Chapter Seventeen

"Anything?" Rahul asked, sloshing some of his coffee in his haste to get to his feet. He set the mug down on Tucker"s desk, away from the array of scattered papers.

The furrowed brow and slight frown on Tucker"s face weren"t encouraging, and his words confirmed it.

"He"s alive, babe, but that"s all the diviner has so far." Tucker took Rahul"s hands in his, gripping them tight. "She said it"ll take hours to get a better read, even with the hairbrush, and the underwear, and the, the…"

Tucker choked, and he looked like he didn"t know whether to laugh or cry. Rahul reached up and started stroking the back of his head.

"You mean the dildo?" Rahul said in a loud, lighthearted tone, nudging his boyfriend. "You made sure to grab the big werewolf one, right? The frosty blue one?"

"I grabbed the whole damn shelf," Tucker said fiercely. "Just swept them all up in a box. But yes, when I gave them to her, the diviner said she only needed to use one, and that"s the one I picked."

Rahul nodded sagely. "Good. He"s had some of the others longer, but he got that one after meeting you, which makes it sentimental. Of course, I don"t think the cub has used it since we all moved in together. Not when he has shifter cock on tap."

Tucker colored, his eyes darting to look around DOMA"s main room at the other agents who were doing a terrible job of pretending they weren"t paying attention to them.

"Come on, pup, let"s try to brainstorm."

Rahul guided Tucker over to his desk where all of Germaine"s files were laid out, with his computer open with multiple browser tabs.

"What"s the situation here at HQ?" Tucker asked.

"A shitshow," Rahul said, pulling out his phone and sending out a text. "Which feels terrifyingly like the last time Germaine showed his face. Julia"s resting from the fight. Rickert and Lilithian are still up north searching, but they"re taking a water break from their aerial surveillance while the diviner does her thing. I"ll let them know it"ll be a few more hours, at minimum, so they"ll probably go right back to searching."

"Maybe I should have stayed with them."

"For all we know, Germaine could be holed up underground, and as good as your nose is, you can"t smell through solid rock. But we"ll send you back soon, now that we have some balls rolling."

Tucker murmured his agreement, then looked up sharply.

"Your major fuckup cost us the operation and put a civilian"s life in danger," Clairmont snarled into a phone as he stormed out of his office, gesturing wildly with his free hand. "You should have—oh, are you still trying to pretend the sniper wasn"t yours? This won"t end—hello? Hello! Damn it!"

The executive director glared at his phone, then pocketed it. His anger seemed to bleed away as he noticed the two of them staring at him, and he strode over to join them.

"Detective Johnson. Basu. I"m sorry about Leif. I never would have thought…"

Clairmont trailed off, looking at first Tucker, and then Rahul, who stared at him silently. His hair was disheveled, the long sleeves on his shirt were rolled up, and sometime in the last two hours he"d apparently lost several buttons on his dress shirt.

"It all went wrong. I"m truly sorry." Clairmont pulled out a nearby chair, collapsing into it. "I"m trying to think of what to do next, and I"m open to any ideas. Right now, we have agents out on patrol in a spiral search pattern. I heard you already tapped the divination specialist. Deimos and Fontaine are working on tracing any possible communications to or from Germaine. The police…"

"It didn"t seem like your call went well," Tucker said. "Was that Major Anderson?"

"No, the bastard is ignoring me. That was the Minneapolis police chief who assigned us the six officers. We used to work together, and he"s normally very reasonable, but I think Anderson got to his ear first. He"s also understandably pissed off that one of his officers is in FBI custody, at least for the moment."

"And we"re understandably pissed off that our boyfriend was kidnapped because their sniper shot at an innocent person. What was he thinking?"

"He was just following orders." Clairmont growled. "The sniper was supposedly there for a chance at Germaine, but the lieutenant on site told him to fire at Robin, and he did so without question. Then the lieutenant turned it around, pretending the sniper"s shot was from Germaine himself, and used it to start the firefight. By morning, I expect that the police PR team will have spun a clever tale, and even if the sniper"s real story gets released, it will end up being a planned operation to draw out Germaine that DOMA botched."

Rahul was starting to want to wring someone"s neck. "Jack…"

"The short end of it is that it"s a legal mess, the police are now off hunting Germaine on their own, the FBI is spreading their support between them, us, and their own efforts, and Germaine is still out there with Leif. I have ideas on how to handle the media, but that"s not… I don"t want that to be the top priority. I want to bring your man home."

"Finally, something we can all agree on." Rahal said. He grabbed his coffee and downed the rest, more to stop himself from saying anything sarcastic than because of any real thirst.

