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CHAPTER THREE

Mimi spent the following week learning all she could about the neighborhoods on the east side of town—that is, whenever she wasn’t busy being one of the rotating digital content editors, a pursuit she enjoyed more than she was willing to admit to anyone, especially Tyler. However, she was and always would be a reporter, one who was damn glad to be back on the job, and the more she explored and learned about the part of town she’d only previously visited, the more interested she became. Turned out Melinda Franklin was 100 percent correct. It was a mistake to think that what was visible on the surface was the whole story. For starters, she learned that there were four distinct residential communities within the City East designation but that only one of them was a concentrated target of so-called gentrification, and it was the one that would—at least on the surface—be the least expected target. Gotta get beneath the surface! My new mantra. She must have spoken the thought because Joe and Carolyn were looking at her strangely. “What?”

“Yeah, what, Patterson?” Joe struggled to conceal a smirk. “Were you away so long you forgot how to work a story?”

Mimi let him have his fun, even if it was at her expense. Both he and Carolyn knew how tough it was to unearth those stories that lurked beneath the surface.

“You’ve got that look,” Carolyn said, giving her a look, “the one that says you’re on to something.”

“I need to spend a day or two searching property records—”

Joe started twitching. This was one of his favorite things. “Looking for what?”

“Once upon a time in that community there was a grocery store—the elders called it a supermarket—a hardware store, and a café. Not raggedy, cheap places, either, but thriving, well-respected businesses. All the older people I’ve talked to remember them.”

“What happened to ’em?” Joe asked.

Mimi gave a sad shake of her head. “Like a lot of small businesses, the people who owned them didn’t also own the physical spaces—”

“Uh oh.” Carolyn saw what was coming.

“Yep . . . but here’s where it gets strange: The building owners, all of whom now live in the suburbs, had no complaints with their tenants—long-term and well-liked tenants. And the story I hear is that they were pressured to evict those tenants and paid way more money than either the buildings or the businesses were worth.” Mimi let that sink in, watching her editor and her friend as they absorbed the information. Before she was an editor Carolyn had been a top reporter. Joe still was, like Mimi herself, and they both smelled the same stench that Mimi did.

“So . . . we’ve got what?” Carolyn asked. “Three vacant lots?”

Mimi gave her shark grin, shaking her head. Not vacant lots, she explained, but short strips of land on otherwise empty blocks with the same three businesses on each: a liquor store, an off-brand gas station, and a fast food joint . . . not a restaurant . . . a joint. None of the people who operated those businesses owned them, and none of them lived in the area. And almost all of the reported crime in the community occurred in these three areas: drug dealing, prostitution, home and car burglaries, fights, loud music playing at all hours, and the influx of nonresidents into these areas, lured by the crime. And then there were the homeless encampments on each of the three strips.

“What do you think is lurking beneath the surface, Mimi?” Carolyn asked. An editor who’d been a good reporter knew what questions to ask, knew what was involved in crafting a story from hundreds of pieces of buried information . . . making sense of those bits and pieces and forming them into a cogent whole. It was a process, usually a very painstaking one that could not be hurried.

“What are you smiling about?” Carolyn asked.

“I’m so glad you’re not the Weasel,” Mimi said.

Carolyn’s usually calm, peaceful expression morphed into a horror mask. “Oh dear God so am I!” she exclaimed, and Mimi and Joe laughed. Actually laughed out loud, attracting smiles from their near neighbors, especially when Carolyn recovered and joined in the merriment. Such a welcome change from the recent past with their last editor, despite the fact that covering the news these days was a more daunting, not to mention completely and totally unrewarding, experience than ever before.

Confronting today’s reporters was a president who lied every time he spoke, who was a racist, misogynist, homophobic buffoon with no knowledge of how the government worked and no desire to learn; a press secretary who lied to reporters about her boss’s behavior and mirrored his worst traits; and a public who cheered him on. It was exhausting to watch, much less report on. Sticking close to home for stories was infinitely more satisfying.

“Want some help doing the records search?” Joe asked.

Over the years they’d both spent enough hours poring over and digging through records of various kinds to be adept at it at this point in their careers, so it didn’t take long to unearth what they were looking for. Especially since the information wasn’t deeply or carefully or even intelligently buried. “Well shit,” Mimi muttered in disgust. “I could do without this.”

