Changed Roles, chapter 6
"You've always volunteered for this kind of assignment in the past; what has changed-," Billy was asking Francine but he abruptly stopped as he began to suspect what was truly bothering Francine. "Michael Tanner means something to you personally; doesn't he?"
"Would it matter; aren't we all chess pieces on a board that Dr. Smyth manipulates to serve his own warped agenda," Francine asked as she debated whether or not to confide in Billy. Francine had initially ignored Billy's suggestion that she should sit down so that they could have a calm conversation but the adrenaline rush that she'd felt earlier was fading so she sat down in the chair in front of Billy's desk.
"Dr. Smyth runs the Agency but I'm your section chief and whenever I possibly can I avoid putting my agents in situations that would compromise them personally. There will be times when a case is of such a high priority that I will have to carry out Smyth's orders without question but in this instance he didn't give you this assignment; I did," Billy explained. He looked at Francine expectantly, hoping that she would choose to confirm his suspicion that she'd become romantically involved with Michael Tanner, but she remained silent. "Francine, I need you to give me a good reason for why I shouldn't expect you to carry out this assignment. You are the obvious person for me to give this assignment to," Billy continued eliciting an angry glare from Francine. "Don't give me that look; you're the obvious choice because Tanner met you last spring in your capacity as an agent so he'll feel comfortable discussing things with you that he wouldn't be likely to discuss with a woman that he believes he's meeting in a purely social context.. Would you prefer that I offer this assignment to Suzanne Peters, she's been itching to show off her skills since she transferred here from our New York office, I could call her in here right now."
"Don't you dare; I don't want that…that…shark anywhere near Michael. I'll do what needs to be done, I'm sure he has nothing to hide, he believes in the work that he's doing. He would never do anything that might compromise the President's foreign policy agenda," Francine stated.
"I think that you've made a wise choice, Francine. All the chatter that we've been picking up suggests that a concerted effort is being made to derail the President's plan to get Gorbachev to sign a treaty that would reduce the intermediate range missile stockpile on the Soviet side as well as our side. We need to find out who if anyone in our government is trying to scuttle this step in our country's attempt to put an end to the Cold War. Reagan only has another year in office and he is determined to make sure that we are well on the way to reducing the possibility of nuclear war by the time he leaves office."
"Why does the White House think that someone within the government is trying to derail the arms talks," Francine questioned as she slipped back into agent mode. "There are many people outside of government who don't support disarmament. We should be considering members of the military and people whose businesses produce the weapons that the government would no longer be buying if the Cold War were to actually end," Francine suggested.
"Those are all possibilities that we will be exploring but we also have to take a hard look at the State Department personnel who are dealing directly with their Soviet counterparts. We can't risk having any of them give the Soviets a reason to pull out of the talks. There's no guarantee that someone within the government isn't being forced to stir up trouble; if the person is being coerced then they may be doing things that go against their own values," Billy surmised. "We need to find out if anyone in Tanner's department has done anything out of character or evasive recently, traveling unexpectedly or spending large sums of money, you know what to look for."
Oh Michael, you'd better have a good answer for where you've been and what you've been doing. I want to believe that you haven't been lying to me but if you have I'll make sure you regret it. As Francine stood up to leave the office her eye was caught by the file on Billy's desk that contained the photos from the car bombing that injured a senator's small grandson.
"Billy, how does the investigation into the threats against the senators tie into this case? I know they are sponsoring a bill that involves changes to the military budget for next year."
"We're hoping that if we can catch whoever is trying to prevent any major changes to next year's military spending that they will be the same people who are trying to make sure that the missile treaty is never signed. Lee and Amanda will be interviewing the senators who've been threatened. If they were being aggressively lobbied to drop this bill before they were threatened we'll have a better sense of what direction we should be looking in. I need to give Dr. Smyth progress reports every morning, will you be able to arrange to have dinner with Michael Tanner tonight, so that I'll have a line on the State Department ASAP."
"Michael's been very busy this past week but I'll try to connect with him and make an arrangement to see him," Francine fudged then turned and left the office quickly.