I stepped back, watching as he gave himself a quick dusting, straightened his navy suit, adjusted the tie, and then faced me.
I couldn’t stop staring.
He scowled.
I had no clue what to say.
“Don’t tell anybody,” he instructed before turning for the door of the roof.
Don’t tell anybody? Was he fucking kidding? I could barely breathe!
Holy motherfucking hell.
I had to concentrate on not hyperventilating.
Once I could move air through my lungs again—because Jesus Christ, I thought Ian was good at stopping my heart—I finally turned to look at my prisoner.
“That man is insane,” Gannon said.
I nodded in earnest.
“But, yanno,” he said on a sharp exhale, “kind of awesome.”
He got a wan smile from me that time.
Kage waited for us at the bottom of the last flight of stairs and then opened the door to seven uniformed CPD officers. Because his face was now recognizable, along with those of the mayor, the police superintendent, and the state’s attorney, they straightened, holstered their drawn weapons, and waited for his order.
He only glowered and told them to move so we could get through. When we got closer to the warehouse, I saw Ching and Becker waiting for us along with Dorsey and Ryan, plus Sharpe and White. I didn’t see Ian anywhere, which didn’t concern me since the area of operation was swarming with law enforcement. Kowalski and Eli weren’t there, instead back at the office on desk duty, running warrants and playing liaison to those of us in the field. Technically it was Ian’s and my day to do it, but Eli had his cousin Ira coming in from San Francisco, and he didn’t want to be stuck in the field when he was supposed to be picking the guy up at O’Hare. I understood. With our job, it could go off the rails at any time. It was best to simply not engage than to try to get away.
“—secured, and all the VX gas canisters have been recovered.”
My mind had been drifting, so I was lucky the glut of information was not directed at me.
“But SOG was called to an emergency in Hyde Park, so they’re gone.”
“We need to run warrants on all these men,” Kage began, indicating the people lying on the ground, facedown with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. “Run everyone through NCIC and then—”
“Is that really necessary?” asked Darren Mills, the new supervisory deputy who took over Kage’s spot after he was promoted.
First, holy God, he interrupted Kage.
Second, not only did he question our boss, his boss, but what he asked was stupid.
I glanced at Ching, who shot a look over to Becker, who winced. It was not the first time Mills, who had been chosen by a committee without the benefit of endorsement from Kage or Kage’s boss, Tom Kenwood, had opened his mouth and inserted his foot. He had also missed a filing for Asset Forfeiture, so we missed the monthly auction where we got the cars we drove, or sometimes didn’t want to drive but got stuck with anyway—a horrific carnation-pink Cabriolet came instantly to mind—and he still didn’t know who did what in our building.
Over the years, I’d come to realize there were two kinds of transfers, which was probably true of all workplace environments. There were people who came in quietly, got the lay of the land, and worked really hard to make sure everyone saw they could be counted on to do the job. Then there were others like Mills, who swaggered in, put on airs, and pretended to run the place and direct the team. In his defense, the investigator team normally did report to the supervisory deputy, as we all did to Kage when he was in that position, but when he moved up, Kage changed the reporting system so the lead investigator, currently Becker, remained in direct contact with him—basically circumventing Mills. In response Mills had spoken to Kenwood, US marshal in charge of the Northern District of Illinois, one of the ninety-four men appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, to complain that Kage hadn’t relinquished all his duties.
That was the gist of it, anyway, and I only knew that much because Dorsey and Ryan had been in the office processing a fugitive when Mills barged into Kage’s office without an invitation.
“Really?” I’d deadpanned over wings, eating one after another, licking my fingers and listening while we sat at Crisp on Broadway. Ian was shoved up beside me, laughing as he watched me but also listening. “Mills just rolled into his office without checking with Elyes?”
Kage had needed an assistant for as long as I’d known him, and he finally got one in the form of small, slender, hyperefficient Elyes Salerno, easily one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met in my life. She had a pixie cut, dark tan skin with bronze undertones, and huge chestnut-brown eyes with the thickest black lashes I’d ever seen. She had fantastic fashion sense, and as many compliments as I gave her, she gave me the same back, telling me often that if only her husband had my shoe collection, she’d have no complaints. The fact that she could be midsentence with me, check her email, and answer a question for Kage if he popped his head out of his office all at the same time told me she was absolutely on top of all facets of her boss’s life, from remembering when he was supposed to be somewhere to intuitively knowing what report he needed. Elyes only left the office when Kage did. So the fact that Mills disregarded her and walked past her into the office was, I was sure, his first mistake.