She couldn’t count the number of times she’d heard cops on television shows fervently swear a disbelief in coincidences. They didn’t happen, pronounced the TV cops. Mimi knew differently. She had empirical proof that coincidences did happen. Which is why, when she studied the info she and Joe unearthed, when she traced the names of the real property owners and not the registered agents back through her memory of social and political and financial relationships, the stink was bad. Really bad. Worse than initially imagined.

“What don’t I know?” Joe asked.

“This stuff—the worst of it—leads directly to the mayor, her chief of staff, her husband, and her son-in-law.”

Joe looked at her, gape-jawed. “Directly. Which means there’s probably more to find when we know where to look.”

Mimi nodded and felt miserable. It never ceased to amaze her how really stupid intelligent people could be. And arrogant. They actually thought—believed—that they could get away with it. “This is your story, Joe. Go get it, dude.”

“Then what’s yours?”

“The people who have been displaced or, worse, evicted, or even worse than that, cheated out of their homes. The people whose neighborhoods have been destroyed. The people who have no place to go.”

“But you know the players, their connections to each other and to the city. You know where the bodies are buried and where some are being dug up. You’re really the one to write this story—and before you speak the words, I know you swore never to write another graft and corruption story.”

And she fully intended to keep that promise. Anyway, she didn’t care about such stories any more. Why should a mayor be held to a higher standard than the president? Why should city council people be expected to behave ethically when members of the US Congress and the Cabinet were not and did not? No matter how much the corrupt city officials stole, it wouldn’t even be able to pay the tax on what the “First Friends” had been and still were, stealing. Didn’t make the city officials’ misfeasance and malfeasance acceptable, and they’d pay for it. They should pay for it. Breaking the public trust always hurt the public. But it wouldn’t be M. Montgomery Patterson who’d have her finger on the justice scales. Not this time. Somebody else’s turn.

• • • •

With Eric gone, Gianna had no one she could talk to about her growing unease with Randall Connelly. In the days following the demonstration, he behaved increasingly badly. He was offhand and flippant, feigning disinterest in the fate of the arrested escapees, while constantly asking seemingly innocent questions about their circumstances. In the week since Eric’s departure he had become sullen, almost surly, and Tim had told him to straighten up or he’d get benched.

“Benched!” A furious Randall exclaimed. “Whadda you mean, benched? You can’t bench me!”

“Wanna bet?” Tim replied.

Since Randall also took advantage of Eric’s departure by coming in late to work almost daily, Tim managed to bench him the next day by taking his team on an early morning run in Rock Creek park, followed by a swim at a nearby indoor pool. Nobody knew where Tim and Team T were—or at least nobody admitted to knowing—so Randall had to sit by himself until his team returned. “I’ll just hang out with Team B,” he announced.

“Not happening,” Bobby Gilliam responded almost kindly. “We’ve got work to do that is team specific.”

So Randall Connelly was left sitting alone, watching Kenny Chang and Vik Patel work their computers until he got bored. He whipped out a magazine from his backpack and started to read, which is when Sgt. Alice Long entered the room.

“What are you doing here, Connelly?”

He shrugged but continued reading. “The team left me.”

“That means you were late. Third time this week,” Alice said. “Your paycheck will reflect—”

That got Connelly’s attention. “You better not fuck with my paycheck,” he snarled.

“And you better not talk to anyone in this unit in that tone of voice,” Gianna said, “especially a senior officer.” She had come into the room behind Alice, unnoticed by Randall Connelly. All the color drained from his face though he remained slouched in his chair. “On your feet, Patrol Officer Connelly,” Gianna snapped, and he dropped his book and stood up. At that moment Gianna’s phone rang. She answered, listened for a brief moment, and all the color drained from her face as she powered off the phone. “With me, Alice,” she barked, and made for the door, a concerned Alice Long on her heels.

When they were in the hall, Gianna said to Alice, “Take the back stairs to the basement, Alice, and run. Stay there until I tell you it’s safe to return. Deputy Chief Schmidt is on his way here with orders to transfer you to his command, and damned if I’m going to let that happen.”

