>Anne walked over to the two women and shook Kayla's
>hand. She then turned to Lisa and said, "Agent Lisa
>Anders, I presume?"
Anne extended her hand when Lisa nodded. "I’m Anne Toussaint," she said.
"My replacement," Lisa commented.
"I hope you won’t hold that against me." Anne glanced at the bodies in the doorway. Despite her crash course of aversion therapy since joining the division, the sight of them made her a bit queasy, although she did an admirable job of not showing it. "Nice work," she told Lisa, "but it’s usually the heads you hang on the walls. Theirs seem to be, well, more or less gone."
Lisa stared at her for a moment before a smile broke through. "Next time, I’ll remember to load armor piercing bullets," she said.
Anne laughed, marveling that it was possible to do so in the presence of two still warm corpses. It must be true, a person can get used to anything. She turned to the secretary. "Kayla, why don’t you round up somebody to help us clean up this mess?"
"Right away," Kayla said.
"They killed your plant," said Emily, who along with Vynce had moved off to survey the damage to the office. "Shot up the furniture a bit, too."
Anne scowled. The fern in question had survived five different offices over the course of four years, and the poor thing had fallen to an assassin’s bullet on its first day in this one. Anne went over to her desk and picked up what was left of the plant. "I might still be able to save it," she commented, as if someone might actually care. She set it aside when she spotted a folder on the desk. She brushed the dirt off of it, picked it up and started to look through it. "What’s this."
"New case," Lisa said.
A grin crossed Anne’s face as she read the contents of the file. "Agent Edwards, it looks as though you got your wish. We’re on our way to New York."
"You mean, once we’re through answering questions here," Agent Hunt said.
Anne nodded. "I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask as well."
*****
"What I want to know is, how in the hell did these two get past security," Anne demanded of the man standing in front of her. The commotion had drawn a great deal of attention, including attention from the higher echelons of the Bureau’s hierarchy. She’d only caught the words ‘Assistant Director’ before she pounced. He was probably someone she should be diplomatic with, but the more she thought about the question, the less diplomatic she felt.
"And you are," he asked.
"Agent Anne Toussaint, team leader of Tango."
The man nodded. "Well, Agent Toussaint, I’m as concerned about this as you are." The way he said it made Anne seriously doubt his words. "We’ll be looking into that matter."
"Looking into it," Anne repeated. "I’m sure you will. And while you’re at it, you might want to look into why no one spotted them or tried to stop them. They couldn’t exactly have been inconspicuous, traipsing through the halls in those outfits, carrying machine guns! Or is there some new Bureau policy that hit squads be admitted and allowed to roam free through the building?"
"Of course not. Now please calm down."
Anne shook her head. She wasn’t going to get anything more than typical bureaucratic mumbo jumbo out of him, and attempting to bully him was going to do nothing more than earn her a reputation as just another hysterical female. "All right, then," she said, "you ‘look into it.’ But I want to hear the minute you get some answers."
Kayla interrupted to inform Anne that she had made reservations for the team’s flight to New York. Anne thanked her and turned to find that the rest of the team had been watching her with varying degrees of amusement on their faces.
"I suppose you heard all that," she said. "We’ve got a flight at five o’clock. That gives y’all about three hours to get ready. Best get moving. We can discuss the case on the plane. It’s a little crowded around here for getting down to business."
As the team started to drift toward the door, she called out to Agent Edwards. "Hey, mama’s boy."
"What can I do for you, boss?"
"Do you think you could get your Mum to fax us any information she can locate on those cases in Colchester. It might help us out."
Vynce nodded. "I’m sure she’d be happy to."
Anne shooed him out the door and turned to look for Anders. She was seated at a desk, where another agent had been questioning her until a moment ago. She looked tired. Anne went over to her and sat down.
"They aren’t going to be too hard on you, I hope."
"I don’t think so," Lisa said. "OPR may have a few more questions for me, but I’m getting used to answering questions."
"Ick," Anne said. "They through asking for now?"
"For now," Lisa agreed.
"Good. How ‘bout I buy you a drink before I have to take off for the airport?"
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