The Asset (Asset Series #1) - SAMPLE

Chapter Three: Mothership

Visiting FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. was a nerve-wracking experience. A person's every move was scrutinized upon entrance to the building, from not holding the elevator door for a nerdy looking guy to loaning a quarter to a woman in the bathroom for the tampon machine. Karma worked differently when the walls saw and heard everything. Inside HQ, the man left stranded in the lobby worked in IT and "accidentally" revoked your network privileges while the lady in the bathroom was your new section chief who didn't send you to Siberia.

My path to the Bureau had been purely accidental. Felton recruited me to the CIA, and after training I was just another officer who traveled to exotic and foreign destinations, became immersed in new and fascinating cultures, spied on the locals, and sometimes killed them. It was during an assignment in Germany less than a year later that I first straddled the line between the two agencies.

I'd been knee deep into an investigation of a prominent businessman in Hamburg when his seven-year-old daughter was kidnapped. The group responsible was traced back to a compound in North Dakota, which ended my involvement once she entered US airspace. After multiple calls from the lead FBI field agent asking for information on the father, Felton called the agent's boss and snidely asked if he needed to loan me to the Bureau to solve their case. The next day I met Barton Kane in a hotel outside Fargo. Within minutes, I was relieved of my duties with the CIA and Barton swore me in as a temporary agent. Sixteen hours later, I carried the little girl in my arms from the compound. Not long after, Felton and Barton came to an agreement and I was headed to the FBI training facility in Quantico.

I smoothed the phantom wrinkles from my black pantsuit and waited for the elevator in the lobby. My hair was still blond, but now free of the extensions so it hung in loose waves above my shoulders. I found myself nervously pulling random strands behind my ears as people walked past, feeling exposed as others smiled and offered friendly nods. Upon my arrival to the fourth floor my back straightened and I pushed everything aside, shifting into work mode.

Special Agent Barton Kane, my boss in all things related to domestic intelligence, stood in the lobby, and was typing on his phone as I approached. Based on his extremely disheveled dark brown and silver hair, my best guess was he'd been in his office since before the sun came up. That usually meant he'd been arguing with Felton and was generally in a crappy mood. Based on the smile on his face, a chat with his wife had changed his outlook on the day.

He nodded at my hair and raised an eyebrow. "Blond?'

"Worked for Agent Kenmore," I quipped, following him down the corridor. "How's he doing, by the way?"

"He was released from the hospital this morning and scheduled to fly back to DC this afternoon."

My grimace was immediate. The laxative I shot into his neck, regrettably, worked a bit too well. A night of explosive diarrhea left him severely dehydrated, which caused him to pass out and hit his head on the bathtub in his hotel room. When the hotel staff came to check on the noise complaint, an ambulance was called, and he was diagnosed with a severe concussion.

"I probably used too much and shouldn't have done it in the first place, but he had to learn before he got someone killed."

"From the sounds of it, I'm guessing he learned several valuable lessons."

"Why am I here, Barton?"

He dug through a drawer behind him and dropped a thick manila file onto his desk. "Always straight to the point."

"Well?" I prodded.

"What if I told you we have a line on Gio Sardi?"

My eyes rolled. "I'd say I've heard that before and it's never panned out."