... Somewhere in the FBI Headquarters ...
"Excuse me, sir?"
Daniel looked up. "Yes, Agent Boridy?"
"The Director marked this file for your immediate attention," he smiled.
He nodded and opened the file at once. After only a few pages in, his face screwed up and he dived for the phone. "Is she in?" Daniel asked abruptly.
Luck Boridy had barely made it back to his desk. "Sir, she's been expecting your call."
"Dani"
"Tes, what is this?" Daniel demanded.
"It's highly sensitive, Daniel."
"Sensitive? This is crazy. How could we lose an agent? I'm coming up." Daniel jumped to his feet and hurried to the elevator, the file safely tucked under his arm. He ignored Luck, walking past he without a word, before bursting into Teresa Smithon's office.
"Close the door," Teresa ordered.
Daniel returned to the open door and closed it before sitting. He put the file on her superior's desk and waited for an explanation.
"Did you read it?" Tes frowned.
"I read it, but…"
Tes sighed. "Jack Bewborn took the kid straight out of Quantico; it was just before he got sick. The girl was good looking, her family was local, and for the first four months, it seemed everything was fine," she paused. "When Jack fell ill, we lost her."
"Tes, you can't be serious?" Daniel gasped, but he could see by Teresa's face, she was.
"It was a deep cover, with Jack as her contact," Tes paused "In the wash up of Jack's illness and his records not being complete, we lost the kid," she shrugged and then shook her head. "I know it's a fuck up, but we have an agent out there and she needs to come in."
"Why did we have a seventeen year old agent in the first place?" Daniel demanded.
"They made an exception at Quantico because the girl was remarkable," Tes paused. "Coupled with her uncle's recommendation...."
Daniel interrupted. "Her uncle? Who the fuck was her uncle?"
"Jack Bewborn."
"He fast tracked her niece through Quantico and put her into an active DEA operation?" Daniel shrieked.
"The age was irregular, but the kid had completed her training and was top of her class. She was chosen for her intelligence and her look, despite her age." Tes shrugged. "I'm not saying Jack's logic wasn't flawed, but it's done now and we need to fix it. When a wad of un-presented checks were returned to payroll recently, it raised an alarm. Some eager beaver in Records queried the circumstances. If they hadn't asked questions, we still wouldn't know. We need to handle it ourselves, we can't afford any leaks."
"We meaning me," Daniel sighed. "Where are the case notes?"
"They aren't complete and there hasn't been a report in three years. I just hope she's still alive."
Although Daniel respected Jack when he was on top of his game, the period prior to his Alzheimer's being diagnosed had been complicated. "The fucking idiot sent the kid in with her own identity. It shouldn't be hard to check. No death certificate… she's alive," Daniel growled.
"If it is so simple, why haven't we heard from her?"
"Good question," Daniel frowned. "I have too much work for this shit, Teresa." Jack was a good man in is day, but it was obvious to everyone he was slipping well before he fell ill. Daniel couldn't believe Jack's illness wasn't addressed earlier. People's lives were at stake.
"This is a fuck up of colossal proportions. We can't have the press getting wind of it. There are only two people who know anything substantial, you and me and we really don't know much at all."
"What about our friend in Payroll?"
"Taken care of."
Daniel nodded. He buzzed Teresa's secretary "Agent Boridy, get me on the first flight to Neptune in Southern California?"
"Certainly, sir," he replied.
Daniel put down the phone and looked at her boss. "Jack's situation should never have been left on hold for so long. He wasn't all there towards the end. How could he have still been running operations?" Containing his frustration was impossible.
"He was a more than a good agent in his day, Dani, but because he was senior, his team protected him. They tried to cover for him, but no one was in the loop on this one. It was Jack's baby and the notes for this particular case are vague. There is no mention of the agent's name in the case notes. From the returned checks, I traced the kid back to her Quantico file and crosschecked it with Jack's old notes. It's taken me almost two weeks to put it together. Fix it, Dani. You are the youngest Assistant Director ever to be appointed and the only person I trust with this."
"I'll call when I know something." Without another word, he stood up and left. Daniel nodded to Agent Boridy as he gave him his flight details and then looked at his watch. He had three hours.