Page 2 of Agent's Integrity

I glared at him, and I had to tilt my head back when he walked closer. At over six and a half feet tall, he towered over me. I hated that he was so much taller than me, especially when he made fun of me for being barely an inch over five feet. “Unlike you, I don’t give up in my pursuits, even when running across the whole bloody town.”

My words didn’t even faze him. He was still smiling as he took our suspect’s arm and turned him to face the wall. “I didn’t give up. It was pure luck he chose to run out of the strip club through the door closest to you and not me. There was no way I could catch up to you.”

“Seems your long legs are still not as good as my short ones,” I said triumphantly.

Jordan barked out a laugh. “My legs, in no way, compare to yours, of that you are correct.” He turned his attention to the cuffed man. “I’m going to conduct a search. Do you have any weapons or anything sharp or dangerous on your person that might harm me?”

The man huffed before finally murmuring something I couldn’t hear. Jordan fished in his left pants pocket and pulled out a knife. He held it out to me, and I took it and laid it on the hood of the car. That was soon followed by two more knives and a capped needle. The needle was filled with some sort of drug, but it was unclear what kind.

Jordan continued the pat down professionally, divesting him of all his possessions. I dutifully bagged everything and labeled them appropriately. I handed Jordan a biometrics scanner, and he pressed the suspect’s palm to the screen before handing it back to me. It only took a few seconds for the database to pull up his name and record.

“Claude Parkston. It seems like you have several arrest warrants, Claude.” I scanned down through the report as Claude screwed his face up in a mixture of anger, defiance, and contempt.

Jordan escorted Claude to the car and put him in the backseat. He walked back over to me and I passed him the scanner. “I hope this is the break we’ve been looking for.”

Jordan started reading the warrants and sneered. “This guy is despicable. Two convictions for assault, one for rape and one for felony larceny. Warrants for cases in connection with murder, theft, and piracy.” He shook his head. “This mercenary is not one of the nice ones.”

I bristled in irritation and clenched my jaw. “Can you stop bringing that up?”

One corner of his mouth turned up, though his serious expression remained. “Am I ever going to stop giving you flack for referring to a mercenary as ‘respectable as far as mercenaries go’? No. You will never live that down.”

I couldn’t blame him for teasing me about it because if our positions were reversed, I would have teased him mercilessly, too. “That knowledge stays between us, got it? I’ll lose my job if the captain ever finds out I colluded with a mercenary.”

Jordan shook his head. “To find a kidnapped girl. Even the captain would understand that.”

“I doubt it.”

“Wouldn’t the high chancellor bail you out?”

I sighed. “Maybe, but there’s always a chance he wouldn’t. So, keep your mouth shut.”

“Of course.” He handed me the tablet back. “I’ve always got your back, Jules. We’re partners.”

Partners seemed like a shallow description of what we were. He was like a brother to me. Jordan and I went through the Intergalactic Police Force training together. I had known going in that it would be difficult and rigorous, but I hadn’t been prepared for the mental tests and strains they put on us. Jordan and I were in the same program, and we’d become friends instantly, needing someone else to rely on amongst all the pressure. We had even been lucky enough to receive the same assignment after graduation. We had both steadily moved up from enforcers to officers and finally to agents.

However, a little over a year ago, I was transferred to the diplomatic security branch because of my skill at deception detection. It was a valuable skill to have when trying to prevent assassinations or terrorist activities. I couldn’t blame my superiors for transferring me, but they didn’t transfer Jordan with me. That had been rough. We were partners, and we trusted each other. Working without him at my back felt wrong.

Then High Chancellor Ben Barrows had been kidnapped during the peace summit between the Conglomeration and the Alliance confederations on Venetus. He had been missing for weeks before he appeared again, and he personally assigned me to his case, to find out who was behind it, especially since Santiago, his kidnapper, claimed the Conglomeration had hired him.

Barrows gave me permission to bring anyone to the team I wanted to. The IPF already had a task force that investigated these kinds of diplomatic issues, but I wanted Jordan. I asked if he wanted the transfer, and he hadn’t hesitated. It was good to have him at my back again.

It had taken weeks for us to interrogate all of Santiago’s men. The ones who had been with him when he attempted to assassinate the high chancellor had been killed, but the rest of his crew had been on his ship and were apprehended before that. None of them had seemed to know who had hired them or been willing to give up the names of anyone else involved. There had been one, finally, who I managed to crack. He had listed off all the men who were supposed to be with Santiago on Venetus, and all were accounted for except one.

The name he gave was obviously fake. We were eventually able to piece together that it was the guy Kit said was supposed to dispose of her after she was kidnapped the second time. She had managed to overpower him and left him tied up while she tried to prevent Ben’s assassination. Unfortunately, Kit was almost killed in the assassination attempt and had to undergo emergency surgery. By the time she regained consciousness and told us about the mercenary, he was already gone. According to his crewmate, Claude liked to hang out on Lithios. It had taken a lot of legwork to track him down since we only had a fake name, but it was worth it. Claude was one of the inner circle. He knew more about Santiago than anyone else still living.

Jordan and I got into the car and he fired up the engine, programming it to head back to the local IPF office. I leaned back in my seat and rubbed the back of my neck. “I didn’t expect him to put up such a fight.”

Jordan chuckled. “You expect people to look at you, this tiny woman, and see the roaring beast within, and they don’t. Those of us who know you know you are fierce and not to be messed with, but guys like him?” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at Claude. “They have no idea you’re a firecracker.”

I grunted. He was right and I knew it, even though it irked me. I hated people judging me based on my size. I was more than what showed on the outside.

Jordan ignored my unhappy noise and smiled. “I have a good feeling about this one.”

“Me too.” I peeled my black gloves off and checked over my knuckles. There didn’t seem to be too much damage from plowing my fist into Claude’s body, and I was grateful for that. I used my fists often enough to have built up some resistance to bruising. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and I would be grateful for the small things in life.

We didn’t say much on the drive back. It wasn’t a long trip. Jordan carefully parked the car in the lot. He climbed out, unfolding his long limbs, and helped Claude exit the vehicle. I followed behind them as Jordan pulled him towards the building. I wasn’t going to give him any opportunity to escape. He was too valuable.

We walked through the lobby and public waiting area before Jordan steered Claude through a side door with a nod at the enforcer behind the desk. The back room was full of bustling people flitting from place to place, holding tablets, and gathering around holographic projection screens. There were a few criminals in the mix being processed or moved from room to room.

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