The next day, they used their building security to have their car brought around to an interior garage entrance, and Ashton did not get out of the car when he dropped Ames off at ICPD headquarters. On arrival at his own workplace, two waiting Imperial Guardsmen escorted Ashton from his car in the parking garage all the way to his office, where they took up positions on either side of the doorway.
There were also three Imperial Marines now occupying the roof of the New Headquarters building, which was the tallest building in the area. Carter, having heard about the attack on his Field lead, was shocked and angered, and was happy to admit the Marines and Guard to the building.
“Take up whatever stations you feel you need to,” Carter declared, standing in his office door. “And bring in as many of your fellows as you like. I’m damn angry about this, now. I wasn’t happy before, but when this damn-fool crazy person goes after Nick, under my watch? You better damn well bet I’m going to clear this department of that kind of scum!”
“Then let me recommend that you stay inside today as well, sir,” Captain Fowler, the Marine in charge of the sniper team, told him. “You’ve just made a public declaration, and that now puts you at risk, as well.”
“I’ll call for additional members of the Guard,” Wallander, one of the Imperial Guard assigned to Ashton, said.
“Shit,” Carter fussed.
Very late that afternoon, Daggert contacted Maia Peterson and requested The Team at a crime scene in the vicinity of the Palace West entrance. “I’m thinking it may pertain to this whole spy nonsense,” he told her. “And you might want to ask for Nick Ashton to attend, while you’re about it. IPD needs to buy off on it, and be involved. Him, specifically.”
“Oh, really?” Peterson wondered, glancing at Ames, who nodded.
“Very definitely,” Daggert declared. “He needs to be there.”
“I’ll see it happens,” Peterson said. “Might we be seeing you there?”
“You never know with this shit,” Daggert said.
“Hey, Nick,” Carter called across the bullpen, and Ashton looked up from his desk. “Maia just called. There’s some sorta crime scene over by the Imperial Palace West Entrance, and they want you over there.”
“But that’s in the ICPD jurisdiction,” Ashton noted.
“Yeah. Something to do with maybe being part of a certain ongoing effort against the DP.”
“Oh. Right. I’ll head that way.”
The Guards escorted Ashton to his car and, safe in his vehicle, Ashton tooled over to the crime scene.
The site was actually well inside the Palace entrance, but on the street level instead of the arcade level, about halfway between the Imperial Mall and Imperial Park Boulevard West, along one of the paved walkways between buildings. As Ashton walked up to the uniformed ICPD beat officer standing guard just outside the crime scene tape, he hid a grin.
“What the hell are you doing here, Mercer?” he murmured, careful to keep his voice too low to be heard by anyone else. “I’m not used to seeing you out of your Imperial Guard uniform.”
“Covering for you, of course,” Colonel David Mercer responded, sotto voce. “You’re wearing your armor with plates, right? The stuff Daggert sent over last night?”
“Of course. I just wish I had a helmet to go with it. My head feels damn vulnerable right now.”
“Well, there’s a reason we’ve got the ‘crime scene’ way out here in the open. You may feel more vulnerable, but you’re actually a lot less vulnerable. Yeah, there’s high-rises around, but we picked a place that was as far away from a rooftop or an open window as we could. And given the known range on the air rifle in the line of weapons you identified, you’re too far away for that weapon to work. Never mind we have all the building accesses boxed up. Which means the Vigilante has to make it a little more... personal. So in a couple more minutes, I’m going to leave you here to ‘investigate’ this little crime scene we ginned up for you – it’s supposed to be an assault case from last night, just so you know – and see if we can’t coax a certain Vigilante Patriot out into the open. Make sure you do not look around the shrubs over there, especially that one shaped like the Throne. We have our layout set up to allow the Vigilante ingress through there, but not egress.”
“Right.”
“Be careful. Don’t actually get yourself shot doing this.”
“That’s not part of the plan.”
“I know. That doesn’t mean shit doesn’t happen anyway.”
“Oh, speaking of– Cally’s not here, is she?”
“Of course she is. Did you think we could keep her away?”
“Shit. Oh well. Let’s get this show on the road and see what happens.”
“Roger that. And so I’ll leave you to it.”
And Mercer, who was indeed clad in an impeccable ICPD beat cop uniform, turned and strolled away, disappearing into one of the neighboring buildings.
Ashton nosed about the ‘crime scene,’ looking here and there, and occasionally marking a ‘blood spatter’ or similar with a little bit of folded cardboard he produced from a pocket; he tried to keep several things like that on him, including exam gloves and a few evidence bags, although those were usually the smaller sizes.
He’d been there around an hour or so, and the shadows were becoming long as the sun dropped toward setting. Ashton moved toward the Mall proper to check out something the Team had left for him – it felt not unlike the little puzzles the higher-ranking investigators used to leave for him, when he worked at the ICPD – when long-honed instincts kicked in, and he suddenly felt he was being watched.
He spun, looking around, and spotted a darker shade within the shadow of a certain large topiary shaped like a giant chair or
