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Chapter Text

Darkness shrouded the whole of the city; manmade lights lit up the stately building at the center of the nighttime chaos. The building, nestled in the city’s heart, was elegant, if a bit haphazard as the new additions merged and clashed with the original brickwork. On the east end of the building, the original building stood as it had for close to a hundred years, with delicate, intricate glasswork and graceful architecture. Next to it and even overlapping was the Royal Ontario Museum’s newest addition, a beautiful spread of buildings and an entrance referred to as The Crystal. Glass and metal rose into the night sky in a series of formations reminiscent of glacier peaks, each point gleaming in the light from the streetlights and the flashes of the reporters’ cameras. Despite, or perhaps because of, the building’s looks, it was truly a tribute to the mix of old and new to make something even better than either could do alone.

But the building’s grace, elegance, and poise could do little to detract from the horror and tragedy that it had seen over the past hour. Outside the entrance, a reporter somberly informed his home audience that, “We do not know at this time who is responsible, but there’s speculation about a lone gunman firing at random.”

Nearby, a witness who was being interviewed cried, “I saw her! She was shot in the chest! There was blood everywhere!”

The horde of reporters, paramedics, bystanders, and former partygoers were kept from the entrance by both a small army of uniformed officers and also by their civilian counterparts from the Special Investigation Unit. The Special Investigation Unit’s employees watched grimly as the men and woman who had halted the night’s tragedy exited the building, looking sorrowful and exhausted. The exiting officers surrendered their weapons to the SIU employees without a syllable of complaint, acting as if this was just standard procedure. In a way it was; every incident resolved with lethal force required an SIU investigation and yet, almost nothing about this incident was routine. Two of the exiting men hung back, watching their colleagues before surrendering their own weapons to SIU…their uncertain looks and demeanor showing their unfamiliarity with the usual procedure. Unlike their colleagues, they wore no uniforms and were more akin to plainclothes officers than Strategic Response Unit members.

If the SIU’s procedures were unknown, the two men came close to quailing as the reporters attempted to descend on the exhausted group. The uniforms kept the reporters back and one of the uniformed SRU officers nudged the two plainclothes men along, a sympathetic look on his face. He made sure he was between the men and the reporters, steering the pair into one of the waiting cars first before sliding in himself.

He glanced out the side window at the reporters, their flashing cameras, their tape recorders and their shouted questions. One was close enough for him to hear, “Can you tell me anything about what happened inside?” Without a qualm, he looked away from the newshounds, mentally shaking his head. The sooner they got this over with, the better in his book.

* * * * *

At SRU Headquarters, Team One and their two plainclothes backup officers were shepherded into the briefing room and processed. Photos were taken, from multiple angles, of each officer, each scrap of blood, each nick and scrape in their uniforms and clothing. The two plainclothes men again took their cue from Team One, accepting the photos and everything else as part of the deal.

Sam Braddock, as the photos continued, muttered, “I just want to shower up and go to bed.”

His team leader muttered back, “Let’s hope SIU feels the same way.”

As he spoke, a red-haired woman entered the briefing room, a stack of binders and notes already in her hands. She wore a gray business suit, her white shirt peeking out from underneath, and a professional smile in place on her face. Her hair cascaded down to her upper back, and she had a pair of glasses perched on top of her head. Pearl drop earrings gleamed from her ears and green eyes sparkled a bit at the assembled officers. Her voice was almost playful as she announced, “Sequestered means no talking till after your interview. Sorry, guys, they make me say that.”

As she set her burden down on the table, Ed turned towards her and asked, “Look, under the circumstances, think maybe we can sequester ourselves home and do these interviews tomorrow?”

The SIU investigator turned to the taller man and replied crisply, “It’s procedure. And it’s not just SIU. The whole country’s in shock. You saw all the media out there. Everybody’s gonna be needing answers. We’re all under the microscope here.”

From over Ed’s shoulder, Sergeant Parker remarked, “Well, you have our full cooperation. Team One, cross T’s and dot I’s.” The Sergeant removed his ball cap as he spoke, though the look in his eyes spoke to his wish to get home sooner rather than later.

Ed opted to follow his Sergeant’s lead and immediately informed the woman, “I’m the subject officer. Let’s get it done.”

“Good,” the investigator agreed, “I’ll start with you. Where’s your lawyer.”

“Let’s just forget the lawyer,” Ed replied, “We’ll record it. Get us all home faster.”

“I hear you,” came the swift acknowledgement. The whole group departed to let her get set up; none of them noticed the look of displeasure on the woman’s face as she got her first look at the transcript.

Wordy took the opportunity to call Shelley and update her on what was going on…and the fact that he wasn’t going to get home for a good long while.

* * * * *

Commander Holleran wasn’t surprised when SIU investigator Jill Hastings burst into his office less than fifteen minutes after her arrival. In fact, he’d been expecting it. Therefore, he was unconcerned with the furious expression on Hastings’ face and the transcript she waved under his nose.

“Why are parts of this blacked out?” Hastings demanded sharply.

“Classified,” Holleran replied, enjoying being on the delivering end of that line…for once. “Team One has a higher security clearance than you do…therefore, parts of their transcripts are restricted to protect that clearance.”

“That’s impossible,” Hastings retorted, “Any of their calls can be scrutinized by the SIU, therefore, none of their calls should be classified.”

Holleran didn’t even turn a hair. “That may have been the case when you were training officers for the SRU, Miss Hastings, but Team One has picked up some…unusual…hot calls since then. Those calls demanded Official Secrets Act clearance; therefore every member of Team One was signed onto that Act. Unless you can produce Official Secrets Act clearance of your own, I’m afraid that transcript is the best you’re going to get.”

* * * * *

Giles Onasi sighed as he played with his wand holster absently. Frankly, he much preferred the less formal, less bureaucratic, magical way of doing things. Then maybe he could go home and get some sleep after an utterly awful night; how his tech colleagues could even stand stuff like he’d seen tonight was a mystery. He knew Simmons would be irritated by the, to them, pointless procedure, but there was nothing he could do about that now. Not if they wanted to keep the Statute and keep this investigator in the dark. The Auror sighed and propped his head up with one hand, tapping on the metal desk in front of him. Some days…it just didn’t pay to get out of bed.

Chapter Text

Ed could see the woman fuming as she triggered the barrier and stalked to her seat; it made him grateful that he was on the opposite side of the table from her. He also had a rather good idea of what had made her so mad; the transcript, with its periodic blackout marks, sat open next to her chair.

“Why is this restricted?” Hastings demanded without preamble.

The team leader, no fool, countered, “As I’m sure Commander Holleran already told you, ma’am, some of our calls – and transcripts – are classified. Ordinarily, that one would be too, but with the scrutiny, it was deemed best to give you a restricted copy.”

“That isn’t your call, Officer Lane,” was the clipped retort.

Ed shrugged. “It wasn’t my call,” he drawled. “But we already had a plan in place for if SIU ever needed to look at transcripts from classified calls.” Unspoken was the fact that Ed would have preferred to keep the classified transcripts under lock and key, regardless of what SIU wanted.

Though unhappy, Hastings dropped the subject and settled herself in her seat. After a few moments, she flicked the recording on and started. “I know the last thing you want to do is talk about what happened.”

“I’m good,” Ed countered, “Let’s cut to the chase.”

Brisk, Hastings continued, “You ended it. You did your job. I’m not here to discuss the use of lethal force. Clearly, the suspect-- sorry, subject-- had shown the intent to kill. I just need to hear and assess the details and deliver my report.”

Ed allowed another brief shrug. “Well, it’s all right there in the transcripts. What else do you need to know? We entered the building, then we contained, isolated, and neutralized the threat.”

The slightest of head cocks from the investigator. “Are you comfortable with that language?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you don’t want to seem blasé. ‘Neutralize the threat.’ What you really mean is…”

“Kill someone,” Ed finished, “What’s your point?”

“Does thinking in those terms help get the job done?”

* * * * *

“Not at all,” Jules replied. “It’s never easy to take a life. Even when that life is what saves a number of others.”

“Which, of course, you did tonight,” Hastings observed.

“That’s right,” Jules agreed.

“What was the final count?”

* * * * *

“Number shot?” Spike questioned. “Ten dead, two wounded.”

“Ten dead,” Hastings remarked, “That include the shooter, the one your team killed?”

* * * * *

Team One arrived to chaos; people running, screaming, all of them flooding out of the Royal Ontario Museum’s elegant Crystal entrance. Some were being helped along; much of the fancy evening garb was dirty and stained, but that was hardly noticed as people ran for their lives. Team One moved opposite the flow of humanity, struggling to get in and start assessing the threat.

Parker plowed through the patrons, angling for a security guard his gryphon vision had helpfully picked out…at night, his vision wasn’t quite as acute, but it was still pretty darn good. As he drew close to the security guard, who escorted a young woman with blood on her chest and arms, he called, “Say, buddy, talk to me, okay? How many casualties?”

The woman was gasping and clearly panicked, but the security guard responded at once. “Got seven,” he reported, “Seven dead so far.”

“Please, my husband-- he’s still in there!” the woman pleaded, “Please!”

“Get a paramedic over here!” Parker ordered, drawing one of the nearby EMTs at once.

The woman was handed off to the EMT still crying, “Please!” as she was gently taken away.

Greg leaned close to the guard, compensating for the noise around them. “How long since the last shot was fired?”

Though rattled, the guard replied, “Four, four minutes ago.”

“You get a look at the shooter?”

“No,” the guard admitted, “I-I was patrolling the hallway.”

* * * * *

The party-goers chatted amongst themselves as the waiters and waitresses moved between the small groups, offering trays full of food plates and drinks to the guests. The whole party had an elegant look, situated as it was in the museum’s atrium and entry hallway. Small square tables dotted the floor, for the party-goers to lean against or put their dishes down and a bar sat off to the side with seating and bartenders serving more drinks.

“I didn’t see anything out of place, and-and everything looked as it should be.”

In one area, a security guard had just completed his patrol, making sure that the guests didn’t wander into the closed areas of the museum and ensuring that the guests and treasures were all kept safe. He leaned against the wall next to him, watching the guests mingle and chatter. A gunshot rang out, drawing his attention at once. Glass shattered.

“Angela!” As the guard moved, he spotted a woman down on the floor, not moving, with another woman crouched over her, trying to help and crying the fallen woman’s name. “Angela! Angela!” Even as the guard strode towards the pair, four more gunshots rang out and the guests panicked and began to run in terror…screaming as they went. Some of them fell; they kicked off their shoes, stumbled up, and ran again.

“Excuse me. Pardon me,” the guard called as he worked his way through the running, screaming crowd. Two more gunshots rang out. “Excuse me, guys. Pardon me. Pardon me. Excuse me.” Finally clear of the crowd, he reached the woman sobbing over the first fallen woman and grabbed her arm. “Ma’am, ma’am, ma’am,” he called, trying to pull the woman up. “You need to come with me, ma’am.” Pulling harder, he added, “She’s dead. We’ve got to get out of here.”

