Nine Swords

"No, but I'm going to find out." Tom said before the call ended.

He turned back to Wes,"You mind if I take a look?" He flipped though the phone's pictures. "From the looks of it they know what they're doing," Tom agreed. "I got that impression from examining the bodies of the security team as well." He looked at the pictures again. "They're definitely Society. If I had to guess I'd say Illuminati. From the outfits as well as the complete disregard for loss of life. It fits in with their MO, I should know." He handed the phone back to Wes. "It's too straight on for the Dragon, I can't imagine they would be this blunt. The Phoenicians wouldn't pull this kind of stunt either. Not in London right under our noses. They'd get their asses handed to them. No, it's the Illuminati alright."

Jenn and Katja trotted up, a bit slowly by this point, to the scene in front of Edwards Arms, after about twenty-five blocks of brisk foot travel.

"Should've... ordered... the feckin' car," Jenn commented breathlessly to Kat.

Jenn could see Wes and Tom, leaning against what was left of a car parked askew across the sidewalk out front of the building. They seemed to be talking, checking cell phone pictures, and keeping an eye on the building. She could see the grey and black uniforms of Edwards security personnel moving around inside the lobby. That stopped her a minute.

"Bloody hell... Pat." She could see his sedan out front, beyond the car with the shattered windows. She took a deep breath and tried to think of a good way to explain to the Security Chief, who would by now have seen the camera footage... that she wasn't altogether dead...or, even slightly dead..anymore. Surprise! Sha, she hoped they had defibrilator paddles in the lobby.

That dropped lower on the list of things she'd have to deal with when she saw several unmarked cars that clearly screamed 'Copper' and DI Shelly's familiar sedan pull up. Behind it came several coroner's vehicles. She waited at the end of the street, holding Kat back in a shopfront doorway, till the cars had emptied out and the DI and her crew had gone in to talk to Security.

When the street was clear except for Wes and Tom and a few milling police, Jenn tugged Kat back out and led her down the street toward the front of the huge glass and steel building. She paused, a short distance from the car and waited, just watching Tom and Wes until they saw her. It might have been that she needed the stability of just looking at them for a time, for reassurance that the world was solid again.

Tom started to pace, taking long strides up and down the sidewalk, turning, then pacing back to where he started. "Illuminati." He grumbled. "Fucking Illuminati." At some point in his third pass he turned and punched the car, shattering the other front window and cutting his hand all to hell again. He didn't seem to notice beyond an annoyed grumble.

With her super-awesome anima-sensing sniffer, Jenn would probably be able to feel the rage roiling about within Tom. It rose and fell like waves on the sea. Obviously he was trying hard to keep it contained. He looked back up at the building. He wasn't looking forward to explaining that to anyone.

Jenn's slowly relaxing expression turned to a frown, and she padded up behind Tom on one of his pacing laps. She nodded to Wes and then wrapped her arms carefully around Tom's waist from the back, stopping him in mid-stride. "Hey... stop." She kept her voice soft, and kept just alert enough to try to dodge if he didn't realize it was her behind him.

Wes glanced at them and walked over to where the bodies lay trying to keep an eye on them and allow Tom and Jen a bit of time to process the events. He nodded over to Kat to join him.

Tom spun around, or at least tried to, but he stopped when he realized that Jenn was wrapped around his waist. The end result was a sort of twisting motion that caused several vertebrae to pop audibly. "They killed you Jenn." Tom growled, quite a bit louder than necessary. "They killed you, I'm going to tear them apart." He twisted back again and beat a fist on the roof of the car. Not hard enough to damage it this time, just more out of frustration. He wanted to tear down the street and destroy anything that got in his way, but Jenn's arms were doing more to stop him than a pair of steel doors. He raised his fists again, and then just let them flop down onto the top of the car again. "I'll tear them apart." He growled again.

Jenn held on to Tom's waist through all his twisting. "I'll be perfectly happy to shoot them in the knees so they can't get away while you do, Tom." She was shaking, but too focused on him to notice it. "Right now... it's alright, and I'm here, and you're scaring the shite out of law enforcement over there."

She smiled as brightly as she could to the few police still milling around down by their cars.

She rested her cheek against the back of his shoulder. "It's alright." She wished she believed that.

Wes walked up to the milling police officers and nodded to them as officiously as he could.

"I'll take it from here lads." Wes said jutting his chin in what he hoped was a take-charge fashion.

The two constables eyed one another warily. The larger, heavier one murmured something quietly to the smaller, hawkish ginger one.

"Er...first, who are ye and second, what do ye mean 'take it from 'ere'?" the small one asked in clearly unimpressed tones.

"Er... I am DOCTOR Wes Farnham. I will be taking custody of the bodies here for autopsy and forensic analysis." Wes bluffed.

"Right. Never 'eard of you. Got any identification?" the larger one chimed in, emboldened by his diminutive comrade.

"Identification? IDENTIFICATION? NO! I don't have any bloody identification! DI Shelly asked me, as a personal favor, to consult on this case as it is likely an act of terrorism on British soil and given that its 'o fecking bloody dark in the morning there wasn't time to arrange proper identification. But if you two simians wish to explain to the DI why I am being kept from my duties, it is no skin off my nose! I'll just go over and have a coffee while you two get sorted shall I?" with that Wes turned and stalked as irritably as he could to the waiting cars. He enjoyed that entirely too much, hoping he had not gone overboard. He did feel bad for the two men just doing their jobs, but he also knew if he stood there waiting to see if it would work, it was more likely to be seen as a bluff.

One of the men spoke into a police radio quietly while glaring at Wes' back. He seemed to be trying to speak but was apparently having difficulty getting a word in edgewise. After a few moments, he gave up with a rather sullen look and walked over to Wes, tapped him on the shoulder and jerked a finger to the corpses wordlessly.

As Wes moved to direct the actions of two medics in white coats with oddly familiar red crosses on their shoulders, the larger constable asked Wes in a hushed tone, "You really fink it might be terrorists?"

"Perhaps. We just don't want another Tokyo on our hands, aye?" Wes responded casually.

"Cor..." was all the constable could muster in reply.

"Get these two back to HQ and begin a Facial Recognition scan to compare against all know Ill...er...terrorist operatives." Wes directed the medics. "I'll be along momentarily."

When Wes had nodded her over Katja had squeezed Jenn´s shoulder on the way. Now she was glancing Wes with a surprised expression. She tried to hide it with a confident smile and her hand got a little harder grip on the bag where she kept her shotgun.

Tom looked towards the police as they chatted with Wes. He snorted at them, stamping a foot a bit like an angry bull, but he quickly turned back away from them. "Yeah, you're right," he said, slumping against the car a bit. "Yeah, it'll be alright." He sounded like he was still trying to convince himself of that. At least he wasn't smashing things anymore. He slowly rotated to face Jenn and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head.

He just stayed there with his eyes closed for a moment.

"You should probably go let Pat know you're alright. I think he's called just about everybody but the Prime Minister at this point."