Enemy Among Us (An Espionage Thriller)

By Jason Melby

Former FBI Special Agent Jim McLeary is on a dangerous mission. Paired with an adversarial female partner and an egocentric Section Chief with a hidden agenda, McLeary must prevent an elusive enemy from releasing a silent weapon of mass destruction.

Hindered by a tainted past, a gauntlet of double-agents, covert operatives, and a guilty conscience—McLeary comes face-to-face with his worst fear: the cost of victory may prove more than he can afford.

OTHER TITLES by Jason Melby:
Without A Trace... (A Suspense Novel)
A Dangerous Affair (A Romantic Suspense Novel)
The Gauntlet (A Thriller)

• Language: English
• Publisher: ePublishing Works
• Release date: Aug 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781614173298

Jason Melby

Jason Melby's suspense novels feature dynamic characters overwhelmed by extraordinary circumstances forcing them to confront their greatest fears. A graduate of Virginia Tech and Johns Hopkins University, Jason currently resides in Melbourne, Florida. To learn more about his work, visit www.jasonmelby.com.

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Enemy Among Us

An Espionage Thriller

by

Jason Melby

Published by ePublishing Works!

www.epublishingworks.com

ISBN: 978-1-61417-329-8

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Please Note

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Copyright © 2012, 2013 by Jason Melby. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. www.jasonmelby.com

Editor: Dave Field

Cover by Kim Killion www.hotdamndesigns.com

eBook design by eBook Prep www.ebookprep.com

Thank You.

Also by Jason Melby

A Dangerous Affair

Without a Trace...

The Gauntlet

To my wonderful parents, David and Marianna. Thank you for believing in me. For your patience. For your wisdom. And for your unconditional love.

I say to our enemies: We are coming. God may show you mercy. We will not.

Senator John McCain, September 12, 2001

Chapter 1

December 1 through December 5

Special Agent Jim McLeary sat alone aboard a forty-seven foot trawler docked in a private slip near the back of a secluded Miami marina. Beside him, a tiny fan buzzed inside a slide projector at the edge of a folding table cluttered with bullets and loose change. He held a cheap flip phone in one hand and a .45 caliber Kimber with a satin silver finish in the other, staring through bloodshot eyes at the lighted image of his wife and twin sons cast through the projector lens toward a free-standing screen.

He was a month shy of fifty. His six-foot frame with broad shoulders, slender waist, and a thickset chest disguised the fragile persona hiding in refuge behind the cobalt blue eyes of a man who'd seen his life come undone in a series of bad decisions and misguided efforts to resolve them. Ravaged by the cumulative effects of an FBI career spanning more than twenty years, Jim McLeary had traveled to the dark side and back, confronting hardened criminals from all walks of life. Outside the FBI, he'd learned to cope with his share of problems, and for the most part, he'd embraced a day-to-day existence he neither loved nor loathed but had learned to accept for what it was.

He pressed the carousel projector's slide-advance button and watched the specter of his twin sons fast-forward ten years from a preschool picnic to a summer swim tournament in a crowded Virginia suburb. Blessed with their mother's angelic face and radiant smile, his fraternal sons had worn a badge of unstoppable determination, unyielding in their quest to win their respective heats and earn their father's admiration.

The slide's time stamp read 1995, a chapter in the life of Jim McLeary etched with emotional scars; a time governed by a call to duty from a belligerent unit chief—and a wife who'd abandoned him.

He rubbed the stubble on his chiseled jaw with the gun's front serrations on the black matte slide, inhaling the odor of light machine oil impregnated in the carbon pores.

He placed the flip phone on the table and reached for the metal trash can heaped with newspaper clippings, unsolicited IRS correspondence, and a rumpled copy of the King James Bible. He pushed the Bible aside and retrieved a yellow sticky pad with a note scrawled in pen beneath an unlisted phone number for Seth and Brian McLeary. He tore the ragged square of paper and crumpled it in his hand. Then he stood up, snatched the phone, and sat down. An act of indecision he'd repeated twice before, pacing with the gun in one hand and the phone in the other.

The past was history, the present uncertain, and his future up for grabs when his stronger half convinced himself to open the mangled note and dial the stupid number.