They were the last ones out; the guard looked behind him as he went, but he didn’t see the shooter at all…just a dead woman lying on the ground, blood staining the pearls around her neck.

* * * * *

“Do you have any idea how many people are left inside?” Parker questioned, mentally cataloguing every detail as he went.

“Two hundred. M-maybe two hundred-fifty.”

“Eddie…” Parker called, drawing his team leader over. “Eddie, seven shots fired. Hasn’t gone to ground. Looks like a spree. Random shooting pattern, high kill ratio.”

Ed took all this in as he looked at the security guard. “What kind of event was this?”

“A company party for, uh, Brenton, Inc,” the guard replied.

Thinking aloud, Parker mused, “Could be a workplace issue, disgruntled employee.” As he spoke, Sam and Spike moved over to them, alert and listening.

“I’ll get started,” Spike offered.

“All right,” Ed agreed, “Spike, get some floor plans from this gentleman. We need to track this.”

Spike beckoned to the guard, ordering, “Let’s go. Let’s go!”

As the pair hurried away, Ed’s focus shifted to the building. “Let’s lock those exits down! Do it now!”

His Sergeant moved to a different area. “Hey, let’s set up a triage area nearby.”

The milling uniforms and paramedics shifted into motion, following Team One’s orders. It would take time to get everything locked down and organized, but now things were moving in the right direction.

“Guys, direct to threat,” Ed ordered his team, “We contain, isolate, and neutralize. Priority is speed.”

* * * * *

Ed was well aware that Hastings was still very unhappy with the restricted transcript; her eyes flashed as she looked at the next page, but she stayed on topic. “There were already seven dead when you arrived? Things happen fast in spree killings.”

“That’s why ending things fast is so important,” Ed informed her.

“Thirty-seven minutes,” Hastings countered.

“Thirty-seven minutes to arrive, contain, and neutralize, yeah,” Ed acknowledged.

Hastings studied him a moment. “You’re the tactician, right?”

“I’m the team leader, but Greg Parker’s the Sergeant,” Ed replied, a faint sense of unease surging up at the change of tactic.

The unease only grew as Hastings questioned, “So you’re saying the thirty-seven minutes had more to do with him?”

“He’d seen this kind of shooting before and he brought that experience to the table.”

A clipped, “I’m aware of your Sergeant’s background.”

Ed didn’t let his unease show. “That’s right, you used to be a cop.”

“And now I protect them,” Hastings replied, “It’s why I joined SIU.”

“You’ve got quite the reputation,” Ed drawled.

“The killing spree at Cornwall took nine minutes to contain. Chesapeake High took thirteen. The big question the media are going to ask is why did this one take thirty-seven?”

Ed ignored the barbed edge to the question. “Those were different circumstances. We had a lot more square footage to cover.”

“And while you were covering it, the subject was able to shoot four more people. How do I explain that?”

“Well, if you want to protect cops, you suggest to the media to forget the thirty-seven minutes and focus instead on the lives we saved,” Ed countered.

The smile was polite, but still carried an edge that Ed had yet to identify. “Fair enough. Let’s talk about saved lives.”

“Good, let’s do that.”

Hastings all but pounced. “Would you have been able to save more lives and end the incident more quickly if you hadn’t allowed Sergeant Parker to override you?”

* * * * *

“Boss, I need Spike out of the truck and in the building.”

Greg was already shaking his head. “No, he’s serving a purpose in the truck, Ed.”

“Boss, I need the hands here,” Ed protested.

“We could use the intel more,” Greg countered calmly.

“More than quicker containment?”

“Eddie, a building like this, without intel, we’re blind,” Greg pointed out. “We’re running around in circles.”

“Not a fan of circles,” Ed admitted.

“Look, tell you what. Leave Lou here for a couple minutes; I’ll call Onasi, see if he can get over here and maybe bring some backup with him,” Parker offered.

Ed considered, then nodded once. Lou hurried over at the team leader’s hand signal and stayed by the Sarge as his teammates headed for the entrance to the building. Around them, everything was still chaos, even as it slowly got organized. People were still streaming away from the building, paramedics hurried to load their charges and get to the hospital, and there was still a very real sense of panic around the entire crowd.

As Team One entered, one last message from their Sergeant came across the comm. “Guys, this is a spree shooting. Just prepare for it.”

* * * * *

“What did Sergeant Parker mean, ‘Prepare for it’?” Hastings asked. The blond sniper picking at his nails did not reply, didn’t even look up. “Sam?”

“You were there, you saw it,” Sam replied, still staring at his nails. “Sorry, it’s hard to wash all the blood off.”

“I won’t keep you long,” Hastings told him, her voice and gaze sympathetic. “And try hydrogen peroxide, it helps.”

With a sigh, Sam finally told her, “A shooting spree isn’t like a hostage crisis or a bomb scare. Even if you do everything right, there’s gonna be a death count.”

“Bodies,” Hastings concluded flatly.

“Yes.”

A turn of the page on the opposite side of the desk. “You spent time in Afghanistan, right?”

“Yes. Two tours.”

“Did that experience dull your sensitivity?”

Sam’s jaw curved in a smirk, one he kept on his face as he countered, “I don’t have PTSD and I do value human life, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Hastings backed off. “I just meant, did the experience make it easier?”

“Made death familiar, not easy,” Sam informed her. “But because the Boss warned us, we were prepared for the bodies.”

The investigator picked up on what he didn’t say. “Was there something you weren’t prepared for?”

Sam’s gaze went a little unfocused as he replied, “Guess I wasn’t expecting the shoes.”

Chapter Text

Greg always appreciated the faster things in life during situations like this. For instance, the speed-dial on his phone that meant he connected that much faster with a crisp, “Detective Onasi speaking,” from the other end.

“Detective, Greg Parker,” he replied, his words clipped and swift. “We could use some backup on this call. We’ve got an active shooter at the Royal Ontario Museum…seven dead so far. My guys are already on it, but we could use some more manpower.” If you’re up for it.

A moment as Onasi absorbed that. Then Greg heard the sound of the Auror standing and moving. “On my way, Sergeant Parker,” the Auror replied, “I think Simmons is still in the office…I’ll see if he’s up for coming along…where are we Apparating in?”

Greg turned and quickly signaled Lou; the tan-skinned cop nodded and disappeared towards the Command Truck. “If you focus in on Lou’s phone, can you Apparate straight into the Command Truck?”

A thoughtful silence. “Apparate, no,” Onasi admitted, “Portkey, yes. I’ll ask Simmons and be there in two.”

* * * * *

Ed, Wordy, Sam, and Jules advanced into the museum’s usually magnificent entry hall. Now, the elegance was muted with the sight of broken glass, clothing, and shoes scattered everywhere. Sam glanced down at the shoes as they passed, puzzled by their presence. Jules noted his puzzlement and explained softly, “Easier to run without them.”

They entered the atrium proper and immediately spied the first victim. Wordy fell back a bit, pulling one glove off as he shifted to a crouch and then knelt next to the still blonde woman laying in a widening pool of her own blood. Two fingers pressed against her neck, checking for a pulse. The constable’s three teammates spread out, weapons up and their gazes watchful.

“No,” Wordy reported grimly, shifting back to a standing position.

* * * * *

Onasi was better than his word; it was less than a minute later when he and Simmons arrived in the Command Truck. Spike stayed at his computer, not even looking up, but Lou immediately thrust radios and earpieces at the pair, hissing a quick explanation for how to put them on as his boss entered the truck and made a beeline for where the spare bullet-proof vests were stored. Spike stopped typing long enough to grab two spare sidearms and holsters out of the storage cabinet right above his head.

Onasi, slowly getting used to guns, took the weapon and holster, strapping the holster on his belt at the small of his back; Simmons was more dubious, but bowed to Team One’s silent glares. He strapped his holster and gun to his leg, imitating Team One’s style. Lou did a rapid double-check of both men’s radios before he let them slip into the bullet-proof vests.

* * * * *

“Two more,” Sam hissed. Team One moved past the pillar and got a good look at the second and third victims. Sam dove for the sprawled gray haired male while Jules knelt next to a silent brown-haired woman in a mini-skirt. Wordy and Ed stayed on their feet and back to back, watching for any signs of movement.

“Gone,” Jules reported.

“Here, too,” Sam remarked.

Both stood back up, ready to move again.

* * * * *

Greg took the Aurors’ trenchcoats, silently approving of the ‘tech-friendly’ clothing both men wore beneath their trenchcoats. Simmons muttered as he worked his Auror badge free from his shirt; Onasi just grinned behind him, enjoying the all-too-brief moment.

“Okay,” Greg began, “Spree shooting, which means, even if we do this perfectly, we’ve got a body count. Seven dead, just in the initial shooting. We’re going to do our best to track this shooter down before they shoot anyone else, but this is a big building and we’ve got at least two hundred still inside.” He paused, surveying both men. “Just…prepare for it,” he finished grimly.

* * * * *

Ed’s eyes narrowed as they moved past another pillar and found another pair of victims, both female. Gray and brown hair mixed, they were so close together; matching stunned expressions on their faces. Wordy and Sam knelt next to them, doing a quick check of their pulses.

“Nothing,” Sam reported, a hint of frustration in his voice.

“No,” Wordy confirmed, sorrow in the confirmation.

* * * * *

Lou led the two Aurors at a near run, racing to catch up with his team. The uniforms shifted forward, then stopped as Lou waved them off. The Aurors didn’t even turn their heads as they ran, keeping up with Lou’s pace without trouble. The trio hurried into the entrance and Lou slowed, shifting his weapon to the ready and turning into the main hallway with a quiet, “Guys, we’re coming up behind you.”

He took in the fallen woman, but didn’t slow; the Aurors behind him gaped at the pool of blood surrounding the dead woman, before scrambling to catch up to their techie colleague. They caught up with the rest of Team One at the last two initial victims; two men who lay close to a doorway that went further into the museum. As Lou and the two Aurors drew even with their teammates, Ed remarked, “Here’s the other two. This is ground zero; the first seven victims.”

Wordy, walking backwards and covering the rear, remarked, “Not a lot of stray bullet holes.”

“The shooter knows guns,” Ed concluded.

Jules, checking one of the men as Sam checked the other, put in, “They were heading west.”

“Away from the exits.”

“Shooter was probably following them, driving them further into the building,” Sam pointed out.

The two Aurors gaped at the carnage around them, shocked by the level of violence and the fact that their tech colleagues seemed to be taking it in stride. Parker hadn’t been kidding…regardless of how quickly things were resolved, it wouldn’t matter one whit to the men and women who’d died before anyone had even known something was wrong. With a grim look between them, the two Aurors drew their wands. With so many lives on the line…the Statute of Secrecy hardly mattered.

