Wells was already moving toward the door, not looking back.
"You've done the difficult part, Mr. Jude. Getting Miss Sans Souci here without a trace — that was the critical step." The wheelchair rolled smoothly through the lab. "What you should do now is return to the street, sell the rest of whatever's in your cart, and go home. Don't give Eiling a trail that leads here."
He paused at the threshold.
"Don't underestimate what he can find out. He doesn't need classified access — he goes to the CCPD, asks a few questions, and within the hour he has the name of the Japanese food truck owner working the city center circuit, a description, and probably a neighborhood. The only reason he isn't at your door right now is that he doesn't know your full situation." A beat. "That window won't stay open."
The others nodded. Jude accepted this without argument.
"I asked him directly whether he knew who I was," he said. "If he'd said yes, I wouldn't have gone home at all — I'd have come straight here with Bette." He shrugged. "It worked out."
Think before you act next time, Wells' tone implied without saying it. Then he left.
Barry gave Jude a look that landed somewhere between gratitude and mild exasperation, then vanished in a crack of displaced air with Bette in tow. Cisco clapped Jude on the shoulder. Caitlin walked him to the door.
"Eiling is clearly not a good person," she said, which was her version of comfort. "Get some sleep tonight."
"He held a gun to my head, Caitlin. I've had that happen before." Jude stepped out into the afternoon light. "Life continues. I'm going back to the stall."
She stood in the doorway after he'd gone, turning the phrase over. I've had that happen before. What exactly did that mean for a food truck owner? She wanted to ask, but Satsuki was already halfway down the block.
The sky still had light in it. Enough time to sell the remaining spicy strips, assuming Yomogi hadn't worked through them while nobody was paying attention. The palico had been suspiciously quiet all day — which, in retrospect, made sense. Her mouth had been continuously occupied since approximately 9 a.m.
Either way, by the time Jude had parked on a reasonable corner, the sell-out was moving faster than expected. Nine months of consistent quality had built the kind of loyalty that doesn't require advertising.
He leaned against the cart and pulled out his phone.
"Satsuki — what's Eiling doing?"
"Two-hour sweep of the surrounding area, no trace of Miss Sans Souci found. General Eiling has pulled the search teams back. He and two others are currently en route to the Central City Police Department."
Jude considered this.
"Old man's got energy." He straightened up. "Let's set up in front of the police station."
"Isn't that a little cruel?"
"Is it?" He was already riding. "Seems like good foot traffic to me."
Inspector Singh had the posture of a man holding a position he'd fully committed to defending. Eiling stood across from him, and the atmosphere in the room had the specific quality of a territorial dispute between two dogs who have both decided this hill is theirs.
"Inspector Singh, I want to be clear — this is an internal military matter. Your department has no standing to interfere. When you next encounter this individual, you will detain him and contact me immediately."
"General Eiling." Singh's voice was measured. "This is the Central City Police Department. We protect the legal rights and personal safety of the citizens of this city. We're happy to cooperate through standard channels."
What Singh didn't say, and didn't need to: nobody in this building liked this general. Inter-departmental cooperation was already a contest for credit and jurisdiction at the best of times. A military officer appearing from nowhere and treating their precinct as a branch office was not the best of times. And Eiling, specifically, was an unlikable person in a way that went beyond professional friction — he walked into rooms as though doing them a favor by arriving.
Singh picked up his phone and turned the screen toward him.
"Speaking of standard channels — could you explain this?"
The video. The headline. Eiling watched himself on screen — the posture, the weapon, the civilian — and read the title in full. He'd made it to general through a particular kind of intelligence, the kind that runs cold calculations quickly. He ran one now, assessed the damage, and repackaged.
"This involves classified military information. I'm not at liberty to discuss the operational context, and you don't have the clearance to receive it." He straightened. "What I can tell you is that the individual in that video is suspected of harboring a military deserter and potentially leaking sensitive information. He has serious problems." His voice dropped. "I'd advise your department to consider carefully what it should and shouldn't involve itself in."
"Something about that story doesn't sit right with me."
The voice came from outside.
Singh and Eiling both turned. Jude stood on the front steps of the police station, arranging a tray of spicy strips on a folding cart with the focused calm of a man setting up for a productive afternoon.
"A food vendor gets accused of harboring deserters and leaking military secrets." He didn't look up from the tray. "That's a lot of charge for a guy selling snacks. Almost like someone with a lot of power doesn't like someone without much, and is looking for language that'll stick."
He set the last packet down and met Eiling's gaze through the door.
"But that's not what's happening here. You're a general. Men like that don't frame people — they have actual evidence."
The hand went to the holster. Stopped. Eiling's expression cycled through several distinct colors before arriving at something cold and controlled.
"You walked right into this," he said. "Come with me. We'll clear everything up at the base."
"General Eiling." Singh stepped forward. "You are not removing a citizen of this city without cause. And given what's on that video, I think I'm within my rights to ask whether this is an interrogation or something else." He didn't use the word. He didn't need to.
Joe came around from the far side of the room. He'd seen Jude come in and tracked where this was heading. Whatever complicated feelings he had about people who strolled into danger with apparent intentionality, Jude had pulled him out of something worse than this. He wasn't going to stand there and watch. "General — if he's a suspect, you need to show cause. Evidence. That's how this works in this city."
Eiling looked at them both. His face had gone the color of the bottom of a pan left too long on the burner.
He had nothing. He'd pulled every surveillance feed from the surrounding blocks, and Bette Sans Souci had not appeared on Jude's street from start to finish. His entire basis for an arrest was this man is concealing something — accurate, and completely inadmissible.
"This," he said, in a voice designed to end conversations, "is a classified military matter. You do not have the authority to review the evidence. Anyone who obstructs this investigation will be reported to higher command."
He looked at each of them in turn.
Nobody moved.