THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS were quiet—disturbingly, maddeningly so. I found out I was being assigned to headquarters in Washington, as deputy director of Investigations under Director Burns. “A big fat plum,” I was told by everybody. It sounded like a desk job to me, and I didn’t want that. I wanted the Wolf. I wanted the street. I wanted action. I hadn’t come over to the Bureau to be a desk jockey in the Hoover Building.
I was given a week off, and Nana, the kids, and I went everywhere together. There was a lot of tension in the house, though. We were waiting to hear what Christine Johnson was going to do.
Every time I looked at Alex my heart ached; every time I held him in my arms or tucked him into bed at the end of the day, I thought about his leaving the house for good. I couldn’t let that happen, but my lawyer had advised me it could.
The director needed to see me in his office one morning during my week off. It wasn’t too much of a problem. I stopped in after I had dropped the kids off at school. Tony Woods, Burns’s assistant, seemed particularly glad to see me.
“You’re something of a hero for the moment. Enjoy it,” he said, sounding, as always, like an Ivy League prof. “Won’t last long.”
“Always the optimist, Tony,” I said.
“That’s my job description, young man.”
I wondered how much Ron Burns shared with his assistant, and also what the director had in mind this morning. I wanted to ask Tony about this plum job I was slated for. But I didn’t. I figured he wouldn’t tell me anyway.
Coffee and sweet rolls were waiting in Burns’s office, but the director wasn’t there. It was a little past eight. I wondered if he’d even gotten to work yet. It was hard to imagine that Ron Burns had a life outside the office, though I knew he had a wife and four children, and lived out in Virginia, about an hour from D.C.
Burns finally appeared at the door in a blue dress shirt and tie, with his shirtsleeves rolled up. So now I knew he’d had at least one meeting before this one. Actually, I hoped this meeting wasn’t about another case that he wanted me to dive into. Unless it involved the Wolf.
Burns grinned when he saw me sitting there. He read my look instantly. “Actually, I have a couple of nasty cases for you to work on. But that isn’t why I wanted to see you, Alex. Have some coffee. Relax. You’re on vacation, right?”
He walked into the room and sat down across from me. “I want to hear how it’s going so far. You miss being a homicide detective? Still want to stay in the Bureau? You can leave if you want to. The Washington PD wants you back. Badly.”
“That’s good to hear, that I’m wanted. As for the Bureau, what can I say? The resources are amazing. Lots of good people here, great people. I hope you know that.”
“I do. I’m a fan of our personnel, most of them, anyway. And on the dark side?” he asked. “Problem areas? Things to work on? I want to hear what you think. I need to hear it. Tell me the truth, as you see it.”
“Bureaucracy. It’s a way of life. It’s almost the FBI’s culture. And fear. It’s mostly political in nature, and it inhibits agents’ imaginations. Did I mention bureaucracy? It’s bad, awful, crippling. Just listen to your agents.”
“I’m listening,” Burns said. “Go on.”
“The agents aren’t allowed to be nearly as good as they can be. Of course, that’s a complaint with most jobs, isn’t it?”
“Even your old job with the Washington PD?”
“Not as much as here. That’s because I sidestepped a lot of red tape and other bullshit that got in the way.”
“Good. Keep sidestepping the bullshit, Alex,” Burns said. “Even if it’s mine.”
I smiled. “Is that an order?”
Burns nodded soberly. I felt that he had something else on his mind. “I had a difficult meeting before you got here. Gordon Nooney is leaving the Bureau.”
I shook my head. “I hope I didn’t have anything to do with that. I don’t know Nooney well enough to judge him. Seriously. I don’t.”
“Sorry, but you did have something to do with it. But it was my decision. The buck passes through here at a hundred miles an hour, and I like it that way. I do know Nooney well enough to judge him. Nooney was the leak to the Washington Post. That son of a bitch has been doing it for years. Alex, I thought about putting you in Nooney’s job.”
I was shocked to hear it. “I’ve never trained people. I didn’t finish orientation myself.”
“But you could train our people.”
I wasn’t sure about that. “Maybe I could struggle through. But I like the streets. It’s in my blood. I’ve learned to accept that about myself.”
“I know. I get it, Alex. I want you to work right here in the Hoover Building, though. We’re going to change things. We’re going to win more than we lose. Work the big cases with Stacy Pollack here at headquarters. She’s one of the best. Tough, smart, she could run this place someday.”
“I can work with Stacy,” I said, and left it at that.
Ron Burns put out his hand and I took it.
“This is going to be good. Exciting stuff,” he said. “Which reminds me of a promise I made. There’s a spot here for Detective John Sampson, and any D.C. street cop you like. Anybody who wants to win. We’re going to win, Alex.”
I shook Ron Burns’s hand on it. The thing is, I wanted to win too.