Returning to London couldn’t come fast enough. There was no plane that could accommodate Sly’s van at the ready, so we had to book on a ship. Hopefully the ringtail’s ancestor is still in one piece. I need to get a squad prepared with the information we have. This is going to require all the backup I can hope for. Hopefully what I’ve got will properly compensate. I can’t help but wonder how Lieutenant Gronk will react. Ever since recruiting him and the other mercenaries in Venice, I’ve known he’s quite fierce and devoted but sometimes hard to read.
“Inspector Fox?” says Warden Barkley as I step into his office without knocking. “You’re coming in unannounced.”
“I know, I’m sorry, I just arrived back in Europe, and I wasn’t able to contact you by radio.”
“What? Why not? And where have you been? Still chasing down that crime ring?”
“There are people all around keeping an eye on them. But that’s not the point. Have you been able to get anything further out of Mz Ruby?”
“No,” he groans. “It’s like she’s able to go inside herself and be exempt from the tortures of hours in pitch black solitary. We can’t figure out what she’s doing and how. She’s immune to any threats or pain we can think of.” He looks up. “Back to the subject, where have you been?”
“Some undercover investigating. Stuff I couldn’t tell anyone. That kind of undercover.”
“Into Sly Cooper? Or something else?”
“You could say…a mixture of the two. There has also been some development since Branwell and Raleigh both escaped undetected.”
“No kidding. I’ve had to avoid the press like crazy ever since that viral video of Branwell being rescued got posted and everyone found out this was where he was incarcerated. Have you found him yet? I really need him to come in and convince authorities to stop the house arrest on Roger Silvio’s family.”
“I haven’t been able to find him, but I left word with his parents to contact me if he ever comes over. They wholeheartedly trust me.”
Barkley nods in light approval, but clearly wishes there was more. “So what can I do for you? Do you need to speak to Mz Ruby again?”
“Um…I will. But not now. First I need to give you the lowdown. So we can be on the same page.”
“Yes, very well.”
“The first is, I’ve found indisputable evidence that Sly Cooper was taken through time but has returned to our present.”
“And what evidence would that be?”
“...This.” I turn to the door. “Can you come in?” I call.
The door I came through opens to one of the prison guards. Except it’s not one of them. It’s Sly in disguise.
The warden can’t believe his eyes. “What is…How…Arrest him!”
“I can’t do that, Warden,” I answer.
He goes for his walkie talkie and presses a button on it. Then it combusts. Into small pieces on the ground. “H-How…?”
“Powerful short-range electromagnetic pulse,” says a voice also from the door. Bentley. He has the gadget we had planned from his chair up and loaded. “Fried your walkie talkie.”
“What is this?!” Larson Barkley demands.
“An intervention,” says Branwell, who additionally walks in. I can tell the guys are having a little too much fun taking off their disguises.
“You?!”
“Yes.”
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