Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

John McClee had slept like a baby, unlike the usual, when he arrived at work. Nonetheless, all the sleep in the world would not suffice for his brain to make sense of what he was seeing right now.

It happened, sometimes. Some cases were simply too sick, or too illogical, for him to understand what had possibly happened at first sight. Sometimes, there was simply something wrong, like he was missing some important, huge piece of the puzzle. And that what he was convinced of right now.

Let's just say that when his boss had called and said there was a case, John hadn't expected that kind of case. And when his boss had told him where exactly he was supposed to go, John had certainly not expected to see this. Even if his boss had been clear on the facts that 1) it was big, 2) it was shocking, 3) he'd need to see it to believe, because even now, the boss couldn't believe it either. And he was at the scene.

Sure, John had found it strange that he'd have to go there, to work on a case, considering it wasn't in his boss' jurisdiction, far from it. He had wondered why no one there could just go and handle the case themselves, after all, it was as much their role than it was his.

Now that he saw what he had come to see, John understood better why they had to take care of the case. Considering, you know, that all the detectives of the actual precinct on which depended the case were dead, in their own precinct.

Well, not all of them, but John could say for sure there were at least three dead detectives amongst the various dead police officers on the floor. And considering no one had managed to reach the other detectives of the precinct, or even the captain in charge, it was more than probable that they were dead too, just, somewhere else.

John McClee, detective in Portland since 2007, had to refrain from throwing up as he looked at the crime scene before his eyes.

“How many dead?”

“For all we know, eleven. From normal cops to detectives. Given the... hugeness of this slaughter, we called for reinforcements, and help from the higher ups. They shouldn't be long, but until then, I'll ask you to look into it, alright?”

John winced, but he supposed the Portland police was a bit short-handed, now.

“And that's not all.”

He turned, disbelieving, to stare at his boss.

“That's not all?”

“There are two dead cops at the Central Precinct, too, but they are from here. Apparently they were about to transfer a detective from there to here.”

“Transfer?”

The boss' eyes looked glazed, as if he didn't even want to think upon the meaning of what he was going to say. John's stomach clenched, already waiting for the worst.

Even if he wasn't sure where stood the “worst” in this story. It seemed to have gone beyond his imagination, somehow.

“Yeah, transfer. With cuffs on his hands.”

There was a silence, and John tried not to look too closely as the forensic team moved the bodies away. It didn't work well, and he could say there had been some gruesome wounds at work here, even if most were simple gunshots. Like, one of the shooters had gone bullseyes with every shots.

Yeah, because there had to have been more than one perpretator. No one could single-handedly make this much damage to a group of armed cops, John liked to believe.

“Why?”

“Apparently, Nick Burkhardt and the new mayor ended up throwing each other around in Renard's former office yesterday. They seemed pretty pissed off, from what I know.”

“And they had to transfer him to this precinct for this?”

It certainly wasn't normal.

The boss sighed, and pointed at a fallen chair in the middle of the room. Actually... What was it doing here?

“McClee, what do you think this chair is doing here, just in the middle of our dead cops?”

“I don't kn... Wait, why does it look like the chair where someone is tied up and beaten up by corrupt police officers in a historical drama?”

“Because that's probably what happened. I have no idea why, but Burkhardt's precinct was almost empty when these guys came to take him, and I'm pretty sure he was the one sitting on that chair. Until he wasn't anymore, and half of this precinct laid dead on the floor. If this was a spy story, I'd say his team came to get him, after a failed attempt at the Central Precinct. Hence the dead cops. There's something terribly fishy about this situation, you know? More so as we know Renard made tremendous changes to the affectations to this precinct as soon as he became mayor.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Agreed.”

A cop in uniform came by at this moment, and waited with a frown on his face for the two to let him talk.

“Who ever did this, they left by the back door. I've found some blood on a broken shard of glass. Someone was definitely gravely injured. But if they don't die of it, they can be sure we'll get them into jail...”

The boss looked sternly at the cop, who suddenly wondered if he had said too much. But it wasn't the first time he had to deal with the death of one of his colleagues, and usually everyone was pretty interested in revenge. After all, they couldn't just let the criminals get away with doing one of them in, right?

“Be careful with your words, Jenkins. There's a high possibility the murderer is a Portland detective, considering what we know, and I'm not yet certain he was the one who started it all.”

It took some time for the cop to even begin to comprehend the implications. He just left, blinking wildly. Who was he supposed to defend, to avenge, if both parties were the police, and they had no idea who was the most guilty of the two?

The boss' cellphone ringed, and he walked away. John just kind of wandered amongst the blood stains, a bit shocked at... well, everything.

Now that he was taking a closer look, yeah, there were ropes under the fallen chair. As if someone had been tied up and beaten up. Almost as if it was becoming a possibility, that a whole precinct would turn onto a detective from another precinct and do...

What, exactly?

Or, a more likely question, why?

He ended up staring blankly at the bloodied floor next to a forensic girl.

The young woman looked up from her work, and arched one eyebrow at him.

John cleared his throat, awkward. He had no idea what to ask, because this was all too weird for him. So he settled on a basic question.

“Anything you can tell me?”

The woman's second eyebrow shot up instantly, but she didn't comment on his awkwardness.

“Too many, actually, and none really interesting. But there certainly aren't only gunshot wounds, because I'm pretty sure the guy who landed here and made this blood pool was taken out by a wolf. However in hell it happened, inside and here. And I think Tom found DNA samples on the chair over there. Also, this is a mess, but I think you had that covered.”

No, exactly not. John's problem was that he had nothing covered, like, at all. This was so much of a mess he couldn't even grasp it had actually become his to untangle.

But before he could answer anything, or, say, start pulling at his hair in desperation, his boss came back from his phone call, a worse look on his face than before. John hadn't even known, until then, that it was possible to frown this much.

“McClee, I've got another crime scene for you. It's in a remote area, but with all the gunshots in the middle of the night, someone ended up hearing something, apparently. I think we've found the remaining guys from this precinct.”

“Dead?”

“Utterly. And there's another man with them, a man we know nothing of. Dead too. Lots of blade wounds, and gun wounds. And they went in that place with kevlar and submachine guns and everything, too. Only the rocket is missing, truly, and they still managed to die.”

John didn't bother asking how someone could be less than utterly dead.

“Burkhardt?”

“Not there.”

“Well, I guess I'm on my way.”

When John arrived at the right place, he was a bit surprised to see how much of a remote area it was, in fact. The guys who had given him the adress had said it was someone's place, like, a home. He hadn't imagined an industrial area.

Two cops in uniform were waiting for him outside. Mark waved at him. He looked a bit green.

“Hi, John. It's a mess in there, I'm warning you.”

“Can't be worse than where I come from.”

Mark blinked, not having heard of the North Precinct's slaughter.

“How many dead?”

“Eleven.”

“Then we still beat you. We have fourteen dead cops, and another unknown guy in there. So, fifteen.”

John didn't believe it until he got upstairs, at the actual crime scene.

Sure, there were a lot of bodies, and it was worse than at the precinct, because the room was smaller. From here he could already see a battle axe, several glocks, a sword, three submachine guns and a dagger. Why the occupant of the place had had a battle axe ready for combat in here, he'd probably never know. Nor was he certain he actually wanted to know.

“Any idea who lived here, before these guys went commando on the place? Because it's certainly not suit-guy's place. It doesn't look like his kind of place.”

“Nah, not officially. We checked, the name is false. And there's a craddle in the back room.”

John's stomach clenched. Again. If he could, maybe he'd just let it like that, to save him the false relief of thinking that maybe it'd be all for the day.

“A baby?”

“An empty craddle. Like, for a few days.”

John stared at Mark long enough that the cop felt the need to justify himself.

“What? I have a kid, too. Anyway, I said we don't officially know the owner's name, but I found some stuff with the name Nick Burkhardt on it.”

Mark waited patiently as John cursed loudly for one good, long minute.

“Just a question: is it the Burkhardt I'm thinking about?”

It made John pause. The detective turned slowly to look at his friend, as if he was seeing him for the first time.

“Detective at the Central Precinct, yeah. You know him?”

Mark shrugged, but it was obvious he wasn't feeling as calm as he pretended. As if, all of a sudden, the two slaughters made more sense, even if it didn't make sense. As if it wasn't such a surprise that Nick Burkhardt could deal with this many opponents if needed, hell, as if he might very well be the only one who could possibly do it. Even if Mark couldn't understand why the detective would do such a thing, or why half a precinct would come for him at his own home. A home under a false name, moreover.

Wait, were those armored shutters? And why did the guy feel the need to install such a security system? Oh, right, for the same reason the place was bought under a false name, obviously.

Whatever that reason was.

Maybe Burkhardt had been waiting for something like that to happen. If anything, the man had known how to deal with the geared-up police officers, despite the obvious difference in numbers.

What kind of person does suspect the police might assault their house in the first place, if not a criminal? Certainly not a detective of the Portland Police Department.

John had gotten past the “weird” tag so long ago he didn't even remember what it looked like, it seemed.

Oh well.

He turned his attention back to Mark.

“I know of him, and I saw him once or twice.”

“What do you know?”

Mark hesitated a moment, not sure if talking was the thing to do, because what he was going to say could very well be taken badly. John McClee wasn't the kind of man to take it badly, but given the circumstances...

Then again, why were there fourteen cadavers of cops in Burkhardt's home? A place under a false name, at that?

“People talk, John. And Nick Burkhardt has a... reputation, let's say.”

“A reputation?”

“He gets all the weird, creepy cases, and he solves them all. Ripped throat, but not an animal attack. A girl who aged sixty years in a few hours, and died of it. A thief who tore off a man's arm, leaving him to die in his house. All those cases that'd make you believe in monsters. I saw him go against guys twice his size, and still knock them out easily. Once, he had to stop a murderer, and he threw a knife in his leg because he had no ammo left. There are so many stories, I don't even know which ones are true and which aren't. And that's ony the normal stuff.”

“You call this 'normal'.”

At this point, it wasn't even a question. John was so done with the impossible happening, he suspected he'd only take it all in a stride.

Mark wasn't finished, though.

