Alfred Pennyworth stood at his desk for a moment as he took a sip of tea from the china cup in his right hand while he used the remote control in his left hand to turn on the television. His timing was almost perfect, and as the image came completely to life the familiar countdown greeted him with six seconds to spare.
This is BBC News with the latest headlines. Fighting in Syria intensified overnight as unidentified forces armed with heavy weapons and equipped with advanced powered assault armor conducted ground operations in and around the city of Raqqa. Sources on the ground report that the group of ten to twelve men spent approximately four hours in the ruined city and its suburbs, striking what appeared to be pre-selected targets. One source reports observing the unidentified assault force loading body bags onto their heavy lift vehicle just before departing.
No one has taken credit for the raid, and Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, and the United States have all categorically denied any involvement in the operation. Spokespersons for Stark Industries, Queen Consolidated, Hammer Industries, The Rand Corporation, and Lexcorp also deny knowledge of, or involvement in, the clandestine operation, as have sources inside current and former extra-judicial organizations.
Alfred enjoyed listening to the news organizations as they attempted to label groups like The Justice League or the Avengers. He was not certain, though he thought it likely, that he preferred the BBC's extra-judicial organization to CNN's superhero group because it spoke to the understated nature of his British heart.
He wasn't surprised that no one wanted to take credit for the op. Alfred wouldn't put it past MI6, the CIA, or MOSSAD to run an op like that and deny it later. But no one in any of the several extra judicial organizations that Alfred knew of needed to conduct an operation wearing powered assault armor, and they never needed to take credit because it was clear to anybody with eyes who it was that had done it.
But the industrial groups...Alfred thought that they were the most likely suspects in this instance, and Alfred knew quite well that there were too many of them to count, or keep tabs on. He was just happy that Wayne Industries hadn't been contacted for comment. Not that their conscious wasn't clear, it's just that they didn't like publicity of any kind. It was easier to work in the shadows when the spotlight was pointed somewhere else.
Still, to come on the program, emergency workers are using extreme care as they search the site of the recent explosion in San Diego, California. Authorities have evacuated and quarantined everyone within a one-mile radius of the blast, and are allowing only FEMA personnel inside the exclusion zone. Palmer Clark, Deputy Administrator for the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, told reporters that they are screening everyone evacuated from the exclusion zone for exposure to asbestos and polychlorinated biphenyl, also known as PCB.
Alfred rolled his eyes at the ridiculous cover story that FEMA had come up with, but it was better than the truth, and it wouldn't send everyone in California into a panic. He took another sip of his cooling tea, looked at the cell phone on his desk, and wondered if it was too early to call Julia.
... on the ground report that the group of ten to twelve men spent approximately four hours in the ruined city and its suburbs, striking what appeared to be pre-selected targets... the television on the wall behind Kyle was reciting as he read Trish's report of the raid on NOHO Auto Repair.
It was men and women, dumb ass, Kyle thought to himself as James Reynolds continued to report on the Nighthawk Heavy Wet Team's operation in Syria. He couldn't really hold it against anyone; men and women looked exactly the same when encased in plasteel and carbon-reinforced ceramic titanium.
Kyle hadn't realized that his team had been observed loading Maksim Orlov's body, and the body of his second in command, onto their A/V 45 Aethonan Heavy Lift Vehicle just before it dusted off, thirteen souls, and two corpses, safely aboard. Whoever it was had either been energy dark, or outside the scanning radius of the team's equipment. In any case, it didn't matter. There was nothing that could ever lead back to Nighthawk Security Services, or Richmond Enterprises, and they held onto Orlov's remains only as long as needed to positively identify him. The rest of The Orlov Group, those that were discovered in and around Raqqa, were left where they had fallen, many in such a condition that identification would be difficult. Give them a couple days lying under the July Middle Eastern sun and they would be impossible to identify. No one would know who had targeted the Orlov Group or why, or what became of Maksim Orlov. He would be just another missing person, swallowed up by the Syrian desert.
And that was just fine with Kyle.
From NPR News, I'm Leila Fadel.
Rita was mentally prodding that part of her mind that had switched on in Russia as she left the parking lot of the gym and began her drive to work, but only to confirm what she already knew.
Yup, still on.
Her attention had only just returned to the cabin of her 2021 Camry XSE Hybrid when the sound from her radio got her full attention.
... region of Raqqa as unidentified forces, armed with heavy weapons and advanced armor, spent several hours...
"Fuck," Rita said out loud as her thumb began to pull up Connie's phone number on the car's infotainment system before she realized that this was one of those things that she couldn't discuss with Connie. She couldn't discuss it with anyone except Trish, and she was not sure she wanted to know any more than she already did.
...has taken credit for the operation, and all governments currently engaged in hostilities in Syria have denied responsibility...
"Well, you should have asked me, Leila, I'd have told you who it was and what they were doing," Rita said to the disembodied voice coming from the twelve speakers surrounding her, "it was the Nighthawk Heavy Wet Team, and they were making dog food."
