'Hello?'
'Hello, Toni. How are you?'
Some bored god must be reading her mind and taking an interest in her
life: It was Melissa Allison herself. Director of the FBI. On a
Sunday, no less.
'Fine, and you?'
'Surviving. Listen, I understand you are interested in transferring
from Net Force into Mainline, is that correct?'
The director, who had gotten her job by knowing where a soccer
stadium's worth of political bodies were buried, was not one to mince
words.
Indeed, Toni had been considering it only seconds before, but she
hadn't made the decision yet. That's not what the director wanted to
hear. She wanted a yes or no answer. Here's the spot, Toni, and like
it or not, you 'we just been put on it. Choose.
Toni glanced at Alex, who was busy watching a young couple with two
small children trying to corral the little critters. The boy, about
three, was running around in circles, singing a clock song--'One
o'clock, bang, bang, bang Two o'clock, bang, bang, bang!' The little
girl, maybe a year and half, was running away from her mother at full
speed across the lawn in that lurching toddle small children had,
laughing as she went. Alex was smiling at the show.
'Toni?'
Toni pulled her attention back to the phone.
'Yes, ma'am, I have been considering it.'
'Wise,' the director said, and Toni knew from that one word that the
woman knew about her and Alex.
'I have an opening in my schedule tomorrow around one. Come and see me
and we'll discuss it.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
With that, the director was gone. Toni hooked the phone back into the
belt of her jeans.
Alex turned away from the children and looked at her, lifting his
eyebrows in question: Who was that?
Maybe it was selfish of her, but Toni didn't want to kill the rest of
the afternoon. If she told Alex it was the director, she'd have to
explain the rest, he'd want to talk about it, and she just wasn't up to
that. She'd only been back with Alex for a couple of days, it didn't
feel as secure as once it had, and if he knew she was thinking about
going over to the feeb shop, she was sure he would be upset. He might
not say anything, he would cover up his feelings--he was good at that,
covering up his feelings--and she just wasn't ready to go down that
road.
She slipped her hand around his arm.
'Nothing important,' she said.
'Come on, I want to see the Smith's new Ancient Wheels exhibit.'
He smiled at her.
'Sure.'
All right. It wasn't a lie, if maybe not strictly true, but if