“All right, let’s move,” Ed declared. “Spike, main atrium clear. We’re heading west.”

* * * * *

“Got it,” Spike called back, “Boss, I’m gonna send in uniforms and EMTs to follow up, recover the bodies.” His hands flew over his keyboard as he pulled in museum cameras and marked the main atrium off on the blueprints the security guard had helped him pull.

Outside the truck, Greg turned from his latest witness to reply, “Copy that, Spike, but only the areas we’ve cleared.” Shifting back to the man on the stretcher, his arm already in a sling, he asked, “Remember any other details, sir?”

“I don’t know,” the man admitted, “It happened really fast. I was talking to an investor.”

* * * * *

The men spoke quietly, musing on various company matters, when the gunshots rang out. Both men snapped around, looking towards the shots.

“Angela!”

More gunshots rang out and the man found himself on the ground, getting stepped on as people fled. He struggled to move as people flowed by overhead, still stepping on him and causing pain to shoot up his arms and body.

“Angela! Angela!”

Abruptly, someone grabbed the man, hauling him up and helping him get away.

* * * * *

“Thank you very much,” Greg thanked the witness, before turning and walking away. As he spoke, he hid a smile at the startled reactions from the two Aurors as they got their first experience with Team One’s comms. “Okay, team, we’re getting conflicting stories from all the witnesses, but none of them mention overlapping gunfire, so…shots all came from one location.”

Inside, the rest of Team One was hard put to keep from a snicker or two at the looks on the Aurors’ faces. Ed stayed on task, though. “One gun, lone shooter-- fits a spree profile. We got a description?”

“Nah, no one really got a good look,” Sarge replied.

“Any of the witnesses have guesses about who they ticked off?” Ed questioned, sarcasm leaking out.

Spike’s voice was dry and just as sarcastic. “Brenton, Inc. is a multinational conglomerate. People love to hate multinational conglomerates.”

“Number of potentially disgruntled just got bigger. Eddie, how you guys doing? You doing okay?” Worry lurked behind the words; the Sarge looking out for his team as best he could.

“Yeah,” Ed replied, short and on task.

There was a moment, then Parker added, “Just please be careful.”

“Always,” Jules promised.

Chapter Text

Greg stepped up into the Command Truck, his ‘team sense’ humming away in the background. In the year since he’d first ‘acquired’ the ‘team sense’, his control over it had improved a thousand-fold. These days, he kept the ‘team sense’ off when off-duty and on when on-duty with no issues whatsoever. “Spike?” he questioned, his eyes swinging to his tech and one brow hiking in silent question.

“No eyes yet, but this should help,” Spike replied, glancing up and then back at his screen. “The guard said certain areas of the building were closed off for the party. I can confirm none of these locks have been breached.”

“That’s good. Narrows our search by half.” Switching gears briefly, Greg informed his team leader, “Eddie, the west side of the building is clear. Just keep heading north.”

* * * * *

The group shifted from being bunched up to spread out, Ed in front, as they reached the dark exhibit gallery. The two Aurors were in the middle of the line, wands up and glowing a little in the darkness. Sam and Jules were right behind Ed while Lou and Wordy brought up the rear. The group entered the maze of glass exhibit displays, the light from their gun-mounted flashlights glinting off the pots and decorative plates on display. The Aurors glanced around, curious about the tech museum even as they kept an eye out for the shooter…or any civilians.

Onasi started to move his wand in a detection spell when Sam hissed, “Three o’clock.”

Ed advanced to the end of the next display and turned sharply on his heel, yelling, “Drop the weapon! Hands up now!”

“Police!” Sam roared, his own weapon aimed.

The civilians cringed as they stood, hands high in the air and their fear evident in the light of the flashlights. Onasi and Simmons traded looks, surprised by the harsh orders and aimed weapons. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” Ed ordered.

“Don’t shoot!” one of the women cried.

“Slowly!” came the bark from the team leader.

The foremost man, with dark, bushy short hair, and in a nice tux, kept his hands in the air and announced, “We don’t have any weapons, okay? There are no guns. Jim and I work for Brenton. These are our wives.”

The guns came down as Ed asked, “Anybody see the shooter?”

“No,” the group’s speaker replied. “We were at the bar. We heard some shots. And then we just ran. We wanted to get out of there.”

As he spoke, Sam checked the group for any hidden weapons; the Aurors hovered in the background, hoping that the group wouldn’t remember them later on. “What do we got? What do we got?” Ed questioned the sniper.

“They’re clean,” Braddock reported.

“All right, let’s go,” Jules urged the civilians.

The civilians fell in step with Team One and the Aurors as they moved on. One of the women pointed up at the stairs and said, “He ran up those stairs.”

“You saw him?” Ed inquired, looking back at her briefly.

“I heard him,” the woman explained, “Everyone else was running. He was the only one walking.”

As they reached the stairs, Jules told the civilians, “Just wait here for a police officer.”

As she did so, Ed called in their progress. “Spike, Asian Gallery’s secure. We have four people coming out and they need an escort.”

“Copy that,” Spike acknowledged.

In the museum, the officers and Aurors headed up the stairs; Onasi and Simmons traded nervous looks as they went deeper into tech territory. At the top of the stairs, the group bunched up again as they passed an exhibit of several birds in flight. “Avian Gallery clear,” Jules reported as they ran.

“Our shooter’s been quiet,” Sam mused.

Parker’s response was none too encouraging. “Mean’s he’s done, dead, or reloading.”

“Let’s hope for done,” Ed remarked. Two gunshots shattered that hope.

“Ed!” Parker barked.

“Shots fired! Shots fired!” Ed yelled as they charged into the next room. A group of screaming, frantic civilians came charging out from the other direction. “Right there! Right there!” Ed hollered, fighting to be heard over the screaming.

“Stop where you are! Stay right there!” Wordy commanded, his own voice rising above the panic.

Onasi and Simmons both shifted their wands to set off noisemaker spells, but Lou grabbed Onasi’s wand and shook his head at Simmons, before adding his own voice to the melee. “Everybody stop! Stop right now!”

Ed’s bellow rose again, “Right there! Stop! Stop!”

To the surprise of the two Aurors, the panicked crowd actually stopped, though they looked as if they’d start running and screaming again at the least provocation. Onasi looked down at his wand and cringed, realizing that a noisemaker spell probably would have made things worse…a lot worse. In the dim light, he looked at the older Auror, who wore a similar expression of hindsight dismay.

With the crowd stopped, Ed’s orders changed, “Wordy, Simmons, contain these people! Get them out of here now!”

“Move! Move!” Wordy snapped at the civilians, already shifting to herd them out of the area to safety. Simmons joined him, his expression a bit relieved. Crowd control was something he understood…one heck of a lot better than Muggles who shot each other at close range. The rest of Team One and his fellow Auror helped to herd the people past and into the next corridor.

“Let’s go, folks! Now!” Lane ordered, impatience reeking.

Far more patient, Wordsworth called, “Quickly! Please! Let’s go! Come on, come on quickly!”

“Easy folks, you’re just about out!” Simmons added, the shorter man’s trademark calm finally coming to the fore. “Let’s go! This way, please!” The Auror shifted to one side so he could bracket one side of the group while Wordsworth handled the other side.

Behind them, Simmons heard a gunshot and a yell from Callaghan. “Shooter twelve o’clock!”

“Go, go, go!” Lane roared. “Let’s move!”

“Move that way now!” Wordsworth ordered their civilians, drawing Simmons’ attention back to the task at hand. “Go! Keep going!”

Simmons jogged alongside the Muggles, trading a glance with his Muggle colleague, before calling, “Down the stairs to your right, folks! We’ll have you out in no time!”

* * * * *

Simmons leaned back in his chair, enjoying his first taste of the comfortable Muggle chairs in Team One’s briefing room. His dark eyes focused on the Muggle investigator across from him and her annoyance at his posture just amused him further.

“You are…Inspector Nathanial Simmons, am I correct?” the Muggle inquired, her voice calm even as her eyes snapped sparks at him.

“I am,” the Auror confirmed lazily, leaning back even further in his seat, just to annoy her.

Her responding smile was pure ice…and just as brittle. “You and your associate Detective Onasi are not attached to Team One, from what I understand. How is it that the two of you were actually called in by Sergeant Parker?”

Simmons inspected his fingernails a moment, frowning at the specks of blood adorning them, before responding. “Team One has earned a great deal of respect in the division Detective Onasi and I work for. We’ve called them in many a time before. Seemed only fair to return the favor when they needed a bit of help.”

“So…your arrival on scene was purely a return favor to a unit that’s helped you out before?” The Muggle leaned back, considering him. “Then why, Inspector Simmons, are you and your associate mostly blacked out on the transcript?”

The Auror smirked without looking up from the specks of blood he was trying to get off his fingernails. “You are persistent, aren’t you?” He finally glanced up and leaned forward in his seat. “Let me give you a bit of information and a bit of advice; as one person who doesn’t like Parker much to another.” Her expression flickered, betraying her surprise. “Oh, don’t play coy with me, ma’am…if you’d shot any worse of a glare at Parker, he’d be dead by now. I’d have to be blind to miss that one.”

The smirk spread wider. “What you’ve got is the best you’re going to get…unless by some miracle you get yourself Official Secrets Act clearance…which I doubt. Now,” his expression turned serious, “You think you’re going to land yourself a nice big catch here tonight, but, quite frankly, between you and Parker…he’s going to win without even trying. His reputation is impressive, his record since joining the SRU impeccable, and he just happens to have two charges that…in my division…are considered VIPs. You’d need a heck of a lot more than whatever you’ve cooked up here tonight to get rid of him. So, my advice? Just drop it…you’d get farther banging your head against that wall over there.”

Dark eyes glinted in the lights from above and he bestowed her his widest, most insincere smile – the one he saved for suspects whom he really didn’t like. “Now, Miss Hastings…is there an actual question – one that I’m cleared to answer – on the table?”

He quite enjoyed the Muggle’s absolutely infuriated expression.

* * * * *

Wordy shifted in his seat; whatever Simmons had said to Hastings had obviously ticked her off, but then, the Auror seemed to have a special talent for that sort of thing. Usually, Simmons seemed to get the best…or worst, depending on how you looked at it…rise out of the people he interacted with; Wordy himself was probably one of the few exceptions as he’d gotten the better of Simmons without even hardly trying. On the other hand, it took a lot to get a rise out of the gentle cop.

With a bit of bite to her voice, Hastings leaned forward as he described getting the civilians out and said, “Wait. This was eight minutes in. Eight minutes since you entered the building and Ed Lane told you to stay.”

“Yep,” Wordy confirmed.

“Or was it Sergeant Parker?”

Why would Sarge give on-scene tactical orders? “Ed,” Wordy countered with a frown. “We needed the crowd contained. This is all in the transcript.”