“For him, yeah. It's nothing personal, you see, so it's normal, because his personal stuff is different. Like, a whole new level. They say his parents were murdered and beheaded in their car when he was a kid, and four years ago Burkhardt killed a scythe-wielding serial killer who was after his aunt. After that a few others tried to murder her, and one finally managed to do it. As if she had had a bounty on her head or something. Then there's his ex's coma and subsequent memory loss. After that there's the slaughter on a ship: two FBI agents came in, got killed, and no one knows who killed the killer, but Burkhardt's number was the last one to be called, he conveniently forgot his gun home, and he was taken by the Bureau for a few hours. And you remember the Zombie Fiesta two years ago? He went to the containers, but no one saw him when we arrived, and the day after that he was white like a cadaver, beaten up, but present to work. He spent more time in Renard's office, from what I've been told, than anyone else; as if they were in the know for some grand secret.”

Mark didn't look like he had more to tell, but John still interrupted him fast.

“Wait, Burkhardt was chummy with the captain Renard?”

“More so than the others, yeah. They've been seen working together on some sensitive cases, too.”

So why had they started boxing each other the day before? How had Burkhardt ended up in detention when he was seemingly Renard's ally? Unless the mayor wanted to get rid of the only other cop who knew whatever it was they were hiding... supposing they were hiding something... which was only a guess... a wild guess...

After a moment of silence, Mark waved his hand before the detective's face to get his attention.

“You don't think they're corrupt or something, do you?”

“Erm... I hadn't really gotten there yet, but now that you're saying it...”

Mark palled.

“I don't think they are. Or, at least, not Burkhardt. I don't really know enough about Renard, beside the fact that he can be downright scary when he wants, but the detective? He's dangerous, yeah, but not that way, more like he could kill anyone, but he won't unless you take the decision away from him. He never seemed like the type to do something bad for his only profit.”

John didn't say anything at that at first, only looking around the slaughter in the room. Oh God, did that guy get stabbed in the eye with a blade?

“The thing is, Mark, it certainly looks the other way around. And not everyone becomes dirty for themselves. The thing being, once you've gone down once, you don't get to go up again. At best you don't fall lower.”

But even that, it was a rare occurrence. Most dirty cops didn't get to keep their uniforms pristine even where it hadn't been dirtied at first.

Was it what had happened? Had Burkhardt seen something he wasn't meant to, had he kept the secret for a reason or another, and had Renard decided he wasn't worth the trouble anymore? And if it wasn't Renard, then who was it, who had started all this?

But even as he considered this theory, the detective knew it couldn't work like that. After all, there was still the dead entire precinct in two places, one where John was certain they'd find Burkhardt's DNA on ropes, and the other that was the detective's secret house. How had they been dragged into this? Why had Nick Burkhardt been tied up like a common criminal in a room full of dirty cops, waiting for a beating, if it was really what had happened? What other reason could there be for the chair and the ropes?

And if Burkhardt wasn't the dirty one, the other guys couldn't get an excuse too, from what John had seen. There were only so many reasons for what had happened with the other detectives, and John McClee had a feeling none were good or righteous. Maybe he didn't know the whole story, but he could tell for certain there was something fishy going on with this whole precinct.

With this whole case, actually.

Oh wait.

Hadn't he already reached that conclusion a few hours ago?

Fishy. Ridiculous. Whatever.

The forensics came and went, and John was left alone to stare at the bare place that had apparently been Nick Burkhardt's house, but was now only a bloodied place with bullet holes and broken furnitures here and there. Truthfully, the detective wasn't sure it changed the place much. Burkhardt had apparently chosen safety over comfort, and even then it hadn't been enough.

But why was the guy so paranoid to begin with? And, more than that, why had he been right to be this paranoid?

Eventually John simply searched the room, once more. He found a few things, electricity bills for example. Nothing that would help him to find the other detective.

But he finally got his hand on something. Something not really interesting, not really important, but weird. Something that surprised him a bit. Something he hadn't expected to find in Burkhardt's things.

Just, because, what did it even mean?

Again with that question...

The detective stared at the papers for a moment, not quite sure of their relevance at first, not really sure there was even something wrong with the data he was seeing. He wasn't a doctor, after all, the anomalies didn't just jump out of the documents and assault his eyes until he deigned to understand. To him, it was only numbers, data which meaning he couldn't quite grasp.

Why had Burkhardt even asked to pass all those tests in the first place?

But, on the last page in the folder, John McClee saw a hand-written note from the physician who had apparently examined Nicholas Burkhardt. And that note was pretty clear: the doctor too had no idea what was going on with the other detective.

Apparently, the man had a heartbeat twice slower than that of an average person, and it almost never picked up, but it wasn't a problem for his metabolism, unlike with bradycardia. He could hold his breath for several minutes without damage. His body heat was quite cold. He had more sight sensors than what was normal for a male, human being. His reflexes were incredible. And his hearing was so unbelievable the doctor would have thought him blind had he not known better.

And despite all that freakiness, or maybe on top of all that freakiness, Nick Burkhardt was in perfect health.

Forget a freak, John was starting to wonder if, perhaps, the other detective hadn't been part of some sort of human enhancement secret and governmental experiment.

It would surely explain how the guy had taken out half a precinct by himself, and possibly the other half too, alone or not for that part of the story still being under consideration.

Oh, he'd be happy to give the case to somehow more qualified as soon as they'd be here.

John's head hurt.

Chapter Text

It was a coincidence. If someone asked, it was a coincidence. John had definitely not planned to eavesdrop on the two people who had come to take care of the Burkhardt case.

How could he have known that they'd go to eat lunch at the very the same place he used to go? The obvious answer was, he couldn't have known. So, it was a coincidence.

The detective glanced at the booth behind his, where the man and the woman were talking quietly.

Maybe not so quietly, considering he could more or less manage to hear what they were saying. And yes, perhaps he was trying a bit harder than he should, but well. It wasn't as if the two were totally doing their best to be discreet about how strange their part in the investigation was.

John couldn't really help it if he was curious, now, could he?

First, the weirdest case in all his life, Nicholas Burkhardt's disappearance and the wiping out of the North Precinct, and now that? Two detectives, sorry, two agents, sorry, what were they exactly?, who came out of nowhere and just seemed to know things about what had happened, but didn't tell half to the detectives working on the case? They had all but proclaimed it Top Secret.

John McClee didn't particularly reveal in poking around when it wasn't his business, but this? It had been his case, and Kolt and Parker were being way too secretive about the whole thing. There was a point where even John's non-curiosity just fell flat.

As such, now that he was eating lunch all by himself, but right behind the two, he really, really couldn't help but to try and listen in.

So far, it seemed more and more like there was something much grander at play here, from what he could hear...

A voice cut the detective's thoughts short, and maybe John paled a bit.

“Detective McClee, why don't you stop pretending not to be here, and come eat with us?”

Now, his face wasn't white as a sheet, but red as a tulip. He silently left his own booth and joined the two... let's say agents for now. For all he knew, they had known he was here all along.

Farley Kolt and Annie Parker had entered the precinct in black, discreet, but tailored suits two days ago. The captain had immediately allowed them into his office, looking disgruntled. John had been reviewing his notes about Burkhardt at his desk, and had noticed the captain closing the shutters for privacy. After ten minutes or so, the strangers and the captain had joined McClee at his desk.

He had been expecting the Internal Affairs. And maybe they were. But they didn't look like it, first of all because the captain hadn't even said where the two were coming from when he had told him they'd be working the case with him. John had absolutely no idea what was the agency, bureau or whatever the two were working for. And he had been told not to ask. Which was suspicious.

As about everything else about the Burkhardt case.

He couldn't even pretend to be surprised at that point.

Annie Parker was a young woman with glasses and long black hair held into a ponytail. She looked like the nerd of the team, too naive for her work, perhaps, but John guessed she could handle herself. Even if Kolt was obviously the one to look out for. Military training, maybe. The detective couldn't really get a read on him, as if he was missing key elements.

Which was nothing new these days.

Parker stabbed at her lunch dispassionately as she went back to the case. Kolt was squinting out the window, strangely focused on the crowd passing by. Apparently they weren't planning to tell him more than he already knew. John guessed they had allowed him in only for more precise info on what he had found out so far.

But maybe he'd hear something new that way, so he wasn't going to complain. Yet.

Farley Kolt turned back to his partner, cutting her review of the case with a question.

“What about Captain Sean Renard? I heard HQ found some strange discrepancies in his records.”

Parker nodded, eyes on her files. McClee wondered how Renard had made it to captain if there was something possibly wrong with him... And even if it wasn't blatant, how he had deceived the police department and his superiors, but not whatever group the two officials were working for.

“Sean Renard... As in, House-of-Kronenberg Renard, if you believe it. Apparently he's the illegitimate son of the former King who died about a year ago. The former Queen had apparently ordered to get rid of the bastard child, and his mother managed to take him to the USA.”

“He was under political asylum?”

“No. His mother managed to get complete new and unsuspicious identities, as well as the american nationality, and he just disappeared from the Royals' view for about a decade. Then the Queen died. That's how a blue blood from Austria became an american police captain in Portland.”

Just when John thought it couldn't become stranger... He had first believed there was a complete organization of corrupt cops in Portland, no matter how much it hurt to admit, and now he discovered there could be a political side to it too? What would be next, global terrorism?

Parker looked up from her files, and stared at her partner. After a moment of silence, she finally asked.

“You think Black Claw recruited him? Because Renard would probably want to get the power his family denied him, and he's one of your people too. It wouldn't be so far-stretched that an extremist group would want to use him.”

Kolt shrugged, just as John's brain died. He probably shouldn't have wondered about terrorism, because now it was there too. He really made an effort not to become paranoid and delude himself with potential biological war threats. Just in case it came to be true too.

“It wouldn't surprise me. Renard didn't seem to be interested by the place of mayor until very recently, after his friend, the former candidate, was shot to death by Black Claw.”

Parker snorted before taking a sip of her drink.

“What a friend...”

McClee was still stuck on the mention of Kolt's and Renard's “people”. He couldn't find anything very distinctive about them, no obvious religious affiliation, white men, normal attitude. Whatever this Black Claw group was, it was clear that its members came from the same “people” as the agent and the former police captain, though... Which could explain why Kolt was on this case with Parker, who wasn't part of it. Insight and neutrality.

It also made John wonder about the more local aspect of the case. Was Burkhardt part of that subculture too, or were the policemen from the North Precinct? Both, perhaps?

