Chapter Five: That's Classified, Ma'am

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'

Author note: I hope you all enjoyed today's installment. On a RL note, 2 out of 3 weekly examinations done thus far. One, I did not do well on, but I don't think anyone else did a shimmering job, either... The second, I think I did all right on. Interview and a presentation today, so, please pray for that to go well.

Assuming I survive...we will start working with the technology we're ultimately going to use for the rest of training and, hopefully, our careers. That starts either today or tomorrow, depending on how things go.

So...prayer needs:
1. Obviously, that I survive today and continue on with training.
2. Not for me, but I have a coworker who's pushing himself to the utter limit. It's very, very obvious and my concerns, which started last week, are only growing. Please pray that he would stop pushing himself so hard that he seems to be making himself sick.
3. Pray that we would not have any major assignments other than studying to work on this weekend, because my parents are coming to visit and I haven't seen them since I started training.

Also, if anyone knows of a good steak place near Reston, Virginia, I am open for suggestions (and you'll be saving me some time). Not Outback...my Mom and I went there and I wasn't impressed.

I shall 'see' you all Friday...and if I survive this week, I will post a Side Story this coming weekend.

Happy Reading,

sunstarunicorn