The line rang several times before he heard a prerecorded message from a voice he likened to his own. He tried to speak, but the words sank in a trough of emotional quicksand. Despite the countless rehearsals and the steadfast determination to make a positive change in his life, he froze in his own mental torpor and hung up.

He tossed the phone on a sofa cushion and advanced the slide projector until the last photo of his sons passed across the lens, followed by a sheet of white light that blanketed the screen, depicting what remained of his life from the sequence of historic images stacked neatly inside a rotating tray.

Disillusioned, yet sober in his humble surroundings, he pinched a single bullet from the clutter of .45 caliber cartridges on the folding table. He pressed the fat, copper round in the empty chamber and closed the match-grade slide on the five-inch barrel with a left-hand twist. He held his life in his own hands, a power he both revered and feared. Despite his shortcomings, he'd done what he could for his boys, finding solace in the notion his sons would thrive without him.

Alone in his thoughts, he had a decision to make, perhaps the last decision he would ever contemplate. For what he'd failed to accomplish as a father, met with equal downfall in his marriage and career. Wracked with guilt and the ensuing doldrums from a life of solitude and lost resolve, he sought refuge the only way he knew how. In his mind, the scales of indignity and hope teetered back and forth, rising and falling with the slow, methodic rhythm of a large vessel's wake rolling through the low-rent marina.

He squeezed his hand around the gun's rosewood grip, his fingers pressed against the double diamond texture. He cocked the hammer and brought the loaded weapon to his head, squaring the Lasergrip sights at his temple. For the third time in two days, he crept closer to the rim of a rocky ledge, staring down at the cavernous void, prepared to take his final step from a life he would surrender in a violent discharge of expanding gas behind a two-hundred and thirty grain bullet capable of shattering his skull like a porcelain vase.

With his free hand, he slid a quarter off the table and sat upright, shoulders back, chest out—his right index finger resting on the gun's four-pound trigger.

He flicked the quarter with his thumb, launching the coin into the air, where it wobbled in a shallow arc before clanging off the teak-wood floor by his feet, bouncing and spinning until it settled on George Washington's head.

What Jim McLeary failed to decide on his own, fate had chosen for him.

Chapter 2

Grey clouds lingered above the sea of vehicles trapped in the abysmal morning traffic outside the bustling Rosslyn Metro Station along North Moore Street west of the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia. A block away, a stolen floral delivery van went unnoticed in the rush hour chaos as it eased into a metered parking space behind a late model Taurus parked along Wilson Boulevard with a Baby on Board sign in the window and a faded Grateful Dead sticker on the bumper.

The lanky van driver with a light brown complexion, jet-black hair, and a cobra-shaped face smothered in three-day whiskers killed the engine. Close enough to view the entrance to the Chase Bank, yet far enough to avoid suspicion, he opened a sliding partition and moved to the back of the van to join a member of the Aryan Brotherhood dressed in jeans and a black muscle shirt with a gas mask over his face.

Centered inside a rack of portable electronic equipment, an image of a human hand appeared on a flat screen monitor, palm out with each fingertip highlighted in red. The image rotated ninety degrees while the software impregnated each fingertip with unique loop and whorl patterns.

The Aryan member followed the virtual hand with his eyes. He loaded twelve-gauge shells in a sawed-off Remington while the driver removed a ventilated hood from a portable manufacturing device to reveal a translucent rubber glove with the same elasticity and fingerprint ridges of human skin.

* * *

Inside the Chase Bank, an armed security guard with silver hair and patent leather shoes manned his post near the entrance. Standing beneath a video surveillance camera focused on the bank's revolving door, he faced the clock on the wall above the teller stations, where sheets of bullet-resistant glass separated the employees from the general public. He endured the pain in his right heel while he watched the second hand tick past the twelve o'clock hour. The burning sensation in his foot served a nagging reminder of the treatment his dermatologist had applied the day before. After decades of good health and bad, he'd now developed a plantar wart and experienced the searing heat from liquid nitrogen applied at minus two-hundred degrees Celsius. Not as bad as getting shot he surmised, but worse than stepping on a rusty nail.