For once, he decided to speak up. As Parker and Kolt had allowed him in, the detective guessed they wanted his help, at least about some things. But to help, he needed to know the basics. Because he had too many interrogations to focus right now. Too many half-shaped guesses. And he couldn't help if he didn't know what to look for, what was important to say.

“Wait a minute. Just for basic knowledge, but I have questions.”

Kolt stared at him for a moment, and John had the disturbing impression the agent was reading into his soul. There was something about the man's gaze, as if it could see past human abilities. It made the detective uncomfortable.

Eventually Kolt looked away, and at his partner. McClee couldn't help but note that she was calling the shots, at least about information. There was a weird dynamic to this duo, but it seemed to work.

And from the look John received from Kolt, he just knew there were things that'd be left out.

Not that it surprised him much.

Parker sighed, put her files down, and looked McClee dead in the eyes.

“You have to understand, Detective, that half the threats faced by this country are never made known to the public. You literally have no idea of how many extremist groups there are out there, and you wouldn't imagine what some of them figth for.”

John waved his fork as he reached for some bread. It was lunchtime, after all. He needed his meal, and no terrorist group would take that away from him.

“Yeah, I get it, I swear. You will tell me only what I need to know. But I can't help you if I look at this case like at a problem of corruption or at a weird political struggle when it isn't. I only need confirmation that's it what I think it is.”

Annie Parker pushed her glasses back up her nose, eyebrows raised. She seemed to appreciate that he wasn't pushing his luck too much. John sure would have liked more details, but well. He understood the need for secrecy when it came to terrorism, and he knew he'd get more info if he didn't actually try too hard.

“Yes, it's a problem of terrorism, Detective McClee. And corruption as a side-effect too, considering they probably got to Sean Renard, made him Mayor of Portland, which allowed him to regroup all the policemen with a possible interest in Black Claw at the North Precinct.”

Kolt turned his knife between his fingers as he added to his partner's speech.

“Not all of us would follow Black Claw, but there are enough of us, in the whole world, to find a few willing. And it's all it takes to start a terrorist group. It doesn't help that unless you are one of us, there is no way to tell who is one of our people... or a member of Black Claw. I'm pretty sure you've heard about the latest bouts of violence in various countries the very same day, Detective?”

“You don't mean...”

Kolt shrugged as an answer. He didn't need to say more.

John still considered that maybe the government was just growing paranoid. After all, the CIA and all the others spying organizations were so deep in such shit on a daily basis, it had to lead them on a few false alerts from time to time. Like, seeing conspirations in random violence.

The detective didn't manage to convince even himself, though.

He was pretty sure it had to mean something.

Parker finished her drink, ready to leave. Kolt was done too, and had gone back to observing the passersby. Now John was wondering if the agent was keeping an eye out for possible enemies.

“I'll just tell you this, Detective. The government created our... agency not so long ago, only to deal with this threat. You are not to talk about it to anyone, not to share the slightest bit of info with a colleague. Your captain doesn't know more than you do and there's a reason for that. So please, keep in mind that you aren't just a police detective on a case this time.”

Parker looked so serious, so grave, he wouldn't even have thought of considering to share any of that. He doubted he'd be taken seriously, if he did, anyway. At this point, he wasn't even sure his dreams wouldn't censure themselves not to be about the Burkhardt case.

John took a deep breath, and stared at what was left of his french fries for a moment. Not much. He guessed it was time to leave the dinner. They had work to do, after all. Such as, finding where the hell Burhardt had disappeared to. What he knew. Where to find this Black Claw group...

The case. Nicholas Burkhardt, Portland detective. Focus.

The two agents and the detective left the diner, and Kolt ushered the other two into a grey car. Apparently he had spotted someone dubious outside the place, and he didn't like that. Parker either didn't seem to be very happy with the news.

“It makes sense. Whatever happened here, it decimated the Portland cells, both on their side and on ours. There wasn't anyone left to clean up, and the slaughters at Burkhardt's and at the North Precinct didn't exactly go away quietly. Black Claw is bound to be watching, making sure there aren't any loose ends which could lead us to them... It just took them some time to come.”

Which was oh-so-reassuring. The detective wondered if he classified as a loose end of sorts. After all, he had been the most involved with the case. He didn't want to be eliminated or tied to a chair and interrogated fistfully...

John frowned, as it suddenly hit him.

“What does Burkhardt have to do with this? Did he just, what, stumble into the whole thing, or...”

He was Kolt grimace in the rear-view mirror of the car, but it was Parker who answered this time.

“Nick Burkhardt is... He isn't part of their community per se, but they had to mind him nonetheless. He's not a regular cop, but not in the way you may be thinking. He... Amongst Farley's people, he's like a natural authority. His family has always been tasked with... controlling these people. They fear him on principle. And he was working for... No, with us. I'd say Black Claw left him one last chance: to go to their side, or to get put out. They wouldn't be the first ones to try and sway him. The Royals from Renard's family tried to get their hands on him some time ago, for exemple.”

John chose not to question what “controlling these people” entailed.

A car honked violently to their left as Kolt took a turn rather quickly. The agent didn't like the looks of the black cruiser two cars behind them, and he was adamant he'd shook it off. Also, he didn't like the sound of the last part of the conversation.

“What do you mean, the Royals tried to get him?! You never told me that, Annie!!!”

The woman pushed her glasses up her nose once more, and with the reflections McClee couldn't see the look in her eyes, but her tone was detached as she spoke.

“Should we have?”

Kolt glared at his partner through the raer-view mirror.

“He's my former fiancée's nephew, and you know that! And unlike you I've already met him!!!”

“Which means you have no legal ties to him, and if I remember well you were trying to steal the coins the one time you two met. From what I know, he put you out of the race. So I don't see why I should have told you about him. If anything, I'd have thought you'd rather not hear about him.”

Kolt said nothing, and looked back at the road, but he didn't seem very placated for all that.

As always, John felt like he was left out of the story, but well, it certainly felt so because it actually was the case. Whatever those coins were about, he wouldn't know.

But he was a bit surprised to hear that the agent had a link, though tenuous, to the missing detective. Burkhardt truly was at the heart of the matter, it seemed.

Kolt stopped the car shortly after that. The three men and woman got out, Kolt went to check no one had followed them this time, and soon they were back to brainstorming. The agents didn't want to go back to the precinct, considering there could be some leftover members of Black Claw in the Portland police. So for now, they had taken residency in a cheap hotel room without the Precinct's knowledge. Which meant only John was privy to where Parker and Kolt disappeared to when they weren't collecting files at his desk.

Parker pulled out Burkhardt's file, her thoughts on how much Black Claw would have liked to get the guy in their ranks. She had seen the medical results McClee had found, and she had to say, she was impressed. Of the half-dozen of people like him working for Hadrian's Wall, none were really like Burkhardt. From what she knew, his enhanced abilities resulted from a few incidents and from the man's remarkably adaptable physical constitution.

His only problem was that he was too much of a cop. He relied too much on the laws, and played by the rules unless he was forced not to. He was too kind, in a way, and he had let Black Claw bully their way into Portland for too long. So of course, when he had found it to be enough, everything had gone to hell, and here they were. Two public slaughters, and Burkhardt on the run.

Kolt snatched the file from her hands. Parker frowned at him, but the man wasn't paying her any attention. She glanced at McClee, but the detective was busy with his notes, certainly rearranging them for it to match what he now knew.

“Farley...”

The guy literally shushed her without even looking up from the file. She knew he hadn't read it yet, but it didn't mean he could just take it out of her hands and shush her, damn it!

Parker waited patiently, biding her time.

Eventually Kolt handed her the file back, eyebrows arched high. He had read the medical file three times over, but it still said the very same thing. And the agent was certain half of what was on the report wasn't supposed to happen, not even to someone like Nick Burkhardt. Marie certainly hadn't been like that, and none of the guys he knew through this government initiative presented the same enhanced abilities. Burkhardt and his ilk were fearsome enough as they were, and now this?

“I'll be honest with you, Annie, it just seems like Burkhardt is on steroids to me. Even for... someone from his family, it's ridiculous. What the hell are these stats, anyway?”

The mention of steroids got McClee's attention, even if he knew for a fact that his colleague from the Central Precinct was as clean as someone could be. When he had heard the rumors, and when he had seen the medical file, he had wondered too. But no, nothing. Nicholas Burkhardt was simply insanely strong... and a bunch of other things. Spidey senses, probably.

Annie Parker smirked at her partner, obviously pleased to see him dumbfounded by what he had just read.

“You know how they are, people like Burkhardt. If something happen to them, their body react quickly and efficiently to balance the change. And even if they do get better, usually the balancing that has been done sticks around. A lot of things happened to Burkhardt. Just from the enhanced hearing, I'd guess he suffered from temporary blindness at some point.”

Kolt shook his head slowly, as if not believing it.

As for John, he wasn't daft. It was obvious there was something special about the missing detective, that it wasn't just a matter of social place in a secret community. Not that being part of a secret community wasn't a big matter too, but it wasn't the point here. Maybe genetics were the point. But as always, he guessed he wouldn't be told about it.

Top Secret, you know.

“No need to wonder why Black Claw wanted him on their side, even if they never really bothered with the others like him... The guy got a reputation with my people, Parker. On many points, he isn't regular. More comprehending is only the nicest thing we say about him.”

Parker sneered a bit at that.

“The good it did them... They wanted him because he was the best of his kind, but obviously he was also better than a whole cell of them, underlings included. Maybe if they had left him alone, they'd still be polluting the Portland Police Department.”

John wasn't sure either solution was good, but he hadn't been asked when this Black Claw group had decided to go all kamikaze against Burkhardt, and it had happened nevertheless. With this outcome, Black Claw had been wounded, but Burkhardt was on the run... If they had left him alone, the man would still be free to live, but there would be a bunch more of terrorists running around.

The detective was happy to only have to deal with the consequences, and not with the decision making. Ethic problems such as this one were never his forte.

Reason why he was first of all a homicide detective. The cases he usually delt with had already happened, the victim was already dead, and he only had to put the pieces back together. He didn't envy people like Parker and Kolt, who worked against terrorism, and sometimes had to choose between one death or another.

He could be of use to the two agents, however. If only because Portland was his city. He knew the place, and some of the people. And perhaps it would help to uncover what had really happened to Nick Burkhardt, and to find him wherever he had disappeared to.