Hastings studied him a moment. “Does your team leader have confidence in you?”

“What do you mean?” Wordy questioned, confused.

“Pursue an active shooter or babysit witnesses,” Hastings drawled, “Ed Lane left you behind.”

Wordy’s voice turned firm. “Those witnesses were putting themselves and us in danger. They needed to be evacuated.”

“Okay, I get it,” Hastings replied, turning understanding all of a sudden. “It was important to keep them safe, so put a trusted officer on it.”

“What is this, some solo version of good cop/bad cop?” Wordy asked, studying the woman closely. There was something going on…besides her unhappiness with the restricted transcript and Simmons’ barbed remarks.

With a rueful laugh, Hastings replied, “Sorry. Old habit from the force.”

“Okay,” Wordy granted, “Well, it’s confusing.”

A sad smile spread across her face. “You would’ve just made my old partner Brian very happy. He thought it would trip up the bad guys if we sort of switched sides, mid-interrogation. I guess I still do it.”

Her words gave it away…that and the sorrow he recognized in her eyes…sorrow he’d come close to sharing himself a year earlier. “It’s hard losing a partner,” Wordy observed quietly.

Congeniality fell away in an instant. “What?”

Not backing down, Wordy explained, “You said it ‘would’ve’ made him happy, not ‘it will’.” Hastings stared at him, no give in her eyes or expression. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

With a sharp clear of her throat, Hastings demanded, “So, what happened next, was that a mistake?”

* * * * *

Onasi ran to keep up with Team One, wand out, but likely not needed as they closed in on a man running with gun in hand. He drew even with Young as they rounded the next corner and flew past the next exhibit. “Police!” Lane roared, “Police!”

The man turned the next corner with Team One in hot pursuit and raced over a short bridge. Onasi felt his breath start to come in pants, but didn’t slow as he and Lou brought up the rear of the chase.

“Right there!” Lane yelled, in the lead with Jules and Sam on either side.

“Police! Stop right there!” Braddock shouted.

“Drop your weapon!” Jules ordered, aiming her weapon.

The silver-haired man turned back, lifting both hands in surrender, but also waving in the direction he’d been running, before bringing both hands above his head, the gun aimed skyward.

“Drop it now!” Ed barked.

“It’s not me!” the man cried.

“On the ground!” Sam snarled.

“Drop it now!” Ed repeated.

The man dropped his weapon as Lou and Onasi stayed back; there was no room for either man. “It’s not me! It’s not me!”

“On the ground now!” Sam snapped, but he was already moving, taking the man down with a single blow to the center of his chest.

“Stay down! Stay down!” Ed yelled, moving forward as the man on the ground groaned in pain.

Sam quickly frisked the captive while Onasi breathed a quiet sigh of relief…they’d done their job, stopped the shooter…now maybe he could go home and drown himself in Firewhiskey. “He’s clean,” Sam reported after a short search.

“Boss, subject secure,” Ed called on the comm.

Two sharp reports came from farther into the museum in equally sharp counter-argument.

“Eddie?” Parker questioned.

“Correction. Subject still at large.”

Chapter Text

Once the civilians were close enough to the exit to go on their own, Wordy and Simmons doubled back far enough to go unnoticed, before Simmons Side-Along Apparated his fellow Auror back to where they’d found the civilians. Wordy grimaced at the unpleasant sensation, but gave Simmons a nod as he took the lead and headed up the steps to the next level. They caught up with the rest of Team One as two uniforms took the arrested man into custody, Wordy reporting, “Civilians secure. En route to the exit.”

* * * * *

“So you apprehended the wrong suspect?” Hastings asked, a mocking lilt to her voice.

“It turned out, the man in the tux was a Brenton guest,” Jules admitted.

Hastings drove the point home. “With a legally-owned handgun. The CEO’s bodyguard.”

“Our choices were appropriate to the situation,” Jules returned, calm in the face of Hastings’ implications.

“Taking down a man pursuing the shooter?”

“A man discharging his gun in an already volatile situation,” Jules countered.

“Okay, here’s the problem,” Hastings parried, “The public are in shock, and they’re gonna want somebody to blame. This is how it’s gonna spin: your decision to pursue an innocent man wasted time and allowed the shooter’s rampage to continue.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Won’t matter.”

Jules went on the offensive herself. “Make it matter. It’s your job.” The other woman smirked at her and didn’t reply. One finger tapped almost pointedly on the blacked out transcript. “Look, you’re smart, I’m smart,” Jules observed, “We can sit here and we can twist the words all day long. What is it that you really want to hear?”

“The truth.”

“Makes two of us,” Jules snipped.

Hastings didn’t miss the unspoken observation and responded to it. “My job is to keep the public informed and the police service accountable. Was the incident mishandled, and if so, whose fault was it?”

“No, it was not mishandled,” was Jules’ flat reply. “You have the transcripts. Is there anything else that I can help you with?”

A brief smile; Hastings forebode to remark that her copy of the transcript was restricted. “I’m good.” As Jules rose and began to walk to the door, Hastings’ voice rose behind her. “What was Greg Parker’s state of mind today?”

Jules turned, an uneasy feeling running up her spine. “Excuse me?”

“You’d know best,” Hastings observed, “You’re second negotiator. In your opinion, does he bring his personal bias to the negotiations?”

As the other woman spoke, Jules walked back to the table, but didn’t sit down again. “All negotiators rely on personal bias; we’re human. We can’t erase life experience.”

“So you incorporate it?”

The undertones in Hastings’ tone put Jules’ own negotiator instincts on full alert. “To an extent,” she admitted in a clipped tone. “What does this have to do with the investigation?”

“Did Greg Parker’s judgment today prolong the rampage?”

“No.”

* * * * *

Greg returned to the truck after another round of witnesses and making sure the scene was still progressing towards ‘organized’ rather than ‘chaos’. “Spike, ID’s on the deceased?”

“The witnesses helped identify them,” Spike reported, “I’m looking for connections, in case this isn’t random.”

Parker nodded agreement, his gut chiming its own agreement with Spike’s approach. “Anything?”

“One so far: they all worked for Brenton’s pharmaceutical arm.”

“That’s something,” Greg pointed out, but Spike countered immediately.

“But none of them worked in the same division.”

Point. Greg mused a moment. “All right, try matching the names through executive boards and action committees. If you’re right, shooter needs a motive.”

“Copy.”

* * * * *

The group kept heading through the exhibits, the two Aurors catching glimpses of truly impressive artifacts and specimens. It did not take long to find the next victim, a woman in a simple white evening gown and with a head of dark blonde hair. Sam called, “I got it,” and stepped towards the woman, only to halt and stare at the woman.

After a moment, Jules questioned, “Sam?” and knelt herself to check the victim.

* * * * *

“This was thirteen minutes after Team One entered the building?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Sam agreed, his voice subdued.

“You want to tell me what happened? Why did Jules Callaghan step in after you said, ‘I got it’?” Without waiting for a response, Hastings added, “If there’s a problem, if this is too much for you, maybe you should consider being put on leave?”

Sam shook his head even as he replied, “It wasn’t the incident that was it.”

“Then what was it?”

It took a moment to form his explanation. “Most people don’t understand why anyone would choose to put their life on the line for strangers.”

“It’s a good question,” Hastings observed, waiting, letting him find the words.

“I grew up in a military family, and as a kid, I didn’t get it either, but…” Sam swallowed internally, but forged ahead. “One day when I was nine, I was taking my little sister to the park. We stopped at a crosswalk, and this car jumped the curb and hit her.”

Even now, he could remember that day like it had been yesterday and the irony was that there hadn’t been a lick of magic involved…ironic because his father had – wrongly – concluded that magic had been involved. His mother had agreed and only become even more terrified of magic.

“Sent her flying and…I remember looking over at her laying there and thinking, why is she barefoot? Then I looked down beside me, and there were her sandals. She’d been knocked right out of them.” He believed his father back then, but after he’d joined the Squib Squad, he done a bit of poking around and concluded that the General, for once, had been wrong.

In a very small voice, Hastings asked, “She died?”

Sam nodded slowly without looking up. “Some people are helpless and need to be protected.”

“Yes, they do,” Hastings agreed. “So you joined up like your dad.”

His smirk probably confused her. “Yeah, like my dad.” He trailed off for a few seconds. “But today, for that one second, it just came back to my little sister. ‘Cause this woman in the museum was…she was barefoot.”

* * * * *

“I’ve got a pulse. EMS, Dinosaur Gallery.”

Simmons moved faster than Onasi, on his knees by the woman so fast that both Jules and Sam reared back in surprise. He helped Jules shift the injured woman, grimacing at the bullet wound in her chest. “Integrio Cruor (1),” he cast briskly, a soft red light erupting from his wand to touch the wound; Simmons held the connection, shifting his wand to focus on different areas of the injury.

Onasi dug in a pouch on his belt and pulled out a vial. “Here,” he called, holding the vial out to Simmons, who looked up. “Blood-Replenishing Potion.”

Simmons grimaced and waved at his wand with his free hand; Onasi nodded understanding and moved to the woman’s head before kneeling and carefully coaxing the potion down her throat. Jules kept her hands in place over the bullet wound and hunched down, trying to stay out of the two wizards’ way.

Sam detoured from adding any more people around the injured victim and picked up the fallen woman’s phone. He studied the phone a moment. “Guys, I think I have something here.” Tapping a few buttons on the phone, he added, “Spike, I’m gonna send this to you.” The sniper pushed himself up and moved over to the alert team leader, holding the phone so Ed could see the image on the screen. “Boss?”

In silence, the four men watched the short video play out…and then, right at the end, there was a glimpse of their shooter. In the truck, Spike’s fingers tapped out a quick command, backing the video up and freezing their first look at the shooter.

A woman with a snub-nosed semi-automatic handgun bore down on their latest victim in the image, a half-dead fury in her face and eyes. Greg felt a chill; this was a woman who felt she had nothing more to lose and, perhaps, everything to gain by her actions. She was blonde, with a face that might have been pretty, but for the grief that shrouded her and the hate and rage that twisted her face. “Shooter’s a woman,” Spike murmured in surprise. “I’ll run her through Brenton’s personal system.”

“Put it through the license database, too-- females between thirty and forty. Let’s keep our options open; she may not be an employee.”

“Copy,” Spike acknowledged.

In the museum, the injured woman groaned as the first aid efforts started to work; Lou’s hissed of, “Incoming,” drew instant response. Simmons sheathed his wand and scrambled away from the victim, trying to make it look like he’d just been standing around, while Onasi moved from the woman’s head to her side, opposite Jules, and tucked the empty vial of potion away.

Jules, holding her position, whispered, “You’re going to be okay. Just hang in there,” to the victim.

Behind them, a uniform called, “We got EMS!”

