Chapter Three: Downsview Base Shooting
The group of five Team One members kept pace with the corporal showing them into Downsview Base. As much as all of them wanted to go straight past investigating and right for the throat of their team leader's shooter, they knew it was critical to gather as much evidence as possible and figure out who they were dealing with.
Jules was the first to pipe up. "CO says shots were fired at 16:50 (1)."
"We'll need visitor and vehicle entry logs," Wordy informed the corporal, ignoring the fact that both Spike and Lou were hovering about as close to him as they could get away with.
"Corporal, which way?" Spike asked over Wordy's shoulder.
The corporal pointed to their left and continued to lead the way. Wordy glanced back as Jules and Sam went straight; they would interview the private who'd been shot and left for dead.
Sam hardly waited for his teammates to vanish before edging closer to Jules and hissing, "Jules, can we talk?"
Jules didn't even look at him. "Don't worry about it, Sam. I apologize."
The blond grimaced and tried to cut in. "No, Jules…"
"I didn't even think to ask if you were seeing somebody."
"That was Natalie," Sam finally managed to blurt out.
And still Jules wouldn't look at him. "She seems really nice."
Exasperated, Sam leaned in closer and emphasized, "My sister. Natalie?"
Jules' embarrassment fairly rolled off her as her stride faltered. "Right. Natalie."
Pleased he'd gotten past the first hurdle, Sam explained, "She showed up last night." It had been a total surprise to see her; his impression had been that as far as his family was concerned, he was dead to them. "She's gonna crash with me for a little while. Personal reasons." The blond opted not to add that he was rather hoping to introduce Natalie to their aunt; as a Squib-born like him, she already knew about the wizarding world.
His train of thought was cut off as Jules opined, "Maybe it's for the best."
"What do you mean?" Sam questioned, but he'd have to wait for an answer as Jules' attention turned to the group of men they'd just reached.
"Private Jordan, Jules Callaghan," Jules introduced. "This is Sam Braddock, Strategic Response Unit."
Spike focused on the computer monitor, letting Lou take over Wordy-watching duty. Granted, Wordy didn't look quite as bad as he had earlier, but Spike was in no mood to take chances and Lou felt likewise. Though Lou hadn't been there when Wordy went down – lucky him; Toth's torturous cross-examination had paled in the face of seeing a profusely sweating Wordy's eyes roll up, right before he went down like a rock. Next time, Spike was not letting Wordy anywhere near his injuries, no matter how 'minor', even if his teammate deliberately caused them.
A familiar car snagged Spike's eye and he drew attention to himself, calling, "There it is: civilian SUV exiting 16:54."
Wordy and Lou looked over the tech's shoulders and Wordy offered a slightly incredulous, "You just shot two people, you take the time to sign out?"
"If you don't want to attract attention," Spike countered as he zoomed in on the vehicle's license plate.
Lou studied the number and nodded. "Matches the plate number our witnesses gave us." Not that any of them had had any doubt, but it was one more piece of the puzzle slotted neatly into place.
Wordy busied himself checking the paperwork and swiftly announced, "Signed out 16:54, signed in 16:36. Guys, we got a name, Shane Devlin."
"Shane Devlin, got it," Jules acknowledged.
"I'll run the name," Spike chipped in, reaching to open up the case he'd carted into the military base."
"How's the hand?" Wordy asked as Spike started pulling equipment out.
Spike kept his voice nonchalant and his focus on his job. "It's awesome."
"But don't do that again," Lou murmured, just loud enough for his two coworkers to hear him.
"Yeah," Spike agreed without looking up from the case, "That."
Wordy grimaced. "I won't," he promised, arching a brow when he received matching skeptical looks. "Look, I didn't even do much and it still hurts if I move my head too fast. I think I learned my lesson."
"Good," Lou decided, not noticing when Wordy snuck a glance at his own hand.
Spike, for his part, did notice, but he was a bit wary of pushing Wordy too hard; he'd never tell, but at times, he'd honestly wondered if Wordy could lose his temper…not any more. Instead, the bomb tech turned his attention to digging up as much as he could about one Shane Devlin.
Once on the road again and headed towards Downsview Base, Greg allowed a faint growl, too soft for his comm to pick up. The more time that passed without getting Ed's shooter in custody, the more his latent gryphon traits surfaced, shrieking for vengeance rather than justice. Add that to Greg's very human desire for revenge and objectivity was getting harder and harder to hang onto.
Greg flexed his fingers around the steering wheel, breathing slowly and determinedly clinging to his training and years of negotiation experience. Negotiating himself down was new, but he wasn't about to let Ed's shooter escape justice for the sake of an extremely short-sighted and equally short-lived revenge.
When he was sure that he was reasonably back in control, he asked, "Donna, you find him?"
The response was not what he wanted to hear as Donna replied, "This address has nothing to do with the shooter."
"How's that?"
Sarcasm touched Donna's voice. "Unless he's crashing with a couple of Vietnamese senior citizens."
"Stolen license plates?" Though Greg kept his voice mild, he thumped his steering wheel in frustration.
"That's what I'm thinking."
"Could you check it out, please?"
"I'll check it," Donna agreed. "I'll get back to you."
As the Sergeant focused on the road and his immediate plans, he suppressed a groan. Donna's failure to capture the shooter meant his gryphon side was, once again, clamoring for blood. It was going to be a long hunt.
"How are you doing, Private?" Jules asked, inspecting the young soldier.
