“Only because I gave him a viable alternative before he could resort to gunfire,” Syler countered.
“Precisely, you’re an asset. Ergo, he behaves for you.”
“Maria, the way you say that makes it sound like a threat.”
The petite woman laughed, brown eyes mirthful. “Oh, yeah, it’s an entirely uncharted territory of headache.” She snatched his mug away and passed him his coat. “Try not to let it keep you up at night. You need the sleep.”
As she bundled him into his jacket and sent him on his way, he had the distinct impression of being doomed.
Eight
Syler returned to the operations division the following afternoon with a new found appreciation for the bureaucratic machine and all its glorious inefficiencies, weighed down by a truly draconian quantity of paperwork. He once again promised himself that someday, in the very near future, he would force the entire agency to move non-essential documentation to an internal cloud network, compelled by liberal application of file ransomware and password changes if need be.
He was torn from his internal musings by the small crowd gathered around his desk. At the center, lounging in his chair like a king holding court, was one Special Agent Dufault, entirely at ease in a three-piece suit with his operations staff flocked around him like adoring fans. One of the newer techs was actually blushing, god help him. Dufault caught his eye as he made his way across the room, grin spreading into full effect.
“Move,” Syler ordered, fixing the man with a stern glare. He heard a soft laugh from one of the junior technicians. “And stop flirting with my staff. Unlike you, they have actual jobs to do.” He turned his attention to the half dozen techs around the command post, then to their empty stations, emphasizing his point.
“He was debriefing us on the Brazil op, boss,” the youngest tech informed him brightly. “Agent Dufault said you saved his ass from a firefight when the target came back early!”
“Did he now?” Syler replied, dropping his paperwork in the agent’s lap when it became clear the other man had no intention of getting up. Dufault sputtered a bit.
“Yeah, can we please cover that in the next training session? As a case study? Sounds insanely handy.” All attention was now on him. Syler decided to indulge them in hopes of moving things along.
“I’ll consider it, but first we’ve got to get through the boring business,” he gestured at the papers, or possibly Dufault himself. “Case in point. Back to work now, everyone.”
Miranda, his day staff manager and possibly the only other adult in the room, chose that moment to cut in from her position at the only presently manned station. “You heard the boss. Break’s over.” The crowd dispersed obediently, leaving Syler to deal with his final headache.
“Now,” Syler turned to the menace of the hour. “What do you need?”
Arthur put on a hurt expression. “I take all that time to talk you up, and this is how you thank me? Accusations of flirtation and being boring? See if you get your presents now.” He gathered up the files and tucked them neatly onto a corner of Syler’s desk, a tiny spot of order amid the otherwise chaotic table top, vacating Syler’s chair in the process.
“You do realize that bringing your assigned equipment back doesn’t actually constitute a present,” Syler pointed out, settling into his desk and retrieving the return tray.
“Not with that attitude, it doesn’t,” Arthur countered, unholstering his gun and clearing the chamber before depositing it into the waiting tray. He followed that with his spare magazines and earpiece, dropping his false passport on top with a flourish. A nearly perfect equipment return—nearly.
Syler raised a brow. “And?”
Arthur grinned, teasing. “And what, Deputy Director Perrin? Am I missing something?”
“It’s really an ingrained reflex for you, the flirting, isn’t it?” Syler scoffed, reaching a hand out, palm up, silently demanding the data stick.
“You make it sound like I’m not serious, sweetheart.” He passed over the flash drive, hands returning to his pockets, stance deceptively casual as he leaned against Syler’s desk. “What do you say—”
“Excellent, let’s have a look, shall we?” Syler cut him off before he could finish, plugging the drive into the secured reader port of his secondary laptop. Beside him, Arthur huffed.
“You’re absolutely no fun.”
“‘Fun’ wasn’t something included in my job description when I was conscripted,” Syler replied distractedly, pulling up the file directory and starting with the most recent documents, reviewing them quickly.
“Conscripted? Now there’s a story I want to hear.” Arthur noted conversationally, eyes scanning over the financial ledgers as well.
“Bring your equipment back intact for the next year and I’ll consider it,” Syler offered blithely, parsing through the discrepancies in incoming funds that neatly matched those stolen from various US institutions over the past several months, all directed into a series of dummy accounts. Oliveria really wasn’t trying to hide what he was doing from anyone with access, apparently unconcerned with the possibility of someone breaching his abnormally strong firewalls. The dichotomy in caution seemed strange, particularly when considering his less defended home security system, but nothing else immediately jumped out as Syler continued his review.
“A year? High stakes. Must be quite the story.”
Syler had learned quickly to quell any residual embarrassment over the circumstances of his hiring lest those around him latched onto it and pressed for details he’d rather pretend hadn’t happened. The perils of a workplace filed with spies, that. “Riveting,” he promised sarcastically, moving onto Oliveria’s emails. “Now, tell me, why does a Brazilian banker with a nearly impenetrable security system do so little else to hide what he’s up to? And why does everything else he’s doing seem so above board at first glance?”
Arthur’s eyes ran over the emails. Standard invoices for sales and services. Account transactions for the larger clients. Other than the stolen funds and the security surrounding access, nothing
