The man sitting in first class on a delta airlines plane bound from D.C metropolitan airport to Indianopolis looked to be a pale skinned man in his thirties, where exactly in his thirties would be hard to guess as the face looks like it might have been prematurely aged with wrinkles but the rest of him looks younger, there's a tightness to him like he just can't relax or like he's preparing to spring into action or it could be that he's just too big even for first class to fit him comfortably.
His face is marked by a solid nose with his eyes marked by dark brown Iris that make his face seem deeper than it is, like you're looking down a well. The rest of his face is of little notice with short hair just longer than a buzz cut, small ears and no stubble the only other thing that marks him out is deep frown lines that run up from his nose giving his face a stretched appearance.
His clothing is a dark blue suit the jacket of which is draped over his chair; blue hankechief tucked into the Brest pocket; a striped navy tie is the only sign of colour on his white shirted chest.
Overall the image you would get if your saw his face would be that of a very fit, large, middle aged business man probably in finance from the cut of his suit, maybe you'd think he looks a little stressed out.
He goes by the name of thomas stone and if he where to be standing would be just a little too big and a little to wide to be ignored by anyone in a crowd, he'd draw attention.
The women in the chair next to him looks older, far older she must be in her fifties by the lines on her face and the marks on her hands, her suit a lighter grey no tie she sleeps with her chair fully reclined and a sleep mask over her eyes. She by comparison fits well into the chair and her hair is dark brown with no marks of her age.
This lady goes by the name of silvia Maria thompson ; there names come close enough that they've been referred to as the toms on occasion, and if she were to stand at her full height would reach just over five feet, from her age and her looks she could pass as the mother the other man except for the suit. You wouldn't expect a normal mother to be in that suit, hair in a bun.
She looks small, harmless, maybe even grandmotherly.
Stone looks uncomfortable in his chair occasionally glancing out the window into the blackness beyond occasionally spotting a cluster of lights below when the clouds don't cover world up. Planes don't agree with him, even in first class it's tight for him to fit in here and he doesn't like the confined space, the. Again as he thinks about how until a recently he could be riding in the back in the small chairs of economy he reminds himself that it's not like he's in a car or on a bus. 'They just don't make bus seats the right size' he thinks as he closes the airplane blind and leans back into his chair, as he tilts his head to the women next to him he wonders if she Ever has this issue 'probably not' he decides as he weighs up her height and build if she was much smaller she could probably pass herself off as a kid, well, at least fit into kids stuff he decides with a wry smile.
He glances at his watch as he waits for one of the stewardess to come back through his section, their is one there now but she gave him a evil eye a hour back when she thought he wasn't looking after he'd asked her for a few to many bags of peanuts and so now he felt he had to wait for a different one.
The watch says its 23.46 just past a quarter to midnight, it takes a few more minutes before a different stewardess come through pushing a trolley of snacks and drinks towards a alcove on the plane.
A quick wave flags down the pretty blonde women in a red uniform who gives him a smile before asking "what can I get you sir?"
"Would you mind getting me some chips please?" He asks.
"Sure" she says as she goes to get a few bags of chips which she brings other to have him pick through, he grabs a packet of smokey bacon and barbecue.
As he tucks into the packets of chips he wonders just where he's going on this trip strangely the details of the visit haven't been revealed to him yet by his partner but there isn't much he can do about it. The women next to him is nearly a mystery to him, they only met each other two weeks ago when he was assigned as her junior partner.
The posting he had tried to get had just opened up with the former agent retiring from the service, the post was under a women and responsible for inter agency cooperation and internal affairs across the agency locations scattered across the country. Not really something that Stone had any real interest in but it was the first post transfer he'd spotted that came with a good increase in the wage and if he waited a few years he'd be able to transfer out of that branch into another more interesting one. With the wage rise and the rise to being a senior agent it had seemed a good post to try for.
Getting the interview alone proved interesting as he'd needed to fly for six hours from the L.A to the New York headquarters where she worked. All in all getting to her and then getting back home had taken the best part of the day
Thinking back he remembered how the actual interview had been a short meeting, he had been paraded in front of her from a group of five others like him back a short secretary into a waiting room outside her office.
