my own head and waited, reviewing the number of thong bikinis I’d seen. I was pretty sure the count was twenty- two, and of those at least eighteen had a legal and moral right to wear a thong. It was a good day at the beach.
The guy who finally came in was big, very well dressed, maybe sixty but there was no trace of middle-age soft about him. Not that he looked especially hard, not like a muscle freak or a career DI. No, he just looked capable. You pay attention to guys like him.
He took a seat opposite me. He wore a dark blue suit, red tie, white shirt, and tinted glasses that made it hard to read his eyes. Probably on purpose. He had short hair, big hands, and no expression at all.
Buckethead came in with a cork restaurant tray on which was a pitcher of water, two glasses, two napkins, and a dish of cookies. It was the cookies that weirded me out. You generally don’t get cookies in situations like this and it had to be some kind of mind trick.
When Buckethead left, the guy in the suit said, “My name is Mr. Church.”
“Okay,” I said.
“You are Detective Joseph Edwin Ledger, Baltimore Police, age thirty-two, unmarried.”
“You trying to fix me up with your daughter?”
“You served forty-five months with the army, honorably discharged. During your time in service you were involved in no significant military actions or operations.”
“Nothing was happening while I was in the service, at least not in my part of the world.”
“And yet your commanding officers and particularly your sergeant in basic wrote glowingly of you. Why is that?” He wasn’t reading out of a folder. He had no papers with him at all. His shaded eyes were fixed on me as he poured a glass of water for each of us.
“Maybe I suck up nicely.”
“No,” he said, “you don’t. Have a cookie.” He nudged the plate my way. “There are also several notes in your file suggesting that you are a world-class smartass.”
“Really? You mean I made it through the nationals?”
“And you apparently think you’re hilarious.”
“You’re saying I’m not?”
“Jury’s still out on that.” He took a cookie-a vanilla wafer-and bit off an edge. “Your father is stepping down as police commissioner to make a run for mayor.”
“I sure hope we can count on your vote.”
“Your brother is also Baltimore PD and is a detective two with homicide. He’s a year younger and he outranks you. He stayed home while you played soldier.”
“Why I am here, Mr. Church?”
“You’re here because I wanted to meet you face-to-face.”
“We could have done that at the precinct on Monday.”
“No, we couldn’t.”
“You could have called me and asked me to meet you somewhere neutral. They have cookies at Starbucks, you know.”
“Too big and too soft.” He took another bite of the wafer. “Besides, here is more convenient.”
“For ”
Instead of answering he said, “After your discharge you enrolled in the police academy, graduated third in your class. Not first?”
“It was a big class.”
“It’s my understanding that you could have been first had you wanted to.”
I took a cookie-Oreo for me-and screwed off the top.
He said, “You spent several nights of the last few weeks before your finals helping three other officers prepare for the test. As a result two of them did better and you didn’t do as well as you should have.”
I ate the top. I like it in layers. Cookie, cream, cookie.
“So what?”
“Just noting it. You received early promotion to plainclothes and even earlier promotion to detective. Outstanding letters and commendations.”
“Yes, I’m wonderful. Crowds cheer as I go by.”
“And there are more notes about your smart mouth.”
I grinned with Oreo gunk on my teeth.
“You’ve been recruited by the FBI and are scheduled to start your training in twenty days.”
“Do you know my shoe size?”
He finished his cookie and took another vanilla wafer. I’m not sure I could trust a man who would bypass an Oreo in favor of vanilla wafers. It’s a fundamental character flaw, possibly a sign of true evil.
“Your superiors at Baltimore PD say they’re sorry to see you go, and the FBI has high hopes.”
“Again, whyn’t you call me instead of sending the goon squad?”
“To make a point.”
“About ”
Mr. Church considered me for a moment. “On what not to become. What’s your opinion of the agents you met today?”
I shrugged. “A bit stiff, no sense of humor. But they braced me pretty well. Good approach, kept the heat down, good manners.”
“Could you have escaped?”
“Not easily. They had guns, I didn’t.”
“Could you have escaped?” He asked it slower this time.
“Maybe.”
“Mr. Ledger ”
“Okay, yes. I could have escaped had I wanted to.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, it didn’t come to that.”
He seemed satisfied with that answer. “The pickup at the beach was intended as something of a window to the future. Agents Simchek, Andrews, and McNeill are top-of-the-line, make no mistake. They are the very best the Bureau has to offer.”
“So I’m supposed to be impressed. If I didn’t think the FBI was a good next step I wouldn’t have taken your offer.”
“Not my offer, Mr. Ledger. I’m not with the Bureau.”
“Let me guess the ‘Company’?”
He showed his teeth. It might have been a smile. “Try again.”
“Homeland?”
“Right league, wrong team.”
“No point in me guessing then. Is this one of those ‘we’re so secret we don’t have a name’ things?”
Church sighed. “We do have a name, but it’s functional and boring.”
“Can you tell me?”
“What would you say if I said ‘but then I’d have to kill you’?”
“I’d say drive me back to my car.” When he didn’t move, I added, “Look, I was army for four and Baltimore PD for eight, the last eighteen months of which I’ve been a gopher for the CT task force. I know that there are levels upon levels of need-to-know. Well, guess what, Sparky: I don’t need to know. If you have a point then get to it, otherwise kiss my ass.”
“DMS,” he said.
I waited.
“Department of Military Sciences.”
I swallowed the last of my cookie. “Never heard of it.”
“Of course not.” Matter-of-fact, no mockery.
“So is this going to turn out to be some kind of cornball Men in Black thing? Thin ties, black suits, and a little flashy thing that’ll make me forget all this shit?”
