“Did you bring Hennig and Brandt to the meeting?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you bring Hennig and Brandt to the meeting?”
“Because Carr said he and Bradly were looking for some enforcers.”
“Why?”
“To do the dirty work.”
“Why couldn’t it be done by the officers?”
“They didn’t want any obvious connections to us.”
“How did you find Hennig and Brandt?”
“I used to hire the various enforcers for the higher-ups. I had contact information for all of ‘em. I just went down the list until I hit somebody.”
“Who was running the meeting?”
“Carr and Bradly.”
“Was former Inspector Winston Peabody there?”
“Yes. I think I already told you he was part of the group.”
“Was Peabody involved in running the meeting?”
“No.”
“Did you think that was odd?”
“No, not really; a lot of the old HQ leads used to delegate, especially their dirty business. That way, they could claim they knew nothing about it. You know what I mean.”
“Yes. Was Carr doing more of the running of the meeting, or Bradly?”
“No, Bradly did most of the talking, and most of the planning. Carr just took notes.”
“Did Bradly work out a verbal contract with Hennig and Brandt to kill Director Lee Carter, Colonel Maia Peterson and Detectives Dominick Ashton and Callista Ames?”
“Yes, he did.”
“What did this contract consist of?”
“In exchange for killing Carter, Ashton, and their detective wives, Hennig and Brandt would get their old jobs back as enforcers in the ‘new’ IPD Headquarters organization, either under Peabody or Bradly, at their original rates of pay.”
“So Bradly considered himself in the running for the director’s office?”
“I guess so.”
“Why?”
“I guess if Peabody didn’t actually want the top office, Bradly would have it.”
“Why wouldn’t Peabody want it?”
“I dunno. Maybe he liked being a detective.”
“Did you have any follow-up meetings after the first one?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
“What happened in those?”
“In the first, the enforcers reported back that the house had been compromised, and we looked at extending the plan to ensure we stayed in control. In the second, we watched the explosion from a rooftop bar.”
“What was the extension to the plan?”
“Getting rid of the ICPD.”
“And in the second meeting, you say you watched the explosion. You personally saw the explosion?”
“Yes.”
“So you believed that your assassination plan succeeded?”
“Yes.”
“When did you realize you were wrong?”
“Not until the lot of ‘em showed up in the office the next morning, after Bradly took charge.”
“Who did you think would become the new director?”
“Peabody.”
“So you were unaware of the orders Bradly issued to have Peabody assassinated as well?”
The lightly-drugged Williams became agitated at that.
“WHAT?! You’re shitting me, right? Bradly was aiming for the top all along? Oh damn!”
“is that a ‘no’ response?”
“W-what, now?”
“Were you, or were you not, aware that Bradly issued orders to have Peabody assassinated?”
“No, I was not!”
“Were there discussions on eliminating all of the Imperial City Police Department?”
A slightly disoriented Williams struggled to regain the original flow of the interrogation. Mercer waited patiently.
“Uh. Damn. Hang on a minute. Um. Eliminate the ICPD…? Yes,” he finally admitted.
“How did your conspiracy plan to do so?”
“Bomb their headquarters precinct, over in Park West.”
“I see. When did you plan this?”
“During the second meeting, like I said.”
“Did you plan for more eliminations during that meeting?”
“Yes.”
What did your group plan after that?”
“It would depend on what happened next.”
“In what way?”
“If the Emperor went along with us, we’d just go back to the way things were. If not, we’d be looking for a way to take him out, too. Then we’d probably find someone to take over for him and work with us.”
“Had you considered the near-impossibility of the task?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your people already assassinated Emperor Trajan’s sister, the Empress Ilithyia II, as well as Trajan’s wife and brother-in-law. It was he who put down the insurrection – personally – by wiping out the Imperial Council and IPD Headquarters. Do you think he is so naïve as to fail to consider the possibility of an attempted coup upon his own person?”
“Oh. Um, I dunno. I...don’t guess we’d really gotten that far. I wasn’t one of the main planners.”
“I see. Who was the main planner?”
“Bradly.”
“Did he have an assistant?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Carr.”
“Lieutenant William Carr was Bradly’s assistant?”
“Yes.”
“Whose idea was it to do all this?”
“Carr’s.”
“Carr, not Bradly?”
“No, it was Carr. He told me that when he first told me about the ‘oldies’ meeting – that it was his idea, that he’d had the idea for what he called ‘helping Carter get out of the way.’ And so he told Bradly his idea, and Bradly decided to act on it.”
“What were the rest of you there for?”
“To help out where we were needed, and to throw our weight behind… I guess it was Bradly all along,” Williams said, head wobbling slightly as he worked out the real plan in his drugged, dumbfounded mind. “To make sure he was the one who made it into the Chief’s office, once Carter and his boy Ashton were dead. And then stay there, by getting rid of the opposition.”
“All of the opposition?”
“All of the opposition, yes.”
“ICPD?”
“Yes.”
“Emperor Trajan?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Mr. Williams,” Mercer said. “Dr. Martin, would you please come administer the antagonist?”
Moments later, Williams was back to normal.
“Oh shit,” he whispered, realizing what he’d just done. “Oh shit.”
“Mr. Williams,” Mercer said then, “you will be escorted back to your cell, where you will wait until the Emperor has had time to consider the full case. He may wait to hand down a sentence until all of the conspirators have been interrogated, or he