The sign on the door said Miss Thompson, director of internal cooperation he had noticed waiting outside her office door for the promotion. All of them had been from different branches and he'd never seen any of them before now so the wait outside had been a quiet one for him.
He'd come in shook her hand and taken a seat in front of her desk a large mahogany desk with no computer and only a set of file binders to mark its surface. The rest of the room contained behind the desk a wall marked by a large window covered by blinds and two walls which had steel filing cabinets rising up to head height before being covered in plants making the place seem a small jungle. Then there was her chair, a large green leather monstrosity that once she sat back down into towered above her like a thrown.
As he entered the room he had noticed that non of the drawers had any form of markings written on them whilst every one of the plotted plants had a label sticking out of them. It was a strange contrast the chaos of the plants marked but the labels whilst the drawers which all looked uniform had no way of being identified, stone had wondered how anyone who didn't know the room already would ever find anything from the drawers, perhaps that was the point of the system.
The meeting had been short, stone had expected there to be some questions about his previous missions which she would have clearance to ask about but none of that had been forthcoming, for the first few minutes she had only sat there waiting for something as she sat in her chair and read over her dossier on the desk. Quite what she had been reading he hadn't been able to read as she tilted the file away from his eyes once she saw him trying to peek into the notes, she'd reminded him of a judge reading the court case before passing a verdict.
Eventually she looked up from her folder smiled at him and nodded before placing the files away into the drawers of the desk and spoke.
"What do you think about the plants? I try to manage them well but they seem to be getting too numerous" she said as she looked him in the eye.
"They're very green" said Stone as he looked back at her "how are they organised?" He asked after he realised the first statement was probably too short a reply, her slightly wrinkled brow creased in a smile slightly before she nodded to his statement.
"By the year I got them" she said as she waved one arm around the room towards the plants on display, "some of them are very old" she said as she looked back at them.
Stone only nodded at this as he wondered just how old some of them were.
The rest of the session had followed much the same with with there being nothing about his previous work or about his work in the agency the questions had been small talk things like if he was married, how was his family stuff like that.
Stone had no family and the last time he'd dated had been a year ago as his work left him busy. It had been a near one sided conversation with her talking and him mostly responding in short sentences. He'd honestly thought that the interview had gone poorly once it was done.
The final remark she gave him as he left didn't reassure him to the likelihood of him getting the posting "your a quiet man aren't you Mr Stone" as the door clicked shut behind him and she welcomed in the next agent a tall thin man wearing thick glasses who nodded at stone as he walked sauntered past him into the office.
It had been a long weekend as he wondered how he could have failed the meeting so spectacularly that he'd gotten a actual complaint thrown at him as he left, he'd pounded out his frustration by catching up with a few of his squad members who'd decided he needed cheering up after he'd told them how the interview went, a night out had at least reduced his worry for the time.
but he'd gotten the call on Monday that he'd gotten the posting and that he was now officially a senior agent of the FBI.
It meant he could put together his own team and work on leads that he wanted into areas that were of interest of him, under miss Thompsons authority and monitoring for the next few years but beyond that with increased independence.
The rest of the week had been spent sorting out a flat in Dc from which he could commute to his new office next to hers, he wasn't meant to start work till Monday but he'd gotten the call this afternoon that he'd be taking a flight out here and to meet her at the airport.
Looking at the small women next to him stone wondered if this would be the mission that determined there relationship, the next few years of his life and his career beyond could be determined by the women snoring beside him stone couldn't help but give a smirk as he imagined this women being in charge of his future.
From everything he'd seen so far she seemed like a soft touch operator far more willing to like him than his previous operator had been who'd managed stone and a group of others as they rose through training and into junior agents, Mike brewer had been a real asshole to those who worked under him frequently working them far beyond there jobs.
Still though as the plane seat belt signs lit up to announce there descent, towards the airport he wondered what it was they were actually going to be doing in Indiana.
