out of immediate danger.
"No, not yet, Duffy," she said hoarsely, sliding from the gurney with a groan, bracing herself against a nearby wall as her head swam drunkenly for a moment. "You know we've still got a shit load of stuff to worry about. I need you here and focused on what's going on if you're going to be any use to me and the taskforce."
"Right," Duffy husked. "Well, just thought I'd check." With a groan of his own, he slid from his own perch to join Dee somewhat unsteadily on the floor.
Before Dee could push away from the wall, her head somewhat more solid now that she had a minute to collect herself, she felt a hand on her arm. Turning slowly so as to not upset her fragile equilibrium, Dee looked towards the owner of the hand.
And found herself looking into the grim, but pretty face of Karen Hawkes, the CPD's RRT commander. The tall, broad-shouldered blonde had her shoulder-length straight hair pulled back into a functional tail, easy to wear under a helmet. Her Kevlar flak jacket and gear were the same as the other officers under her command and she looked like she would be ready to go at the drop of a hat. And right now, she didn't look all that happy.
"Detective?" she said somewhat formally when Dee's eyes fell onto her. She took a quick look over at Duffy before returning to Dee's face.
"Do you have something for us, commander?" Dee asked softly. She knew the proud RRT commander had taken the deaths of two of her people straight to the heart. Still, Hawkes had a job to do and she did it well.
"CSI is all over the place, detective," Hawkes returned. "Hopefully we'll get some prints off those four bodies we recovered in the OR that will lead us somewhere. And your witness is stable, in the ICU. I have a team standing by in case he spontaneously regains consciousness." Her face abruptly tightened.
"But that's not why I'm here. You've been commanded to return to your precinct ASAP. Since you're in no shape to actually drive, I've been instructed to convey you there myself."
Dee grimaced and looked over at Duffy, who mouthed the words 'uh oh!' It didn't take Duffy's incredible mind to discern that trouble was brewing. Immediately a feeling of foreboding descended onto her shoulders.
"Right. Well, commander, lead the way then!" Dee indicated with a gesture.
That feeling of foreboding only grew as Dee and Duffy rode in the back of a RRT van, Hawkes at the wheel as she wove her way through the city to the precinct house. It peaked when the two detectives made their way through the station house to McLaughlin's office to find it packed full of VIPs.
Dee's face went grim as she stepped in the door that McLaughlin had opened for her, his own expression carefully blank, her eyes quickly picking out Councilor Simpkins sitting in front of McLaughlin's desk, dressed in a rather reserved business suit in dark rose, unusual for her. Her dyed blonde hair was coiled perfectly on top of her head. Standing just behind her was Calgary's police chief, Def Sorrenson, a raw looking, square-jawed man as angular as a rectangle in his dark uniform, an equally dark frown on his own on his lantern-jawed face as he stared into space, lost in thoughts of his own.
On the opposite side of the room was none other than Calgary's gruff mayor, Anson Comrie, the short, squat balding man already perspiring heavily, a trademark, despite the relative cool of McLaughlin's office. He looked like he had already sweated through his plain brown suit, his collar undone and his tie loosened. He was also sitting in the only other chair.
Behind him, looking almost stiff in his formal uniform, was a senior RCMP officer that Dee didn't recognize. But seeing him made a singular thought go through her mind: the Feds were moving in to take over the investigation!
It didn't take long for McLaughlin to confirm Dee's worst suspicions as he pushed past her and Duffy to take his own seat.
"I suppose you can guess why we've brought you here, detective," he started after clearing his throat. He glanced at Sorrenson, who immediately shook himself as if awakening from a daydream to begin speaking.
"Right. You know that I don't like to beat around the bush, Detective McMaster, so I'll say it flat out: as of now, the taskforce that the mayor had put together to investigate the situation developing here, in our streets, has been dissolved."
Even though she knew it was coming, Dee still swallowed the bile taste in her mouth, bitterness at watching the taskforce be obliterated in the face of the discovery of its first piece of hard evidence. And a witness. She managed to clear her throat before she spoke.
"May I be allowed to ask why?" she asked stiffly.
It was Simpkins who answered, her grating soprano voice issuing from her plumply pretty, heavily made-up face.
"Because, Detective McMaster, the mayor has decided that current events have moved the investigation outside of the taskforce's ability to effectively prosecute the felons leading this assault on our fair city," she said, a plucked eyebrow slightly raised, as she looked the untidy detective over from head to foot, her face disapproving.
Dee swallowed the impulse to slam a fist into Simpkin's smirking face and chose instead to swing her hard gaze over onto the mayor himself, the right Honorable Anson Comrie.
"Mr. Mayor?" she hissed. "How could this suddenly become the RCMP's jurisdiction? This is our city after all! It concerns our citizens, our property. It should remain a Calgary Police Department investigation!"
"We've already discussed this issue with the mayor and have come to an agreement that the resources within the RCMP's purview are better suited to an investigation like this one," the uniformed RCMP officer flatly indicated.
Dee jerked her eyes in his direction.
"And you are?" she demanded tightly.
"Chief Inspector Brant Timmins," he replied stiffly, eyes narrowing at Dee's overt challenge to his authority.
"Well, Chief Inspector Timmins, Councilor Simpkins, I'm sure the mayor can answer this question for himself!" Again her eyes bore into Comrie's, the short, broad man now perspiring visibly under Dee's unrelenting gaze. "Well? How about it, Mr. Mayor? Why did you pull the plug on the taskforce? I want to hear it from your mouth!"
"The mayor doesn't have to explain a thing to you, detective!" Sorrenson abruptly snarled, his pale features flushing with anger at his subordinate and her increasingly curt questions.
