Undercover

A/N: I hadn't originally intended to do the Undercover challenge, due to a lack of inspiration, but I got an idea which fits into this story, so I'm 'giving it a go.' Let me know what you think.

On Tuesday morning, Booth, Brennan, Angela and Hodgins headed to the FBI resident office in Casper. Hazel Thompson, the agent in charge at this satellite FBI location was a close friends of Sarah Farnin, and had heard of the 'proposed' Western Division training seminar Booth was supposed to present following the eclipse. Hazel had attended more than one specialized senior training course at Quantico for which Booth had been an adjunct instructor, and she knew the Supervisory Special Agent's investigative skills were matched only by his undercover talents.

She contacted her supervisor Calvin Shivers and requested that an actual seminar be presented. She was well aware that Booth and Brennan could teach undercover techniques in their sleep, and felt their suggestions would greatly enhance the performance of her associates in the four Wyoming satellite agencies. Agent Shivers had attended college with Caroline Julian, and was equally aware of the reputation of the four people vacationing in his jurisdiction. He put in a call to Director Stark to ask that the 'ghost' seminar become a reality.

Caroline texted Brennan to alert her of this development, and filled her in on Shivers and Thompson's years of FBI service. Brennan was happy to oblige, never wishing to pass up a chance to improve FBI crime solving performance anywhere in the country. She brought Angela and Hodgins up to speed on the diversion becoming an assignment. Caroline was happy to continue caring for the little Booths, and Granpa Billy relished any chance to spend time with the apple of his eye, Michael Vincent.

The seminar would only take four days to complete. Agents from the Wyoming satellite offices in Cheyenne, Lander, and Jackson Hole were directed to assemble at the Casper office. By the time Booth was informed that his one-day ghost seminar had morphed into nearly a week of undercover acting, he had no choice but participating gracefully. Brennan made it up to him at night in their hotel with some superb acting of her own.

Under the scenario Booth and Brennan had devised, Angela was to impersonate a low level bookie who had been throwing horse races at the Wyoming Fairgrounds each September. This series of Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse races called Horse Palace were held at several race tracks around the state. Races held at Sweetwater Downs in Rock Springs, and Energy Downs in Gillette were lead-ups competitions of 9 days and 3 days respectively, preparing for 4 days of racing at Casper's Central Wyoming Fairgrounds.

Jack Hodgins' father and grandfather had actually bred Thoroughbred horses during his youth, so he was portraying an extremely wealthy but unscrupulous horse breeder in cahoots with Angela. Booth's role was that of a Fairgrounds official, and Brennan was posing as an animal welfare investigator. With the cooperation of the Central Wyoming Fairgrounds, a post-Eclipse race was scheduled on Thursday as the backdrop for the seminar.

The purse would be donated to charity and the jockeys and owners participating were aware of the scenario. A ring of gamblers had actually been operating bogus betting during the 2016 racing season, so the exercise could bear immediate results if the attending agents paid close serious attention. A charity reception and raffle were held Wednesday night to set the stage for the role-playing exercise.

Tuesday the agents would attend classroom and round table discussions of undercover techniques, including clothing, mannerism, and language disguises, active listening skills, memory tricks to remember facts and observations without taking notes, and methods for gaining the confidence of an informant being wooed by the agency.

While none of these concepts could be taught in-depth during a short seminar, it was hoped that watching the two couples in action would give the student agents ideas for their own undercover persona development. While each assignment required specific role-playing, an agent could develop his or her own acting skills. Tony and Roxie, Buck and Wanda were roles that Booth and Brennan had assumed these identities so often they could slip into the roles almost seamlessly. Hodgins expected to enjoy himself immensely. Angela had switched between loving Roxie and Wendell and Jack, and she possessed chameleon talents she rarely exhibited.

The four friends practiced their 'act' Monday night at the hotel. Early Tuesday morning they met with the breeders and jockeys participating to explain their objectives. By 9 am, the DC team was conveying their valuable knowledge to the fourteen agents serving the Suffrage or Equality State.

Wyoming is so named because it was first to grant women the right to vote in 1869. The true motivation for allowing women to vote was insuring there were enough voting citizens to meet a population requirement for statehood. But regardless of the reason, Wyoming ladies voted long before their sisters in other states.

As a Fairgrounds official, Booth had to become Buck Moosejaw, since Tony from Philly would have seemed completely out of place in the West. Brennan, however, chomped and smacked her gum, sashayed about and reveled in her Philadelphia accent. Her animal welfare concerns were completely genuine, and she used Roxy's sharp witty retorts to make believers out of the field agents watching her performance.

Any animal mistreatment infraction she noticed was quickly dealt with and strongly discouraged. The agents thoroughly enjoyed watching the quartet run through their paces in the brief office skit, and looked forward to the longer presentations they'd see at the Fairgrounds racetrack later in the week.

The student agents were each posing as spectators at the charity race, and tasked to mingle with the crowd and sniff out any real gamblers operating at the Casper track. On Friday a follow-up analysis and critique session would be held to instruct the agents on post-operation evaluation methods.

Booth and Brennan flirted shamelessly with one another at the charity reception held at the Casper Country Club. Angela and Hodgins did likewise. Very few of the attendees knew the two couples were in fact married.

By the end of the week, the Wyoming agents reported some sound observations of suspicious behavior among the horse people they'd encountered at the track. Even a few of the breeders and jockeys assisting with the training ruse would be kept under surveillance in the months ahead. None of these 'players' knew the identities of the agents in training.

So the ghost seminar became a fruitful reality, and the Cantilever Group would be pleased to receive a subsidy from the FBI for the corporate jet's flights to and from Wyoming. By Friday afternoon, when the five eclipse observers boarded the plane to fly home, Booth and his Jeffersonian squints had sharply enhanced the Western Division's FBI skillset for future cases. When the plane landed at Washington Executive Airport three ecstatic children were impatiently awaiting their parents' arrival and Max's return. It had been a week that Booth would never forget.