DI Greg Lestrade walked slowly to the Chief Superintendent's office, still clutching his morning coffee, even though it had long since gotten cold. Usually when he was called to the Chief's office, it was for some unpleasant piece of business. The Chief was a hands-off boss at New Scotland Yard, and gave Lestrade a rather long rope when it came to running his department of detectives. He took the last slug of coffee, which registered a mixture of satisfaction and repulsion. He threw the foam cup in the wastebasket on his way into the office.

"Morning, Chief," he said expectantly.

"Ah, Greg," said the Chief through a mouthful of donut. "Have a seat. Half a sec," he added as he fumbled to bring up a website on his computer. He turned his laptop to face Lestrade, and crossed his arms triumphantly.

Lestrade squinted at the screen. "VeriCorp," he read aloud. "What's this, then?"

"VeriCorp is a company that specializes in deception-detection techniques. You know, they read people's facial expressions and body language in interrogations."

"Oh. Like that TV show, what'you call it? 'Lie To Me,'" said Lestrade, now getting suspicious.

The Chief leaned forward in his chair. "And they apply that skill in the areas of counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and criminal investigation." He had a smug expression on his face that Lestrade just did not like at all.

Lestrade frowned at the screen and then looked at the Chief. "And…?"

"And I think it's about time we train up our own people and stop relying on that Sherlock Holmes fellow you're so fond of employing," he said briskly. "He's bad for the morale here," he added, looking over the top of his glasses at Lestrade.

To his own surprise, Lestrade rushed to defend Sherlock Holmes. "I know he can be difficult, but the fact is, he's damed good! There hasn't been a case we've let him in on that he hasn't solved."

"Your own people should be good enough to solve them," shot back the Superintendent. "That's what we pay them for!"

He had a point.

Lestrade massaged the back of his neck nervously. "Yeah, I mean, we could do with a bit of training, I'll admit."

"Good. I've already invited them to come here and give us a little demonstration of their techniques. They'll be here Wednesday to train our staff, and on Friday 10:00AM sharp they'll participate in the Karl Hunter interrogation."

"Sir?" said Lestrade, now fully alarmed. "That doesn't give us much time to prepare."

"Prepare for what? Watch and learn," said the Chief caustically. "And just for the fun of it, why don't you invite Holmes?"

"Why invite Sherlock Holmes if you want to get rid of him?" asked Lestrade.

The Chief chuckled. "A little friendly competition, yeah? Maybe take him down a peg if there are other people in room that are better than he is."

"I seriously doubt that," muttered Lestrade under his breath, but outwardly, he just nodded, pursed his lips and said, "Right, Chief."

The Chief Superintendent waved him away in an irritated fashion. "That's it. Go on, then."

Lestrade took his cue to vacate the office as fast as he could.

"I'd like to take you down a peg or two," he thought as he went outside for a cigarette.

Once Lestrade got more detail surrounding the visit, he corralled all of the team members that would be in training, including Sergeant Sally Donovan, DI Dimmock and a few other less experienced inspectors, and gave them the news.

"Listen up, folks. The Chief is bringing in an organization called VeriCorp on Wednesday to participate in the Karl Hunter investigation."

There was general muttering and exclamations of surprise.

"Why? Who are they?" asked Donovan, always curious and critical.

"They are going to be here to train you lot in their interrogation techniques."

Dimmock smirked. "Are they going to let us use our billy clubs?"

There was some nervous laughter.

"Very funny," chided Lestrade. "Actually, they teach deception detection techniques. You'll better learn how to read people during an interrogation. They'll show us how to look for verbal cues and body language to spot liars. God help us all," he added acerbically.

"We learned this stuff in basic training!" objected DI Dimmock, clearly thinking he was above this.

"Yeah, well, these are 'new and improved' techniques," explained Lestrade, clearly not convinced himself. "And I want everyone's full cooperation," he added pointedly.

"Why the Hunter case?" asked Donovan. "Isn't it a bit high profile for this?"

"Yeah," agreed Lestrade. "And I'd like to keep VeriCorp's involvement out of the press, if we can."

The Karl Hunter case was a highly sensitive, highly publicized case currently in the British news. Karl Hunter, father of two, had called in to report his wife, Eve Hunter, missing. At first, the whole country had mobilized behind the man, hanging on his tearful pleas for help in finding her. As details of a bitter divorce surfaced, there was a growing faction of people who felt that Hunter was the killer and had committed murder to exercise "the ultimate act of control" in their divorce proceedings. Though there was circumstantial proof of motive as well as evidence of the victim's sudden disappearance and her tiny amounts spattered blood in the garage and kitchen in the family home, neither her body nor a weapon had been found. He had in fact been convicted once, but that was overturned due to circumstantial evidence. Hunter maintained his innocence.

"We don't need everyone doubting our abilities," said Lestrade emphatically, running his hand through his short cropped grey hair. "Speaking of which, the Chief thinks we rely too much on Sherlock Holmes to solve our cases for us."

"Amen," said Donovan hotly.

"Well, you have to admit," interjected Lestrade, "whenever we're stumped, which is a lot these days," he said loudly, "we need to call in Sherlock to give us a hand. Maybe if we could learn these techniques we wouldn't have to call him. At least, not quite so often."

"Anything that can make me see that freak less often is OK by me," quipped Donovan.

"Well I hate to break it you, Donovan, but the Chief wants him here when VeriCorp comes."

"What?" exclaimed Dimmock. "If he wants us to rely on him less often, then why invite him?"

Lestrade shook his head. He didn't like this at all. Over the last year or so he had grown to know Sherlock somewhat, at least as well as anyone could know Sherlock Holmes. He considered the consulting detective to be his friend.

"The Chief wants to see what he can do against VeriCorp. You know, a competition of sorts. I don't see the point in that myself."

Donovan was clearly pleased by this idea. "Oh good. Let's see if they can out-freak him!"

"Maybe we could learn a thing or to, and show him up once in awhile," interjected Dimmock, also very pleased with the idea of getting back at the man who outclassed him regularly.

"That's the spirit," said Lestrade sarcastically. "Whatever your motivation is, I expect you to embrace this material. We need to boost our internal success rate on cracking these cases. This Hunter case has been an embarrassment for us for months. If the Chief hadn't brought in VeriCorp, I would have brought in Sherlock on this one anyway."

"Now get back to work," ordered Lestrade. He was not looking forward to the phone call to tell Sherlock about VeriCorp. In fact, it was probably a better idea to call John Watson, Sherlock's best friend and roommate, who would know exactly how to handle this.