Quinn lifted an eyebrow. “It’s worth telling me. You think we should follow up on it?”
“Officially, I can’t prove someone on Dmitri’s team landed there.” Joey’s jaw set. “And if it were anyone else, I’d say we should wait until we have more to go on. But, yeah. I’d like to follow up on it.”
“Good.” Quinn studied him. “You’re pretty sure, then. You okay if I share your report with the FBI? I’d like to get their thoughts too.”
Joey nodded. Their allies at the FBI had been more than just a security detail on the last operation; they’d also been a great sounding board. “I expected you would. What do you think they’ll say if we tell them our suspicions? We’re overreacting?”
Quinn tapped her fingers against the sides of her travel mug. “Doubt it. Alexis and Parker are just as invested as we are in all of this. Want to tell me why your brain looks like it’s grinding gears?”
“I softened my conclusions.” Joey ran a hand down his face. “All of the evidence points to Dmitri laying low. The only thing I have to go on is that phone call and some infrequent email traffic.”
Quinn tilted her head. “You think he’s giving up?”
Joey’s jaw tightened. “See, that’s just it. A guy like Dmitri isn’t going to back down in the face of authority, no matter how much his government thinks they’ve sidelined him. The Russian government said they assigned him to work with scientists on safely disposing of nuclear waste, but I don’t think we can assume he’s just going to meekly follow instructions. He likes outsmarting other people too much. Practically, his motivations aren’t that different from a guy who would make a homemade flamethrower and burn down five acres and his own garage. Just a little more strategic.”
“I’m assuming that’s not a hypothetical scenario.”
Despite his busy schedule with the CIA, Joey volunteered for his local fire station on his days off. He lived out in the country despite the hellish commute because the peace and quiet were worth it, and his side gig occasionally was as interesting as his day job. “Yeah, it took us a full day to get the fire under control. Apparently, he considered the legal ban on flamethrowers to be a personal challenge to design one that could be used safely to prove us all wrong. Spoiler alert: he did not prove us all wrong.”
Quinn snorted. “So, what do you propose we do about Dmitri’s metaphorical flamethrower?”
“We figure out what Dmitri wants from the Oceanic Exploration Group.” Joey steepled his fingers. “He’s up to something, and every time he’s up to something, people get hurt.”
3
FBI Special Agent Alexis Thompson tapped out a beat on her mouse while she sped through the latest update provided by Joey P., an analyst at the CIA. Despite their work together on a cross-agency task force, the CIA still held some information close to the vest, including most of their employees’ full names. Still, if she got access to the unredacted reports from partially-named employees, she wasn’t going to complain.
Alexis was surrounded by her colleagues in a semi-open space at the FBI Chicago offices, but her focus quieted the external noise. Joey had stuck to the facts, as she was learning was his habit, but he’d mentioned a strange call to a marine research company that had a very small chance of coming from Dmitri. She’d read enough of Joey P.’s reports by now to know that he must consider it important if he included it. Alexis typed a request into the search box of the FBI’s internal database and waited. Her computer made some angry clicking noises and the internal fan began to run at full blast. While she could just respond with a simple thank you, some part of her brain told her to keep digging. It wasn’t entirely different from the instincts she observed in Waffle, her loyal partner and explosives detection dog, when he started to pick up a scent.
Alexis sighed with relief when the results finally began to load and her computer didn’t self-destruct. Waffle opened one eye, then turned his head in silent question. She gave him a quick pat and he fell back asleep, less spellbound by her computer not crashing under the weight of her search than she. Alexis scrolled through the results, resuming her tapping. Something soft whumped into the back of her head. She picked the mini foam football up off the floor and turned to send it flying back to its sender, but her coworkers were all suddenly very busy at their desks. She looked a little closer. Parker Mitchell’s eyes were focused on a report, but his jaw ticked, just a little. Her return throw at her team lead was perfectly on target, with a neat spiral on the toy projectile. And people thought growing up playing up with siblings didn’t teach real-life skills. Despite his carefully cultivated distraction, Parker spotted her throw and ducked the football just before it made contact. The small orange football maintained its spiral until it hit the wall behind him. Parker rose from his desk to pick it up and bring it back to her. “Okay, what’s eating you?”
“Did you check your email?”
Parker looked down at the report open on her computer. “Not yet, but I will now. Do you want to talk now or wait until I sift through the report?”
“Now, if you don’t want to hear any more nervous tapping.” She smiled. “Later, if you don’t mind it.”
Parker chuckled. “Conference room?”
“Yes, please.” Alexis popped her laptop out of its docking station and tucked it under her arm.
Although they were within the walls of the FBI Chicago headquarters, this particular operation was sprinkled so liberally with top-secret designations
