Alpha Kill - 03 by Tim Stevens Page A

minutes, dodging the dog walkers and even a few early-morning skateboarders strutting their stuff. By the time he reached his apartment once more the clouds of fog had disappeared from his brain, blasted away by the pumping of his blood.
    He showered and made another cup of coffee, drinking it while he checked his emails. Yes, there was Beth’s, with a time signature of one-fifteen that morning. Venn copied the attached files to a flash disk.
    He debated calling Beth, but decided against it.
    By the time he’d negotiated the Jeep Cherokee through the Lower Manhattan traffic and reached his office it was eight-thirty. The office of the Division of Special Projects was off Ninth Avenue, in a simple, nondescript building which thankfully had its own parking lot out back. He dumped the Jeep and took the stairs.
    The DSP was a tiny outfit, more of a pet project than a department proper. Venn headed it, with the assistance of two other detectives and a receptionist. He’d been asked to put it together more than a year earlier when he’d been hired by the NYPD. The Division was the brainchild of one Captain David Kang, Venn’s immediate superior. Its remit was to investigate crimes in which political discretion needed to be exercised.
    Shawna, the receptionist, was at her desk, in all her garish, gum-popping glory. She batted fake eyelashes as thick as caterpillars at Venn.
    “Good weekend, Lieutenant?”
    “Up and down.” He could say whatever he wanted to her - could say he’d spent the weekend dismantling a nuclear bomb - and it would make no difference, because she never listened. Instead, she launched into an account of her own shenanigans, which always involved men. A new man every week, it seemed.
    Venn extricated himself with difficulty and headed into the office area. Neither of the others were in yet. He wasn’t particularly bothered. There was nothing big going down at present, nothing they were handling but a couple of slow-burn corruption cases, and he let them keep their own hours. Results were what mattered, not butts on seats.
    Alone in his personal office, Venn picked up his phone and dialed a number in Rockford, Winnebago County, Illinois.
    “Federal Bureau of Investigation,” a woman answered.
    Venn asked to be put through to Special Agent Yancy. After a minute or two on hold, he heard an impatient voice bark: “Yeah.”
    “Yance. Joe Venn.”
    “Hey, man.” Yancy’s tone was harassed, but friendly enough. “They didn’t say it was you.”
    “They didn’t ask. What are you up to? Anything juicy?”
    “Funny guy,” said Yancy. “I’ve been here all night. Up to my goddamn eyelids.”
    Dennis Yancy had been a fellow detective lieutenant with the Chicago PD at the same time as Venn. He’d been supportive of Venn during Venn’s troubles with the force, which had gotten him kicked off, and had left in disgust at his buddy’s treatment. Or so he said. Venn knew Yancy was ambitious, and would probably have jumped ship soon anyhow. He’d applied successfully for the FBI, and now held a senior position in the Bureau’s Rockford office.
    “They’re spreading us too thin here,” Yancy was saying. “Sending agents out to follow up on pissant leads, when we should be concentrated in a few spots, ready to mobilize when something useful comes in.”
    Venn knew he was referring to the Horn Creek break and the hunt for the fugitives. “Hey, man,” Venn said. “Nobody actually forced you to join the Feebs, you know. You were a good street cop back in the day. Now, I’ll bet you’re thirty pounds heavier, and you spend eight hours a day stuck behind a big desk.”
    Yancy snorted. “For your information, I’ve lost ten pounds. The stress took care of that.”
    “So. This Horn Creek thing.”
    “It’s not a thing . It’s a shiny, eighteen-carat screwup, is what it is.” Yancy snapped something at somebody who’d just come into the room, by the sound of it. To Venn again: “Christ, you