Onasi moved out of the way as the arriving paramedic slid to the woman’s side, taking the spot Onasi had just vacated. “What’s your name, ma’am?” Jules asked the woman, hoping for more clues. The woman groaned again, unable to respond. Jules just shook her head at the paramedic.

As Wordy and Lou closed ranks with Sam, shifting their positions and keeping their eyes open, Ed asked, “Spike, we got eyes yet?”

“Sort of,” the tech replied, “The motion detectors are working, but not all the CCTV cameras are operational.”

“So some of the cameras have blind spots?” Ed questioned.

“Yep,” Spike confirmed. “Like the room you’re in now.”

Ed’s head came up and he scanned the pillars briefly before spotting the camera. “It’s been shot out,” he announced.

“Oh, that would do it,” Spike agreed, an edge of sarcasm in his voice.

Ed studied the camera an instant longer than turned, gathering up his teammates and the Aurors with a look. “Boss, we’re splitting into Alpha, Bravo.”

“What’s your plan, Eddie?”

“We got to get ahead of her,” the team leader declared. “If she’s shooting out cameras as she goes, we can track where she’s been.”

“Maybe predict where she’s going,” Parker offered.

“Yeah, but we got to get ahead of her.”

Simmons spoke up. “Split Giles and I up; we can use detection spells, at the very least.”

“Copy that,” Parker acknowledged, “Back her into a corner. Eddie, you, Wordy, and Nathan are Alpha?”

“We’re heading east,” Ed replied, accepting his boss’s team suggestion without protest. “Sam, Lewis, Jules, and Giles, you’re Bravo Team heading west.” The four so named turned the opposite way as the group hit the museum’s original building wing. As he moved, Ed continued, “Okay, everybody, I need you to locate the motion detectors above the art and manually redirect them outwards.”

“Like an electronic perimeter,” Sam agreed.

“Giles, start using Homenum Revelio (2),” Simmons ordered crisply. “That should clear the rooms quicker. And Deprendio Motus (3).”

“Got it,” Giles replied, “Keep them low powered?”

On the other end, Simmons grimaced. “We’ll have to,” he agreed, “Anything high powered could blow the Muggles’ eckeltriniks.” It was rather fortunate that he didn’t hear Wordy’s stifled snicker or see Ed’s incredulous expression.

Giles hiked a brow at the choked laughter his three techie colleagues didn’t bother to hide, but did not ask. Parker didn’t comment on the horribly mangled word, opting, instead, to add, “Spike can monitor movement where we don’t have eyes.”

Bravo Team paused long enough for Giles to quickly cast “Homenum Revelio,” in the gallery they were passing through, but at a grimace and a head shake, they quickly moved on. Giles stayed out of the way as Lou and Sam handled the tedious task of moving the electronic motion detectors. As they worked with the detectors and Jules kept her eyes open, the Auror carefully moderated his power and cast, “Deprendio Motus,” on the entire gallery, nodding in satisfaction at the faint bronze outline that lit up the walls.

* * * * *

Giles bit back a sigh as he sat across from the pretty techie, wishing he could just go home and forget this night had ever happened. Judging by the look in her eyes, he was going to regret helping Parker out…or maybe not…hard to regret saving lives. “Now, you’re Detective Onasi, is that correct?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Giles replied. “I work in the same division as Inspector Simmons, ma’am.”

“But Parker called you, specifically,” Hastings observed.

A brief nod. “I’m the one who’s worked with Team One the most,” Giles explained. “I’m their…go-to…contact in my division.”

Hastings tapped her capped pen against the transcript. “Tell me, what exactly are your division’s duties?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s classified,” Giles replied, drawing a frustrated expression from the investigator. “You would need Official Secrets Act clearance for me to answer that question, ma’am.”

The investigator’s grip on her pen tightened. “I see,” she mused. “Then perhaps you can explain why, with seven officers, Officer Lane opted to divide into two groups, rather than three?”

Giles considered her for a moment, then kept his silence a bit longer as he formulated a careful answer. “The…specialties…of our division are rather…unique, ma’am, and Constable Lane only had the two of us along. I’m not him, so I can’t speak to his exact reasons, but I would conclude that he decided one less team was worth having our…abilities…in all groups.”

“And these…specialties…would be why my transcript is restricted?”

There was really only one answer to that. “That’s classified, ma’am.”

* * * * *

“Boss, I’ve matched the shooter’s face from the cell footage with photos from the driver’s license database,” Spike reported, drawing his boss’s attention at once.

“Who is she?”

“Claire Williams,” Spike replied, reading from the screen and typing as he spoke. “No criminal record and not an employee of Brenton.”

“It’s not a workplace grudge,” Greg concluded.

“Looking.”

“Everything you can find,” Parker ordered crisply, “Track down family, see if they can tell us anything.” A gunshot rang through the comm; Greg’s head jerked up like a pointer catching a scent. “Eddie? Status!”

* * * * *

“We’re right behind her,” Ed reported as he, Wordy, and Simmons burst through the next set of doors and darted down a short flight of stairs. They rounded the corner to see two men, one flat on his back in a spreading pool of blood, eyes closed and short brown hair framing his still face, and the other kneeling over him, trembling with fear even as he sought to keep his friend alive. He was old, weathered, with a mix of silver and gray hair, and his fear was evident as he looked up and saw the new arrivals.

One hand lifted up and he begged, “Don’t shoot!”

“Where’s the shooter?” Ed demanded.

“Don’t shoot!” the uninjured man begged again.

“I’m not going to shoot you, sir,” the SRU constable reassured the man. “The woman with the gun-- can you tell me where she went?”

“I don’t know,” the man cried, returning his hand to his friend’s chest and pushing down again. “She shot Kevin.”

“Okay,” Ed murmured softly, kneeling down to talk to the man better. Simmons’ face twisted in regret and distress, but he couldn’t risk the Statute to heal the injured man. Wordy cast the Auror a sympathetic look, understanding the dilemma. “Is this your coworker?” Ed asked the trembling witness.

“Yeah,” the other man replied, but despite his trembling, his hands were firm on the wound. “She just shot him. I knew I was going to die. She was going to shoot me, too. I-I closed my eyes, but…nothing happened. And I opened my eyes and she was gone.”

“Did you know her?” Ed inquired.

“No,” their witness said. “I-I’d never seen her before.” Ed looked away for a moment, thinking, then shifted back to a standing position. “Wait,” the witness called, a quaver in his voice. When Ed glanced down, he questioned, “Do you know why she didn’t shoot me, too?”

Ed’s gaze shifted to a grim Wordsworth, who observed, “She’s choosing her victims.”

Simmons glanced between his colleagues, at first puzzled, but then understanding dawned and his face went just as hard. The team leader keyed his radio and announced, “Team One, new deal. This isn’t a spree shooting. This is personal.”

[1] Latin for ‘repair blood’. This is a very simple, very basic healing spell

[2] Latin for ‘unveil person’

[3] Latin for ‘detect movement’

Chapter Text

Greg stood outside the museum, watching as the uniforms escorted their witness out and the EMTs took the injured coworker away. “Okay, we’ve got fresh eyes on this, team. These victims are not random. This is personal.”

* * * * *

“Anyone ever accuse your team of bad profiling?” Hastings inquired.

“No,” Ed countered, calm in the face of her barbed questions.

“You went in hunting a male disgruntled employee randomly shooting people, when you should have been looking for a woman on a mission.”

The team leader kept his cool. “Statistics and experience suggest a male shooter. Now, the profile evolved. We changed our thinking and we found her.”

“After thirty-seven minutes,” Hastings pointed out.

“After thirty-seven minutes.” He was getting annoyed by her constant harping on the thirty-seven minutes, but his instincts were telling him there was something else going on here.

“And this evolving profile- did it add pressure to the situation? Time was against you. Were you feeling stressed or…?”

“Or annoyed?” Ed offered up.

She actually smiled. “Yes. Were you feeling annoyed? Off your game?”

“No,” Ed told her flatly. “I was doing my job. We all were.”

“It’s natural to feel frustrated,” Hastings remarked, her implication clear.

Ed went on the offensive. “We had new information-- from our search, from the sister, from what Spike found. Now, adjusting profiles as we go is part of the job, just like reading transcripts is part of yours. Let me ask you this. Do typos annoy you? Do they frustrate you? Do they compromise your, uh, your game?”

Hastings’ eyes flashed and he realized he’d made a misstep by bringing up the transcript again. “So, if your analogy fits, you were annoyed,” she remarked. “Just like I’m annoyed at your refusal to give me the information I need to make an appropriate determination of your team’s performance.”

“You’re asking for information you’re not cleared to have,” Ed hissed. “Now, two choices here, ma’am. You can accept that the transcript is restricted or this interview is over.” He let her absorb that, then demanded, “You got an actual question?”

It took a few seconds for her to respond; when she did, she’d regained her haughty poise. “I do. What did you do with the new information?”

* * * * *

“Anything line up between the shooter and the names of the deceased?” Ed asked.

Greg strode towards the truck as he replied. “Spike’s still looking through court records and police reports-- anything he can find. He says her sister’s here, so I’m gonna see what she knows.” He reached out, pulled the door open, and hauled himself up and into the vehicle. A petite, blonde woman with long, fine hair waited inside and he greeted her. “Rachel? Hi. I’m Sergeant Parker. Thanks for coming.” Waving towards the seat next to Spike, he continued, “Please have a seat.” As the woman sat, Greg fixed her with a serious look. “Do you have any idea why your sister would do this?”

Rachel looked up at him, her eyes both sad and disbelieving. “Claire’s been through a nightmare. Her husband Tom had been in the hospital for months. It was horrible. Then last week, Claire…she had to take him off life support. He lasted for a couple of hours, but he didn’t make it. Claire’s not a very outgoing person. Tom was her whole world. She kind of fell apart.”

“What’s the connection to this company, to Brenton?”

Wide eyes met his. “Tom had been on Neptysol, a drug made by Brenton. An ingredient in it killed him.”

“And that was proven?” Greg questioned in surprise.

She nodded. “He had a rare reaction to a binding chemical. Rare enough to be considered what the fine print calls an ‘acceptable risk’.”

“And Claire disagreed?”

“Yeah. Claire disagreed.”

* * * * *

The grieving woman worked silently on the fine chinaware dishes and cut crystal glasses. Her sister dried as she put them away. In the doorway to the next room, a man in a black business suit and a long gray raincoat stood and spoke to her. “Please, Mrs. Williams.” When she didn’t turn or look up, he added, “Claire, I need you to reconsider our offer.”

“Ben, I think you should leave,” Rachel said from her position at the table, speaking for her sister.

Ben didn’t even budge. “I’m sorry, Claire. I am so sorry for your loss. And I know that nothing I say is gonna make that hurt any less, but not taking the money is not gonna bring your husband back.”

At his words, the woman finally reacted, whirling towards him furiously. “I don’t want your money,” she spat, “I want your company to change your product.”

