“We can both piss into the wind,” Sin said, “you can let me walk out of here, or you can tell me what this little show is really about . . .” Frank opened his mouth to speak, but Sin continued, “because we both know you have nothing on me.”
Sin shouldered her way past the other agents and began to straddle her bike. Graham stood, wide-stanced, and placed his hands on the handlebars. Sin settled into her seat, crossed her arms across her chest and waited. Her eyebrows went up and her head cocked to the side.
Frank dropped his head and shook it from side to side. “I want you to come back in,” he mumbled.
Sin pulled on her earlobe with a well-manicured painted nail. “What was that? I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
He looked straight at her. “You heard me.”
Sin leaned forward and kick-started her Harley.
“Damn you, Sin!” Frank yelled over the growl of the bike. “Turn that fucking thing off.”
She tapped her gearshift with the toe of her left boot and began to let out the clutch.
“I said I want you back,” he screamed.
Sin squeezed the brake and stopped her bike. “You see, that wasn’t so hard, was it.”
Frank bit his tongue. He wasn’t about to give her any more ammunition.
“Follow me to the bureau and I’ll fill you in.”
“Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why do you want me back?”
He looked around and eyed the other agents who were still loitering about. “I prefer to talk in private. Please—for Alex.”
Sin nodded. “That’s all you had to say.”
3
Sin followed Frank Graham to 935 Pennsylvania Avenue: FBI Headquarters.
She began walking away from her bike, turned around and took her gun-belt, complete with holsters and revolvers out of her saddlebag and strapped it around her waist.
Frank shook his head as she strutted towards him. “This isn’t the wild, wild west.”
Sin looked around the D.C neighborhood they were in. “Close enough,” she said, “and besides, I’m not leaving them here. You hire some iffy people: if they weren’t wearing a badge, they’d be wearing a prison jumpsuit.”
Frank smirked.
Once inside, he walked straight through the metal detector, but Sin wasn’t as lucky. Bells went off like a winning slot machine.
Sin rolled her eyes as her gun-belt was removed by a female guard. Frank stood to the side smiling.
“You think this is funny,” Sin said as two pearl-handled Colt 45 revolvers were removed from around her waist.
Frank just shook his head.
“Do you have any other weapons?” the guard asked.
Sin ignored her comment. “Frank,” she said staring at him, “I’m not going any further without my ‘girls’.”
“Relax and walk through the detector again,” he answered.
Again, the alarm rang. At this point, another guard drew his weapon and aimed it at her.
“Hands up and away from your body,” he yelled.
Sin could tell from the look in his eyes that this was the first time he had ever pulled his weapon.
She slowly raised her arms. “Easy, Cowboy,” she said in a calm voice. “Put that toy away before someone gets hurt.”
Frank walked over and stood between Sin and the guard. “Stand down, Bobby, it’s all right. She’s one of us.”
The guard removed a jittery finger from the trigger and placed his gun back in his shoulder holster.
Sin went to remove her guns from the bin when the female guard grabbed her forearm.
Sin’s eyebrow arched. “Relax,” she warned. She picked up both revolvers with just her index fingers and thumbs and opened the cylinders with her pinkies. She then tilted her wrists and allowed the bullets to fall back into the plastic bin. As the guards watched, Sin flipped the guns with a snap of her wrist and twirled them like an ‘old west’ sharpshooter. She ended the display by sliding them back into her holsters.
She heard a steady, slow clapping noise come from behind.
“Pff,” she said, “the only person I know who claps like an f-ing retard is Folsom Westcott.”
Frank shrugged his shoulders and smirked.
“If you told me that sack of shit was going to be here, I never would have come.”
“I know,” Frank said, “that’s why I didn’t tell you.”
Sin didn’t even turn to acknowledge Westcott, she just gathered her stuff and walked past Frank toward the elevator.
Sin sat across the conference table from Frank Graham and Folsom Westcott, the head of Homeland Security.
Westcott, dressed in a custom-tailored, three-piece, blue pinstriped suit, complete with a European cut, starched, French-cuffed, white shirt with gold American eagle cufflinks, eyeballed Sin. He looked through her rather than at her.
“It looks like the government pay scale is better than I remember,” Sin goaded.
Her words broke his hypnotic stare. “Screw you, O’Malley.”
Sin held up her little finger and waved it at him. “Not with your equipment.”
Westcott went to stand and fire back when Frank interceded. “Now that we are all reacquainted, let’s get down to business.”
“Good idea,” Sin said, “I have a plane to catch.”
“Off to fight some shit little war in some backwards country with your band of rejects?”
Sin leaned into the table and sneered at Westcott. “I would put my team up against your best agents from whatever three-letter agency you choose and I’d win every time.”
This time Westcott stood and slammed his chair back against the wall. “This is bullshit, Frank. I told you she would be hostile and non-compliant. This meeting is over.”
“Everyone, sit,” Graham steamed. “In case you forgot, we have four dead agents and at least six dead girls.”
Westcott glared at Frank.
Frank took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “This isn’t about you,” he pointed at Sin, “you, or me. This about catching the sick bastards who murdered three of our best men and our good friend . . .” Sin started to speak, but was stifled, “so let’s lose the attitudes and act like adults.”
Sin relaxed her posture and nodded.
Westcott huffed and sat back down.
“I didn’t know other agents were killed,” Sin swallowed hard. “Anyone I know?”
Frank
