Hell & High Water (THIRDS 1)

“And what’s that?”

Dex met his hard-ass father’s gaze. “Trying to save your team from itself.”

“What are you talking about?”

With a discreet glimpse to make sure no one was within hearing distance, Dex explained. “Your team hasn’t healed, and your Team Leader is hanging by a thread.” Tony appeared to be momentarily stunned. Seeming to shake himself out of it, he motioned for Dex to continue. In the short time since he’d met his team, Dex had managed to pick up on a lot, and it concerned him, greatly. His new partner especially.

“You think Agent Brodie beat the shit out of me because he doesn’t like me? He beat the shit out of me because something about me got under his skin, and that pissed him off. He doesn’t want me here. If I stay, it means he has to leave Gabe behind, and he’s not ready to do that. It’s not about my being good enough. It was never about that. You can’t tell me the last six or so agents he’s run off didn’t know what they were doing. The guy practically punched my lights out for talking about Gabe’s locker for fuck’s sake.”

“What else?”

“Ash is a certified prick. He’s channeling his pain into anger that he takes out on whoever tries to step into Gabe’s shoes. Cael is in his own little world because he doesn’t want to face what happened. Calvin and Hobbs—I haven’t even heard Hobbs talk, does he talk?”

“He’s a Therian of few words. Come to think of it, I think I’ve only heard him talk maybe a handful of times since I’ve known him,” Tony murmured. “Anyway, get on with it.”

“Calvin and Hobbs are seriously codependent on each other

. We both know how dangerous that can be. We have protocols and right now, I’m not sure they’d adhere to them. Letty, she’s trying to keep her head down. Rosa—despite her demeanor—is coping a lot better than the rest of them. She’s learned how to deal.”

“And you managed to pick up on all that while being hung upside down by a fellow agent, getting yourself beat to shit by your new Team Leader and tormenting your baby brother in the showers?”

“Yes. I would have had more, but you know, I was momentarily distracted by all the soapy six-packs.”

“Fraternizing with your teammates is not permitted.”

Dex gave him a sly grin. “Who said I wanted to fraternize? I was thinking more along the lines of having hot, sweaty man sex.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Same thing.”

“No. If you don’t want your employees having sex with each other, you should say, ‘Don’t have sex with each other’, or ‘intercourse’, or ‘consummation’, or whatever ridiculous alternative you can come up with that initially means sexy-time.”

“Dex.”

“I’m joking. I’m not going to have sex with any of my teammates, and since one of them is my brother, that only leaves the one who dislikes me, the one who really dislikes me, and the one who wants to push me in front of a moving bus.” Dex gave Tony a pat on the back. “I think we’re good.”

“Let’s get on with this. We have a briefing to get to.” They soon arrived at their previously waylaid destination. Unit Alpha. “Here we are.”

Dex guessed they were done talking about the team. He wanted to know what Tony was going to do—if anything—with the information he’d given him. Dex wasn’t trying to rat out his teammates, he was genuinely concerned. As the one with the least experience, he was the most vulnerable. As good as his teammates supposedly were, if the shit hit the fan, he needed to know they’d have his back.

Sloane Brodie was his biggest concern. The guy was capable, but it didn’t take a PhD to know Sloane had been hit the hardest by Gabe’s death, as was expected. Sloane and Gabe had been partners, working on and off the field, in each other’s hair day in and day out. They’d become close, probably even good friends. It wasn’t as if Gabe had been transferred—in Walsh’s case transferred to prison for doing something stupid—he was killed on the job. Dex was going to have to figure out how to handle Sloane. For now, he’d focus on Tony’s tour and making sure his new partner didn’t push him in front of a moving bus.

Unit Alpha took up the whole of the twenty-first floor and was as impressive as the rest of the building. On the other side of the thick glass doors sat an expansive marble reception desk with half a dozen receptionists consisting of three males and three females, an even number of Humans and Therians. With a friendly greeting exchanged between them, Tony led Dex past the desk to make a right down a wide hall with numerous closed doors on each side. After a right turn, they came to stand before a set of thick glass doors. It read “Defense Department” in bold white letters. Through there, Dex wasn’t surprised when he saw yet another set of glass doors, and on the other side, he could just about make out what appeared to be a bullpen, except unlike the Sixth Precinct’s bullpen, this wasn’t made up of desks, but rows of classy, thick glass-partitioned offices that stretched from floor to ceiling with a wide path down the center. Before they went into the Defense Department, Tony paused to point to the large hallway on the left.

“Down that way is Unit Alpha’s Intelligence Department, made up of eight hundred employees, all of which are divided up among Unit Alpha’s squads. Intel Agents are responsible for gathering, analyzing, and monitoring information using our Themis system.” He turned and pointed to the equally large hallway on the right. “Down that way is the Recon Department and its four hundred employees who are also divided among the squads. Recon handles all investigations. They’re also the only agents who work with both Intel and Defense. You’ll only be dealing with Recon.”

Tony put his hand to the panel and the doors to the Defense Department opened. Inside, soothing music played. To their right, the reception area was manned by two Humans and two Therians. Tony greeted them and introduced Dex. They were friendly, though a couple eyed him warily. Dex was on his best behavior, giving them a friendly smile and “hello.” Then, like busy little bees, they went back to work. To the left was a waiting area with seating, coffee tables, reading material, a flat screen TV playing some news station on “mute” with subtitles, and a refreshment area with coffee, tea, water, and accompaniments.

In the center of the floor, the THIRDS logo was once again proudly displayed. Tony came to a stop a few feet away from the second set of doors.

“There are a total of one hundred Defense agents broken down into fifty teams of two agents, which are then divided into the ten squads. Your squad is Destructive Delta. Each squad works with its own Intel and Recon teams. Your squad has been assigned sixty Intel and twenty Recon agents. Defense agents are the trackers and muscle. They provide backup for Recon out in the field, aiding investigations and taking the necessary action to neutralize any threats. They’re our sharpest and toughest. If there aren’t any immediate, large-scale threats, you and Sloane will accompany Cael and his partner on their high-risk cases. In between, you’ll be asked to handle everything from high-risk warrants, to barricaded subjects and extractions. Every quarter, you have to qualify in weapons and physical proficiency. When you’re not out in the field, you’ll be training or filling out reports.”

The double glass doors slid open as they approached. Inside, a wide path cut

straight through the expansive bullpen. It wasn’t as busy as Dex thought it would be. The teams—except for his, which was in the briefing room—were most likely out in the field or training. There were rows upon rows of extraordinarily spacious offices to each side of the carpeted path, all of them made up of transparent and frosted glass panels. They walked to the end of the path, and a few turns later, they stopped at one of the offices, but before going in, Tony pointed to a black door on the right.

“That’s briefing room ‘A.’ You’ll be spending a good deal of time there. There are three more to the right of it, a kitchen and lunchroom, followed by the male locker room, female locker room. At the end of the hall, make a right and you get to the sleeping bays. To the left of the briefing room is the Archives Room. Make a left at the end of that hall, and there are more sleeping bays. Canteen is on the fifteenth floor, you already know where Sparta and the main locker rooms are.” With that said, Tony walked into the office.

Inside, it was twice as big as his old captain’s office and much, much, nicer. In the center of the room, two large black desks were pressed together facing each other, each one with a shiny, sleek black surface. There didn’t seem to be a computer in sight.