Without a word Alice bolted for the door halfway down the hall, and Gianna knew she wouldn’t stop running until she reached the basement. Gianna headed for her cubicle at the rear of the room and beckoned Bobby Gilliam to follow her. “Take your team to the gym,” she told him, “and take Connelly with you. Don’t come back until you hear from Tommi that it’s safe. Go!”

“Right, Captain,” he said, and sprinted back across the room. He gathered his team and Randall Connelly, and they exited one side of the double doors that led to their unit as Deputy Chief Gerhard Schmidt and his adjutant entered the other. Gianna kept her eyes on the paperwork on her desk and pretended not to see him until he spoke.

“Captain.”

She looked up, surprised, and stood. “Good morning, sir.”

He extended a hand that once again was not an offer to shake but contained a sheaf of papers. “These are orders that transfer Sgt. Alice Long to my command, effective immediately,” he said.

Gianna took the papers from him and dropped them on her desk. “Alice is away. A family emergency. She’ll be back tomorrow or the next day. Sir,” she added, making sure it sounded like an afterthought.

Schmidt was flummoxed. Part of his face registered disbelief, the other part dismay. He wouldn’t put it past Gianna Maglione to lie to him, but then he knew how serious she was about following the rules. “Please have Sgt. Long report to me as soon as she returns,” he said, and turned away. She let him get out of the door before she picked up the phone on her desk, but she got her breathing under control before she punched in Tommi’s number.

“Yes, ma’am?” Tommi said.

“I’m going up to the chief’s office. Bobby and his team are in the gym, and Alice is in the basement. Once you determine that Schmidt is back in his office you can bring our people home. And Tommi? Do not tell anyone where I am.” She picked up the papers Schmidt had brought and walked slowly to the elevator, not because of her leg but to give herself time to get her temper under control. She had never shown the chief of police anger. Frustration on more than one occasion, maybe some pique, but never anger, and she couldn’t—wouldn’t—do it now.

She was relatively calm when she opened the door to his suite. Capt. Thomas Mintz greeted her warmly if with confusion: She didn’t have an appointment with the chief. “Good morning, Captain,” she said, shaking his hand. “I apologize for barging in like this, but I need a few moments with the chief. Please.”

Mintz gave her an appraising look. He knew Gianna Maglione was a favorite of the police chief, and with good reason. He also knew she wasn’t the kind to show up uninvited without a good reason. “Give me a minute, Captain,” he said, and he knocked on the chief’s door, opened it, and went in. The deep plush of the royal blue carpet silenced all movement. Gianna had never spent much time in the chief’s outer office and today was no exception. She barely had time to take in the historical renderings of Washington, DC, before Mintz was back, holding the door open for her.

“Thanks, Captain,” she said.

“My pleasure, Captain,” he said.

“What’s the matter, Maglione?” the chief said when she entered his office.

She inhaled deeply. “If I’ve done something to upset or anger you, Chief—”

“You haven’t,” he said, and waited. He was in front of his massive desk, facing her, hands deep in his pockets. His jacket was off and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Piles of papers covered the desk, but in neat stacks, not a disorganized mess.

“I wish you’d tell me why Deputy Chief Schmidt is poaching my senior staff—”

“What the hell are you talking about, Maglione?” Now he was irritated, and he began jiggling the coins in his pockets. He must put coins there every morning when he dressed for that purpose she thought.

“A week ago, he transferred Eric Ashby and Jim Dudley to his command, and this morning he arrived with transfer papers for Alice Long—”

“Stop talking, Maglione!” he thundered. Now he was angry. “Mintz!”

The door opened immediately, and Capt. Mintz entered as if propelled. “Sir.”

“Have we received any personnel paperwork from Schmidt in the last week?”

“No, sir,” Mintz replied. His eyes never left the chief.

“I would never take any of your people in a stealth move, and it pains me that you think I would.”

“That’s what Mimi said.”

The chief gave her a wide-eyed look of surprise. “Patterson said that about me?”

“Yes, sir. She said one of your best traits is that you looked people in the eye and said or did whatever was on your mind. No secrets and no games.”

He nodded. “Mintz, call a Command Staff meeting for 08:30 tomorrow. In my conference room. No refreshments. It’ll be a short meeting.”

“Yes, sir,” Mintz said, gliding silently out.

Gianna exhaled as deeply as she’d inhaled. “I’m sorry, Chief. I guess I couldn’t imagine that anyone would take such action without your approval.”