Private Jordan sported black hair in the usual military style crew cut, brown eyes and thick eyebrows; his injuries looked to be confined to his right upper arm and, though he had to be in pain, he was able to talk. In short, a young, earnest soldier who'd just been doing his job.
Hovering next to the injured private was a brown-haired army medic already suffering from a receding hairline; he, too, sported a military crew cut and a professional demeanor, though his focus stayed on his patient rather than turning towards Jules and Sam.
"I'm okay," Private Jordan told Jules.
From the side, Sam observed, "It looks like he got lucky."
"Yeah," the medic agreed, "The bullet went right through."
Anxiously, Jordan asked, "Where's Keefler? Is she all right?"
"We're gonna find her," Jules reassured the private. "But we need your help, okay? Can you tell us what happened?"
The private nodded. "Meg Keefler was showing me the ropes."
"What's your position here?" Sam inquired.
Jordan drew in a breath. "As of today, mortuary affairs specialist."
Oooh…quite the rough first day he was having. "The man who shot you?" Jules questioned.
"Shane Devlin," Jordan reported. "He was here to retrieve the personal effects of his brother Richard Devlin." The private paused, then added, "Corporal Devlin was killed in Afghanistan."
Private Jordan set down the large plastic locker on the table, right across from Shane Devlin as Meg offered her condolences to the grieving man. "I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Devlin."
"Okay," Mr. Devlin replied, his eyes on the locker; Jordan couldn't imagine how the man must feel, seeing what little was left of his brother's belongings, all locked up in one standard-sized military locker.
Mr. Devlin was a rather gaunt man, with haunted brown eyes that looked more than a bit red, thin, almost nonexistent eyebrows, a high forehead, and longish crew cut brown hair that stood up on the top of his head. It was clear that Mr. Devlin hadn't shaved recently and he had deep groves in his face, along with a slight cleft in his chin; Jordan chalked the groves and redness up to fresh grief as he started his inspection of Richard Devlin's locker.
"Your brother was a…" Meg continued as Jordan reached for the locker's latch.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?" Mr. Devlin demanded before Jordan could open the locker.
"Well, it's just a formality, sir," Private Jordan replied, confused by Mr. Devlin's hostility.
"No," Mr. Devlin snapped before demanding, "What's he doing?"
Jordan straightened, trying to calm the man down. "We usually, ah…we have to do a final inventory of the contents before we can release the locker."
"Okay, well, you can't just do that, okay? These are Richard's items. They're personal. Have some respect."
Though Jordan had no wish to prolong the man's grief, he still had a job to do. "Sir, I'm very sorry about your circumstances…"
"No! No!"
"…and I promise that your brother's personal effects will…"
"This is his stuff," Mr. Devlin protested loudly. "This is completely unacceptable!"
Meg finally stepped in, though not as Jordan had expected. "Jeffrey…" To the distraught man, she said, "Please excuse us," before pulling Jordan away. Jordan listened in mounting disbelief as his superior informed him, "Jeffrey, listen. This is an emotional day for any family member."
"I know, I get that," Jordan objected quietly, "I'm respecting that."
His disbelief grew as Meg urged, "Yes, but this guy's obviously deeply upset, so I think we should let this one go."
"I'm not cutting any corners," Jordan returned, his voice firm. "This is protocol, right?" He paused, but Meg didn't respond. "It's hard for him; it's hard for everyone else. We still gotta do our jobs." Without waiting for a further response, Jordan returned to Mr. Devlin and the locker. "Mr. Devlin, you're free to observe. You'll see that we completely respect your brother's privacy."
As Jordan undid the latches, Mr. Devlin's composure collapsed. "No. No. Richard gave his life. Okay? He gave his life!"
So had many other soldiers. "All right…" Jordan began, determined to explain the entire process to the distraught man.
"This is not okay!" Mr. Devlin screamed, pulling a gun and pointing it right at Jordan.
Before he could fire, Meg slammed into Jordan from the side, trying to push him out of the way. The gun went off twice and both soldiers fell to the ground. Before Jordan lost consciousness, he thought he saw Devlin hovering over Meg, a look of anguish on his face, but he blacked out too quickly to be sure.
"When I came to, I called for help," Private Jordan finished.
"No one responded to the gunshots?" Sam asked, a trifle incredulous. Military base or not, someone should've realized something was wrong.
"This is a military base," Jordan replied, "We hear gunshots all the time."
Sam quietly seethed; if they'd caught this guy here, then Ed wouldn't have been shot in the first place. The medic piped up with his own intel. "When we got here, Corporal Keefler was gone. So was the locker."
"She got in the way, last second," Jordan murmured.
"Did you get a chance to see what was in the locker?" Jules inquired.
"No."
Thinking out loud, Sam mused, "Maybe it was something the brother didn't want you to see."
"You can get him out of school and ask him," Spike cut in as he, Lou, and Wordy approached from behind.
Jules and Sam turned, automatically spreading out to let their teammates join them. "What do you mean?" Jules asked.
"The late Richard Devlin does have a brother named Shane," Spike started.
"He's eleven years old," Lou finished.
"What?" Surely she'd misheard.
Wordy's expression was grim. "Our guy's an imposter."
Sam summed up their findings. "And he went to a heck of a lot of trouble to get his hands on that locker."
[1] Jules is referring to a 24 hour clock instead of a 12 hour clock. A 12 hour clock starts over at noon and incorporates AM and PM while a 24 hour clock starts over at midnight, flipping from 23:59:59 to 0:00:00.