But I sure as shit wouldn't feed Maksim Orlov to any dog I liked.
"What'd you do?" Fred Johnson asked from the universe that was completely encompassed by Beth and Julia's flat-screen television.
"There's a button, I pushed it," Holden replied.
"Jesus Christ! That's really how you go through life isn't it?"
"You'd think Fred Johnson would know Holden by now," Julia said.
"Fred Johnson doesn't understand childish innocence," Beth answered, "probably never has. He's one of those people who's already fifty years old when he's born."
Both of them had agreed that they would stay away from any and all sources of information or current events. No news, not from television, radio, or the internet. If they felt like politics they would watch The West Wing. If they felt like action, well... neither one of them felt like that, not after the two weeks they had just lived through. They had settled on The Expanse, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, and Better than Us (Beth agreed to leave the subtitles on for Julia) for today's viewing pleasure. Julia had texted Terry and told him that she and Beth had caught a stomach bug, and he seemed actively to avoid hearing any details about leaking fluids, which was just what the two women had wanted. She would show up in his life again in a couple of days, completely recovered; assuming that he continued to wait.
When Julia's phone vibrated she knew it could only be one person, because only her father's cell phone number could get all the way through Julia's Do Not Disturb settings.
Have you seen this? he asked her with a link to a BBC article.
news blackout here. TOTAL, Julia replied with her thumbs.
sorry. forgot. nothing important.
we're running information dark all day. We have the party tonight.
Love you.
I love you too Daddy.
"What was all that typing," Beth asked.
"Just my Dad saying hi."
"Mission accomplished," Trish said before she placed her phone back onto the table in Luke's kitchen, Jessica's face completely filling the small screen, "positive ID."
"Why'd they take the other guy?" Jessica asked.
"I guess they look a lot alike, and they wanted to be sure. They matched the tattoos that Beth said Orlov had on his back and arms. It's him. Was him."
"Good fucking riddance."
"You are coming tonight, right?"
"Am I gonna be a dog napkin tonight?"
"Just put your knee up for protection. He'll understand what that means. But you'll hurt his feelings."
"I'll pay for his fucking therapy. Where are we going to end up this time?"
"Someplace with not too much of a time difference. That's all I know. Rita said he wants it to be a surprise."
"What do you make of her?" Jessica asked after a moment of silent coffee drinking.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what do you make of her? Of them? The fucking odd couple. She seems to be a normal person, or at least she was until she almost brought that fucking house down on us. But him...he's..."
"Different," Trish said as she nodded her head, her mind going back to the man that Trish had to admit she would be all over if he wasn't clearly already taken.
"Wow. You certainly have a way with word."
"You know she's fifty-fucking-seven years old?" Trish asked as her mind shifted gears.
"She is not." Jess said adamantly after a few seconds of stunned silence, "no fucking way."
"She is. Remember what Aric said about his mutt, about him aging. A day here and there, but not that many? I'm pretty sure that's her too."
Jessica's mouth hung open as her eyes focused on nothing before returning to the small screen in front of her, and the face of her best friend.
"Yeah," Trish said, "That's what I thought too."
"It's on the news. They got him. It's over," Sharon said to Annelie as they drove south on the Stevenson Expressway towards Darien, and their filming location inside the perimeter of Argonne National Laboratory. It was a perfect location, a closed site with its own security; overkill now that Ekaterina was in custody and Orlov was dead, but it still made everyone breathe just a little easier.
Annelie's reaction was simply to nod her head as she glanced at the woman next to her.
Sharon hadn't needed to read the news to know how the mission had gone. She, Simon, and Michael had all received the same coded text on their encrypted phones.
Capone-KIA-confirmed
Simon could get them the details through back channels if they wanted them, but that would be much later. It would be up to Kyle whether any of the particulars were shared with Annelie, up to him if he offered, and up to her if she accepted. But Maksim Orlov was dead, as was his entire organization in Syria which, if Kyle's information was accurate, was his entire organization. Though not quite. The NYPD had six of his guys, and the CPD had the two from the pier, one more that they took from a safe house in Willowbrook, and one probably still stuck in the silty bottom of Lake Michigan.
"We assume that any agents of his still in the field will be trying to check in and, not getting a reply, will switch to standby mode. But we're not taking any chances."
"You think they'll keep trying," Annelie said flatly.
"No," Sharon answered, "They'll go to ground and wait for 72 hours, something like that, and then when they still can't get a reply they'll run for it. But we stay with you until we get a recall order of our own. And we won't leave you until you have another security team in place."
"Another team, but not you. Not Sara. And not Trish."
"You won't need us anymore. We specialize in a particular type of security work. And unless you have another insane ex-girlfriend you're not telling us about you'll do just fine without us."
"But I'm used to all of you. I like all of you."
"I know. Trust me, it's just as hard for us to say goodbye as it is for you."
I doubt that, Annelie thought to herself, you'll still have each other. I'll be alone again. And I don't do well when I'm alone.