“Me either,” he said grimly.

“I’m sorry, Chief,” she said again.

“You said he came for Alice? But he didn’t take her?”

Gianna gave a small, grim smile. “No, sir. I lied and said she was away.” She extended Schmidt’s papers. “He left the orders with me.”

“Good for you, but you must be struggling without Ashby and Dudley.”

“Yes, sir, I am. I need a lieutenant and—”

“Mintz!” And when Mintz appeared as if he’d never left, the chief issued another order: “Get me Andy Page.” And when Mintz disappeared again the chief looked squarely at Gianna. “You like Andy Page, don’t you? Think you could work with him?”

Gianna was struck momentarily speechless, and her boss watched while she found her voice—and her thoughts. “I haven’t had a lot of interaction with him, but I like what I’ve seen. But Chief, I don’t want to poach another captain’s second-in-command.”

He gave her a wry grin. “Nice of you to care, Maglione, but I’ve already got him, so no poaching involved. Not that I could be guilty of such a thing ’cause I am THE chief and I can deploy resources as I see fit.” He paced a few steps, thinking, Gianna knew, how much to tell her about why Andy Page wasn’t part of ATTF anymore. It also gave her time to think.

“I like what I know of him, sir.”

“He likes you, too. So much that he didn’t want to return to ATTF after the assist he gave your unit at the demo, which really pissed off his boss. ‘He doesn’t want to be here, I don’t want him here,’ is the message I got, and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with him ever since. So, while I’m sorry for what Schmidt did—”

Two quick raps and the door silently opened to admit Lt. Andy Page. He was about to greet the chief when he saw Gianna. His eyes widened in surprise; then a grin split his face, and he rushed forward to greet her, hand extended.

“Captain, good to see you.”

“Good to see you as well, Lieutenant. And since I haven’t seen you since that scuffle last week, let me thank you again for your help—”

“You two can do your mutual admiration society dance on your own time since you now belong to each other. Page, say hello to your new boss.” Page’s mouth flew open, but before he could speak the chief told him to wait outside. He saluted and ran to the door as if to make certain there would be no change of mind. “One more change for you to deal with, Maglione, one I don’t think you’ll mind. I want to give your unit to Eddie Davis. I want to be damn certain that what happened to you will never happen again, and I’m sorry you had to go through it.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“You operated so effectively on your own for so long, Maglione, that I guess I thought you always would. But you had no protection—”

“I had you, Chief.” And ever since he had removed her Hate Crimes Unit from then Capt. Eddie Davis’s oversight, she had answered exclusively to him.

“And that used to be enough,” he said grimly. “Time was, nobody would dream of making an end run around me.” He sighed. “But times are different.” Then he grinned his shark grin. “But not even Schmidt is brave enough to try and end-run Davis.” The grin widened, showing teeth. “Though I’d dearly love to see him try.”

“Thank you, Chief— for Andy and for Commander Davis. I can work with both of them.”

Andy Page was waiting for her, and his face lit up when he saw her. “Captain, I’m really working for you now?” And he grabbed her hand again.

“You really are, Andy.” Then she looked at Thomas Mintz, and he gave her a wink and a grin before he silently entered the chief’s office again. “And I’m glad you’re happy about it. I also hope you can swim because I’m about to toss you into the deep end of the pool.”

She took her phone from her pocket, punched Tommi Bell’s number, asked her to assemble everyone for a meeting, and then turned to Andy, but he spoke before she could. “You really are about to throw me in the deep end, aren’t you?” he asked, but the look on his face was one of pure joy. No hint of fear.

• • • •

“Meet and welcome our new lieutenant, Andy Page, who comes to us from the Anti-Terrorism Task Force—” She was interrupted by a loud, mocking whistle and a bark of laughter.

“What happened, dude; you get demoted?” This from Randall Connelly who was grinning and smirking, looking around the room expecting to meet cosigners to his tomfoolery. He was met with stony-faced disdain.

Andy Page walked to the front of the room. He had everyone’s attention except Randall’s, and everyone except Randall knew that was a mistake. “You!” Page thundered, and Randall Connelly finally looked at him. To his credit he had the good sense to stand up.

“Sir?”

“Do not ever interrupt your captain again when she’s speaking. Got that?”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant.”

