to, but that had been a big part of the problem, working for Alex, and
she didn't see how it was going to improve. He couldn't treat her like
an employee in the same way he had before they'd become lovers. It
made a difference, and there were all kinds of problems that came from
that. He had skipped sending her into a danger zone when she'd come up
in the rotation, and while she wanted him to be concerned for her as a
man for his woman, she did not want the same concern from a boss to an
employee.
She'd have to do some kind of work, though, and the truth was, she'd
already been offered several jobs. A couple of computer companies had
approached her to head up their security services, and they'd offered a
lot more money than she'd been making at Net Force. There were some
nice perks, too: cars, condos, a snazzy title. And she had seriously
considered taking one of these. Mostly, she could work from anywhere,
though there would be some travel for secure-situation setups. But
while she didn't want to work for Alex, she also didn't want to get so
far away she couldn't see him.
There was the possibility of a transfer. Alex had never put her
resignation into the system. She'd quit, but he hadn't told anybody
higher up. She was officially on personal leave, not drawing a salary,
but still considered employed.
Net Force was more or less freestanding as an operation, but it was
still technically part of the FBI.
There were people on the other side of the fence at Quantico who would
be pleased to have her working in their offices--she had heard from a
couple of them, too. Thing was, while that meant she'd be in the same
general vicinity as Alex, it also meant she'd be viewed as something of
a traitor in Net Force. Just as the CIA and the FBI always had a de
facto competition going, and there was little love lost between them.
Net Force ops tended to think of regular feebs as dweebs--to be
tolerated, but avoided as much as possible.
Alex probably wouldn't like it very much if she jumped into the Bureau
mainline.
Then again, it wasn't really his choice, was it? She had to do
something to earn her living, and she was already in the system--a
transfer to another building would be the easiest thing all around, at
least insofar as keeping her apartment, getting to work, and not having
to learn new systems. And she could still see Alex for lunch or
workouts in the gym every day.
Her phone's attention-beck came on--an odd little piece of music that
came from a movie more than fifty years old, a comedy about a
super-secret agent named Hint. The little tune was the same as the
ring of the special phone belonging to a fictional U.S. security
agency, reserved for incoming calls from the President of the United
States: Dah dah dah, dan dan dah, dan DAH, dah dah dah, dah dah daaah.
This little sting was courtesy of Jay Gridley, of course, who loved
such esoterica, and who also loved to program personal hardware when
the owner wasn't looking.
She looked at the screen but the caller's ID was blocked. If she'd
been carrying a virgil, it wouldn't have been.