“Well, I’m afraid that is not gonna happen.”

“Well, then we have a problem,” Claire snapped.

Ben and Claire locked gazes for a second. “Reformulating Neptysol, that would take years of retesting and research.”

“Yes,” Claire agreed.

“Now, during that time, we would have to pull it off the market.” Claire laughed, a mocking sound in the room. “Now, I know this is a sad time, but I just want you to look at the big picture. Neptysol is a miracle pill for millions of people worldwide. Millions. Now, the binding ingredient that your husband had a negative reaction to…”

“Negative?” Claire shrieked. “Negative?! As in death?”

Ben blanched, but kept going. “That occurs in less than point-zero-zero…”

“We’re not numbers,” Claire cried angrily, “Your product killed my husband and other people’s loved ones as well. That is what this lawsuit is about. Stopping…stopping innocent people from dying.”

“Claire, the lawsuit is why I’m here, officially,” Ben explained as Claire turned away and went back to her dishes, “Now, your lawyer’s gonna call you this afternoon, but I felt, after all the meetings with the company, I’d give you a face-to-face explanation. But there is not going to be a lawsuit.”

Claire froze, turning to him.

“All the rest of the families have agreed to take the money,” Ben said simply.

She stared at him for a minute, then returned to her dishes again.

“Now, I’m sorry, but that’s why I think you need to take our offer.”

“I’ll fight it myself,” Claire muttered, almost to herself as she worked.

“Brenton can afford this dispute,” Ben informed both women. “The only question is whether you want to face that fact with or without compensation.”

The next few dishes were simply dropped on the ground, shattering, just like Claire’s heart as she grieved and sobbed. Two more dishes were hurled down, interrupting any attempts at conversation. Behind Claire, Ben and Rachel exchanged helpless looks.

* * * * *

“When she stopped, I asked Ben how much they were offering. Claire just stormed out. It was four days ago. I haven’t seen her since.”

Greg regarded the woman soberly, well aware that she was likely about to suffer another loss. It was tragic, but Claire had made her decision. “Thank you. Thank you for coming. If I have any more questions, I’ll call.” As Rachel made her way out, Greg added one more, “Thank you,” to her retreating back. He sat down next to Spike, his focus back on the call. “Find out who’s named on Claire’s lawsuit. If the names match up with our deceased…”

“We’ll know the remaining targets,” Spike finished.

* * * * *

Simmons jumped at the wailing from above, but his Muggle colleagues reacted at once. “Boss, she set a fire,” Lane yelled.

“We must be closing in,” Wordsworth remarked.

Scarlatti’s alarmed voice came over the device in Simmons’ ear. “Guys, there’s gonna be an automatic lockdown.”

“Wordy, go, go, go!” Lane roared, already racing for the door with Simmons on his heels.

They reached it as it finished slamming shut, drawing a snarled, “Blast it!” from Wordsworth.

Simmons looked around and spied the fire, in a silver, waist high can. Without missing a beat, he drew his wand and aimed it. “Aguamenti (4)!”   A jet of water flew from the wand tip, striking the fire and extinguishing it in moments.

Lane gave him an appreciative nod as he ordered, “Spike, override this lockdown now. She’s buying time.”

“I’m trying,” Scarlatti called, a beeping noise in the background, “But they just renovated this museum.”

“I don’t care,” Lane yelled, pounding on the closed door.

“No, you do,” Scarlatti moaned, “The security system’s upgraded.”

“Spike, do it now!”

“I haven’t dealt with a 2700 before.”

* * * * *

“At which point your team leader responded with some colorful language,” Hastings observed to the tech sitting across from her.

“Ed says what he thinks,” Spike replied.

“Profanity is an expression of loss of control. Not very reassuring for a team leader.”

“He didn’t lose control,” Spike disagreed calmly.

“He didn’t make it harder for you to think clearly under pressure?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Are you sure?” Hastings pressed. When Spike nodded, she continued, “Active shooter, direct to threat imperative, and you cost your team valuable seconds trying to open a door.”

“That wasn’t ‘cause of Ed, that was because I didn’t know this particular system,” Spike explained.

An insinuating note entered Hastings’ voice. “Doesn’t your team count on you to be familiar with all the advances in security technology?”

“I am,” Spike countered, “I stay on top of every release, but the 2700…”

Hastings cut him off. “The bereaved don’t want to hear about the 2700. They want to know whether charges of criminal negligence should be brought against the leaders of your team for the deaths that occurred after your arrival.”

Spike didn’t turn so much as a hair. “When I was unable to override the security system and unlock the door, Inspector Simmons took care of it. If he hadn’t, Ed would have.”

“When you failed.”

“When I failed, Simmons succeeded,” Spike retorted, still calm. “The team succeeded. We all have our roles, our strengths, and our weaknesses. We work together. We’re not a bunch of guys; we’re a unit.”

* * * * *

Ed opened his mouth to take over, but Simmons, once again, was one step ahead of him. The wizard moved so he was facing the center of the door and aimed his wand. “Get back,” he ordered calmly. Ed and Wordy obeyed, getting behind their magical counterpart. With a sharp gesture, Simmons snapped, “Erumpo (5)!” The door flew upwards, vanishing back into the ceiling with a clang. The three men hurried forward, ducking under the door and reaching the other side before it could crash back down again.

Simmons looked over his shoulder at the door, still eerily calm. “Not a problem,” he drawled.

Ed followed his gaze a moment, then strode past the wizard to take up the trail again. “Simmons,” he called without breaking stride, “Good work.”

Simmons blinked, surprised at the approval in the team leader’s voice. Then he hurried to keep up, casting a quick detection spell and perimeter spell as they hit the next room.

[4] Latin for ‘mind water’

[5] Latin for ‘break out’

Chapter Text

“Okay, let’s stop here,” Hastings ordered, rummaging through her papers as she spoke.

“Excuse me?” Ed demanded.

“I know what happens next. I’m more interested in your state of mind at this point.”

The team leader tilted his head. “What do you mean, my ‘state of mind’?”

She leaned forward in her seat. “Your adrenaline’s pumping, the frustration of the locked door, loss of time. Were you more or less likely to use lethal force?”

“Hold on a second,” Ed snapped, leaning forward across the table, his eyes spitting sparks, “Are we debating lethal force here? Really? Is that what we’re doing? Because this was textbook.”

“We both know real life doesn’t do textbook,” Hastings countered.

“Active shooter,” Ed gritted out, “Currently shooting people. We neutralize the threat before the subject can take down more victims.”

“That’s what your team failed to do. It took you thirty-seven minutes to neutralize the threat and she took more lives.”

“It is a judgment call,” the sniper growled.

Just like that, she swapped tactics…and dropped her ace. “Whose judgment? You’re direct to threat, right? Let’s get the job done? Who got hung up on profiling? Who put a team member in a truck instead of another gun at ground zero?”

The irony of her last statement wasn’t lost on Ed, but his protective instincts were surging, his outrage at her target flaring. “You are off base,” he snapped.

“Hey! Greg Parker.”

They spoke, almost over one another, their words clashing, just like their viewpoints. “My team did everything right…” Ed hissed.

“This isn’t about your team, Officer Lane,” Hastings almost shouted.

“…everything right today.”

“This is about whether or not Greg Parker…”

“My team-- excuse me,” Ed started again, trying to shut her down. “My team did everything right today.”

“…is fit to remain with this unit!”

“Are we done here?” Ed snarled, not even waiting for a response as he rose.

“Yeah, we’re done,” Hastings snipped, her expression speaking volumes.

Ed tossed an angry, “Thank you,” over his shoulder as he stalked out.

* * * * *

Greg sighed internally as Ed’s outrage came through his ‘team sense’ loud and clear. He’d wondered how long this would take. He’d known, as soon as he saw Jill, that this wouldn’t be pretty and he’d just been hoping she’d leave his team out of it.

He understood her anger…a lot better than she probably thought he did. But her odds of getting what she wanted were very low; would still have been that low even without his team’s magic-side involvement. His team, they’d done their best and no one could have asked for more.

Ed’s presence all but stalked towards the room he was in and he decided to not even pretend he hadn’t known Eddie was coming. He was facing the door, his expression resigned, when Ed threw it open and snapped, “She’s gunning for you.”

“What are you doing here, Eddie? Get out of here.”

“She’s out for blood, specifically yours.”

Greg rose, herding his team leader out as he strode forward. “I didn’t do anything. But right now, you talking to me doesn’t look good on paper.”

“I don’t care. Something’s wrong here.” Ed’s protective streak, on full alert and searching for the closest target.

“I care,” Greg rebuked gently, “I care. We need to keep our T’s crossed, okay? Just get out of here.”

“Greg, is there something I should know?”

Not this time, Eddie. “Just go,” Greg ordered, before closing the door firmly and listening to his team leader walk away.

* * * * *

Sarge’s movements were brisk, the two men in the truck sorting through information as fast as possible. “Let’s compare lists, every name on Claire’s lawsuit-- who’s dead, who’s safe outside, and who’s still missing inside.” His focus shifted. “I need updates, Bravo Team.”

* * * * *

“Perimeter’s sealed,” Sam reported, as he, Jules, Lou, Giles, and two uniforms headed up a yellow stairwell. “All stairways secured.”

“No movement possible in or out,” Jules called.

“Uniforms have gotten all the civilians we’ve found so far out,” Lou chipped in.

As they moved further up the stairs, Onasi added, “All movement detection spells have been deployed, either by myself or Simmons. So far, nothing, but I’m keeping an eye out.”

“That’s good,” Parker acknowledged. “Alpha Team, what’s your status?”

“East is still locked down,” Lane called, “Wordy, Simmons, and I have worked up from the south.”

“Okay, that’s good. Keep corralling Claire north. She’s running out of room to run now.”

As Bravo Team hit the top of the stairs, another gunshot rang out. The four scrambled for the next room; Onasi swore under his breath as his detection spell picked up nothing but the fading warmth of a just killed victim. They reached the fallen man scant seconds after the shot, but still too late; light blond hair was already bloody and vacant gray eyes stared at the ceiling.

“We’ve got another man down,” Lou reported grimly.

* * * * *

Ed stalked down the ramp to meet the rest of his team and the two lurking Aurors. Jules was the closest to where he’d entered and he immediately demanded, “What’d you say? Jules, what’d you say?”

“About what?”

“About the boss, SIU.”

“I just…I just told her what happened, that’s all.”

From over Jules’ shoulder, Sam put in, “Same here.”

“And what did happen?” Ed questioned, thinking furiously, trying to figure out what was going on.

“You were there, Ed,” Jules countered.

“Yeah, I was,” Ed agreed, the rest of his team and the two Aurors drifting over. “But she’s after something and it’s not just the thirty-seven minutes. She finds a way to nail the Boss and he’s facing criminal charges.”

