"What the hell is he thinking?"
Karen Hayes voiced what she and every other sane person in the room was thinking when Nadia finished briefing them on the present state of the CTU under Ben Graham's management. Instead of focusing on the massive rescue and recovery efforts, he was obviously more concerned with some non-urgent, internal investigation. In fact, in several instances, it seemed that he'd hindered the efforts of the military and local teams with his red tape.
"He's behaving like a bureaucratic paper pusher with no experience dealing in real world applications of our resources," Bill said with a sigh.
Chloe was scrolling through records on a small computer screen and she huffed, "Why does Division always send us useless people during crisis's…no offense."
Several years earlier, Karen had been sent to oversee them on the day they toppled Logan's corrupt administration. It had taken a while before she came around to their way of doing things.
"None taken," Karen replied dryly, then quirked a small smile in Chloe's direction. "I'd like to think I wasn't quite this bad."
Bill, Chloe and Jack, who had all witnessed Karen's attempt to take over CTU operations, exchanged wry looks and it was Bill who murmured, "No comment."
Casting her husband a somewhat baleful look, the former National Security Advisor said, "All right, moving on. If we can show Graham's inability to effectively run this office, Homeland Security will have no choice but to remove him."
"And send in someone else ill equipped for the job," Jack spoke up for the first time since Nadia had finished summing up the situation. "Someone who might actually notice everyone working around him."
Scowling darkly at the computer, Chloe said, "I've seen middle schoolers with better code skills than these Division idiots. They're using so much bandwidth and processing powers to try and dissect my system, I'm surprised there's enough left to do a freakin' Google search!"
"You said that the locals and the military are unhappy with Graham as well?" Bill asked Nadia, who looked out onto the floor where Captain Rivers was studying a map of personnel deployment, speaking to someone on comm and asking Reese's input. The Marine had a clipboard in hand and was hovering by the stairs that led to the upper offices while she glared at roaming Division techs.
"Rivers thinks Graham's a moron and Reese is inching closer and closer to disemboweling him with his own tie tack," Nadia confirmed, then smirked. "I think there's a pool going on as to how long it's gonna be before one of them kicks his ass."
Bill, Karen and Jack nodded, while Buchanan said, "That will work in our favor then. According to NRF guidelines, Rivers is incident commander. If he lodges a complaint or makes a request, for the time being, they have to cede to his wishes."
"Trouble is, he's not one to complain and since he and Reese have just started working around Graham, I don't think he's going to bother, at least until the crisis is over," Nadia said with a sigh.
While usually, someone who buckled down, did their job and didn't whine was the sort of person one wanted around during times of crisis, in this instance it was not doing them any favors.
"He does hate Graham though," Nadia mused, then shrugged. "Maybe he'd be open to a few suggestions that could result in Graham no longer being here."
"It's worth a shot," Bill agreed, then looked over to Jack and Chloe. "Sorry to say this, but you two should go report in to Graham."
Jack nodded and replied, "I'll keep him busy. You work on getting Rivers onboard."
Bill, Karen and Nadia nodded as Jack and Chloe made their way out of the room. While crossing the comm floor, Chloe leaned close to whisper, "I may have to kill Graham's programmer. He's obviously too stupid to be allowed to continue to live. Do you think I could get away with it? Blame the hormones or something."
Knowing she was trying to amuse him, Jack smiled at her and said, "Don't worry. I know how to hide a body."
Chloe suppressed her laugher. Between the two of them, they could totally get away with murder.
TBC…..
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