Taggart looked at Hardin. Hardin scratched the side of his head, cleared his throat. He said, “Well. Ahem. Er, Mr. Bauer, I’m afraid that we’re all the victims of a terrible mistake.”
Jack said, “You think?” The numbed side of his face gave him some difficulty in forming the words.
Hardin said, “Cole, take the cuffs off him.”
Taggart unlocked Jack’s handcuffs. Jack’s wrists bore angry red grooves where the tightly fastened cuffs had bitten deep in the skin. Loss of circulation made his hands feel clumsy and oversized, like he was wearing a pair of oven mitts.
Hardin said, “Maybe you’d like to sit down.” He indicated a chair in the front desk area. Jack sat down in it, resting his hands on top of his thighs. He flexed them, clenching and unclenching his fists. Electric needles of sensation pierced his hands as feeling began to return. His face was pale, waxen, except for where the bruise had flowered on his left cheek.
One of the front desk phones rang. Taggart answered it. Squalling sounded from the earpiece where he held it to his head. The words were unintelligible but their tenor was unmistakable. Taggart winced, handing the receiver to Hardin. “You better take this, Lieutenant.”
Hardin got on the phone. He barely had time to identify himself before receiving an earful. He did a lot of listening and not much talking. His few responses were limited to such phrases as “an honest mistake… in the heat of the moment judgments had to be made… can’t be too careful, with the conference on… mistakes were made, yes… dreadfully sorry… the department regrets… I deeply regret… you have my full apologies…”
He held out the phone to Jack. “They want to speak to you.”
Jack rose, took the phone, holding it to the right side of his face. A voice on the other end of the line said, “Hello, Agent Bauer? Anne Armstrong here.”
Anne Armstrong was one of Garcia’s top staffers at CTU/DENV, one of the special agents overseeing the handling of the Sky Mount assignment out of the Pike’s Ford command post.
Their conversation was naturally circumscribed by its being carried on an unsecured phone line and could be conducted in only the most general terms. That didn’t prevent her from asking, “What have those idiots gone and done?”
Jack looked at Hardin and Taggart. “Let’s call it a case of mistaken identity.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’ve been better, but I’ll live.”
“I’m on the way. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.”
The call completed, the connection was broken.
Jack handed the phone to Hardin, who placed the receiver back on the hook. Hardin said, “No charges will be filed, of course.”
Jack said, “By me or by you?”
“Ha-ha. These things happen, you know. With the Round Table opening today, and those crazy Zealots dropping out of sight to get up to who knows what, I’m sure you can understand that we’re all a bit on edge, keyed up as it were, so there may have been a tendency to overreact.”
“If you’d acted a bit sooner to catch the guy I was chasing, you would have nabbed a hot lead.”
Hardin mustered a sickly smile. “Reckon that makes me the goat. I’ll take full responsibility for it. We were just a few seconds off in closing that roadblock. But how were we to know that you were a Federal agent chasing a fugitive? If you or your people had communicated with us in time… As it was, though, we didn’t know what we were dealing with.”
Jack said, “I know the feeling.”
“Well, you can see how it is then.” Hardin indicated Jack’s belongings laid out on the desktop. “You’ll be wanting your stuff back.”
Jack started picking up items, putting them in his pockets. Hardin said, “When you’re done, step into my office and make yourself comfortable.”
Jack followed Hardin to a closed office door whose upper half was a translucent pane of pebbled glass. Hardin’s title and name were stencilled on it in black letters, along with the legend: “Private.”
Hardin opened the door and ushered Jack in, following him and closing the door behind them. He said, “You’ll be wanting to clean up. You can use my private washroom.”
Jack said, “That’s big of you, Lieutenant. Mighty big.”
Hardin chose to ignore the sarcasm. “Just a little interagency cooperation. After all, we’re all on the same team.”
A connecting door in the long wall with the filing cabinets opened on a small bathroom. Jack eyed his reflection in a mirror mounted over the sink. He hoped it was the overhead fluorescent lighting that made him look like death warmed over. The left side of his face was bruised and swollen but not as badly as he’d expected it to be from the way it felt. He ran some cold water and rubbed it on the parts of his face that weren’t sore. He soaked a washcloth with hot water and held it against the left side of his face. He patted himself dry with a hand towel and stepped out.
Hardin did his best to make himself agreeable. He offered Jack a cup of coffee. Jack passed on it. He offered Jack a drink from a bottle of whiskey he kept in a desk drawer. That offer was more tempting but Jack declined. He didn’t want to meet Anne Arm-strong with liquor on his breath.
A discreet knocking sounded on the office door; Hardin said, “Come in.” It was Sharon Stallings with a towel-wrapped ice pack. Jack accepted with thanks. She went out. Jack sat in one of the armchairs holding the ice pack against the left side of his face.
Hardin said, “We put out an all- points bulletin on that car you were chasing. Too bad we don’t have a license plate number to go on. Maybe something’ll come of it. Mind telling me what it’s all about?”
Jack said, “The driver’s wanted in connection with a shooting.”
Hardin showed interest. “You don’t tell me! Who got shot?”
“We’ll get back to you on that later.”
“Top secret stuff, eh? Sure, sure. I understand. Any
information you can extend to me will be greatly appreciated. We’re both after the same thing, making sure that the Round Table goes off without a hitch.” Hardin’s chair creaked as he leaned forward in it. “This suspect — he one of Prewitt’s crazies?”
Jack shrugged. “That remains to be seen.”
“They’re a bad bunch, a bad bunch. Them going missing right as the conference kicks off, well, it can’t be a coincidence. Or a good thing.”
A knock sounded on the door; it opened and Taggart stuck his head in without waiting for Hardin’s acknowledgment. He said, “Bauer’s people are here,
Lieutenant.”
Hardin said, “Okay.”
Jack got up, placed the towel-wrapped ice pack on top of a filing cabinet, and went out the door. Hardin pushed back his chair and hurried after him. Jack went into the squad room. Fisk and Stallings were talking but fell silent when he entered. Fisk had put on a clean pair of pants since Jack had last seen him. Taggart had regained his seat behind the front desk.
Jack crossed toward the front desk without looking at anyone. His path took him in front of Fisk and Stallings. He stepped on Fisk’s foot. That was to pin him in place. Jack pivoted on the spot, driving a left-handed spear thrust at Fisk. The fingers of his hand were held together, the tips slightly curled inward.
He thrust the fingers into the top of Fisk’s belly, just below the bottom of the rib cage. He turned in toward Fisk as he struck, leaning into him, putting some weight behind the blow. His body screened Stallings and Hardin from seeing the strike. His curled fingertips went in deep.
Fisk jackknifed, going, “Whoof!”
Jack stepped back, said, “Excuse me.”
Fisk folded up, almost doubled over. His eyes bulged and his mouth was a round sucking O, gasping for breath. His pink face whitened, going green at the edges. He hugged his middle with both arms. A trembling right hand drifted toward his right hip where his weapon was holstered.
Jack said, “Reach for that gun and I’ll kick your teeth out.”
