Independence Day Plague Read Free Page B

work shirts, stylish suits, button down dress shirts, a military uniform, and some janitor grays. He reached for the personality he was to become today, the blue shirt and pants of the Metro repairman.
     
    Mike Dorado carried his coffee into the glass cage that constituted his and McAfee’s office. The station was in the heart of DC, a few blocks from the Smithsonian and located as part of the old but prestigious L’Enfant offices. Most of the other detectives had desks scattered across the large common room. At times, the noise would be roaring loud and nothing was ever private. When an elderly lieutenant retired last year, Dorado used his senior time in rank to snatch up the precious office space before the administration could take it away. Now he often wondered if the glass kept the noise out or just imprisoned him in.
    The door swung open as Dorado hung his black coat on a hook next to McAfee’s brown one. Captain Starker walked in. “Where’s McAfee?”
    “ Hasn’t shown up yet, but he’ll be here soon.” Dorado lied. His partner probably was jawing it up with some pretty coworker over by the coffee pot.
    “ That’s okay. I want to talk to you private for a while.” The captain squished his large frame into McAfee’s rolling chair, which groaned under the weight. Dorado didn’t know much about Starker’s early life but would bet money that the man played football in college. Although large, he moved with an aged grace often found in former athletes. Dorado suspected the captain never had trouble running down a suspect or thumping a guy into a wall when needed.
    Starker tossed a piece of paper across the two end-to-end desks. The first memo was interagency, having been circulated among many of the district’s adjacent police agencies.
    Dorado stared at it and frowned. “What’s this?”
    Starker leaned forward. “I want you to head the Fourth of July task force this year.”
    “ Hell no, that’s Benson’s job.”
    “ He retired as of thirty minutes ago.”
    That was odd, Dorado thought. Benson liked the limelight of the task forces. “He did it voluntarily?”
    “ Let’s just say he was highly encouraged to withdraw.” Starker paused, his brown face passive. “I need a good man this year, a better man than Benson.”
    “ Why me? There are a lot of good men out there.”
    “ You got a feel for this kind of work, Mike. You got seniority. You won’t be alone. We’ll be working with FBI, the Park Police, the other police agencies, Homeland Security, DEA, and hell even CIA if we feel we need them. You don’t suck up to the Feds. I want someone who guards our jurisdiction without getting into a public pissing contest.”
    “ That’s important? I thought we were all about interagency cooperation.”
    Starker shrugged, “We are, but we’re not about sitting back, letting the FBI run the show and then putting the blame on us when it all goes to shit. The freak show’s going to be worse than ever before. We got extra duties in helping escort the damn Chinese delegation around and then the normal holiday crap only magnified about ten times. I need a person less interested in politics and more interested in policing.” Starker handed him a memo. A brief glance told him that it was the interdepartmental announcement of his new position, signed and dated.
    Dorado sighed deeply and rubbed his chin. He hated it when Starker got complimentary. It was only the soft glove around the brick. He wouldn’t be allowed to turn this honor down.
    Interdepartmental task forces, especially ones involving the federals, had a habit of degenerating into finger pointing and ass covering so much that little actual investigation was ever accomplished. The rivalry often stopped communications and territorial snarling skyrocketed.
    Dorado, a street cop for seventeen years, preferred being in the heart of the battle instead of planning strategy. With a psychological profiling background, he had a knack for telling