Andy turned to face Gianna. “Sorry for the interruption, Captain. You were saying?”

“Doesn’t matter. You can handle things.” She signaled Alice, Tommi, Tim and Bobby with a glance and they hurried to her side. “These are your sergeants: Thomasina Bell, Administration, and Alice Long, Operations. And these are your team leaders, Detectives Tim McCreedy and Bobby Gilliam.” Gianna allowed handshakes all around before she signaled to Alice and Tommi to follow her. “You can have them back shortly, Andy,” and she left him to get acquainted with the operational teams.

Tommi and Alice followed her to the back of the room to her cubicle. Since Tommi had already told Alice about Schmidt’s visit Gianna didn’t feel it necessary to add anything more, so she told them what she knew about Andy Page. Then she told them about their assignment to Commander Eddie Davis.

“You don’t look upset, boss,” Alice said warily.

“I’m not,” Gianna replied. “Hate Crimes reported to him for a while. He’s a good boss.”

“But what kinda guy is he?” Alice asked.

Gianna gave a sly, wicked grin. “The kind Gerhard Schmidt won’t come within one hundred yards of.”

“Oh Lord help me!” Tommi exclaimed, looking across the room, and Gianna laughed out loud. She hadn’t seen Commander Davis in a long time, and she’d forgotten how good looking he was, and what effect he had on women. He looked like a young Sidney Poitier, a fact that caused straight women like Tommi to all but swoon and which elicited a controlled “wow” from Alice who didn’t have a straight bone in her gorgeous body.

Gianna stood up and walked forward to meet her once-again boss, aware that every eye in the room watched them. Grayer at the temples with more crinkles around the eyes, but his pleasure at seeing her was genuine. She extended a hand, but he wrapped her in a quick hug, releasing her just as quickly, and every heart rate in the room slowed. “I am so glad to see you, Commander, and so glad to be working together again.”

“You notice that I came as soon as the chief told me,” he said.

She led him to her cubicle. “Let me introduce the two people who really run this show: Sergeants Tommi Bell and Alice Long.”

“I hear you women run a tight ship,” Davis said, shaking their hands, and Tommi stopped breathing for a second while Alice stole a glance at Gianna.

They left, and he waved Gianna into her chair and took the seat across the table opposite her. “We have a lot of catching up to do, but I can see that you have things well in hand here.”

“This is as good a group as I’ve ever had,” Gianna said.

He nodded, then got down to business: “Two things right away. First, the chief says we’ve got to give this unit a name. I’m thinking Special Intelligence Mobile and Tactical Unit.”

Gianna processed the information she’d just received. So that’s what Eddie Davis did. He ran Intelligence. She nodded. “Works for me,” she said.

“Next: You need more people, and the loss of two of your aces made that need acute. You have done remarkable work, Anna, and I don’t know how with so few people. I want to add at least eight or ten more. You can decide if you want a third team or if you want to increase the two you have. I’ll send some personnel folders over later today. Okay?”

“Fine, Commander,” she said, and it was. It was also a relief. She couldn’t continue at the same pace and with the same results with so few people, even with those people giving 200 percent all day, every day. It wasn’t fair to them. It wasn’t fair to her either, for that matter.

“Third thing: I don’t like you exposed in this cubicle like you are. I understand why you relinquished your office. Of course the admin sergeant needs a room with a door that locks, but so do you. And Anna—I insist on it. I’ll send a crew over right away to look at this space back here—”

“I want and need to be able to see them, Commander, and they want and need to be able to see me,” Gianna said. And it wasn’t a request.

Davis eyed her steadily and got an equally steady, hazel-eyed gaze back. “We could use lots of bulletproof glass at the top and some kind of reinforced—something at the bottom,” he said.

