Chapter 21

Good Titan, Bad Titan

The old guys and Cassie stride over to us, and all the airport people quiet down 'cause Kory and Gar and Vic are celebrities. Even the guy called Manny starts looking nervous.

"Okay, guys," Vic says, looking at Tim. "What's the situation?"

"We suspect this man is an accessory in the kidnapping of Justice Department employees," Tim says, not really to Vic but to the airport people.

"He's a villain!" I explain. "With powers!"

"You gotta be kidding! That's Manny Apugnacio, on our maintenance staff," says the lady. "He's been working here all day."

"Actually," says one of the airport men, "I tried paging Manny for an hour this afternoon, and he never answered."

"See? See?" I say, jumping around.

"All I need is one phone call," growls Manny.

Tim looks up at Vic, and Vic nods to Tim, and Tim steps toward the airport managers and asks, "Who has a cell phone?"

And I'm thinking, No! This guy's one of the Penetrators! Remember how he hit me and Kon? That's just the sort of thing that a villain would do.

But a lady takes her phone off her belt and hands it to Tim, and he squats beside Manny and asks what number he wants to call. As the guy says the numbers, I see Tim's fingers flicker on the side of his belt. Aha! I deduce that Tim's typing the digits into his computer, and they're going to Oracle, and she's tracing the call, and the authorities are on the way to this guy's contact, and we'll catch the rest of the gang and rescue Dr. Ignatieff since Tim is only fooling the guy about letting him call anybody.

But then Tim's other thumb slowly punches numbers into the cell phone, and he looks at the screen and he holds it in front of the guy and says, "Is that right?" And I'm thinking, No! Villain! Come on! But Tim doesn't hear me, and after Manny nods at the number Tim hits the SEND button.

Tim holds the phone to the side of Manny's face, which is totally smirking now, and the guy says into the phone: "Mongoose."

Behind the guy Kon is trying not to let Manny notice as he waves a hand at Tim and whispers, "It's a recording." So I deduce that Kon's using his superhearing, which is cool, but he really could be flying the guy off to jail and chasing down his confederates.

"Mongoose," Manny says again, louder.

Kon whispers, "The line's saying it's disconnected," and Tim nods.

"Mongoose, dammit!" shouts Manny.

"Sir!" says Tim. "I can dial for you again, or I can tell you what I think you're trying to do."

The guy glares at Tim, but he doesn't ask for another call, so Tim says, "You've got a metagene that makes your body respond to any punch with an equal and opposite counterpunch."

So that's how the guy walloped me and Kon! Okay, so now we know how to take him! Well, we could figure something out. Meanwhile, Gar nods and says, "Cool power," and all the airport people whisper about how they can't believe Manny has any powers at all.

"When your ability appeared," Tim continues, "someone from the federal government approached you to join a special law-enforcement squad."

The guy doesn't say anything.

"Did you get a codename?" asks Gar.

Finally Manny murmurs, "Waveform."

"Waveform!" says Gar. "I like it!"

The airport people start whispering again, surprised that they work beside someone with a codename. But Gar gives the guy a thumbs-up! So I zip over to his side and hiss, "Stop being so nice! He's a bad guy!"

Gar disappears, and I'm about to brush something off my shoulder when I see it's a green sparrow and hear Gar's voice peeping, "Haven't you read about 'good cop, bad cop,' Kid?"

But nobody's being bad cop! I think, but then I realize that I can do that, so I move into Waveform's sightline and I snarl and I grind my right fist into my left palm and I ignore Kon staring at me as if I don't know what I'm doing.

Tim is saying, "The people who contacted you asked you to go underground—to be a sleeper agent. You never heard from them again until sometime this week. You were carrying out their assignment when Kid Flash found you. Am I right?"

Oh, yeah. I found him right in the middle of his villainy. Guess he's sorry now.

But Waveform says nothing.

"Who contacted you, sir?"

The guy just glares.

"What was your assignment?"

Nothing.

"Hey! Robin asked you a question!" I yell right in Waveform's face.

Vic puts a big metal hand on my shoulder and growls, "Keep it cool, Kid Flash."

Tim stands up to return the cell phone to the manager lady and then turns back to Waveform, hands on his hips. "Mr. Apugnacio, I know you're trying to keep secrets for the government. But you need to know what's really going on. I'm sorry to tell you that your manager went rogue. Your assignment didn't actually come from the JSO."

I hear the rattle of a helicopter coming from the west, and as it descends toward the employee parking lot we can all see it says US MARSHALS on the side.

"If you want to help your country, and I think that's what you set out to do, then you should tell us who contacted you, so we can find them before they hurt anyone else."

Manny looks like he's thinking hard, so I deduce my bad-cop look is getting to him, and I grind my fist more.

"You saw the blood, didn't you, sir?" asks Tim.

Manny swallows but says nothing.

"All over the helicopter!" I say.

Manny stares at the Marshals' helicopter as it lands. "I don't see blood."

"Not that helicopter! The one out in the desert! How could you miss the blood?"

"I didn't go into the desert," says Manny, and I think he almost sneers at me.

I sneer right back at him and take a step forward and—

"Is that the perp?" a man shouts from over by the helicopter. I glance over my shoulder and see Bukowski the pilot pointing at Manny. He starts striding toward us. "Is that the fuckass who sliced up Sal? Where's he keeping Margie now?"

And Marshal Alioto is running after Bukowski, but the pilot's coming faster, and he's reaching for a pistol in his hip holster, and suddenly Kory steps in his way and says, "This man is a prisoner, and he's cooperating."

"Yeah, yeah!" says Manny. "See, I got a phone call this morning from a man saying, 'Mongoose'—that's the codeword they told me. Nothing else, no name—sorry! Man said to leave my keys in my truck in the lot, and to come back after lunch and clean it up. Then he hung up. I never heard the voice before. He sounded Anglo, I guess—that's all I know, I swear!"

So that's how "bad cop" works.