“What for?” Jules asked, confusion clear.

“Criminal charges?” Spike inquired, his own expression confused, “We did everything by the book. What’s the problem?”

Ed arched both brows. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Aren’t you?”

Onasi quietly cleared his throat, reminding them that parts of the night had been anything but by the book. Wordy’s gaze darted to him briefly. “Think the Boss made a mistake?”

“No,” Ed countered immediately.

“So what’s going on?” Spike’s concern, growing rapidly.

“Well, she’s after him.”

“Why?” Jules questioned.

“Major grudge match,” Simmons drawled, drawing their eyes at once. “I’m surprised none of you saw it right off…if that glare of hers was any worse, she’d be a basilisk (6).” He snorted at the techies’ expressions. “You did miss it…trust me, from one person who’s not too fond of Parker to another…the signs were unmistakable.” He shrugged. “Told her flat out, though, she’d need one heck of a bigger hammer to take your Sergeant down…he’s way too valuable at this point for our division to let him fall.”

“So it’s personal,” Ed mused, calming down a bit.

As Simmons inclined his head, Sam offered, “Well, she was a cop; someone’s got to know her. We’ll track down her partner.”

“Have to track someone else down,” Wordy parried regretfully, “Her partner Brian’s dead.”

The two Aurors flinched at the name and Ed’s expression flickered. “Let’s figure it out before she finds a way to frame him.” When Simmons started to open his mouth, Ed cut him off. “I heard you; he’s too valuable, but I’d rather not take that chance.”

As Team One started to head up to the main area and the closest computers, Onasi turned back at Braddock’s soft hiss at himself. “What is it?” Lane asked, turning just as quickly.

“I didn’t mean anything negative,” Sam remarked, soft and worried.

“What did you say?” Jules questioned.

“I said that by his directive to corral Claire into a corner, we were also corralling her targets,” Sam admitted. In the background, Onasi cringed.

“That’s the only way we were gonna save those people and stop that shooter,” Ed pointed out.

“I know that,” Sam protested. “It was the only choice. It was a risk we had to take.”

“Well,” Jules mused, “Maybe the SIU didn’t agree.”

Onasi shifted back and hurried up the ramp. Framing an innocent man was not going to happen tonight…not on his watch.

* * * * *

“And how many lives constitute an acceptable risk?” Jill questioned, an edge to her voice.

Greg leaned forward so the microphone could catch every word. “Many factors need to be considered.”

“But there must be some standard, some method to weighing your options,” Jill remarked, insinuation dripping from every syllable. “Number risked versus number saved?”

Calm marked his own voice. “There’s no arithmetic for this. In a perfect world, no life would be sacrificed.”

“But in your experience, that doesn’t happen much, does it?”

“I don’t work in a perfect world, no,” Parker confirmed. “If we do lose a life, it’s only to save many more.” Jill’s silence hung as the SRU Sergeant regarded her. After a few seconds, he covered up the microphone with one hand. “Jill, how you been?”

Her eyes snapped up to his. “You don’t get to ask me that,” she hissed.

* * * * *

Ed rounded the desk that their dispatcher usually used, but that, tonight, had turned into Team One’s impromptu investigation center. Sam was at one computer with Jules on the chair right next to him. Lou had snagged the space right in between, craning his neck to read over Sam’s shoulder while Onasi was on the other side of the counter, making his best attempt to read a computer screen upside down – and making Sam and Lou grin a little at his antics. Spike had the other computer, with Wordy and Simmons leaning over each shoulder to read the screen. Ed took full advantage of his own height to see over all of them and read the same screen. It was crowded, but working…barely.

“Okay, guys, I want to know everything here,” Ed announced.

Spike led off. “She’s been SIU just under a year. Completed all the standard prep courses…”

Lewis picked up from the side, “…Constitutional Law, Criminal Code, Evidence Act, Coroner’s Act…”

The baton passed to Wordy. “Her testimony’s led to the conviction of some bad apples. Her SIU record’s solid.”

“She was a cop for seven years,” Sam reported, “Good performance reviews, promotions. She rose through the ranks fast. She was a training officer for guys applying to SRU.”

Ed’s brows shot up. “Okay, I admit she was good. So why’d she leave the force?”

Jules offered up another clue. “Maybe the same reason she took a two-year personal leave and went travelling.”

“After her partner died,” Giles whispered, drawing a few sympathetic looks that he pointedly ignored.

Ed drew a breath, but asked the question, “So what happened to Brian?”

[6] A snake with a lethal glare and an equally venomous bite. Anyone who meets its gaze dies and even being grazed by a fang can be a wizard’s last mistake. Only the cry of a rooster can kill it

Chapter Text

“Come on, Spike, anything else?” The longer it took to figure out who Claire was after, the more likely they would lose another life to the grieving, raging woman.

“The Brenton people Claire had meetings with in the weeks before her husband’s death-- three of them are still in the building,” Spike immediately reported, his fingers flying across his keyboard even as he spoke.

“Okay, I want phone numbers,” Parker ordered, but Spike had already anticipated the order.

“Phone numbers from the company directory coming at you.”

Greg stood long enough to rip the printed page away from the printer, then set the page between them and pointed to a number. “Let’s find these three people before Claire does. You get that one.”

“Yeah.”

The beeping and blipping of their phones joined the background hum of the Command Truck and its computers as they raced against the clock to prevent more deaths.

* * * * *

Greg kept his eyes on Jill’s as he explained, “There were three targeted people still inside the building. All three gave me their location via text message.”

“And?” Her anger was still there, but she’d restrained it for the moment.

“We told them to stay concealed and that we were coming to get them.”

“Removing the targets to stop the killing,” Jill concluded.

A quick nod. “That’s right. We broke off into three teams for the retrieval.”

Jill frowned. “From what Detective Onasi implied, the entire reason for sticking with two teams up to this point was to…take advantage of his and Inspector Simmons’ unique talents. Why drop that?”

The SRU Sergeant kept his face calm. “At that point, retrieving the three targets was more important that taking advantage of those talents.” Plus, by then, the two Aurors had encircled Claire with their magical perimeter and the time for relying on magic was past.

With a brief tap of her pen against the page, Jill asked, in a completely innocent voice, “And what were those talents again?”

Not a bad try, Greg had to admit, but Jill had a ways to go before she could trick a negotiator that easily. “As I’m sure Commander Holleran and various members of my team have already told you, that’s classified under the Official Secrets Act,” he replied, polite, but with an undercurrent of steel in his voice and gaze.

Jill’s eyes narrowed. “You do understand that withholding this information does not reflect well on you or your team, don’t you, Sergeant Parker?”

“I – and my team – made a commitment to keep everything covered under the Official Secrets Act classified and that’s exactly what we’re doing, Jill.” Having said his piece on that, Greg moved on. “Now, while Alpha Team remained the same, Bravo Team sent Onasi to myself and Spike. Each team took one location and we knew that Claire would be in one of these three places.”

* * * * *

Bravo Team entered the exhibit, maneuvering through the displays, ignoring the pottery and other ancient artifacts, and with weapons up. A woman’s voice rang out from nearby. “She’s not here.”

“Please come out slowly,” Lou called, “Keep your hands where we can see them.”

The woman stepped out from her hiding spot, hands in the air. She wore a black, sleeveless, backless dress with sequins and glittery fabric all over. Blonde hair was cut short and hung around her face, which held both fear and relief that the team had found her before Claire could.

“What’s your name?” Jules asked.

“Nora. Nora Pullan.”

“She’s a target,” Jules hissed to her two teammates.

Sam made the call on the radio. “All right, we need a civilian escort.”

“You’re going to be just fine, ma’am,” Lou reassured the woman. “We have an officer coming who will escort you out of the building.”

On the team’s comm, Sam reported, “Okay, Bravo Team complete.”

* * * * *

In the older part of the building, Sarge, Spike, and Giles moved along a balcony right next to where a domed ceiling could be seen. Giles, though he kept alert, took a few seconds to glance over at the ceiling, impressed by the architecture and intricate design built decades earlier. Spike snuck a look at the Auror and decided to bring him back to the museum another time…maybe bring his Boss’s kids too.

In the meantime, at Sam’s report, Sarge ordered, “Sam, Lewis, join up with Ed, Wordy, and Nathan. Jules, you come find me.”

Bravo Team acknowledged, even as they split up and joined their teammates.

* * * * *

Claire entered the next exhibit, uncaring that it was almost pitch black in the room. She advanced carefully, slowly, searching for her next target. She had bought some time by trapping the cops, but she knew she was running out of time to extract the only justice her husband would ever get. As she reached the lighted area, she scanned again and spotted him…hiding like the coward he was behind a wall crafted to look like the stonework walls of civilizations long dead…dead like her husband.

As their eyes locked, he moved away, begging already. “No. No.”

“Scott Williams?” she asked, even though she already knew who he was.

“No,” the white-haired man in a tux and a ridiculous black bow tie pleaded, “Please. You don’t need to do this.”

Ice calm marked her voice. “I do. No one would listen to me.” As she took aim, she shouted, “Now maybe they will!”

“I have a family.”

She saw red. “So did I!”

* * * * *

Greg had his hearing up and he was very grateful for the grounding his ‘team sense’ gave him as a shot rang out, close by. “Shots fired. Northeast direction.”

The quartet burst into the next gallery, searching frantically; Onasi hissed under his breath and cast a quick, “Homenum Revelio.” A bluish light illuminated a nearby area, but it was already fading away.

The team bolted for that area regardless, Spike in the lead. Spike took one look and lowered his weapon, calling a quiet, “Boss?” over his shoulder. Auror and Sergeant halted at the doorway as Spike knelt and checked for a pulse. Jules scanned the area, hoping to catch a glimpse of Claire, but she was long gone. Spike looked up with a quick headshake and a single word. “No.”

“Eddie, Text Two is down. We’re headed your way. You got the ball.”

* * * * *

Sam and Lou intercepted Wordy, Ed, and Simmons as the latter three came up the green stairwell. The combined Alpha Team ascended a short flight of steps to enter an animal exhibit, complete with a large rhinoceros facing the stairs they’d just used. Not far away from them, they heard a woman’s voice, ranting angrily.

“Blood…in his lungs. He was literally drowning…”

“We got a visual on the shooter,” Ed reported, “Her gun is down.”

“…every time he took a breath.” Claire was pacing back and forth in front of a terrified couple, waving her free hand as she shouted at them. Her gun was down, but it would be all-too-easy for her to bring it up and shoot the innocent civilians. Both wore black clothing, the man in a tux and the woman in a black, backless dress, and both had dark hair. The woman clung to her husband’s arm; the projection of the world’s population on the wall behind Claire almost a sick joke with what Claire planned for at least one of the couple.

“She’s talking with our Text Three,” the team leader added.

