8.12
“You know,” Cillian says, drumming his fingers against the polished wood surface of his desk, “I would just love to hear the story of how you somehow managed to come back from an investigative mission to arrest a middle-aged scientist with one agent injured, another run off to God knows where, and still no idea where Abbott is.”
Austin shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and tries to look anywhere else but at Cillian. “Well - you know how the Underground can be.”
“No, Austin, I don’t,” Cillian says. His voice is dripping with barely restrained aggravation. “And I’d love for you to tell me all about it, sometime when we don’t have to worry about finding your brother’s assailant before he skips town.”
“Look,” Austin says, feeling a headache starting to mount somewhere behind his temples. He knew this conversation would have to happen sooner or later, but he’s too drained to have it now, too exhausted from hours of stomping around the Underground, being knocked out and then interrogated and then interrogating others. “You’re right. We don’t have time to get into specifics.”
“So don’t,” Cillian says.
“I won’t,” Austin retorts, “but I need you to trust my word about what happened down there.”
“I don’t very well have anyone else’s word to compare it against, do I?” Cillian leans back in his officer chair, raising his eyebrows and crossing one leg over the other. “Agent 013 is AWOL with no microchip signal to speak of, and Agent Warcrest is unconscious in the infirmary, where they somehow were before you got back here.”
“Someone from the Underground did me a favor,” Austin mutters.
“Yes, the people in the Underground are uncommonly good at finding their way into our buildings,” Cillian says. “And I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me how they’re doing it.”
Austin shakes his head. If he tells, word will inevitably get back to the Underground somehow, and there’s no point in ratting them out after Finn and Fritz at least tried to help with the investigation. Maybe Rainer will spill the beans later, but maybe the Underground’s also got some kind of contingency plan for that. Austin wouldn’t put it past them to block the entrance from DPR campus off, just to keep from being discovered.
“Fine,” Cillian says, and sighs, slumping in his chair. He looks exhausted. Austin isn’t so sure what’s been happening around the DPR offices while he’s been gone, but he can hazard a guess that nobody’s made any true headway when it comes to finding Abbott.
“How’s Jacob?” he asks, genuinely curious, but also looking to change the subject.
“He’s doing well,” Cillian says. “He should be getting released tomorrow, and I’d love to have that bastard Kilgannon in cuffs before then.”
Austin toys with a loose thread in the cushion of his chair, picking at it with a fingernail. “Nothing we can do about that.”
“You got no leads from the Underground? None at all?”
“Nope.” Austin shakes his head again.
“And you’re sure none of them are just protecting him?” Cillian asks.
“Nobody down there seems to like him very much, either.” Austin curls his hand into a loose fist, to stop from picking at the cushion. “I talked to one of the doctors who ran the drug trial with Abbott, and he said that Abbott abandoned them, when the labs caved in. Just left them all down there, with no way to get the trapped subjects out or anything. So Abbott probably still knows how to get in and out of the Underground just fine, but I don’t think they’d take him.”
Cillian steeples his fingers over his stomach, tapping their tips together pensively. “No chance he’s down there without any of them knowing?”
“We took the entrance Abbott probably would have used, and someone caught us down there within fifteen minutes,” Austin says. Come to think of it, the hatch wasn’t disturbed or open or anything when Dallas lead us to it. I don’t think Abbott could have pulled it shut and replaced the floorboards on top of it from the underside. “If he was down there, somebody would know.”
“Shit,” Cillian says.
Austin raises his eyebrows, surprised to hear such defeat in Cillian’s tone. “You don’t have any other idea where he could be?”
“Well, there’s the town that Jacob found him teaching in, before,” Cillian says, “but we’d have to go in and take jurisdiction from the local law enforcement. And it’s a little hard to do that if we don’t have any concrete proof that he’s actually there -”
“Or embarrassing if he is there, but skips town before you can get all the paperwork filed.”
“Right.” Cillian heaves another sigh, larger than the last.
Well, our options are down to zero, then. Austin starts to play with the loose thread of the chair cushion again, frowning as he stops to think. He’s not in the Underground, and we can’t conclusively prove that he’s skipped town yet. But there’s probably nowhere else he’d be hiding in town. It doesn’t sound like Abbott was very close to anyone. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he barely left the -
“He has a place in town, right?” Austin asks suddenly, straightening up as an idea hits him full force. “And you searched it?”
“Not top to bottom, but it was the first place I sent agents to look, after Jacob told everyone what had happened.” Cillian considers, then leans forwards in his chair again, towards Austin. “You think we might have missed something?”
“He might have come back, since,” Austin says slowly, turning the idea over in his head as he says it. “Or if not - you know I can see things that other people can’t. Maybe I can pick up on something that those other agents missed.”
Cillian doesn’t quite look convinced. “If he’s not there, then it’s a waste of time.”
“More or less, yeah,” Austin admits. “But all day, the one thing everyone who knew Abbott has been telling me is that it doesn’t seem like him to just up and stab someone the way he did. It just feels like there’s something missing - something we’re not seeing. Something that changed Abbott from how he was then, to how he is now.”
“And you think you’ll find it at his apartment,” Cillian says, obviously still not buying it.
“If there’s going to be evidence of that change anywhere, I’d think it would be there.” Austin catches his gaze and holds it, trying to convey that he’s serious. “You know I wouldn’t waste your time on something I didn’t think was important. Not with this.”
“You think this something, this…change, is what made him stab Jacob?” Cillian asks.
“I think that maybe once we understand more about what changed, we’ll stand a better chance of tracking him down.” Austin nods, standing from the chair. “Or we’ll luck out, he’ll be there, and I can just arrest him.”
“Well, whatever happens, I’m coming with you.” Cillian stands from his chair as well, and steps out from behind his desk. “I don’t think I trust you with any more of my agents, given the mess you’ve already managed to cause today.”
Austin grins. “Fair enough. But you’re driving.”