He pushed through his old office door and surveyed the room as he always did, silently noting the changes since it belonged to him. He saw Tony stand up to greet him and the two men stood there just a few feet apart, both unsure of how to proceed. Tony realised that he was treading on eggshells again, and so he broke the silence, determined to get on with his job. Jack's problems were his own and it would do himself no good getting wrapped up in them too. To break the uncomfortable silence which was forming between them he asked how the visit to Chase had gone. Jack replied with a nod of the head and a brief response which consisted of 'Fine.' After waiting a few seconds Tony realised Jack wasn't going to elaborate, so he went straight down to business.
"Take a seat." He said while motioning to the chairs before the desk he was now sat behind. The very same desk he himself had sat at, but that was a long time ago. It felt like a different lifetime, and perhaps it was.
Jack slowly took a seat as his surroundings continued to throw random memories at him. He turned his attention back to Tony and noticed that he was now tapping on the keyboard. He spoke, but his eyes were still stuck to the screen.
"We received some intel from Divison, just before I called you. It somehow managed to get lost in their system and didn't get to go through the usual process as a result, which is why we got this on such short notice. Divison saw it and handed it to us, there way of covering their asses, they wanted nothing to do with it."
"What does it say?" Jack asked, not really interested in hearing Divisions excuses for screwing up once again.
"You know the demonstration, going off down town tonight at St. Marks cathedral?"
Jack frowned momentarily as he scanned through all of the information in his mind. "The anti-race protest?" He asked.
"Yes. The cathedral is 5 storeys high and made of pure stone. There expecting at least 7000 protesters packed in there, and God knows how many people in the immediate area. Most of them black."
Jack knew why he had mentioned the colour of these people. If something did go wrong it would cause a big problem for the government. People would start pointing fingers and asking why it wasn't prevented, making accusations and starting rumours. It would put doubt in the peoples mind, which was the last thing they wanted now, after the virus episode.
Tony gave him a second to process this information before continuing along. "The tip we received is credible. Some extremists have planted a bomb, or are going to do so, somewhere in the cathedral. It is set to go off sometime tonight. The closest we could get on a time was after 7 tonight, where the number of demonstrators will be at its highest. We can't storm the building as we have no intel on the device, and for all we know it could be set on a trigger device. We only have to raise someone's suspicions and the place could blow. We need to tread carefully here."
Jack nodded in agreement, whilst Tony again spilled out the information.
"We can't evacuate either. What's going on is a big deal, its been on the news for moths. People think this is going to mark the start of change, people are expecting it to make a difference. If we run in there guns blazing and find no bomb, that will backfire and hurt us bad."
"I thought you said the source was reliable?" Jack asked, if it was so then they should be able to evacuate, as they should know there would be a device.
"It is Jack, but you know we can never be 100." Tony snapped.
Jack looked down at his feet. "So what you are saying is that we can not evacuate those people because Division needs to cover its ass."
"That's right Jack. Sometimes its good to think things through - we can't all be reckless." He stopped as sharp as he had started, realising that he was being a little too hard on Jack. He watched as he started to fiddle with his fingers and Tony wondered if he had hurt his feelings. It was a rare occurrence for anything to scratch below the surface with Jack, and you never did know if you really had, he was the master of deception after all.
"Look, I sent Chloé all of the intel Division gave us, and she's trying to peel as much off as she can, as is Adam, they are trying to get anything out of it that we can go by."
"What are we going to do Tony? If we don't find anything, and if we can't evacuate?" He asked, sincerely concerned about these people.
"I don't know." Tony admitted truthfully, his voice softening. "Lets just hope we find something, all right?"
"Sure." Jack said quietly. He got up and left the office, not meeting Tony eyes.
He crossed the floor again and immediately looked down at his shoes whilst increasing his pace after seeing Michelle out of the corner of his eye. She made no attempt to hide her glare at him and she followed him up the stairs with her ice cold stare. She watched until he was out of sight and realised she was clenching her fists. The sight of Jack often did this to her, he disgusted her. The fact that he could even work in the same place as Tony or her angered her. After all he put them through 6 months ago, and yet he had the cheek to act as though everything was okay. She didn't realise just how far from okay anything was.