He turned his head when a patron stepped through the revolving door: a waitress in a grungy uniform with a baby asleep on her shoulder. Seeing the infant reminded him of how young his own children were before they set out to conquer the world and left his wife on her own with no one to care for but herself and an aging husband with a bad back.

He watched the woman approach the teller station as a steady flow of morning customers arrived, including a biker in leather chaps who wore a Harley Davidson jacket with a POW/MIA patch stitched on the sleeve.

With three hours and twenty-eight minutes to go before lunch, the guard thought about his bowling league on Thursday night and how the guys would react when he told them he couldn't play on account of his bad foot. They'd call him a slackass and torture him with endless jokes about getting old. Some insults he deserved on account of his frugal spending habits; others he could live without. Especially the jokes about his wife and how his friends would take care of her when he finally kicked the bucket. On account of his previous bout with prostate cancer, he never took kindly to jokes about his health or his early demise, no matter how well-intentioned the humor was meant to be. There was plenty in life to make fun of without blurring the line between amusing and insulting.

When a text message beeped on his phone, he pictured his wife in the kitchen scrawling out another to do list, which prompted her to contact him immediately about some inane chore she'd neglected to mention the night before—usually something involving a ladder or a trip to Home Depot to buy a tool he didn't have or a new piece of yard décor he didn't need.

He checked the message, squinting at the unknown number as the bank's revolving door spun inside its cylindrical enclosure with a whoooshhh of air.

A small metal canister bounced in his peripheral vision and rolled toward the center of the bank lobby. A deafening boom shocked his eardrums. Then the room filled with thick, black smoke.

Stunned momentarily by the flash-bang grenade, he reached for his service revolver only to succumb to the noxious gas stinging his eyes. He fell to his knees faster than it took him to realize the bank was being robbed.

* * *

The man in the gas mask entered silently, his actions deliberate as he panned the shotgun in the open lobby.

He aimed the muzzle at the surveillance camera and squeezed the trigger, pulverizing the live feed connection to the video recorder. Another shotgun blast blew the cipher lock through the teller door, leaving a large splintered cavity in the wood.

The gunman charged toward the back where several employees huddled on the floor, choking on the potent fumes permeating the enclosed space. Stay down and face the floor, he barked inside the mask, filtering the adulterated air through a single activated carbon canister. Or your day is going to get a lot worse from here. He eyed the cash in the teller drawers and stuffed handfuls of currency in a black duffel bag, moving quickly from station to station until he emptied every drawer.

Outside the building, he pulled his gas mask off and entered the delivery van from the back. Let's go! he hollered at his accomplice behind the wheel.

The van lurched away from the curb.

You're late, said the driver with the cobra-shaped face, who spoke with a Middle Eastern accent. He glanced over his shoulder to see the duffel bag on the floor behind him. His head swiveled back and forth between the view of the road ahead and the view from his side-view mirror, reflecting a convoy of Arlington Police vehicles weaving through traffic in the opposite direction.

We've got a tail, said the driver when an unmarked Crown Victoria broke away from the pack and pulled a U-turn across the median. He glanced at the portable GPS. One eye focused on the small screen; the other remained stationary in its socket, more mechanical than human.

The gunman braced himself against a built-in shelf inside the van with one hand clasped firmly on the checkered shotgun stock. With his footing secured and his balance on center, he swung the rear doors open and fired three times at the Crown Victoria, striking the officer behind the unmarked cruiser's shattered windshield.

The out-of-control cruiser plowed sideways toward a crowd of pedestrians like a runaway train, the engine revving and tires screeching from the violent G-force derived from four thousand pounds of gross vehicle weight in motion. The sickening crack of broken bones immediately preceded the grotesque acrobatics of hapless spectators cartwheeling through the air at the moment of impact, smashing café tables and a storefront display outside a coffee shop.

The van continued along North Fort Myer toward Wilson Boulevard and barreled through a red light intersection, prompting a multiple-car collision in its wake.

The gunman closed the rear doors as the van sped down a one-way street, clipping a row of metal trash cans before turning toward a construction zone marked with orange cones.

A second squad car in pursuit fired at the van, shattering the passenger window before the rookie officer lost control of his vehicle and slammed into the back of a newspaper delivery truck.