Hopefully he wouldn't have to put the other detective in jail for the double slaughter. There had to be a reason for it to happen, and it was possible that Burkhardt hadn't initiated it. Portland was a bit short-handed in its number of policemen, lately.

Hopefully he wouldn't have to remind Burkhardt of that too. After all, the man was the very reason the Police Department had been this diminished. Even if he had possibly not asked for it to happen.

John put down the file he had been reading, and sighed.

“So, I have no idea what you two have been doing for the last two days, but I'm guessing it wasn't usual police work.”

Kolt smirked a bit at the guess.

“You could say that... Let's keep it at our checking of another crime scene the police knows nothing about, the place where one of our teams was working until Black Claw annihilated them not long ago, and doing other stuff related to both our organization and Burkhardt.”

Oh-so enlightening... But John McClee had come into the investigation knowing full well that he wouldn't be told much, he had accepted it, and damnit all if he wasn't going to try eluciding this case nonetheless!

“Right. My point was, Oh Snarky One, that if we want to know more, we'll have to do actual detective work from now on. Whatever Bukhardt did during his free time, he's still a normal human being who knows people and who is probably known back by these people. If you want to find him before this Black Claw group does, we need to search for him the good old way: investigation.”

“Detective McClee is right, Farley. That's why I thought of letting him in in the first place. You're good when it's about tactical warfare, and I'm good at analyzing the situation, but here we need to make it look like a normal investigation. Most of our enemies are already down, at least in this city, but we've got to secure Burkhardt. McClee knows what to look for when in search of a police detective.”

Kolt rolled his eyes at his partner.

“Fine! Let's do some police work. Who are we interrogating first?”

Now, that was an interesting question...

Chapter Text

When John McClee entered the Central Precinct with the two agents, he felt all the eyes on him. It wasn't exactly a secret, that he had ended up with the investigation on one of their detectives, but he hadn't had the occasion to come here yet. This investigation had been so hellish he had barely spared a thought for the dead officer from the North Precinct found in the Central Precinct. He had known he'd have to come and take a look, but well...

And then, Kolt and Parker had arrived, and he had had other things to think about.

Besides, it was never very pleasant to visit another precinct about a murder case inside the very building. It was kind of the same as investigating a colleague.

Actually, it was the same as investigating a colleague, since the guys here were all cops, just like him. He just knew them less than he did for the guys from his own precinct.

Investigating a colleague could go two ways: either he'd be shunned for possibly considering a cop guilty, or they'd talk to help and find Burkhardt in case he was the victim... which was probably what the Central Precinct thought.

Usually, it went the first way, though. John winced internally. This was going to be so much fun...

Maybe he should take a step back and let the agents handle this part of the investigation. Like, he was here only because they had decided to come here. Even if it wasn't true. Even if it had been his idea. Because, you see, Parker and Kolt would be gone soon, they didn't live here, they didn't work with these guys, so even if they took the blame in their eyes, it wouldn't matter much. Interagency cooperation was a big lie, anyway.

If John was the one to be blamed for the unsavory investigation, he wasn't sure the rest of his career in the police would be very pleasant.

Fortunately for him, Annie Parker took the choice of whether or not he'd be the scapegoat out of his hands. The woman simply stepped in, headed for Burkhardt's desk.

Kolt, on the other hand, seemed strangely reigned in. As if he didn't want to be noticed too much. Which made sense, now that John thought about it... If Burkhardt had arrested the man once upon a time, it was more than probable that he had spent some time in the precinct's jail. It wasn't very likely to happen, but someone could recognize him and ask questions.

Hell, John himself had no idea how the guy had ended up a government official if he had been involved in a theft. Though, the detective guessed, Farley Kolt wasn't some police officer, but more like some secret agent for an unknown governmental agency, so it probaly didn't matter so much. If he fit the bill, and wasn't secretly a serial killer, it made sense that they hired him nonetheless. For all John knew, it could even be his “criminal” abilities that had gotten him the job in the first place.

John snapped out of his thoughts as Parker asked an older detective who had been Burkhardt's partner. For some reason, John felt like she already knew the answer, but still asked, just in case. Or for the sake of appearances, perhaps.

So, what did it mean? That Burkhardt's partner was also in it?

Would John sound childish if he said he felt a bit left out?

The older detective snorted at the question, but there wasn't much mirth in his eyes. He seemed more disdainful than anything else. And possibly a bit tense due to the situation.

“I'd have thought you guys already knew. After all, it's not everyday a missing detective's partner goes missing too, and I'm pretty sure you got our memo yesterday saying that Griffith hadn't come to work either. What's it, McClee, they can't do their work properly at the East Precinct?”

John scowled at the detective, Warren something, he wasn't sure and he didn't care to remember right now.

“Hardly. There's just so much to see and take into account, and I'm the only one on that case, I'm bordering on overworking. Now, what was it about a disappearing detective?”

“Two disappearing detectives, and one officer. Nick left a mess at the North Precinct, we all know that, but Hank Griffith never came back to work after that, and Drew Wu doesn't answer his phone either. I still don't understand how Renard and Nick came to beat each other up, and the other day we found a cop's body in the hallway. You'll excuse me if I think you should be doing your job, and find out what the hell happened here!”

Parker interrupted John as he was about to answer, and maybe it was for the best, considering what he had been about to say.

“Then cooperate, Detective Bauer. You know how difficult it is to investigate when everyone keep their mouth shut.”

The guy calmed down a bit, but still didn't seem pleased with the situation. John wouldn't be either, if he was in the man's shoes, so he let it go.

“I don't know a thing, Miss. And there's no point asking someone else. The new captain is here only since Renard's election, she doesn't even know Nick, Hank and Wu. The precinct was assaulted with 911 calls that night, and there was no one left. The only two who could tell you something about Nick are missing too.”

The older detective fiddled with his tie for a moment, thoughtful, and winced.

“I'm not even sure you can ask someone out of the precinct. Nick Burkhardt knew many people, but few of them were true friends. The others were mostly acquaintances. His girlfriend, Juliette Silverton, left about one year ago, from what I know... I think he is friend with a couple he met though his cases, too, but I don't have their names. There was that girl he housed for a time, too, but I haven't seen her around lately. Theresa... Rhobell or something.”

Parker nodded a bit, about to walk away. This was as much as she'd get, and most of it only confirmed what she already knew. Only Meisner had the names of Burkhardt's associates, because they weren't really part of Hadrian's Wall, and Silverton and Rubel had disappeared right along the detective.

Kolt had been staring at the former office of Sean Renard for some time already. John had just noticed, and he surmised the agent was regretting the fact he couldn't go in there and search the room for clues since a new captain had been given the office. He doubted Renard would have left anything compromising behind, either.

The older detective saw the look on the agent's face too, and perhaps he meant it only as a side note, but still, it made him speak one more time.

“You know, it's really weird how Renard and Nick fought the other day. They weren't friends, but Burkhardt was certainly the closest to the Captain. Always talking in secret in his office. And lately, Hank and Drew had joined them, too. They were even supporting his candidacy to the post of mayor. Whatever happened, it wasn't something either of them had expected, I'd say...”

Parker frowned at that, and sent a text to... someone John had no clue about, certainly.

Then a blond officer passed by, and the older detective grabbed her arm. The woman raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't exactly protest. Perhaps they knew each other well.

“Yes, Warren, I gave the kids their lunch money this morning...”

Scratch that, they were married. John should have know, really.

“That's not... Anyway. Elie, it's about Burkhardt. Do you know the name of that guy he asked help from on a couple of cases? A bit odd, very tall, and apparently good at tracking?”

Some unknown emotions crossed the woman's face, but soon enough it only evolved into a thoughtful look.

“Monroe. His name is Monroe. I don't know his first name though. I'd doubt he has one to begin with, if it wasn't just a little too weird even for him. His wife Rosalee has an spice shop in town. That's were I get the kids' medecine, you remember?”

Her husband crunched his face a bit, but didn't come up with anything. The wife sighed, and wrote down the address for the agents and McClee. Warren really was a special one, able to remember a case from twenty years ago, but unable to say the name of his son's teddy bear.

“Here. I don't think anyone told them Burkhardt was missing, so if you could...”

John glanced at the address, pocketed the piece of paper, and nodded at the female officer.

“No problem.”

Kolt was driving, Parker was staring at the moving street, and John was rewieving his notes and completing them again. There was an uneasy silence for a moment.

Until Parker stopped looking through the window, and glanced at the detective's notes.

“No need to search for Juliette Silverton, or for Theresa Rubel, you should know. Or, at least, no need to search for them as possible witnesses. They're operatives of ours, but we've lost contact with them when Black Claw annihilated Portland's headquarters. And we've definitely lost them just when Burkhardt disappeared. Whatever happened, I'd say they are together right now.”

If they were still alive. Annie Parker knew that both Eve and Burkhardt were more than anyone could handle on their own, and Theresa Rubel was more than good too, especially if they knew someone was coming for them, but it hadn't been one or two guys coming after them. Eve was stronger than it should be possible for people like her, and Burkhardt was enhanced even by his standards, which made him doubly deadly, but still. They were only human, in the end, even if a bit more than normal humans. They could be taken down.

McClee sent the agent a frustrated glare, and she guessed she deserved it. There were so many things they weren't telling him... But they couldn't. Not just like that. What would be the point of keeping it a secret if they told anyone as soon as it was easier?

Besides, Annie Parker didn't want another witch hunt to deal with just yet. Black Claw was enough of a hassle without throwing in the probability of the unknowing population trying to burn their neighbors to the stake.

McClee closed his notepad and let himself fall against the car seat.

“So Burkhardt's girlfriend is working for you. As well as the girl he took in at some point. What is it next? Griffith and Wu too?”

“Well...”

Kolt snorted a bit without even looking at them. Which was fine. John felt better knowing the man kept his eyes on the road, for once.

“Don't bother, Annie. They weren't working for our group per se, but they certainly are on our side. From what I gathered at the Central Precinct, they knew about it all, and since Burkhardt was working with us...”

“Wait a minute, what's the whole difference thing between 'working for' you and 'working with' you? I mean, does it really matter at this point?”

Kolt snorted again, but let his partner answer this time. Parker had gone back to watching the street through the window.

“It does matter, because only the Portland cell leader knew the names of the people who were 'working with' him, and he's dead. Burkhardt is a special case, because we'd really have liked to get him in, but for some reason he didn't accept.”