Tucker crossed his arms. "Director. What if you came clean? Told Anderson that you were done with games and tried to work with him?"

"Tried that. Couldn"t get through to talk to him."

"And there"s no other way to get a message passed on? An aide, that police chief? Maybe the state representative?"

"At this point, Johnson, I don"t think he"d believe me, whatever I said. He"d probably think it was a trick of some kind to get more evidence, or to get to Germaine first." Clairmont barked a humorless laugh. "I hate this. Hate these kinds of stupid shady politics that get in the way of what we"re supposed to be doing. Keeping the peace. I quit the police force the very day I hit twenty years, you know that? I put up with a lot my last few years in the force, but the promise of the pension was… it made me stick it out. I should have said to hell with the pension, and left a few years sooner anyways. Maybe twenty years sooner."

While Clairmont grumbled at the floor in a quiet argument over his life choices, Director Wu slapped some papers down on Tucker"s desk forcefully.

"If you"re done with having a pity party, sir, I have an idea on how to find Mr. Becken."

Rahul grabbed the top paper, which was a printed out satellite map of the state. There were circles in different colors. Red for places that Germaine had robbed, blue for areas where he"d holed up, usually learned long after the fact by viewing camera footage or with the aid of forensic divinations.

"Maps?" Tucker asked.

Rahul squeezed Tucker"s arm encouragingly. "You think he went back to an old haunt?"

"No. But you, former agent Basu, and you, Detective Johnson, know our target." The director laid down one more printed map, this one centered on the landscaping business that they"d just returned from. There were concentric rings perfectly drawn around the site, labeled by mile. "You two are going to find him with some good old fashioned detective work. Germaine"s geomancy isn"t unlimited. He gets tired, the same as Agent Winters does."

"Oh, I see what you"re getting at! He would have had a destination in mind when he traveled." Rahul sat back in his chair, using Tucker"s computer to give him a more searchable map of the area. "Tucker, we once busted one of his attempted heists before he struck, and when we backtraced his escape point afterwards it was, what, two miles away?"

"I"ll double check, but that sounds right, babe," Tucker said, eagerly going through the papers Wu had delivered. He looked up at her. "Director, thank you."

"Let"s just focus on finding him. Every minute matters, and we"re nearly at two hours since the kidnapping."

"Yes, ma"am!" Rahul said, then focused back on the computer. "Tucker, I"ll check for likely sites. I already have a few good prospects, including an overpass in development and a few motels. Can you go over the papers and help me think like Germaine, figure out which ones are likeliest?

"Just at two miles," Tucker confirmed. "And yeah, of course. Let me get these organized…"

"Leave that to me, Johnson, I"ve studied Germaine nearly as much as you have," Wu said, rolling a chair over from Julia"s desk and shooing him away. "We need you up north to actually check these sites. Rickert or Lilithian have their talents, but your nose is probably our best tool. Maybe if we"re lucky, my ESP will kick in and give me a nudge with this."

"Maybe it already is, ma"am," Tucker said. He gave Rahul a quick pat on the back, and then gathered his belongings. "Okay! I"m going to grab Leif"s potions and my truck and meet up with the others. Rahul, send me the info."

"I"ll go with you," Clairmont said, standing out of his chair. "We can do two search teams, maybe each of us with a flier?"

Rahul looked over his shoulder, watching Tucker step around the table and stand next to the executive director. There was a silent pause, and then Tucker leaned down, first peering at Clairmonts face and then sniffing around his chest. At last, Tucker nodded, then abruptly squeezed the Executive Director with a tight hug.

"I"ll drive, sir, you can handle the calls en route. Meet me out front with a pair of comms, I"m going to grab the potions."

As Tucker ran off, the director jogged over to a nearby table, spoke a few quick words with a technician, then rushed back, carrying a couple of borrowed comms units.

"Director Wu, you"re in charge here while I"m gone," he said, securing one behind his ear. "Our PR rep is on his way in to tackle that whole mess. If you need me for anything, don"t hesitate to call, but I"m making finding our missing mage my top priority."

"Understood," Wu said. "And sir? You"re wrong."

The director glanced over to where Tucker had gone, then back to her. "Wrong?"

"DOMA doesn"t exist to keep the peace, as you said."Wu pulled out a snowy-silver pen and began rifling through the maps, making crisp notations. "DOMA exists to help those when others can"t, no matter who or what they are, by doing the right thing. Sometimes, sir, the right thing to do is loud and messy."

Tucker jogged back, carrying a rattling crate. "Ready, sir?"

"...yes, Johnson. Let"s find your boyfriend."