His Boss’s response was rather predictable. “That’s a good sign. If Claire’s talking to him, maybe she’ll talk to us.” He paused a moment. “Simmons, can you disarm her?”

Ed glanced back to see Simmons’ regretful headshake. “Not without violating the Statute,” the Auror replied. “If it were just her, I’d do it, but with those two…”

“Copy that.” A trace of frustration, but both Ed and Greg had known that would be the likely response. “What about Apparition coordinates?”

“That I can do,” Simmons replied as he quickly fell back with a nod to the rest of Alpha Team. “I’ll get to where they can’t hear it and let you know.”

Ed shifted back to the confrontation. “Sam, hold cover. Wordy, Lou, and I will move in.”

“Team One, do not engage until I get there,” Sarge ordered as the trio moved up and found better spots. Sam braced himself at the end of a display behind his teammates, ready if Claire escalated.

“Tell me again, how much is a life worth?” Claire demanded of the man she was facing.

“I-I don’t know,” he stammered. “I’ll give you as much as you want.”

“Wrong answer!” she shrieked. “I don’t…want…your money!”

“She’s escalating,” Sam hissed.

“I want you to pay,” Claire howled, about to bring her gun up.

The man’s wife threw herself in front of her husband with a cry of, “Don’t hurt him!”

Claire let out a shriek of frustration and whirled to the wall behind her, slamming her palm and her gun against it in her grieving agony.

* * * * *

Simmons looked around for a moment, then cautiously tapped at the ‘raydeo’ on his waist. “Auror Onasi, stand by for Apparition coordinates,” he ordered.

“Standing by,” Onasi acknowledged.

Simmons reeled them off, then took three steps forward and turned; Charlie Team appeared a moment later, the three Muggles reeling a bit from the effects of Side-Along Apparition, but they recovered quickly. The Senior Auror hid his smile…a bit of harmless enjoyment wasn’t a crime, after all. And it was nice to see that, no matter how good Team One was, there were still things magic was better at…and always would be.

Chapter Text

In a way, it wasn’t fair to demand that Parker betray his word…in another, Jill found it more than fair, considering who else Parker had betrayed. “You comfortable with that, Sergeant Parker?” she demanded, “Playing roulette with other people’s lives? Obstructing this investigation into you and your team’s actions?”

He actually tried to calm her down. “I think we should take a minute. We both need…”

She wouldn’t let him, wouldn’t let this go on any longer. “You ever think about how your belief in everyone’s inner goodness actually puts more lives at risk?”

“If there’s a chance to talk, it’s my duty to take it.”

His calm, his steady demeanor…all of it just threw more fuel on the fire of her anger. “You didn’t let your team take Claire down when you had the chance and you lost control of the situation,” Jill accused.

“I used my best judgment, based on my instinct and my experience in the field.”

“I’m aware of your experience, Greg, and your instincts.”

“I know you are.” Jill, fuming, didn’t give him a response. After a few moments, he spoke again. “Look, Jill, you can second-guess me all you want. You can refer religiously to those transcripts, but unless you were there in the room, you can’t know all the moving parts of any situation. Claire lowered her gun when the wife intervened. It’s my job to take that opportunity.”

“And how can I know that when parts of the transcript have been restricted?” Jill spat.

“You have my word; the negotiation and all relevant details are not restricted, Jill.”

* * * * *

Side-Along Apparating was about as fun as Flooing and his team’s description of international Portkeys in Greg’s opinion, but it had gotten the job done, so he pushed aside the lingering nausea and hurried up the steps to do his job and bring this deadly night to a close. In less than a minute, his team was arrayed around the area, Spike in front of him, Ed and Wordy on the other side, Sam in the back with a sniper position, and Lou and Jules, along with the two Aurors, in the center area, almost, but not quite, crowding Claire.

“Claire, thank you for keeping your gun lowered. Now, if you could just lay it down on the ground for me, maybe we can work this out.”

“I don’t need any more lies,” Claire hissed, bitterness reeking in her voice and hate in her eyes.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Claire. We both know what’s already happened here tonight, but it doesn’t mean it has to continue. Doesn’t mean it has to get worse.”

Claire either couldn’t or wouldn’t hear him. “Get out of the way,” she ordered her target’s wife.

“No,” the woman replied, shaking her head.

“Move!” When the woman still refused to budge, Claire yelled, “I said, move!”

* * * * *

“And then the incident was resolved,” Greg finished sadly. Such a waste…ten dead, eleven if you counted Claire’s husband, two wounded and for what?

Jill was unappeased. “After thirty-seven minutes,” she hissed, “In which you allowed your team to put lives at risk.”

“You know I didn’t,” Greg countered quietly.

“And I will make sure it never happens again.” She was angry, just like Claire had been, but thankfully, Jill had better judgment than Claire had had.

“What are you going to charge me with, Jill?” No point in bringing up the fact that the Auror Division would likely bury any attempt to charge him…they’d act for both practical and political reasons. “This investigation isn’t about today.”

“It is,” Jill insisted, a smug look on her face and a glitter of triumph in green eyes, “It’s about your judgment. It’s about your fitness as leader.”

“No, no,” he parried, his expression understanding. He reached out and stopped the recording. “For you, this investigation is about Brian.”

* * * * *

Ed walked back to the rest of his team; they looked up at his approach and Spike held an open folder. The two Aurors had faded into the background, their expressions grim. Ed felt a chill as he realized the news was nothing good.

“We found out why Brian stopped being Jill’s partner,” Jules reported, “He made SRU.”

“She trained him?” the team leader questioned, brows going up in surprise.

Spike passed over the folder in his hands as he replied, “Looks like it. Her name’s all over his performance reviews.”

“And his letter of recommendation,” Sam chipped in.

“See the kicker?” Jules asked, even as Ed’s eyes fell on that part.

The team leader looked up from the folder, staring at the closed door into the briefing room. “Brian was on the Boss’s team.”

* * * * *

As if Greg’s observation had been all she needed, Jill went on the offensive, spitting her words at him. “You put Brian at risk. In that spree shooting you hesitated. You gave that scumbag a chance to kill Brian and he took it.”

Greg met the accusation calmly. “We did what we thought was right in the circumstance.”

“You believed the best of that scumbag,” Jill snapped, “You gambled with Brian’s life. You put him at risk unnecessarily, just like you did today.”

“Jill,” Greg spoke softly, trying to get through to her, “Jill, I know you’re in pain. I know you want to blame me. But I did not cause Brian’s death.”

Green eyes flashed at him; Jill’s chin tipped up and she gave him a cold smirk. “You need to take responsibility. You put the lives of your people in danger. I’ll prove it. I’ll prove that you should be charged with criminal disregard of human life and removed from duty.”

He could let her believe all of that…let her believe that it was his fault her old partner had died…it would be easy. But it would also be wrong. “I can let you believe what you believe,” he remarked, meeting her eyes. “It’s probably easier to live with than knowing the truth.”

The Sergeant let that hang a moment. “You came out of that museum tonight after seeing…after seeing that tragedy. You came out, and you saw me, and all that outrage and all that grief came up again, and this was your chance to right a wrong for his sake. I understand. But I got to tell you something. The night you lost Brian…” He stopped, looked down a second as his own sorrow came back. “The night we lost Brian…it’s not what you think. The time for negotiation was over. I saw the signs, I called Scorpio, like I did tonight.”

“After Brian died,” she accused angrily.

“No, Jill,” he countered, “Before.” When she stared at him in disbelief, he admitted, “Brian hesitated.” If he felt guilty for anything, it was for the fact that Brian apparently hadn’t trusted him enough to respond instantly to his order that day.

“What?” Disbelief rang in the word and denial.

“Tonight, when I called Scorpio, my shooter, Ed, responded immediately. He took the shot.”

“And Brian didn’t?” Jill’s anger was shattered, shock in her voice as she took his words in.

“No.”

She looked like her world had just come crashing down. “It was Brian who hesitated?” Greg held his silence; there was no point in belaboring the obvious. She sucked in air, her eyes filling. “That’s not what it said in the report.” One last, weak attempt to deny the truth, even as a tear slipped down her cheek.

The Sergeant sighed. “Reports and transcripts-- they don’t tell the whole truth. Brian was a good man. I miss him, too. And that night, he thought he could help. Turns out, he couldn’t. Sometimes we can’t help.”

* * * * *

“Claire, you don’t have to do this. Ben’s wife has nothing to do with Brenton. She’s innocent. Like your husband was innocent.”

Ben’s wife was still between Claire and her target; the couple clung to each other as Greg negotiated for their lives…for Claire’s life. But Claire had gone too far to stop; too far to back down, regardless of the consequences. “Innocent,” she murmured; Greg stiffened. “Innocent just means…” She stared at the couple, her eyes going darker. “…acceptable risk.”

“Scorpio.”

Ed Lane fired instantly, dropping Claire as she brought her gun up. She fell, dead before she hit the ground; Ben and his wife fled past Team One without looking back. Lou and Jules moved in, kicking Claire’s weapon away, flipping her over and cuffing her.

* * * * *

The team left the museum, drained and exhausted. Lewis hung close to the two Aurors, leading by example as he handed his weapons over to the waiting SIU investigators. Now the Aurors understood why they’d been given sidearms before entering the museum hours earlier; Team One had been ensuring that no hint of magic could be found by anyone not in the know. Once they’d passed the weapons over, Lou moved to be between the two magicals and the horde of reporters.

Behind them, the EMTs brought out one last covered stretcher; Claire’s sister Rachel was permitted to accompany the stretcher as it was taken to an ambulance and away from the tragedy.

On the sidelines, Jill Hastings watched as Sergeant Greg Parker walked past her without a second glance in her direction. She turned to watch him go, her face unreadable.

* * * * *

Greg let Jill take the lead out of the briefing room. Judging by the expressions on his team’s faces, they had figured everything out. Fair enough; he could hardly ask them to stop being cops, to stop being investigators. Jill handed the binders in her hands to one of her coworkers with a brisk, “We’re done.” Then she walked over to the mixed group of Team One and two Aurors. With a deep breath and Greg hovering at her side, she said, “SIU will find that Team One used clear judgment and appropriate force. I’m sorry that you all had to go through this after a night like tonight. Thank you.” She walked away and Greg opted to not look after her.

Instead, he focused on his team; they circled around him, the two Aurors joining the circle at his encouraging look. “We did all we could tonight,” Greg told them, his eyes settling on each man – and one woman – present. “Hey, I’m proud of all of you.” He drew a breath, deliberately meeting Simmons’ eyes – he knew the man was no fan of Team One, but still…he had come and helped…that meant a lot to the Sergeant. “I’m darn proud to be a member of this team,” he whispered.

Jules looked up at him, smiling a little. “Yeah,” she agreed. Then she hugged him as his team crowded around, agreement shining on their faces. He didn’t care what Jill Hastings thought of him, of his team…he had the best team and the best family in the world.

~ Fin