The Reckoning - BLACKBIRD book 3

8. the charade

**picture: One Schroeder Plaza, Boston PD HQ

Gillian went back to her room, leaving Connor in charge of getting the house ready to receive the team, and most important of all: not answering the phone. She felt like a sack of rocks, and soon fell in a deep, dreamless sleep.

And while she slept, King Gillian was called to an urgent meeting with the Commissioner. He was tempted to send them all to hell, but he knew better. So he instructed Francine to cancel any appointment he might have and drove across downtown in rush hour, from the Historic District to One Schroeder Plaza. He invested the delay caused by the jammed traffic to get some intel about who would be attending the meeting, and give some emergency instructions to his contacts among the Commissioner's staff.

As soon as he entered the meeting room, he confirmed they hadn't call him exactly to congratulate him. The Mayor and the Commissioner waited for him with only a few staffers, those they trusted enough to witness the conversation. The Mayor looked positively pissed off, but it was the Commissioner who spoke, with a controlled, calm voice.

"Superintendent Gillian, we've just been notified about the resignation of the whole SCU. Is that correct?"

King Gillian knew he had to be careful, because at that moment, calling his situation delicate was a major understatement. He nodded with a concerned frown. "That's what I've been informed too, sir. I still didn't have the time to actually confirm it."

The Mayor threw the seven resignation letters on the table before him. "This doesn't look like needing any further confirmation, Gillian," he snarled. "But you better do something about it. Go talk to your daughter and convince her to take it back. If she does, the others will follow. We cannot have the entire unit resigning after what happened yesterday. So you better be as convincing with her as you were with me yesterday, when you called me from the site."

King Gillian noticed the sarcastic smirks among some of the men. Of course they were happy, damned vultures, already sharpening their beaks.

"I will do my best, sir."

"Well, I hope your best turns out better than your yesterday's best!" The Mayor was getting angrier by the minute, and he didn't have any intention to refrain himself. "We were hardly capable of saving some face after what you did! Jesus Christ! You ordered to shoot down civilians on national television! What the hell were you thinking!? Your own daughter was there! Thank God the SCU and the FBI moved behind your back! Else we would be in deep shit right now!"

King Gillian held the man's glare in silence, his lips a tight line, not a hint of regret on his face. He waited for the Mayor to finish his heated rant, then he waited a few more seconds.

"I did what needed to be done in order to put an end to the situation," he said. "That man had already murdered six people in two days. He was a dangerous killer out of control and he had to be stopped at any cost."

"He didn't kill anyone during the whole crisis," said one of the Mayor's men. "Your daughter and the feds were handling him just fine. That is, until you took over."

King Gillian was about to reply when he met the Commissioner's glance and saw his discreet negative sign. So he breathed in, set his jaw and turned to face the Mayor again, ignoring the comment as to dismiss it.

"Talk to her, Gillian. I don't care your schedule. Right now you have only one task: convince her to come back to the force with her team."

After a respectful nod, King Gillian asked, "And what if they wouldn't accept, sir? I've heard the FBI has already contacted them, intending to recruit them." He hadn't heard anything, but it was obvious Russell wouldn't miss the chance to get his friend the job.

"If the SCU disappears right after what happened, we're all gonna be in trouble," said the Commissioner.

"The SCU, sir? Or the agents that conformed the unit until today?" asked King Gillian. "The SCU doesn't need to disappear because of their resignation."

That was the cue for his man to step in, and his man did, clearing his throat to get their attention.

"The only visible face the public knows a little from the SCU is Lieutenant Gillian," he said, addressing the Commissioner. "Nobody would recognize the other agents in the unit. We can call on the next agents from the original eval list to take their places, and we could have the SCU complete and operating within three days tops."

The Mayor didn't even look at the man, staring straight into King Gillian's eyes. "Which means you already know there's no way your daughter would accept coming back to the force."

"Having the SCU agents replaced doesn't mean the unit will keep giving such positive results as it used to," argued a man from the other end of the table. "We all know your daughter's particular way of thinking was key to the unit's success."

And there goes the best example of political irony, thought King Gillian. The same men who'd opposed his project to form the unit, those who'd torn out their hairs at the idea of his daughter leading it when she'd turned out to have the best overall score from over a thousand candidates—those same jerks now argued that there couldn't be a SCU without his daughter

"One step at a time," replied King Gillian's man. "Let's handle this problem first. The new agents will learn to do their jobs, just like the resigning agents did: in time."

The Mayor moved his glare from King Gillian to the Commissioner, who nodded, agreeing with the idea. He snorted, shaking his head, and faced King Gillian again.

"Talk to her anyway."

King Gillian lowered his head an inch, pretending to accept the errand.