“And who, pray tell, is he?”
“Bianco is a she, and she’s your boss for the foreseeable future. Special Agent in Charge Andrea Bianco, former head of the Futures Working Group, graduate of University of Virginia, summa cum laude, four years with the FBI in counterterrorism, two years at Interpol, a return to the FBI for three years in the BSU. Got her Ph.D. in behavioral psychology, steadily moved up the ladder since. In her latest role, she was tasked with figuring out what’s coming down the pike at us, and she was handpicked this morning to head up the Metro investigation. She’d like a briefing on your information in five.”
Inez was big on the qualifications and short on the personal. All he managed to glean from that recitation was the chick he’d be answering to was smart. Really smart.
“All right. I’m ready to go. Let’s do it.”
Inez hesitated for a moment. “Don’t you want to prepare? Bianco is a stickler for details.”
Fletched held back a laugh. “How old are you, Inez?”
“Twenty-four next Tuesday, sir. Assuming we have a next Tuesday.”
“How many briefings have you done?”
“Plenty, but remember, I’m just the assistant here.”
“I’ve been doing this awhile. Almost as long as you’ve been alive. I think I can handle it. Let’s go.”
*
More offices, more hallways, more glamorously intense young people rushing about. Children, really. The clatter of keyboards complemented the ringing of phones and the occasional shout. This section of the JTTF held twenty people total, but they were generating enough energy to power a small city grid.
The whole place felt...alive. Fletcher couldn’t help but catch a bit of the buzz.
He followed Inez into the big cheese’s domain. There was a conference room set up, and she led him there.
“Do you have any multimedia you’d like to use?”
Fletcher raised an eyebrow. “No, I guess not.”
She got him seated with a fresh pad of paper and a steaming hot cup of coffee, stood by his side for a moment, then whispered, “Don’t worry about notes, I’ll transcribe everything,” and slipped back against the wall.
He could get used to this.
Ten seconds later the door to the conference room opened, and in came Bianco’s team. Fletcher didn’t need to be introduced to see who was in charge.
Andrea Bianco was dressed in dark jeans and a black jacket, with a Glock on her hip in a tooled leather holster. She had green eyes and hair the color of a burnished sunset, and skin as white and flawless as a bowl of milk. God, was every chick at the JTTF pretty?
She shook his hand warmly, not at all what he expected from Inez’s prep. He figured Bianco would be hard and calculating. Instead, she seemed incredibly calm and approachable, like someone he would like to share some boiled shrimp and beer with on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Just a couple of cops, talking about the injustices of the world, the patter of drops on the roof making them slide inexorably toward a more comfortable position...
He rolled his eyes inwardly. Beautiful women always jarred his poetic side loose. He had a line out the door of them. Some even deigned to still speak to him.
“Detective Fletcher, I’m Andrea Bianco. I’m so glad to have you on board. Welcome to the JTTF.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“No ma’am necessary, you can call me Andi.” She went around the table to the other five people, four men, one woman, all serious and capable looking. “I don’t expect you to get everyone’s names immediately, but this is Nick Cusack, Ron Halder, Tom Hasty, Eduardo Mancha and Hyatt Sutton. I’ll let you get to know each other later.”
Fletcher shook hands with everyone, intentionally not lingering on Sutton, who was so severe looking and tightly contained he was afraid she might leap up and bite him on the neck.
“I understand you’ve been working the Peter Leighton angle for us today. I know you must be tired, we all are. But would you mind giving us your briefing now?”
“Of course. I don’t have much.”
He ran them through his day concisely, only presenting the facts, skipping over his suspicions, the rumors about the congressman’s private life, the weird feeling he got from Temple, the chief of staff who knew everything and nothing. He talked for about ten minutes, outlining the case. Bianco listened with her head cocked slightly to one side, nodding occasionally. When he finished, he glanced at Inez. She gave him a little wink, which he took to mean he’d done a decent enough job.
Been at this party a few times, kid.
Bianco twirled a pen around on her blank notepad for a moment. With a small smile that belied her words, she said, “That’s all great information, Detective. Now, would you mind filling in the blanks? You left a few things out.”