This time, Kolt literally sneered.

“I'd say he resented the way in. Did you actually read his file, Annie? The Royals tried to abduct him instead of trying to hire him, and what did we do when our turn came? Chavez snatched Rubel on the street instead of talking like a civilized person. Then Burkhardt's mother was killed, the head was left in a box in his living room, and a bunch of black-clad operatives came in, drugged him, snatched Rubel again, took the body of his ex and the head of his mother. After that, no news until he actually went and threatened Chavez right at the Bureau!”

John decided to keep quiet and let the two talk, because he had way too many questions he didn't actually want to be answered. Like, who in hell beheaded people and left the head in a box? He certainly didn't want to have the answer to that one.

And let's not talk about the one where an FBI agent abducted that girl Detective Bauer had mentioned. Though it explained the part in Burkhardt's files that said how he had entered the Portland FBI office and directly threatened an agent.

Parker tried to argue back, but seemingly it wasn't working on Farley Kolt. For a moment, John wondered if perhaps the man resented the way in too.

“They didn't know he was who he was, they couldn't just tell him everything!!!”

“Oh please, it was obvious who he was! For what other reason would the Royals have left the head in a box? It wouldn't have meant anything to him if he had been just a regular cop. Besides, I've walked around town, and everyone concerned know who he is. They just had to ask. They did know there was one of his family in town for longer than Rubel had been around!”

Parker apparently had nothing to answer to that, so she kept quiet for a moment.

A moment only.

“You know I'll have to report your anger to HQ.”

Kolt parked the car before a small shop, but didn't move to get out.

“Please do. After all, it's not as if they had found me almost beaten to death in a ditch, and had basically nursed me back to health only to blackmail me with their help and for mine!!!”

Ouch, John now understood why Kolt would resent the way in to this agency-or-whatever too. They hadn't even pretended to give him a choice. It didn't even matter that he might have decided to work for them in the first place, because the choice had been taken away from him. And, the detective surmised, the trust Kolt could have put in them at the same time.

Parker didn't look at her partner after that outburst.

“They needed your skills.”

“They could have asked.”

The two agents left the car at the same moment, obviously ignoring each other. John followed, The most discreetly possible.

The detective checked the address, and looked back up again. From outside, the shop looked almost quaint, but it certainly had to do with the fact that the windows were mostly high up. He couldn't see a thing from out there.

Curiously enough, the spice shop was closed. At this time of the day, the three investigators found it a bit worrying. Still, Kolt knocked at the door. When there wasn't an answer, he knocked again.

After the third time, the man rolled his eyes, and took a step back. Parker gave him a warning look, but he ignored her again.

And he broke down the door with a kick before John could say a thing.

“What the...!”

“It's four in the afternoon, on a tuesday, and the shop is closed. The car parked right next to ours hasn't moved since at least three days, if the add on the windshield is anything to go by. And the license plate matches with one Monroe's. I can tell just by looking at the storefront that the owner is one of my people, because if it wasn't the case, there wouldn't be this symbol here...”

He gestured at something John had mistaken for a scratch in the old wood, and continued.

“If the owners were close friends with Burkhardt, there's no way Black Claw left them alone, especially not after they failed to get the detective. If no one's been there since then, it's because something happened to the owners, and it has to do with Black Claw. We'd better just get in.”

John looked oddly at the man, but walked in all the same. The door had been busted anyway, so why not?

What they found inside left no doubt as to the validity of Kolt's theory. The place had been ransacked, and there was a huge black graffiti on one of the walls. Black Claw indeed.

Fortunately, John didn't smell anything remotely close to a rotting corpse, and they saw no blood stains anywhere, except for a small puddle that had dried long, long ago.

“It seems they got away before these Black Claw guys got to them.”

Parker acquiesced silently.

Kolt suddenly looked up from the book he had been examining, eyes locked on the door. McClee would have said he was doing that thing with his gaze, all sharp and all-seeing, if he had been on the other end of said gaze.

Parker followed her partner's eyes, a hand on her gun.

There were two men standing just outside the busted door. One of them was fidgety, short, and a bit pudgy. Oddly, John thought he looked a bit like a beaver. The other seemed calmer, but his eyes were locked in disgust upon the Black Claw graffiti. To continue on with the animal comparison, the detective would call him a wild cat. A wild, angry cat who was barely short on hissing at the black mark. The beaver guy was staying out of his way, as it was. Maybe John wasn't the only one to identify the man to an angry cat.

Kolt squinted at the men, looking tenser than ever before. He didn't actually seem frightened, which would be difficult to achieve given how the shorter man of the two wasn't frightening at all. But there was something underlying here. John glanced at Parker.

The woman did seem to know how to interpret her partner's stance, but he doubted she saw the same thing as Kolt did. It was more like she was used to his reaction. But what had the agent seen, that they couldn't see...?

Obviously.

Kolt had said it took one to know one. That only one of his people could recognize the others. He hadn't said how, he hadn't said why, but he had said it was such.

And apparently it was the case right now.

John tried to squint at the men too, just in case he got to see what it was that denounced them as members of these “people”. Of course, he didn't see a thing, except that the guy who looked a bit like a beaver was getting tenser by the minute. And that Kolt was moving between Parker and him, and the other guy. As if to protect them...

The wild-cat-like man hissed something at Kolt, something John didn't understand. It didn't seem to be English, if anything. Stainadlher or something...

John tried to move around the blocking shadow of Farley Kolt to have a better look at the men, but the space between the shelves of the spice shop was narrow at best. He'd have to walk around the shelves if he wanted to see better, and Parker was blocking that way too.

Anything else, and he'd think the agents were doing that on purpose. Which was probably the case.

The angry man took a step back as Kolt drew his gun.

“What, you came to check your guys hadn't left anything incriminating behind last time? I don't really care about your motives, but I won't just let your extremist group take it out on those who don't follow you, bastards!!!”

John blinked. What was tha... Oh. The guy thought they were with that Black Claw group. From what he had just said, the detective surmised someone close to him had been a victim, perhaps.

Parker and Kolt sighed, and the male agent holstered his gun back. Kolt slowly took a step to the side, to reveal John McClee standing behind him. The angry man frowned in confusion, still tense, and the pudgy guy glanced worriedly at everyone.

“We're not with Black Claw. We are governmental agents on the case, and he's a detective. Do you know what happened here?”

“Show your credentials, then.”

Parker and Kolt turned to look at John, who didn't get it right away, but eventually got his badge out for the guy to examine it. Obviously the two others didn't have anything to prove they were what they discreetly claimed. Obviously.

Freaking spies. Or whatever they were.

The younger of the two strangers didn't seem very impressed, though. The pudgy man tried to nudge him into talking, but the guy sneered.

“You do know there was a whole precinct of Black Claw moles until Burkhardt got rid of them, don't you, Bud? There could be some left, for all we know.”

The older man paled visibly at the thought.

“But...”

John saw Parker roll her eyes and took a step forward.

“No more antics, guys. You, you must be able to tell that Detective McClee and myself are Kehrseite. And Black Claw doesn't take people out of your community, not even if they might be useful. So think about it, are we Black Claw, or is it more likely that the government pulled together a special agency to handle this?”

And one more word John didn't get... No problem, he was getting used to it. Which might be worrying, considering his job was supposedly about uncovering the truth, but well...

The younger of the two men snorted at bit, then sniffed, his stance suddenly less aggressive.

“They came the other evening, and ransacked the shop. They were mighty angry when they understood the owners had evaded them just in time.”

The pudgy man finally took his chance and a bit of bravery, and asked a question the detective could just say he had been dying to ask since Kolt had presented them.

“Do you know if Nick and the others are alright? What about Adalind? And their baby? I haven't...”

He shut up when he saw the look on both the agents' faces. They had forgotten about the craddle.

Chapter Text

“Wait a minute, you're telling me that Burkhardt had a baby with Adalind Schade?”

Farley Kolt was glowering right in the pudgy man's face, or rather, right above the man's face. Had John not known any better, he'd think the agent was actually angry at this Bud guy. Only, the question made it obvious that it wasn't the right answer to the current scene.

The detective wasn't sure what was the right answer, though.

“Bud” took a step back, and John was almost certain he saw the other stranger tense a bit, in a way that didn't exactly fit with how he had been behaving so far. Somehow the wild cat-like man reacted like a professional, and not a hoodlum, despite the clothes and the attitude.

A professional at what, John wasn't exactly sure either.

Incertainty was becoming a major trait of his life, it seemed. So far, Detective McClee only had the feeling that he could somehow see a glimpse of the bottom of the story, but without having the correct glasses to decipher.

It was frustrating.

“Erh... Maybe?”

John's attention snapped back to “Bud”. The pudgy man seemed to be very willing to evade Kolt's stare, but without actually being able to look away. John guessed the agent was, again, doing his I-see-right-through-you thing.

“A grimm and a hexenbiest had a baby? Really?”

This seemed to get a reaction from Parker, but for the life of him, John still had no idea what Kolt was talking about.

“Bud” fidgeted under the stare.

“Hum, yeah... I mean, I don't think it was something totally planned, more like, it kind of happened after Adalind passed herself off as Juliette, just before Juliette went all evil and witchy and...”

Kolt raised a hand. The pudgy man immediately shut up.

The male agent took a hand to his forehead, eyes closed, surely processing the news.

“In other words, you are telling me that Adalind Schade, the woman who stood with two kids, one of which a baby, next to Sean Renard on TV, had a baby with Nick Burkhardt.”

Then it clicked for John, Parker, and apparently the other stranger too. If that was really what had happened, whatever the reasons for it to happen, then there was no asking why Burkhardt and Renard had fought the other day. Somehow, the new mayor of Portand had stolen the detective's child.

Yeah right, because that was something that happened daily around here...

What the hell was that case, anyway?

“Bud” frowned. He didn't seem to understand what it meant yet. Either he hadn't seen the news, or he hadn't realized what had actually happened.

“What are you talki... Oh.”

Annie Parker was showing him her cellphone's screen, with the video from after Renard's election playing. There was no mistaking who the blonde woman with a girl and a baby next to the mayor was, not for someone who knew her, and especially not as Renard did say who she was.

