Basically, I kept throwing insults in his face until the usual version of Ian Quinn returned.
‘All right, Mr Michaels, you want to cut through all the nonsense, that’s fine by me. I’ll tell you why I am letting you go. Right now I have you on a few charges. I could make them stick and you would probably do some time. It wouldn’t be much though, a few weeks perhaps and a lenient judge might take into account your military service and the extenuating circumstances that led you to smash your way into a house. That being the case, you might get community service and walk away from the court laughing.’
I kept my face still. He couldn’t make the firearms charges stick. That had to be the case because if he could, he would be throwing the book at me and no judge would let me off so lightly. He didn’t have the evidence, just a hunch he couldn’t prove.
‘I don’t like being laughed at, Mr Michaels, so here is what is going to happen. You have already been formally cautioned have you not?’
The sergeant replied on my behalf, ‘He has, sir.’
Quinn nodded to himself. ‘I am going to release you and because you cannot help yourself, you are going to do something illegal. You always do, Mr Michaels. You have been slipping through my net for months now, but no more. The next time you voluntarily cross the line, I will make sure you go away for a proper spell. Perhaps when you get out, you will have gained some respect for this land’s laws.’
A broad grin split my face. Quinn is most likely unaware of it, but he has a tell. When he lies, which he does a lot, he sucks on the left corner of his bottom lip in between sentences or whenever he pauses to think.
He was lying now about his reason for letting me go but I didn’t care. Right now I didn’t care about going to jail either. My mother would have a heart attack and most likely beg God to strike her down rather than face the looks she would imagine at Church on Sunday, but I was going to do what was right without concern for the personal consequences. Was he right that I would break the law? Very possibly. Yet I would do so in a way that would harm no one except those who deserved to be harmed.
‘Why are you smiling?’ Quinn asked me, his own eyes narrowing. ‘Are you going to say something clever, Mr Michaels? I really do not have the will to tolerate any of your rubbish.’
I took a step forward, getting into his personal space. The sergeant scrambled to intervene, but he was the wrong side of the table and couldn’t get to us in time.
Not saying anything, I tilted my head to one side, inspecting Quinn’s face. When he twitched his eyes in annoyance, I said, ‘When you look back months or even years from now, you will wish you had chosen to do the right thing, not the thing that served your immediate ambitions.’
His nostrils flared at my flagrant disrespect for his rank and authority, but he didn’t argue, and I think it was because somewhere deep inside he worried I was right.
Ten minutes later, I arrived back in the processing area to collect my belongings. Big Ben, Amanda, and Basic were already there. They were still dressed in their clothes from last night, though they were carrying their Kevlar vests and combat gloves. They all had the dishevelled look of people who had to sleep in their clothes and were offered no opportunity to tidy themselves.
‘Everyone doing okay?’ I asked. I wanted to offer them a smile, to show the officers around us that we were unbothered by our night in the cells, but I couldn’t get my face to comply. While we were locked up what had become of Jane? If there had been a chance to save her before, surely it was long gone now. They appeared to be finished with the process of getting back their belongings; all three were waiting for me.
Tempest. When the Truth Finally Dawns. Saturday, December 24th 1310hrs
‘What’s this?’ I asked as the sergeant behind the desk handed back all my possessions one at a time.
He lifted his eyes, looking over the top of his reading glasses to see what I had in my hand. He shrugged. ‘It’s listed as an electronic device.’ Dismissing it, he slid the next item across the counter. ‘One G-Shock watch, black.’
He droned on, listing the items as he handed them over. My attention was on the little metallic thing in my hands. It was roughly the size of a thumb drive, but it had no USB connector and no input or output port of any kind that I could find.
I held it up for Amanda to see. ‘Any idea what this is?’
She peered at it from across the room. The little electronic gizmo had to have been in one of my pockets though I didn’t recall surrendering it when they brought us in last night. Thinking back, I could recall digging my hands into my pockets to then spill everything in them onto the counter. It must have been in with all the other things I carry around.
‘Sign here,’ demanded the sergeant.
Amanda shook her head. ‘It looks like a data storage device,’ she observed.
‘There’s no port,’ I pointed out, turning it over and then throwing it across the room to her.
‘Hey. Sign here,’ the sergeant was becoming insistent.
I swivelled around, gathering the loose change, a handkerchief, and other items from the counter before squiggling my name on the screen to acknowledge receipt.
Amanda and Big Ben were both looking