The gunman pumped the shotgun, ejecting a spent shell from the smoking chamber. Faster!

The van accelerated along a stretch of Arlington Boulevard, dodging westbound traffic heading out of the city before it veered toward the Queen Street exit. The driver followed the programmed route to an alley and swerved to avoid a forklift backing out from a driveway entrance. The sudden redirection threw the gunman to the floor, prompting an accidental discharge and a cavernous hole in the side of the van.

The gunman scrambled to his feet and leaned the shotgun out the passenger window to fire successive volleys at the fleet of Arlington Police cars closing fast. Crouching to avoid return fire, he quickly loaded new shells and blasted the driver's window closest to him, shredding a patrolman's face and sending the patrol car flipping end over end in a twisted mass of crumpled steel and shattered glass.

The van continued through another intersection before skidding around a sharp turn and proceeding several blocks to a private underground garage with a seven foot clearance. The van entered the parking structure and ventured behind a row of parked cars, away from the nearest fire sprinkler and out of view from the entrance.

The driver cut the lights and killed the engine.

Police cars splintered off to search the side streets.

Inside the van, the gunman pumped the shotgun to eject the last spent shell from the chamber. Propellant residue covered his arms. A deep laceration on the back of his hand dripped blood on the metal floor. He touched his hand to his mouth and licked it.

The driver jumped out. We're late.

We'll make it up, the gunman stated, pulling his shirt over his head. He stripped down to his socks and underwear and tossed the blood-stained clothes in a pile.

The driver added his shirt and pants before he donned a change of clothes. He squirted lighter fluid on the pile of potential evidence and ignited the tainted garments in a ball of fire. Black smoke rose to the concrete ceiling.

The gunman unloaded equipment from the van, dropping the money bag where he could see it. He took the lighter fluid from the driver and doused the van's interior, directing the flames from the burning clothes to the stream of flammable liquid. I'll take the cash with me, the gunman insisted. We'll meet up in an hour.

That wasn't the plan.

The plan has changed, said the gunman.

How do I know I can trust you? the driver asked, discretely shielding himself behind a concrete pillar with a remote detonator in his hand.

Unwittingly, the gunman grabbed a duplicate money bag full of wadded paper. You don't, he said, unzipping the bag to inspect the contents, an instant before a massive explosion tore through the van, engulfing him in flames.

Chapter 3

Special Agent Shannon Burns sipped from the water fountain outside the women's restroom on the fifth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. The surrounding offices buzzed with testosterone from the packs of male agents in dark wool suits and laced wingtips gracing the halls, with blimp-size egos floating in their air of superiority. What they had on their collective agenda, Agent Burns could only guess. She'd sensed the glaring looks the minute she'd stepped on their turf in her heels and black slacks with a form-fitting blouse to hug her hourglass figure and accentuate the tight body she worked hard to maintain.

At nearly six feet, she stood taller than many of her bureau peers and held her own in the gentlemen's club reserved for modern cavemen disguised as federal agents. A rough-around-the-edges girl, she preferred the slow burn from a shot of Southern Comfort to a bottle of expensive champagne. As comfortable in a barroom brawl as she was behind the podium at a charity event, she likened her spirit and tenacity to a modern Annie Oakley with the face of Olivia Wilde.

She wore her auburn hair pinned up with a neutral lipstick color to match her eye shadow and her clear-polish fingernails. She was armed with a letter of recommendation from her former FBI Unit Chief and some measure of influence with friends in high places, and nothing would stop her from advancing her career—except her own inhibitions about transferring to a unit with a reputation for chewing through agents like a German Maschinengewehr at close range—a unit run by a boss with the gravitas of an Arab prince and more clout than Hoover himself.

Don't screw this up, she told herself, brushing a piece of lint from her blouse. Her watch read 1100, thirty minutes ahead of her scheduled interview time. An interview almost ten years in the making thanks to an archaic system geared more toward advancing the federal politics du jour than promoting worthy candidates from within the bureau ranks.