Of course, John only knew as much as he had seen from the video, since he didn't know Burkhardt personally, and the man had apparently kept some secrets to himself. Like, his baby, or the baby's mother. Because no one at the Central Precinct seemed to know about them, or someone would have told the detective at some point... Probably.

“Why did he do that?”

“That, Bud, is the million-dollar question.”

Parker's phone rang at that moment. She checked the caller and glanced at her partner, mouthing “HQ”. The female agent took a step back to take the call.

John took that time to really look at the second stranger.

At first, he had only seen some citizen amongst others, perhaps a bit thuggish at the corners, who disliked the authorities. Not a big deal, the detective met people like that all the time. They were usually difficult to deal with, but rarely a true problem, besides the fact that getting a testimony from them was like pulling an alligator's teeth.

Then he had been revealed to be one of Kolt's “people”, whatever that meant.

And now, under the casual clothing, the aggressive attitude, and the apparent distrust, the detective could guess the outline of someone else. He didn't know if it was because, deep down, the man ached to be something more, or if it was simply because he was playing a role. A good actor hardly ever let anything be seen of what's behind his cover, but who knew if the stranger was that good an actor? Good, yes, but not the best...

Or John was trying so hard to see under the appearances of everything since this case had ended up to be his, that he saw secrets everywhere. Plausible too.

Eitherway, the stranger and Kolt were sizing each other up, as if readying for a fight.

Parker chose that moment to come back from her phone call, a scowl on her face.

“It seems that Renard wasn't that free in his role. Everything, from the people who helped him on his political campaign to the house he is living in, is Black Claw's. I wouldn't be surprised if they kept him on a leash, so to speak.”

Kolt glanced away from the wild cat-like stranger and at his partner.

“Like, 'we're-happy-to-help-you-gain-power,-as-long-as-you-do-exactly-what-you're-told-to'? The 'if-you-don't,-we'll-slaughter-your-career,-and-possibly-a-few-newborns' act?”

Parker gave him a strange look, the kind that said “I have no idea where you get these ideas”.

“No way to say for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised. From the file we have on him, I think Sean Renard is the kind of man who has difficulties chosing between his ambition and the moral thing to do. The kind of person who may chose the wrong path for wrong reasons, but who still try to make it up by offering his help to the very ones he endangered by chosing so.”

Kolt scowled at the description.

“In other words, the kind of villain you can't completely hate. Just perfect. When do I get an Adolf Hitler, without remorse and morality, to shoot right in the head?”

Parker didn't deign to answer that, but John was pretty sure he saw a corner of the wild cat stranger tilt upwards for half a second.

Which somehow got the detective an answer on his interrogations. Because it was seemingly the moment the stranger decided he had enough with identity games, and that perhaps it was time to be frank. Or maybe he had simply decided that the two governmental agents were truly who they claimed to be, and it was safe to be truthful.

Or, last idea, the stranger had decided it was time to be frank, since he'd kill them all anyway in the end. John McClee really had the impression it was better not to make assumptions in this story, because everyone seemed to turn on everyone for no good reasons at some point. So it was perfectly probable that the man was in fact an assassin sent by this Black Claw group, and they were all going to die, except said assassin.

Paranoia was a man's best friend, was the overall impression this whole case left on the detective.

He really hoped he was only being paranoid. He didn't want to die yet.

Besides, he still didn't know where Nicholas Burkhardt, detective extaordinaire, had disappeared to.

Anyhow, the stranger's stance simply changed, from jittery and distrustful to perfectly controlled, possibly with a hint of a military straightness. His shoulders weren't slumped anymore, his back was perfectly straight, his hands were brought together in front of him. For an instant, John wondered if he wasn't actually a bulter, of all things.

Kolt and Parker froze in place as they registered the change in the man's attitude.

“Bud” took, not one, but four steps back, and ended up with his back against a wall.

“Hadrian's Wall, isn't it?”

Parker squinted at the man, finally looking past the dishevel looks and the crumpled clothes; in fact, she seemed to be seeing another man entirely, who sure looked like the stranger, but who dressed nothing alike. A man whom, perhaps, she had met once upon a time, before she heard of wesens and the secret face of the world, before a man came to her at the FBI and asked if she was interested in another job for the government. A man she had never thought she'd see again, but who had left cadavers in his wake. A man the Bureau had never managed to catch, not even after he had eliminated two of their suspects in a very curious case; a man they hadn't even identified.

Whoever he was, Annie Parker knew at least one thing: he was an operative, if not a spy.

But to whom did his loyalty go?

“Depends who's asking.”

The man smiled slightly.

“Formerly I'd have answered the Wesen Council, but unfortunately there is no more wesen Council. Let's say I am currently looking for a job, one I would appreciate if it consisted in getting rid of Black Claw.”

And yet another thing John didn't understand. Perhaps he should make a list and ask ten dollars for every question he wasn't asking. Because confidential or not, all this top secret business was getting difficult to bear. At least, that way, he'd be rich.

There was a long silence, during which the various agents and operatives and whatnots just stared at each other dangerously, ready to draw their guns at the slightest hint of a possible aggression. During that time, “Bud” didn't move an eyelash, keeping his breath, and John wondered idly if there was a chance he'd get out of this mess alive. Not particularly about this one mess, either, but about the whole thing. Like, was there a possibility that he'd be targeted by a bunch of terrorists before the end of the day, or was it more likely that he'd be the unwilling and collateral victim of this standoff?

He sure hoped not, but things weren't exactly going his way for now.

Then Farley Kolt, without warning, sneered a bit.

He didn't seem like the kind of guy who'd burst out laughing, especially not in this situation, so John surmised it wasn't a dismissive sneer, just his brand of laughter.

Parker raised a brow at him.

“Come on, Annie, don't you see the irony of the situation? We came here to search for a grimm, and we found the last Council operative alive instead. And both are on Black Claw hit list, from what we know.”

“Your point?”

Kolt stared at his partner before rolling his eyes.

“You have absolutely no sense of humor, Annie.”

Then he turned to the stranger and offered a hand to shake. After all, the man had said he was looking for a job, hadn't he? Hadrian's Wall was easy enough on the curriculum vitae expectations, as Kolt could testify, and they did need operatives with the stranger's skills.

Now that he was looking for it and that the man wasn't hiding it anymore, Kolt could see it too. The disguise was good enough, but he knew that face. He had seen it on a couple of monitoring screens during the last years, because yes, Hadrian's Wall didn't deal only with Black Claw, but more like with any wesen-related issues. Only, with Black Claw's apparition and the resurgence in the usual demands of “freedom”, the organization had been upgraded by the government, so much that it almost rivaled the other official agencies. Almost.

“Farley Kolt. And you are?”

The man hesitated one insant, but eventually shook his hand.

“Alexander.”

“Well, I suppose the higher ups will want to study your case a bit, and to talk with you, and all the usual process, but I'll still welcome you to Hadrian's Wall, since Annie doesn't seem to be in the mood. If you are sincere, I don't see why they would oppose your joining us.”

John observed the scene dubiously. He had gathered that “Hadrian's Wall” was probably the name of the agents' organization, but it stopped there.

Maybe the detective ought not to try and pry, but figuring things out was more or less the point in his job, so he was having a hard time keeping his mind off the many confidential questions. It was like asking a dog not to bark, but to meow. He just couldn't do it.

A phone rang in the spice and tea shop, and everyone turned to look at John, who frowned. It took him a moment to realize that it was his cellphone; he still hadn't changed the ringtone, too busy with other things to bother with finding an appropriate sound.

The detective shrugged an apologetic look to the others, and answered the call.

“McClee.”

The voice who spoke on the other end had something familiar to it, and John was almost certain he had already heard it in person, somewhere else, one day, even if they may not have talked. He couldn't place its owner, though. But he was certain it wasn't a stranger.

“Could you put your phone on speakers, detective?”

John glanced at the other people in the room. Parker, Kolt and “Alexander” seemed suspicious of the call, in a way only someone working for the government, the law enforcement, someone dealing with high financial means, or someone whose spouse had a disturbing habit of cheating on them, could be suspicious of a phone call.

Then there was “Bud”, who just seemed curious, but overall looked like he wanted to be somewhere else than with the superspies & Cie. John could understand that feeling; he felt it too.

“Sure.”

When the voice spoke next, the whole room could here it.

“Agent Parker, and Farley Kolt. Sorry to have kept you waiting, but I think you can understand why I wanted to be sure of you two, before reaching out.”

The two agents shared a concerned glance, as they realized that they had probably been watched for some time already, and that whoever the man on the other end of the phone call was, he knew they'd be with the detective John McClee. Kolt was frowning, moreover, as the voice seemed familiar to him too, but only from a faraway and short memory. Replacing it would be difficult. He had met quite a lot of people in his life, and there were more than a bunch of them who could be calling right now, in such a fashion. With his... work history, he had spoken with many disreputable individuals whom he wouldn't be surprised to see again on Black Claw's side.

Annie Parker silently walked to one of the obscured windows, gun in hand. For all they knew, someone could be waiting for them to come out of the spice and tea shop. She pushed the sunblind a bit to try and peer outside, but the voice seemed to know exactly what she was doing.

“No need to be on your guard, Agent Parker. You were the one trying to find me, weren't you?”

It made the woman stiffen a bit, but before she could say anything, “Bud” blinked, and came closer to the cellphone.

“Nick?”

Kolt arched both his eyebrows as he finally recognized the voice, a sarcastic smile tugging at his lips. Trust the grimm to give him an infarctus. Burkhardt really wasn't any better than his aunt on that point.

“Hello, Bud. I hope things aren't too difficult for the eisbibers and other pacifists?”

“No, no, it's alright... Kind of. But you, are you well? And Kelly, and Monroe, and...”

“Everybody's alive, Bud. Not everything is the best it could be, but for now it will do. Just, don't tell anyone you talked to us, unless you want to be in trouble. Can you do that?”

“...I suppose...”

“Perfect. Now, back to you, agents, and Alexander. If you want, we could meet right now. There is still much to do regarding Black Claw, and Juliet needs proper medical assistance, so I'd rather we didn't waste any time.”

Parker and Kolt shared a look, and the female agent went back to the rest of the group. She was still a bit suspicious, but everyone here seemed to more or less recognize Burkhardt's voice, so it had to count for something, she guessed.

“What do you propose?”

“Well, Agent Parker, I am right outside the shop as we speak. As for where we could go, I'd say the church from our first joint case, Alexander.”

