Ellis walked directly across the main floor toward the booking desk with the stride of a man who has a specific location, a specific instruction, and no interest in any part of the intervening space becoming a negotiation.
Captain Paul Becker emerged from his glass-walled office in the back corner. He was moving fast and buttoning his jacket as he walked, with the expression of a man who has been doing routine administration and has just understood that something has happened in his building that he has not been briefed on, and that the gap between those two facts is about to have consequences.
"Who are you, and what is happening in my precinct?"
Ellis set his federal credentials on the booking counter—one motion, controlled and final.
"David Ellis, United States Attorney for the Southern District." His voice did not rise; it did not need to. "Captain, you have one of my prosecutors in a holding cell. You have a short time to release her, after which the options available in this conversation become significantly less collegial."
Becker looked at the credentials, looked at the FBI agents, looked at Riley, who had both palms flat on the desk in front of him in the posture of a man who very much wants to not be the responsible party for whatever comes next.
"Riley, who is in cell four?"
"Rachel Bennett, sir." Riley's voice was steady and quieter than usual. "I ran her prints some time ago. She's the Deputy Chief of the Federal Criminal Division, Southern District."
The silence that followed was not empty. It was the sound of a room full of people simultaneously calculating what this meant for them individually, and arriving at answers that ranged from bad to considerably worse.
Ellis turned from the booking counter. He found Cole immediately. Cole had not moved from the position he had been standing in when the doors opened. He looked like a man whose infrastructure had been quietly removed from underneath him without his noticing, until this precise moment when he tried to stand on it.
Ellis walked toward him. He stopped inches away.