This morning, like most, she'd spent an hour in the gym and another hour primping her hair and makeup, including time to cover a pimple on her lower chin, a blemish she'd reminded herself not to touch during the interview with the boss she knew only by reputation. Hungry from skipping breakfast, she'd downed a cup of coffee at her office and checked her email before trekking downtown through morning rush hour to reach headquarters with time to spare.

She entered the women's restroom and checked herself in the mirror. A small coffee stain marred her otherwise spotless jacket sleeve. Her C-cup breasts looked smaller since she'd lost ten pounds, molding her figure closer to the shape she'd strived to achieve. She dabbed the stain with a damp paper towel and left the restroom as prepared as she'd ever be without over-thinking her response to every standard bureau question about to be thrown at her.

He's ready for you, Agent Burns, said a young administrative assistant poking her head above her cubicle.

I'm early, Burns replied, her stomach sloshing inside like a half-cooked omelet.

The last door on the right.

Agent Burns brushed her hand along her sleeve a second time—a nervous tick she'd inherited from her mother along with her pert nose and almond-shaped eyes the color of emerald green. Don't blow this, she told herself, advancing with her chin up and her shoulders back. Her throat felt dry. Her heart pounded in her chest. She could fight hand-to-hand and kick down doors with the best of them, but when it came to job interviews, her poise slipped away like a loser on a one-night stand.

Breathe...

At the end of the hall, she knocked on the half-open door to the dark corner office with the shades pulled down, presumably to guard against the threat of sophisticated eavesdropping devices aimed at the windows.

Take a seat, Section Chief Charles Kriegel instructed his subordinate from behind a mahogany desk. He was wearing a dark wool suit with gold cuff links and a collar stiff enough to slide down. His forehead was fringed with thinning, silver hair, and he wore an American flag stickpin above his jacket pocket and a starched white shirt with a gold tie clip engraved with the U.S. Marine Corps emblem. Without looking up from the memo on his desk, he pressed the speakerphone button on his landline phone and entered his admin assistant's extension.

Chief Kriegel's office...

Send all my calls to voice mail.

What if your ex-wife calls again?

Tell her I'm in the field.

Yes Sir.

Agent Burns took a seat in the government-issue conference chair with bare metal arms and frayed upholstery, displayed in stark contrast to the opulent furnishings around her. In a room with darkened shades and a single, low-watt bulb inside a green desk lamp, she read the letters of commendation displayed prominently on the wall with a Marine Corps Sharp Shooter plaque and a polished FBI badge framed inside a rosewood box with glare-free glass. An Uncle Sam enlistment poster hung from the opposite wall beside an autographed photo of a candy apple red 427 Shelby Cobra complete with a Playboy model straddling the hood in a thong bikini and stilettos.

On the corner of Kriegel's desk, a bottle of Viagra sat adjacent to a family portrait and a twenty-year service plaque with the name Charles Kriegel engraved in brass letters. A custom humidor sat behind the service plaque beside an FBI mug full of cheap pens. On the opposite wall, a poster of ground zero at the World Trade Center hung above an inch-thick roster made of fine parchment imprinted with the names of every man, woman, and child who'd perished in the towers on 9/11.

Kriegel scrawled a note on his memo pad and pushed the paper aside. He wore a black chronograph on his inside wrist and looked up at Agent Burns for the first time since she'd entered his domain. He held his stare without blinking, his Roman nose protruding from his face like a yacht's bow pulpit. What are you doing here?

I'm a little early.

Better than a little dead.

The letter I received from headquarters said to be here—

I know what the letter said. I sent it. Why are you here?

Excuse me?

It's not a trick question.

I'm here for my interview, Sir. Agent Burns cleared her throat and brushed her hand on her sleeve.

Kriegel checked his watch. I assume you know how to tell time.

Yes, Sir.

And yet you've been waiting outside my office for more than forty-five minutes.

Traffic was light when I left home. I got here earlier than I expected.

So you assumed I wouldn't mind adjusting my morning schedule to accommodate your early arrival?

Sir?

"I like to read the paper on the shitter after I check my e-mail and delete my voice mail messages. I come in early to accommodate my schedule, Agent Burns, not yours."

If you'd like me to come back later—

What I'd like is for you to tell me why you're here.

Agent Burns shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She felt warm beneath her blouse. It's an honor to be here. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to work with your team.