"Suffices to say that the taskforce has been dissolved and your association with it, terminated."
"But ..." Dee began before the broad shouldered police chief cut her off with a curt chop of his hand.
"But nothing, McMaster! You are done with this thing. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir," Dee grudgingly answered, barely swallowing her frustration.
"Good. Now you are ordered to cooperate with the RCMP as they ramp up on this investigation, including passing over all relevant materials that you have in your possession. That covers any physical evidence you may have, all case files and records. And your witness."
"This is fucking bullshit," Dee growled tightly.
"Bullshit it may be," McLaughlin conceded gruffly. "But they're direct orders from your superior officers. Now get the hell out of my office and do as you're told." He looked over at Sorrenson with a grimace. "I believe it's now my turn to take the cold one up the ass!"
"Nicely done in there," Duffy said dryly as Dee closed the door behind them, barely resisting the urge to slam it closed with every gram of her strength. "I think you truly won them over to our point of view."
"Fuck you, Duffy," Dee hissed, stumping past the grizzled Brit towards her desk, lost somewhere in the chaos of the Homicide squad room, now stretched out before them.
"You certainly didn't jump in to help." Finding her station, a battered old metal desk, an equally battered computer perched on its scratched top and an ancient desk lamp to illuminate the heap of case files stacked on top, beside the computer's monitor, she dropped into the tattered cloth-covered metal chair sitting behind it.
"That's because, my dear Tragedy," he replied, carefully sitting in the chair behind the desk opposite Dee's, "we're not done with this thing!" Wincing as the chair nearly spilled him onto the floor, he stared at the desk in front of him with mock shock. "Ye gads, is this monstrosity actually my desk? I was wondering what the damn thing looked like!"
For her part, Dee frowned as she stared hard at her partner.
"We're not done? Now, just what the hell is that supposed to mean, Duffy? You heard Sorrenson: we're done like dinner with the taskforce and the investigation."
Duffy smiled mysteriously as he carefully leaned back, arms crossed over his chest.
"With the taskforce, yes. But you told me that you distinctly heard a British voice and a Spanish voice in amongst the individuals that were involved in that donnybrook at the Foothills."
Dee's mouth opened, then abruptly closed as her mind whirled into action.
"So I did," she said in a thoughtful voice.
"So you did," Duffy's smile broadened slightly. "And that means the possibility of foreign nationals operating on Canadian soil. As a former RCMP constable, what's the procedure for dealing with the possibility of foreign nationals on Canadian soil?"
Dee smiled tightly.
"Either bring CSIS into the case to consult or ..."
"Or Interpol," Duffy finished for her with a flourish of his hand.
"Which you worked for, for ten years before emigrating to Canada." Dee almost laughed out loud. "Do you actually think Interpol will be called into this situation?"
"As soon as the RCMP discovers the fact that foreign nationals may have been involved. Something I believe we must ensure as we put our plan into action."
"Plan? You can't possibly tell me that you have a plan of action on this whole thing," Dee said in disbelief.
"Of course I do, detective. Did you think I would be incapable of such a thing, having been forcibly drawn out of my comfortable bottle so recently? Pickled I may be, my dear Tragedy, but dead I am not. I didn't say anything in our encounter with our erstwhile superiors because I was completing the concept in my head while you blathered on."
"Duffy." Dee grimaced. "Do you mind explaining how we're going to get involved along with Interpol?"
"Simplicity, detective. You see, I still have a large number of connections with my former associates at Interpol. Associates that owe me a very large number of favors that I intend on cashing in on."
Abruptly the bedraggled Brit paused to sit forward, glancing over at McLaughlin's office as the door swung open.
"But the details will wait until we're safely out of here," he murmured softly before sitting back once again to watch the exit of the VIPs from McLaughlin's office.
Catching the hint, Dee sat back, crossing her arms beneath her breasts as she too turned to watch the VIPs make their way out of McLaughlin's office and into the squad room. They walked stiffly out of the office as the big leftenant frowned after them, none of them looking anywhere but straight ahead.
None of them, except Councilor Simpkins. She let her gaze roam freely from side to side as she primly walked, sandwiched between a heavily perspiring Comrie and Chief Sorrenson. And when her gaze fell onto Dee, she immediately smirked, as if mocking the tall detective in her helplessness at being removed from the investigation.
Dee felt a hot wave of frustration and anger wash through her. While she hadn't actually had any face to face confrontations with the plump councilor, it appeared that Simpkin's political maneuvering was, at every step, doing its best to hinder the investigation, instead of help it. And this latest development seemed to be directly in line with that pattern.
It seemed that Duffy knew the dangerous thoughts that were churning through Dee's mind, however. As Simpkins continued to mockingly smirk at her, given more pleasure at seeing Dee's discomfort, Dee readied a tight snarl of rage to convey her displeasure to the plump politico.
But, as the councilor stepped by, behind Duffy, Dee frowned as she watched the old Brit catch her eye and slowly shake his head, as if to say: now was not the time for that battle. Dee's frowned deepened as she quickly mulled that over. And just as quickly she concluded that Duffy was right. There would be another time, another place to settle this issue between her and the heavily made up political hack that had undercut the task force at every turn and ended up casting it aside when it no longer served as a platform for her posturing.
So she turned her eyes down onto the desk instead, feeling her teeth grinding in frustration as Simpkins continued to stare at her. And then they were gone.
"C'mon," Duffy hissed as he pushed himself out of the rickety chair opposite Dee's desk. "Forget those wankers. We've got some planning to do!"
****