No, I think it’s gotta be somebody in the IPD. Somebody on my team, dammit. Somebody working for me is a crooked cop. After all the shit I went through under the old IPD, that sticks in my craw bad.
Maybe I should just run everybody through the lie detector chairs. Every last cop we got. We have four chairs, between New Headquarters, ICPD Headquarters, and the Imperial Guard’s lockdown. And we got... lessee. Ten investigators in Ashton’s Gang, counting me – and I’ll put myself through it, too. I won’t make any of my people do anything I wouldn’t do. And um... ten, eleven, twelve over in Maia’s group these days. Damn, I miss Gene. I don’t think he’s even still on the planet these days, though. Stefan’s starting to talk about early retirement, too. Shit. I’m gettin’ old.
Never mind, Nick. Focus. So we got twenty-two investigators, divided by four chairs, and say fifteen minutes per person to verify their honesty...
Suddenly he sat up straight in his chair.
Or we can make the Vigilante reveal himself.
That night after the kids were in bed and Cally’s parents had retired to their own condo, Nick had a long chat with Cally, keeping it within the secure VR room they’d been given while Nick was on Carolina. After more than an hour, he pinged General Daggert, and Daggert came in and joined the chat.
By the time he left, they had a plan.
The next morning, Ashton called a meeting of the intelligence investigation team, in their usual VR conference room. Once everyone showed up, Carter turned to him.
“Nick, you called this. It’s your show,” he said, offering the head of the table to his second before sitting down himself.
“Damn straight,” Ashton said, taking the lead. “Look, guys. It’s plain and simple. I don’t care what you personally think of the work of the Vigilante Patriot. The point is, he’s a damn criminal! He doesn’t have the right to do what he’s doing. No man or woman has the right to take the life of another man or woman without a trial – without an accusation, a chance to face the accuser, a chance to present the case, for and against. And even then, if the prosecution can’t prove wrongdoing, if the evidence isn’t there to show the accused did it, the accused–must–be–acquitted. But no. The Vigilante Patriot is judge, prosecution, jury, and executioner, all rolled into one. And that’s just wrong.”
“But Nick, we have the goods on these guys,” Brandon Elliot declared.
“Do we?” Ashton challenged. “I worked with a man from Annalia, who was tasked with rebuilding his nation’s intelligence network on Sintar. He was a good man, who had spent his life trying to do the right thing by his nation... even though his nation wasn’t doing the right thing by her citizens. And he was the patch-em’-up guy, the one who had to try to put things back together when the powers that be didn’t care about anything but their own egos. He was the man who had nightmares almost every night, from the horrors of war that he, himself, personally saw... and had to try to fix. Do you know what he did? Knowing – having figured out that I was there to counter the Annalian intelligence network, he still protected me from the hired ‘security’ of two other consuls, at some risk to himself... then defected. The man is a Sintaran citizen now, working with us in the war effort.” He paused, then looked around the virtual room. “How do we know that there isn’t another one like him in the groups we’ve been given to bring into custody, someone just waiting for the right opportunity to get out? How do we know there isn’t someone among them whose family is being held in a dreadful situation at home, and they’re being forced to do the work of a spy whether they want to or not, to prevent harm to their loved ones? The answer is: WE DON’T!” he shouted, slamming his fist down on the virtual conference table as his face flushed in anger. “Until we’ve brought them in, until we’ve interrogated them, given them a chance to explain their situations to us, we cannot know if they are coerced, trapped, innocent, guilty, or a flat-out psycho! And yes, there are some of those in the mix, too. But it’s our responsibility to investigate, to find out the truth. Execution of another polity’s intelligence officer without regard for the truth is not only against the law, it is a travesty of that which we call justice. And I, for one, had more than enough of that shit during my time under the old IPD. I cannot – and I will not – see that return.” He paused, then added, “But it has. Because I’ve looked at all of the evidence, all the clues, and I’ve reached one inescapable conclusion: The Vigilante Patriot… is one of us. One of us is a crooked cop. And I. Will. Not. Let. That. Stand.”
“What do you intend to do about it?” Peterson asked.
“I intend to see to it that each and every one of us here today,” he looked around the room with hard eyes, taking in a wide-eyed Carter, Quan, Peterson, Daggert, Kraus, The Team, and Ashton’s Gang, “sits in the lie detector chair to determine guilt or innocence. Because it has to be one of us. There is no other conclusion