She nodded. He was the only person who called her Anna. When they first started working together, he said he thought Gianna sounded too familiar and Giovanna too formal. He asked if he could call her Anna. She agreed, and he called her Anna as they forged a strong relationship based on mutual trust and respect. The passage of time had not changed that. “I’ve got a situation that needs your immediate attention,” she said to him. She turned her computer around to face him, gave him a headset to put on, and played the demonstration tape showing Randall Connelly’s actions. He played it three times, then looked several questions at her. She answered them because she knew what they were. What she hadn’t realized was how much she missed him—nor how much like him she had become. She knew that her team thought she was the perfect boss. That was because, she realized, she managed the way he managed: firmly but without getting in the way, and always respecting and trusting the people in her command. He thought in straight lines, but was always prepared for the unexpected. She worked the same way—the way she had learned from him. She told him everything about Randall Connelly and the escape from the police barricade by the demonstrators, about how at least one of them was connected to the group that had bombed Metro GALCO, the Gay and Lesbian Community Organization. She told him about how two of them lived right here in DC on the East Side—and that’s when he stopped her.

“At best the little creep is disloyal. At worst, he’s a traitor. In any case he puts our people at risk. I want him transferred to my command today.”

“Done,” Gianna said so quickly that Davis smiled. She couldn’t get rid of Connelly fast enough, and she didn’t care if her boss knew it. Connelly needed to be where there were enough eyes to keep tabs on him and enough power to bring him down if it came to that. “I’ll have Tommi prepare the paperwork.”

“I’ll send somebody to get it and Connelly within the hour, when I’ll also send the personnel files of potential candidates for your review.”

“I’ll get on that immediately,” she said, the relief evident in her voice.

He started to speak, hesitated, then said, “Does Ms. Patterson know how heavily this job has weighed on you?”

She nodded. “At least most of it. Maybe not the heaviest parts.”

He stood up. “Well, now that you’re not in it alone, maybe you can tell her all of it, especially about the heaviest parts.”

“Do you? Share all of it?”

“I do now,” he said with a sheepish grin, “after Nell threatened to leave me. And it was not an idle threat.” Gianna could see that the thought of his wife leaving him still scared him.

Gianna laughed, kind of, remembering painfully when Mimi did leave her, kind of, and it scared the shit out of her. She stood up, too—a bit too quickly—and grimaced even as she waved away Davis’s offered hand. “It’s a lot better than it was,” she said.

“So I hear,” he said, and left.

Gianna summoned her lieutenant and her sergeants and told them everything Commander Davis had told her, beginning with the official name of their unit.

“So the Commander runs Intelligence,” Andy said, nodding his head. “Makes sense the chief would put us there.”

“Just as long as Randall Connelly is somebody else’s problem,” Tommi said, and slapped her palms against each other. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“My grandma used to say that,” Alice exclaimed.

“Mine, too,” Andy added.

“Where do you think I got it?” Tommi asked, and they all looked at Gianna.

She shrugged. “My grandmas might have said it, too, but it would have been in Italian and lost on me. Though when I think about them, I can imagine it’s something they would say.” She frowned a thought. “I need to work on my Italian.” Then, “Two teams or three?”

“I vote three, Cap,” Andy said. “Smaller teams deploy faster, and Commander Davis did call us mobile, right?”

Gianna nodded, then looked at Alice. “You’re Ops. Your thoughts?”

“I agree, and I’m wondering if Lynda Lopez can handle being a team leader.” Gianna’s surprise showed and Alice quickly explained: “She’s a damn good cop, she’s smart, and she’s paid more dues than most. My only reservation is, I wonder whether she’s tough enough to be a team leader.”

“And that’s a big reservation, Alice,” Andy said. “Maybe big enough to outweigh all those other good qualities. A team leader needs a kick-ass attitude when that’s what’s called for, needs to be ready and willing to kick ass if that’s what’s called for.”

Alice shook her head in resignation. “Kicking ass is not part of Lynda’s DNA.”

“How about Annie Anderson?” Tommi asked, and everybody looked at her, although they were seeing Annie Anderson; and what Gianna and Alice saw was a young woman who could and would kick ass if and when necessary. She had even caught Andy’s eye, and he hadn’t been there an entire shift yet.

“You might be on to something, Tommi,” Gianna said thoughtfully, thinking that Annie was awfully young, but she also was well respected by both teams. “You three do a deep dive into the files the Commander sends over. Get help from the computer heads. I don’t want any more surprises.” Like Taylor Johnstone, the junkie, and Randall Connelly, she thought. “And Andy, you and Alice work up a training schedule. I have a feeling that things have been too calm for too long.”

“I’d like to suggest that each team have a member trained in evasive driving and in the use of a long gun.” And at the look on Gianna’s face Andy hurried to explain his reasoning. “We’re a mobile and tactical unit, which means we could be deployed anywhere at any time to do anything, right?”