"Hi, I'm here to see Captain Ortiz," said the very attractive man wearing tan pants and a white linen shirt.
Merciful Lord, for what I am about to receive, I am truly grateful, John Irvin thought as he looked up at the gorgeous man from where he sat at his desk.
"You're John, right?" the man asked, "John Irvin? You won't remember me, but we met many years ago. I'm a friend of Rita's, of Captain Ortiz's. We met at her bash when she made first grade."
"I am so sorry, of course I remember you. How have you been? It's been ages."
"I've been good. You look good. The grey in your hair makes you look like a movie star from the fifties."
Jesus, if he compliments me on how I look one more time I'm going to swallow my tongue.
"Did you come to talk to John, or to talk to me?" Rita asked as she walked up to the catching area of the 15th squad room.
"Can't I do both?"
"No. I have...John, what do I have?"
"Chief of D's, and then 1PP and the Commissioner."
"It was good seeing you again," Aric said to John.
"For me as well," John replied before turning back to his desk to compose a text message to his sister.
Abby and Sax were standing at Sax's desk talking quietly and sending regular glances through the window of Rita's office. Ray and Joe were doing likewise from the other side of the squad; one of them would occasionally wander over to exchange a word with the two women before returning to share whatever it was they had learned. Michael Woodruff was out on a call with his two greenhorns in tow. The summer months were peak season for domestic disturbances, a fact that both Sheila Gideon and Raul Espinoza knew quite well from their years in uniform. Normally those calls would not require the intervention of her squad, but this one had ended with the husband dead, the point of a carving knife sticking out the front of his neck while the handle stuck out the back. The battered and bruised wife had been seated at the kitchen table (as her recently deceased husband also was, the point of the knife lodged into the tabletop, keeping his head an inch or so off of the surface) when the uniforms arrived, but had relocated to the living room by the time the detectives made an appearance. Rita didn't know any of this, of course, she had her mind on other things at the moment.
"How are you?" Aric asked her once they were behind the closed door of her office.
Rita kept her eyes focused on the assorted items that made up the collected mess on her desk and tried to sound as nonchalant as possible. "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"
Aric wasn't buying it, and he made no attempt to hide it. "You know why I'm asking."
"Like I said, I'm fine," Rita replied before her eyes came up off of her desk and onto the man standing in front of it.
Aric was looking directly at her, not quite the intense gaze he gave to men or women when he was about to rock their entire existence, not like the man on the roof; though not all that far from it either. But his voice remained soft, and he didn't try to connect with her, mentally or physically. It was totally on her if she wanted to share anything in that way, and right now she didn't. But she didn't need to. Aric could feel it radiating off of her, his own body and mind already harmonizing with hers, both of them in sync with the heartbeat of the universe.
"I can tell, you know."
Rita's voice remained soft, and her heart rate stayed steady. Any warmth or calmness she felt in that moment as she looked into those beautiful eyes she was supplying herself. She was no stranger to what she and Aric were sharing, but it dawned on her that this was the first time that it wasn't just him sharing it with her, she was an equal partner in it now as she shared it with him in return.
"I know you can."
"It's not going to go away this time. No more lines that shouldn't be crossed. No more lines of any kind. No boundaries. No borders."
"I know that too. Undiscovered country, isn't that what you called it?"
"Yes. We can talk about it later when we have more time. I'll show you a different set of exercises."
Rita still remembered the early days, when she had stumbled over her thoughts, or been terrified that Aric would see more of her than she intended, fly away screaming, and want nothing more to do with her. And the endless exercises keeping her distance from that glowing white line, that was more wall than line; a white curtain that was the boundary between here and there, safe and not safe; that wall of light that she had shattered with her foot in a mansion outside Moscow.
"Not like the old ones?"
"No. You won't need me for these, not after I show them to you."
you won't have to see me or feel me. You'll still be free.
She felt the heartache leak through, and she knew he hadn't meant to do it. His emotions were always too close to the surface. He was immensely powerful, but he was also quite fragile. It was why he found life so hard; his life, his gifts, and his guilt at not being what people wanted him to be.
She was going to have to learn to deal with that as well. But twenty-one years on the streets of New York City had armored her heart and her emotions, so in that respect she had a leg up on Aric, who had started on this road when he was very young and very unprepared.
"Will I have to regen?"
"Eventually. The more energy you use, the more it will saturate you, until eventually yes, you'll have to burn off the excess and recycle what's left. But it's not bad unless you wait too long. It's like meditating before and after yoga. It's not a bad way to start and end your day. But don't worry, we have plenty of time to get ready for that."
"This is my side of the fence..." Rita started.
"...that is your side of the fence," Aric finished.
"Guess we're both on the same side of the fence now."
Aric smiled and took her hand finally.
"Plenty of space to go around on our side of the fence."
The rhythmic clicking of large nails on the vinyl flooring of the squad room alerted Rita and Aric that Tyler had gotten tired of waiting downstairs and had taken matters into his own paws.