LOVE THY NEIGHBOR by Mark Gilleo

Author:Mark Gilleo [Gilleo, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Suspense, FICTION / Thrillers, FIC030000, FIC031000
Publisher: The Story Plant
Published: 2012-01-01T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

FBI Agent Chris Rosson was hot on the trail of his latest suspect. The evidence was straightforward. The perp had started with small assaults and minor infractions. Invasion of private property, trespassing, and loitering — judging by the turds left on the floor underneath his desk.

When Agent Rosson opened his bag of Cheetos and found not only had the air already escaped through a hole in the bottom, but that the contents of the bag had been pilfered, he called in the experts. Thanks to Rosson, there were now a dozen rat traps scattered around the fifth floor of FBI headquarters. The maintenance crew referred to them as “mice enticers,” as if the distinction between rat and mouse meant anything when the vermin are scurrying over your shoes, comfortably planted from nine to five at the most advanced investigative entity on Earth.

The Director of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Eric Nerf, had also spent the majority of his career in the pursuit of rats, usually those on the next rung of the bureaucratic ladder. It had been fifteen years since he last donned a bulletproof vest and a rain jacket with his employer’s name emblazoned on the back. His shirts were pressed. His tie collection managed to keep up with the latest fashion, following the trends from thin to thick, from bland to colorful. His slicked-back black hair was gelled and dyed to perfection. As a bureaucrat he had exchanged his gun for a pen, to use his sense of investigation for general suspicion of those who worked for him as much as real criminals.

His forays onto the floor where his staff toiled were limited to the far aisle of cubes, those that stood between his corner office and the elevators. So when the Director appeared at Agent Rosson’s cube and cast a shadow on the agent’s workstation, Rosson’s heart took a couple of un-syncopated beats.

“Rosson. I need a word with you.”

“Yes, sir,” Rosson answered to the back of his superior’s suit as Eric Nerf turned the corner and walked towards the meeting rooms on the other side of the floor. The Director may have made a rare trip into his employee’s lair but he wasn’t going to demean himself by having a conversation in a cube. That just wasn’t done by someone of his stature, of his rank, of his mindset. He was an office guy. He met in offices or conference rooms and he discussed matters with others who had offices. There was nothing for him in the world of cubes. He had briefly been there and had no plans on going back. As a government employee, his rise through the organization was totally independent of his ability to manage people or relate to them on their level. He was the man in charge and, as such, his subordinates were to follow orders. And orders came just as easily through email. Unless the Director was passing along a good ass-chewing, as happened to be the case.

“Shut the door behind you,” the Director said as Rosson entered the room.

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