The ex-Council operative winced a bit at the reminder. Calling it a joint case was putting it lightly, as always, but he supposed Burkhardt couldn't exactly come and say “the case during which you almost killed an innocent child”, even less over the phone. Anyway, he did remember the church from that time; Alexander hadn't actually met Burkhardt there, but he had been to the church to examine the damages caused.

“The grausen.”

“Yes, the grausen.”

Alexander looked at the two from Hadrian's Wall for confirmation. They were in charge of this investigation, after all, and he was only tagging along for now.

Kolt shrugged, and Parker nodded. A church was as good a place as another for a meeting. And it was less likely to be an ambush too. Not every wesen had faith, but they could be believers regardless of their political views. Most of them would rather not murder someone in a church unless absolutely necessary.

“I see no issues with your proposition, Burkhardt.”

“Great. Then I'm waiting for you in the grey van, a bit higher up the street.”

A short silence.

“As for you, Detective McClee, I wish you success in your investigation, because I can't exactly come back yet. You did a good job so far... but I'm afraid you won't be allowed to put most of it on paper.”

Before John knew it, Parker and Kolt had wished him luck and a good day, while precising that yes, he'd have to wait before submitting any kind of report on the case. Then they had left with “Alexander”, leaving “Bud” and John to wonder about what they were going to do, now.

Eventually John sighed, defeated.

“What am I going to put in this report...”

Bud nodded briskly, even if he still wasn't sure of what was going on for the detective. Hell, he wasn't exactly sure of what was going on, period.

“All I know is that there's a group of terrorists out there which targeted a Portland detective for some obscure reasons. I don't even know what they're claiming!”

Oh, so this explained that. The detective knew about the situation without knowing about wesens. Well, Bud could understand why the man was confused. He himself knew about it all, and he was still confused. No wonder the detective would be confused.

Bud remembered that he had a family to go back to, now that he at least had the confirmation that Nick was alive. He glanced one last time at the detective, then hesitantly made his way to the door.

“Well, nice to have met you, Detective McClee, but I have to go... I hope you do...”

Bud didn't say one more word, staring at the gun pointed in his face by the person standing just outside the shop. Perhaps he shouldn't have thought of leaving. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have opened the door, and he wouldn't have seen the man with the gun. On the other hand, the man with the gun would still have been there, and he seemed set on entering the spice and tea shop with said gun. So the only good point would have been that Bud wouldn't have seen the gun first thing. It didnt change much of anything... Except for preventing a cardiac arrest due to fear, perhaps.

Bud took a few steps back as the man came in. He didn't like the muzzle turned his way, not at all.

The man with the gun woged, and Bud took one more step back. Klaustreich. Just perfect. Not that there were many other kind of wesens Bud would rather have threatening him with a firearm, but still. Klaustreich males weren't good guys, most of the time, and eisbibers were far from able to hold their own.

“We saw you speaking with the government agents, Wurstner. What did you tell them?”

We? Oh, splendid, there was more than one of them. Bud glimpsed at least two other persons behind the gun-wielding klaustreich. With his luck, they were armed too.

“I don't know what you talking abo...”

The man closed in, waving his gun dangerously close.

“Wurstner.”

A feminin voice behind him asked the man to stop it while it wasn't too late, but the other guys were keeping the woman from reaching the one she called “brother”.

“Too late, Wurstner.”

The klaustreich pulled the trigger... And John McClee, still present in the spice and tea shop even if everybody seemed to have forgotten about him, spoke up, gun in hand.

“Police. Try anything, and I shoot.”

Another one of the thugs tried to attack John at that moment, woging completely, but he only got a bullet in the spleen for his efforts. The others ran, leaving Bud, John and the wounded alone...

Chapter Text

John McClee was in his living room, watching TV while Mary disconnected the phone to stop all further attempts from her brother to contact her, when the news shifted to a new subject.

At first, John didn't react. He didn't know the man's face all that well, to be frank. There wasn't much to be surprised about in this. The tv screen, so far, was only displaying images of a police intervention, which, admittedly, was John's area of expertise. But it wasn't his case.

All he could see, for now, was a man being led away from the journalists by an uniformed officer and a man in a suit whom the detective couldn't recognize. The first man was tall enough, black haired, and from the left profile John could distinguish, a large bruise on his jaw, two cuts over his eyebrow, and several bandages on his body.

John could say he hadn't ever met the guy. He looked vaguely familiar, though.

The detective looked up as Mary came back front the entrance of the house, a scowl on her face.

“Still insulting you for living with me?”

“My brother won't ever learn, John. That's what being indoctrinated usually entails.”

John had met Mary during the investigation after the shooting at the spice and tea shop. It was her who had tried to stop the klaustreich, her own brother, who had started threatening Bud Wurstner. Her brother had dropped off the grid after the incident, and she had given up on stopping him.

Her efforts had then shifted onto making John McClee comfortable with the idea of a hidden world. Kehrseites weren't supposed to know, but when one did, it was better for everyone to put them at ease, unless the wesen community wanted a popular uproar to try and off them all. The community had learned from its mistakes and its slaughters, thank you very much; Black Claw was the last refuge of those who couldn't get that, in this time and place.

Strangely, their relationship had evolved from that into something much more intimate, and, at the beginning of the week, Mary had moved in. John didn't care if she was wesen, Mary didn't care if he was kehrseite.

Moreover, it was always a good thing to have one or two law enforcement people who could tell when there was something more behind a crime. So far it hadn't been a problem in Portland, but almost every wesen officers had been either transferred to another city by the mayor, when they didn't agree with Black Claw, or killed by Nicholas Burkhardt when they had raided his house.

Almost four months had passed since then, and John hadn't heard a thing about Burkhardt or any of his friends. There were rumors, out there, supposed sightings, yes, but nothing concrete.

In other words, Detective John McClee was probably the only policeman left who knew about wesens. The wesen community had been adamant that he should be treated well, to prove to him that not all wesens were barbarians like Black Claw.

Mary had been happy to contribute to that effort.

She sat down on the couch next to him, and John went back to looking at the news. He hadn't paid much attention to it during the last seconds, and perhaps that explained why he almost choked on his beer when the voice over actually named the man whom the journalists were still trying to get on camera.

“... infamous after the North Precinct slaughters from weeks ago, Nicholas Burkhardt is back in Portland. The authorities are going to interrogate him, but despite everything, it doesn't seem as if the police detective is going to face any kind of charges. In fact, when he walked in the Providence Portland Medical Center this morning, he was accompanied by two government agents from a still-indivulged agency...”

Mary tapped her boyfriend in the back to prevent him from spluttering any more of his beer, but she too had her eyes riveted on the TV.

“Either he's been found, and in this case he's going to be killed off very soon, before it's all covered up, or he came back on his own... John, if that's the case...”

“It means Black Claw has been ended.”

John's thought wandered back to Farley Kolt, Annie Parker and “Alexander”. He had since been told what Hadrian's Wall was, and he really hoped that the two government agents seen at the hospital were from that group, and not from Black Claw. Because, as Mary had just said, if Nick Burkhardt was seen in public, and not operating from the shadows anymore, it could mean only two things; either Black Claw had won, and they'd soon see the changes, or Hadrian's Wall had succeeded in bringing down the terrorist group.

The journalist joined the new police captain of the Central Precinct and a men in a black suit, black tie, black sunglasses, whom it wasn't really difficult to peg as an agent of one agency or another. Even Parker and Kolt hadn't been that obvious. Perhaps it was the point, here, though.

“... is there anything you can tell us about the fate of your former detective, Captain Blake? Or, at least, if you have any clues as to where he was hiding during these four months?”

“Nicholas Burkhardt still is a detective of the Central Precinct, and he will remain so unless he is proved unfit for duty. He has been through some rather traumatic situations lately, none of which were his fault. I cannot say anything more for now.”

The captain turned to look at the man in a suit standing next to her, who took off his sunglasses and stared at the camera instead of at the journalist. John kind of felt the urge to take a step back under the scrutiny.

Mary sighed as she recognized the way the man was staring past the obvious.

“You know, grimms are able to see a woge even on a video, it's really creepy. Burhkardt would be able to tell you what that guy is without a problem.”

“So, a wesen. Still doesn't tell us if he's Black Claw or Hadrian's Wall.”

“Well, I'd say he works for the government, so, logically, Hadrian's Wall, but as I'm pretty sure there are a few corrupted officials in Black Claw, it doesn't really mean anything...”

“...most of what happened with Burkhardt is confidential. But I am allowed to tell you that a terrorist group had infiltrated the Portland Police, and for reasons I cannot disclose, taken him as a target. He worked with us from that point on to shut down the terrorist cell here in Portland. Yesterday the mondial network was disbanded, and now things are going back to normal. Detective Burkhardt's work is done, and he isn't in danger anymore. He is not to be held responsible for the lives he was forced to take.”

“Are you saying he is a hero?”

“As much as any of those who fought to maintain your rights in this battle, miss.”

Mary and John waited for a moment for more information, but what followed was only about the journalists' speculations over the “confidential” part of the man in a suit's statement. Mary turned the TV off, and they stared at each other.

“This... sounded like Hadrian's Wall, right?”

“Well, they surely were defending the grimm... So, unless he switched sides, it seems like it...”

John's cellphone rang at that moment, and the detective closed his eyes before standing up to get it.

“Please be it a confirmation that no wesen extremists have risen to power... Please tell me it's not the sign that everything is going to hell...”

He didn't recognize the phone number, but really, it wasn't surprising. The only one who could have called to talk about that would be Bud Wurstner, and it was unlikely that the eisbiber had more information on the matter than John and Mary did. If this phone call was about the latest piece of news, it couldn't come from someone he had in his phonebook.

“John McClee.”

Though it could come from someone he knew, even if he didn't have their number.

“Annie Parker speaking. Remember me?”

It was more than a bit reassuring to hear the agent's voice right now. Not only did it tell John that indeed, the topic of this conversation would most likely be Nick Burkhardt, but it also told him Hadrian's Wall was still standing. Meaning, Black Claw had almost certainly fallen.

Parker didn't sound particularly anxious or anything else. It could only be good news.

“How not to? You kind of brought me into a world I didn't even suspect existed in the first place.”

“Be fair, you were already working on that case before Farley and I got there. Anyway, did you see the Portland news, Detective McClee?”

