A Year of Stories (Collection Three)

Annabella's Recommendation Letter

To Those Who Know:

First and foremost, I would like to say how much I appreciate this opportunity. I've served the Agency faithfully for many years now, and it's always a pleasure to be called on to play such a pivotal role in the organization's future.

Almost as big of a pleasure as it has been to get to know Annabella Grant, over the last 18 months.

As a Recruiter, you spend a lot of time with potential Candidates. You get to know them – their likes, their dislikes, their social security numbers, the passwords to their in-home alarm systems – all the basics. But often, they are so oblivious to you stalking them through their lives, hiding at the corners of their existence, that you can start to feel disconnected from the work, and from them.

That's not the case with Annabella.

How many potential Candidates do you get to chase a quarter mile through dense forest, dodging dead falls and net traps all the way? How many discover not one, not two, but twelve of the one hundred and fifty audio/visual devices you placed in their studio apartment? How many leave you charming notes, at positions you previously used to surveil them, threatening your life?

Few, that's how many.

Miss Grant has a rare combination of intelligence, athletic ability, street smarts, and raw paranoia that you rarely see outside of the Organizations, and almost never see among people who haven't spent the better part of their adult lives disarming IEDs or avoiding sniper positions.

She is uniquely and somehow naturally skilled in counter-surveillance, and if her medical and school records are any indication, has the potential to thrive both in Wet Work and in more subtle assignments.

If she has any flaw at all, it's that she seems to have great difficulty forming healthy interpersonal relationships, this when combined with her fluency with violence, and her rather complicated relationship with the truth (see attached phone transcripts), leads me to question whether or not she might a very high functioning Sociopath.

We may need to tag and bag her for an evening, and have PsyOps take a look.

This last point aside, I truly believe that Annabella Grant is a perfect Candidate, and I offer her my strongest recommendation. In fact, if Those Who Know wish me to do so, I'll happily bring her in for testing myself.

She's talented, brilliant even, but she never tests her food – everyone makes mistakes, I guess.

Yours,

Hall