Disclaimer: I don't own the situations or characters portrayed herein. I'm just playing with them for a while.
Stemwinder 2, Part 4
It was nonsense, of course. The plan was disastrous at best.
"At least three lines of sight, unprotected parameters." She gestured frantically to the stadium plans Billy had ordered her to pull, saying, as she did so, "I don't need to quote you the Agency TAC manual!" in a much higher-pitched voice than she liked to hear from her own mouth.
"Then don't," Billy replied, slipping his gun into his holster. "We don't use backup. Not after last time." The last few words were almost lost as Dr. Smyth entered.
He didn't bother to knock.
He didn't bother to wait for Billy to stop speaking.
No, he strolled in, talking a stream of infuriating metaphors as soon as he entered.
"I hear your boy's coming by again — amidst the ducks. This time we get the Kewpie doll, okay?"
Oh, so this was a fairground, now, was it? She'd love nothing better than to stuff his own Kewpie doll into his mouth and use him for target practice.
Billy's tone — smooth, calm, deadly — cut through her frustrated daydreams.
"Just exactly how did you hear? So far I've only told Desmond. Did your ferrets tap my phone?"
Smyth didn't answer. He never did, unless it benefited him.
"'Mind your manners.' The old recognition sequence. Thirty five number groups. I got the Crypto boys out of their warm beds, but so far — zip city." Who talks like this? Surely not real people.
He took a pull on his cigarette and blew the smoke out at them. "Some kind of private code?" he asked, in a tone of such forced nonchalance it made Francine shiver a little.
"Is that a casual question, or is there something special you want?"
She could hear Billy struggling to remain civil. Apparently Dr. Smyth did not sense danger. He plowed on in clipped tones.
"Yes. About ten pounds off your backside if you don't break this code for me. Presto."
Billy's eyes never left Smyth's face. His tone did not change. "Francine, wait for me in the motor pool."
She froze, and his eyes flickered to meet hers.
"Go," he ordered, and she went. She looked over her shoulder as she left, and saw him push in his chair and walk toward Dr. Smyth.
It was silly, of course, but something in his manner as he approached the taller man suddenly triggered a memory of a line from a play she could not place: "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war".
She had never seen his eyes blaze like that. She did not stop even as the blue blinds closed in the windows of his office. She kept going, down to the motor pool where Leatherneck stood waiting for her with all the meager arsenal he could scrape together.
Billy joined her at the front of the agency only a moment after she pulled up at the curb. He was panting a little, and his cheeks and forehead were dewy with sweat, but he was at least alone.
"Go," he said, as soon as he sat down, and she went.
The thing she hated about rogue missions, she decided, was the uncertainty. Sneaking around and disarming Rostov's men while she had a fairly good grasp on what was going on was one thing. Handcuffing Sonja Chenko and hauling her along as she and Amanda ran toward the shots reverberating under the bleachers beneath their feet, interspersed with terrifying thuds and even more terrifying silences — well, that was something quite different.
She pushed Sonja in front of her, following the sounds of shouts and splashing water and coughing and running. They rounded the corner just as Billy pulled Lee off a soaking wet Alexi and manhandled the old man into a pair of handcuffs. She had somehow taken hold of Amanda's arm, possibly to prevent her from running in and causing mayhem, possibly to seem as though she were still keeping an open mind regarding Amanda's innocence in the whole debacle. But she couldn't keep her back as Lee straightened up; Amanda ran to him and he caught her in his arms, looking both more tired and more happy than Francine had seen him in a long time.
It took two weeks to fill out all the paperwork she needed to. It took another week to fill it out again in a way that didn't make the agency look like a laughingstock and a useless drain on taxpayer money. It took an additional week to iron out Amanda's full-time promotion paperwork.
And Francine hated paperwork.