Of course he was right. His experience working on a tactical team was not only evident but important and useful. He definitely was an asset to whatever it was that the Commander had created. And she’d certainly need an enclosed office with a door that locked if keys to vehicles and long guns needed a place to live. Ditto for the kinds of conversations she’d be having with Page and Alice, who at that moment was giving him the animal, mineral or vegetable look. What are you, dude? her look asked.

“I admit that’s something I’d never considered, Andy, but I certainly see your point. I’ll present it to Commander Davis, but I expect he’ll okay it, giving us another reason to get ourselves restructured—and quickly.”

“Hate crimes are still important to us, right, Captain?” Alice asked.

“Always,” Gianna replied, adding, “especially since hate seems to be bigger and stronger and more widespread than ever.” She barely succeeded in keeping the anger from her voice. Tommi gave her Connelly’s transfer papers. She read and signed and wondered only briefly what Davis would do with him, but she really didn’t care. Good riddance to bad rubbish indeed. She queried Andy Page about his immediate needs, but he said his paperwork was all in order. All he needed was a lanyard and a key.

“We’ll all need new lanyards, Tommi, with our new name on them,” Gianna said, adding that the old photos of the existing team members would be good enough.

• • • •

Tommi was nodding and writing. She said, “Special Intelligence Mobile and Tactical Unit, Intelligence Division. Or Intelligence Command?” Gianna shrugged and told her to ask the man himself, and Sgt. Bell almost swooned at the thought.

“Uniforms, Cap?” Andy asked. “At ATTF—”

Gianna shook her head an emphatic NO. She’d always thought the ATTF crew looked a little silly in their matching cargo pants and T-shirts. “Maybe jackets that say POLICE, and only if we’re going into a potentially dangerous situation and some idiot might confuse us with the bad guys. But no uniforms.” She thought Andy looked a little relieved. Then his expression changed as he looked toward the front door. A uniformed patrol officer was wheeling a folder-and-file-filled cart into the room, trailed by a plainclothes sergeant. The three of them quickly stood and hurried to meet their guests. Gianna stood more slowly because her bad leg was always stiff after sitting for a long time, but she walked forward as quickly as possible.

“Captain Maglione, Commander Davis said you’d be expecting these files.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“If you’d please sign,” he asked, and she did, and controlled her smile as her sergeants and lieutenant took control of the cart and all but ran from the room. “And this is the paperwork requesting the transfer of Patrol Officer Randall Connelly to our command, your signature also required.” Gianna signed and gave him the corresponding documents transferring Connelly from her command to Davis’s. Then she turned to face her team, all of whom were watching her silently and very closely.

“Officer Connelly,” she called out, and watched him stand and walk toward her. For the first time he was without his usual smirk or snide grin. “You are officially transferred to Intelligence Command, effective immediately. Please surrender your lanyard and key and accompany these officers.”

He was dumbstruck. He tried several times to speak, but no words came out. Someone called his name, and he turned to see his backpack sailing toward him. He caught it just before it hit the ground. He turned back to Gianna to see her extended hand, and he relinquished his ID lanyard and office key.

Davis’s two officers saluted Gianna, wished her a good day, and followed Randall Connelly out, one on either side of him in close formation, just as Andy and Alice returned, both wearing wide grins. Gianna went to the front of the room and stood beneath the video screens.

“It’s been a very busy day but a very good day, so you all can relax your faces and get your breathing back to normal. We have a lot to talk about, but these are broad strokes: We now belong to Commander Eddie Davis—” and she allowed the loud cheers and whistles that followed, led by Bobby Gilliam, Lynda Lopez, Kenny Chang and Tim McCreedy, all of whom knew him from the old HCU days.

“You’re all right with this, right, Cap?” Bobby asked.

“Better than all right, Bobby. Especially since we now have a name,” and there was more yelling and cheering when she told them what it was. A stunned and awe-filled silence greeted the news of the new additions to the unit and the formation of a third team. The news that Annie Anderson was to be the new team leader brought them all to their feet and Annie into the air on several shoulders. Gianna knew there’d be no controlling them now. “They’re all yours,” she said to Andy and Alice, and returned to her cubicle in the back of the room.