Power Play

Savich said, “They could be sure whatever they wrote in the men’s room would get all over the workplace, and they didn’t need to risk getting close to your work area to deliver the message. I assume everyone in the sports section knows all about your mother’s troubles?”

“I think everyone in the known world knows about them.”

“Nah,” Davis said. “Everyone in the known world knows about your report on Tebow. Your mom’s small potatoes in comparison.” In the next moment, he was dead serious. “I don’t like this. The feel of those words, it isn’t good.”

Perry said, “You’re right about that. That message really creeps me out.”

Savich said, “I’ll send some agents over there to see if we can lift any fingerprints, ask the staff if they saw anything unusual.”

Wonderful. Bennett’s going to love this. “Let me give my boss a heads-up, okay, so he doesn’t freak?”

She and Savich made their calls together. Bennett had already heard about the message above the urinal in the men’s room. He didn’t blow a fit when she told him the FBI were on their way to 15th Street NW to the Post building, he remained quiet, and that worried her maybe more.

Savich rose. “Perry, I’d wanted to ask you more follow-up questions, but that can wait. This graffiti at the Post is more important now. Go back to work and check in with the FBI agents there, all right?”

Savich, Sherlock, and Davis sat in the CAU conference room, waiting. Savich looked down at his Mickey Mouse watch. “Nicholas Drummond should be here any minute now—at least, he’d better be, since his former boss, Superintendent Hamish Penderley of Scotland Yard, is calling in about nine minutes.” He added to Davis, “Drummond’s an agent-in-training at Quantico. As luck would have it, his family and the McCallums go way back, according to Penderley, and that’s one of the reasons he believes Nicholas could assist us.”

Sherlock said, “Nicholas is very punctual, he should be here in about—”

Both Sherlock and Savich grinned when they saw a big man striding through the unit, wearing a blue shirt and khakis—the Academy uniform—a bomber jacket, and boots, his focus entirely on Savich through the glass in the conference room. Davis thought the guy looked like a pirate: cocky walk, swarthy coloring, and eyes as dark as Savich’s. He knew to his gut there was a brawler lurking beneath that smooth exterior. Hmmm. And the man waltzed into the conference room, all smiles, handshakes, and a big hug for Sherlock. Savich said to Davis, “This is Nicholas Drummond, the first Brit in the FBI. Nicholas, this is Agent Davis Sullivan.”

The two men shook hands. Davis said, “But if you’re English, then how—”

Sherlock said, “His mother is American.”

Savich studied him for a moment. “You’re still walking so I guess they’re easing off in the training.”

Nicholas rubbed his back. “Well, just barely.”

Savich nodded to a chair. “Sit down, Nicholas.”

Nicholas sat next to Sherlock. “Do you know they’re still talking at Quantico about your taking Savich down in that Hogan’s Alley exercise when you were at the Academy?”

Sherlock grinned over her shoulder at Dillon. “My best memory is the rip I left in his trousers showing off his blue boxer shorts.”

Savich said, “Yeah, well, I remember you ending up flat on your back in Mrs. Shaw’s petunias.”

“We all have our own special memories.” She patted Nicholas’s arm. “How’s it going at Quantico?”

“No worries. Lots of good people. Mrs. Shaw tells us all she’s been at Quantico since Hogan’s Alley was built and everyone is inclined to believe her.”

Davis said, “I know who you are—you brought back the Koh-i-Noor diamond, didn’t you?”

Nicholas nodded. “Special Agent Mike Caine of the New York Field Office was front and center, as were Savich and Sherlock here. Actually, lots of folks were involved in the recovery of the diamond.”

He spoke in a cool, upper-class Brit accent that never failed to charm Sherlock. She felt she could wallow in those lovely sounds and wrap herself in them, like a big warm spa robe.

Nicholas turned to Davis, a man his own age; he read the powerful intelligence in his eyes. “Are you the Agent Sullivan I have heard about?”

Davis looked wary. “No, not me. Maybe.”

“They say you slipped into the martial arts instructor’s bedroom and put a tranquilized rooster under his bed. And when the rooster woke up and sang out at dawn, he nearly had a heart attack—the instructor, not the rooster. You’re that Sullivan, right?”