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“That’s good to hear, that I’m wanted. As for the Bureau, what can I say? The resources are amazing. Lots of good people here, great people. I hope you know that.”
“I do. I’m a fan of our personnel, most of them, anyway. And on the dark side?” he asked. “Problem areas? Things to work on? I want to hear what you think. I need to hear it. Tell me the truth, as you see it.”
“Bureaucracy. It’s a way of life. It’s almost the FBI’s culture. And fear. It’s mostly political in nature, and it inhibits agents’ imaginations. Did I mention bureaucracy? It’s bad, awful, crippling. Just listen to your agents.”
“I’m listening,” Burns said. “Go on.”
“The agents aren’t allowed to be nearly as good as they can be. Of course, that’s a complaint with most jobs, isn’t it?”
“Even your old job with the Washington PD?”
“Not as much as here. That’s because I sidestepped a lot of red tape and other bullshit that got in the way.”
“Good. Keep sidestepping the bullshit, Alex,” Burns said. “Even if it’s mine.”
I smiled. “Is that an order?”
Burns nodded soberly. I felt that he had something else on his mind. “I had a difficult meeting before you got here. Gordon Nooney is leaving the Bureau.”
I shook my head. “I hope I didn’t have anything to do with that. I don’t know Nooney well enough to judge him. Seriously. I don’t.”
“Sorry, but you did have something to do with it. But it was my decision. The buck passes through here at a hundred miles an hour, and I like it that way. I do know Nooney well enough to judge him. Nooney was the leak to the Washington Post. That son of a bitch has been doing it for years. Alex, I thought about putting you in Nooney’s job.”
I was shocked to hear it. “I’ve never trained people. I didn’t finish orientation myself.”
“But you could train our people.”
I wasn’t sure about that. “Maybe I could struggle through. But I like the streets. It’s in my blood. I’ve learned to accept that about myself.”
“I know. I get it, Alex. I want you to work right here in the Hoover Building, though. We’re going to change things. We’re going to win more than we lose. Work the big cases with Stacy Pollack here at headquarters. She’s one of the best. Tough, smart, she could run this place someday.”
“I can work with Stacy,” I said, and left it at that.
Ron Burns put out his hand and I took it.
“This is going to be good. Exciting stuff,” he said. “Which reminds me of a promise I made. There’s a spot here for Detective John Sampson, and any D.C. street cop you like. Anybody who wants to win. We’re going to win, Alex.”
I shook Ron Burns’s hand on it. The thing is, I wanted to win too.
Chapter 110
ON MONDAY MORNING I was in my new office on the fifth floor at headquarters in D.C. Tony Woods had given me a walking tour earlier that morning, and I was struck by strange, funny details that I couldn’t get out of my head. Like . . . the office doors were metal all through the building, except on the executive floor, where they were wooden. The odd thing, though, was that the wooden doors looked exactly like the metal ones. Welcome to the FBI.
Anyway, I had a lot of reading to do, and I hoped I’d get used to being in an eleven-by-fifteen-foot office, which was kind of bare. The furniture looked as if it were on loan from the Government Accounting Office; there was a desk and chair, a file cabinet with a large dial lock, and a coat tree that held my black Kevlar vest and blue nylon raid jacket. The office looked down on Pennsylvania Avenue, which was something of a perk.
Just past two that afternoon, I got a phone call, actually the first incoming call to my new office. It was Tony Woods. “All settled in?” he asked. “Anything you need?”
“I’m getting there, Tony. I’ll be fine. Thanks for asking.”
“Good. Alex, you’re going out of town in about an hour. There’s a lead on the Wolf in Brooklyn. Stacy Pollack will be going with you, so it’s a big deal. You fly out of Quantico at fifteen hundred. This thing isn’t over.”
I called home, then I gathered some paperwork on the Wolf, grabbed the overnight bag I’d been told to keep in my office, and headed to the parking garage. Stacy Pollack came down a few minutes later.
She drove, and it took us less than half an hour to get to the small private airfield at Quantico. On the way, she told me about the lead in Brooklyn. Supposedly, the real Wolf had been spotted at Brighton Beach. At least we weren’t giving up on him.
One of the black Bells was saddled up and waiting for us. Stacy and I got out of the sedan and walked side by side toward the helicopter. The skies were bright blue and streaming with clouds that appeared to be shredding in the distance.
“Nice day for a train wreck,” Stacy said, and grinned.