“Yes, and I almost choked on my beer when I realized who the guy was. Speaking of which, what happened to him? If I was finally allowed back in my old life after being on the run from a terrorist organization, the hospital wouldn't have been my first stop. I think I'd go to the police station first, just to get the facts straight about what happened with the North Precinct.”

John could almost hear the wince in Parker's voice, even over the phone.

“Burkhardt is an excellent... Let's say fighter. He didn't only provide us with information, and so got wounded in the process. A hundjäger tried to get a bite of him last night, before he inconveniently... lost his head.”

John mouthed hundjäger at Mary, who raised her eyebrows and went to look for an illustration. Since John was just the usual kehrseite, they had chosen that method for him to learn about wesens, as wesens didn't usually go around in full woge, visible to all.

“Did you just say that hund-whatever lost his mind after biting into Burkhardt? What is it, grimms are toxic to wesens in top of everything else?”

Mary came back with a sketch of the hundjäger, and John took a step back at the sight, because the sketched wesen didn't look nice at all.

“Lost his head, not his mind. As in, beheaded.”

“Say no more, I don't want to know. What can I do for Hadrian's Wall?”

The detective was almost certain he heard chuckling from the other end of the phone call.

“You did your homework, I see. Then again, I suppose that going out with a wesen did help on that point, didn't it?”

“Are you monitoring me?”

“The point of this conversation, Detective McClee, concerns Burkhardt's future. Hadrian's Wall will not disclose anything about wesens, obviously, but now that the threat has been destroyed, it would be unfair to keep him from his old life. Moreover, Black Claw's activities didn't go unnoticed, and we need to explain some events with as few lies as possible. The more the lies, the highest the danger of discovery. The official version will only include the existence of a large and extended terrorist network, without their exact motivations; and Burkhardt's part in its take-down, which is actually the truth of what happened. As a result, though, the Portland police did ask for Burkhardt to be evalued to see if he's still fit for duty.”

John noticed how Parker hadn't actually answered his question. Maybe he liked not knowing better.

“That seems acceptable... I mean, considering he was supposedly stuck fighting against an underground terrorist cell after having killed a good number of people who should have been his colleagues. Normal people wouldn't take it easy. Besides, he could actually be traumatized...”

“We're talking about Burkhardt, here.”

Parker had said that as if it was enough to explain that no, there was no point worrying about whether or not Nick Burkhardt could deal with his actions, because the answer was obvious.

“He's a grimm, I know. Natural born hunter of the supernaturally wicked with a true warrior instinct, whatever it means. But most people don't know that, and they don't know the complete story behind the 'large and extended terrorist network'. It's normal for him to be evalued.”

“It's still a problem, because Burkhardt can't exactly go and tell a psychologist what really happened during the last months. The government has special people under secrecy for that, but even they wouldn't listen to his story without being convinced he did go insane.”

“Doesn't Hadrian's Wall has its own people to take care of that?”

“One. She will do it, of course, but the locals will want her decision to be backed up by someone who's not part of our organization. And that's where we need you.”

John frowned at nothing, since Agent Annie Parker wasn't here with him to be frowned at.

“I'm... not sure I follow.”

“Well, we need a few people in-the-know to supervise the evaluation, amongst whom one must have a position in law enforcement. And it just so happen that every wesen in law enforcement in Portland is either gone, dead, or on the run. The few other kehrseites in the police who knew about the truth are unavailable, because involved. You're the only one left.”

John didn't comment that it wasn't following procedure, because really, was there anything in this story that was described anywhere in the rules to follow?

“Basically, you want me to listen to everything that happened, from Burkhardt, while he's being looked at by a shrink, and after that to say everything was by the book and yes, the detective can go back to arresting bad guys?”

“You'll only be there for the last session, in which nothing but Burkhardt's actual state will be talked about, and you'd be on the other side of an one-way mirror. Really, it's just to avoid suspicion in case someone'd wonder why it had to be our psychologist, and not a Portland PD psychologist.”

John didn't see why he couldn't do it, even if he felt they were making things more complicated than they were supposed to be. After all, what did he know about secret agencies policies and how to keep the wesen part of the world a secret? Not much, really, and he wasn't going to pretend he did. Most of the time, things were as they were, even if it didn't seem logical, for a reason. Because he couldn't see it didn't mean this reason didn't exist.

So he agreed.

It was supposed to be a secret, but well, Mary was a klaustreich, and she already knew about all that. When she asked him what the phone call had been about, John just answered truthfully, though without going into details. Honesty in a couple was what made it work, yet some things were better left unsaid, if only because they weren't supposed to be said by their very nature.

Mary did ask him to bring back Burkhardt's autograph as a joke.

Or, at least, John thought it was a joke.

Two weeks later, Annie Parker herself went to collect him from the East Precinct and to an undisclosed location for Nicholas Burkhardt's last session. From what John's gathered out of the agent's comments on the situation, Burkhardt and his team had been kept away from journalists and other inquiring pests for the duration of the psychological evaluation and mission debriefing, just in case. With the concerned people's agreement, of course.

John tried not to look overly curious as he entered the premises, but he might not have made much of a job of it. He was used not to show his surprise or curiosity too much, as a detective, since being an open book tended to inform your suspects a bit too soon. But he had also spent four months and a half, roughly, wondering what exactly was happening to Nick Burkhardt.

He couldn't help it. He was curious. More than a little bit curious.

The first time he had heard of Nick Burkhardt, it had been with the man, a fellow police detective, as the main suspect in the slaugtherw of Portland's North Precinct. Then it had all gone to the dogs from that, and John had left the investigation right at the point where Burkhardt had been revealed to be alive and wanted by a secret terrorist group. Everything after that told John McClee that the story had only gotten more interesting from then on, though the detective wasn't sure how exactly it could become more interesting.

So yes, John might be a bit more than just a little bit curious and slightly excited to finally see Nick Burkhardt, because so far, he had only heard the man's voice over the phone, just before Agent Parker, Agent Kolt and “Alexander” had walked off into the sunset, letting him to wonder whatever the hell he was going to say in his report.

For four whole months.

He kind of felt entitled to see the real deal, now.

And, if he could get a sight of the people Burkhardt had worked with during the latest top secret, confidential events, it would just be a bonus.

Alright, John McClee was feeling a bit like his child-self, right now, because it was totally as if he had walked, again, right into the superhero / spy movies from his childhood.

Parker showed him through a common area. A discreetly pregnant woman, and who he assumed to be her husband, were talking quietly next to the fireplace. The sergeant Wu, whom John had seen on a couple of occasions during cases, was watching TV. A woman, younger than the others, was squinting at a disassembled gun; John just had the feeling she could make it assembled again in less than fifteen seconds. Another woman was reading a book next to a window. Lastly, Hank Griffith, whom he easily recognized from a jurisdiction problem three years back, was relaxing in an armchair; his left leg was in a cast, and John did not wish to know why; he was perfectly content with the wry smile the other detective gave him when he looked back up at the man's face.

None of them looked quite as bad as Burkhardt had looked the other day on TV, though. The guy had been pale, bloody, and if not terribly wounded anywhere, his body had been lightly wounded about everywhere. Then again, Burkhardt had probably been the only one used as a chew toy by a hundjäger.

Or, John hoped so. Death by hundjäger bite wasn't on his wish list, and it would never be, not after having seen the picture of a hundjäger, the one Mary had shown to him.

Not that John wished to die, but, you know, if he was offered a choice as to what his death would be, he wouldn't pick death by hundjäger bite.

The detective wondered if Burkhardt looked any better, now that he had had time to recover...

John followed Parker to a private room with an one-way mirror, a little further in the building.

He was surprised to see Farley Kolt there, as well as two other people he didn't know, but whom hecould tell were civilians, even if in the know. One of them seemed a bit anxious at the very idea of spying on Burkhardt's last session with the shrink. John couldn't say he didn't feel a bit uncomfortable at the thought either, but he didn't think that was the reason the man was this fidgety.

If he had to guess, from Kolt's long-suffering glances at the man, the stranger was a wesen who knew just a bit too much about the guy on the other side of the mirror.

Well, John surmised, surely it was for fairness. Not everyone participating in this should be on Burkhardt's side from the beginning, after all...

Kolt glanced at Parker, then at the detective, and did not look back at the anxious man.

“Detective McClee. Fancy seeing you here.”

“Really? I was under the impression you knew exactly what I'm doing at all hours of the day.”

“Niet, we don't bother with monitoring the time you're actually with us, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Boys, if I can remind you why you're here...?”

“No sense of humor, Annie.”

“You already told me that a few hundreds of times, Farley. Now be sweet, and shut the hell up.”

John turned to look at the one-way mirror.

The man in the other room, who totally knew that the mirror on the wall wasn't just a mirror, because, Hello, police detective?, was Nick Burkhardt.

After searching for him for almost a week, after wondering if the man was still alive every day for four months, after imagining what this moment would be like for two weeks, John McClee was finally able to put a face on a name.

Sure, he had seen the man in pictures, and even on TV. But it hadn't been him, not really. It had been only a fragment of Nick Burkhardt. And it really hadn't done justice to the man.

There was something about him, that immediately caught John's eye. The detective didn't even bother looking at the psychologist on the other side of the table, too busy watching the man he had almost obsessed over for quite a time, always wondering. It wasn't that the guy radiated danger, or was particularly striking, or couldn't keep the charm off, no, nothing like some of the suspects John had interrogated over the years.

Nick Burkhardt was a handsome man. He could be sympathic if needs be. He did feel like someone to take into account. But it wasn't overwhelming, it wasn't obvious. It was...

It was just there.

As if it was so intrinsically him that it concealed itself on its own, without even trying, without pretending either. John could feel the slightly dangerous, slightly agreeable atmosphere around the man without problem. Only, had he not searched for it, he wouldn't have made a big deal of it. He wouldn't really have noticed.

This man, he thought, would have no problem going back into a more normal life. Or, as normal as a grimm's life could be. Because what had happened out there, and was redacted in Hadrian's Wall's confidential files, it hadn't changed the man one bit. Nicholas Bukhardt had always been that unassuming, perhaps a bit underestimated, but really dangerous man. Only, until now, he had never needed to show it.

This, John McClee thought, this was a man who would never be thanked for saving people who didn't even know they had needed to be saved.