Thrilled about what?

To join your team. I was told—

Do I look like an idiot, Agent Burns?

No Sir.

"Burns, no one in their right mind is ever thrilled to work in a violent crimes unit. They get thrown in this cesspool because the job demands someone with their skills or because they sucked the wrong dick at headquarters. Now which was it for you?"

Agent Burns leaned forward in her chair. Excuse me?

Did you pass your hearing test, Agent Burns?

Yes, Sir.

Then tell me if you're here because the job demands your skills or because you poked your mouth where it didn't belong?

I have the skills, Burns said hotly. If you'd read my file—

I've seen your file, Agent Burns. You worked sex crimes as a vice cop with the Metropolitan Police before your brain fart about joining the FBI brought you here. By some aberration in the admissions process, you got accepted and made it through the training program. Since then, you've spent the last five years behind a desk investigating check fraud and various telemarketing schemes.

Among other crimes.

Kriegel rolled his chair back and cracked the blinds. He opened the humidor lid and offered the contents to his visitor.

This is a non-smoking facility.

Kriegel removed a single stogie and sniffed the hand-rolled tobacco. He clipped the end with a cutter from his desk drawer. "This facility belongs to Uncle Sam, but this office belongs to me. He lit the twenty-dollar Cohiba and blew several puffs of smoke, obviously enjoying the flavor of the Cuban cigar. Get the door, would you?"

Agent Burns nudged the door closed.

Kriegel got up from his chair and settled himself on the edge of his desk, blowing smoke at Burns, who was trying to hold her breath. So what makes you think you can handle violent crimes, aside from your recent experience in the art of washing checks and educating naïve senior citizens about the telltale signs of a telephone scam?

Burns settled in for the good fight. I finished the academy at the top of my class. I hold a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I earned a distinguished service award for my efforts to bring down an illegal telemarketing scheme. And I can out-shoot any agent on your staff. Sir.

Very impressive—if we were hunting serial callers or trading shots at the O.K. Corral.

My work at the bureau has been exemplary. My performance evaluations reflect my professional achievements on the job. Burns crossed her arms and rubbed her hands along her sleeves.

So you like to break boards with your hands? That sort of shit?

If I have to.

How do you feel about breaking heads?

Sir?

Combat, Agent Burns. Boards don't shoot back.

No, Sir.

Have you ever served your country?

Not in a military capacity. But my evaluations reflect my skills with—

Save it, Agent Burns. You sound like a politician. Kriegel opened the personnel folder on his desk and flipped to the back. You were also the youngest female promoted to Supervisory Special Agent in Racketeering Records Analysis. An advancement I'm sure you deserved.

With all due respect, I received my promotion because I earned it. Nothing was handed to me. I've had to study twice as long and work three times as hard to earn the same respect lavished on my peers, some of whom couldn't hit a barn with a bazooka or run three miles without collapsing from cardiac arrest. I studied pre-law at George Washington and finished three semesters of law school at American University before I joined the Metropolitan Police.

Kriegel blew smoke. Why did you quit law school?

I didn't quit, Burns corrected. She avoided Kriegel's stare. I dropped out for personal reasons.

Which were?

Personal.

Your file indicates no one in your immediate family ever served in law enforcement or the military for that matter. Kriegel rubbed his tongue on the roof of his mouth. He returned to his chair and swept his gaze at the front of her blouse. So what in God's name propelled you to pursue a career in law enforcement?

I felt a calling.

"A calling? Burns, people find a calling to join the church or to squat and pee with the tree-hugging liberals in the Peace Corps. No one finds the urge to put themselves in harm's way, much less drop out of law school twelve weeks from graduation to join the local PD and work vice. It doesn't add up."

Agent Burns rolled her shoulders. She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them again. You mean for a woman?

Don't put words in my mouth, Agent Burns. I run a tight ship. I don't give a rat's ass if you're a man, a woman, or something in between. I need agents I can trust in the field. Period.

I was an only child. I fell into law enforcement because my interests led me there.

Kriegel blew smoke from the corner of his mouth, touching his thumb and index finger around the nub of his cigar. Nice story, but you still haven't told me why you asked to be transferred here.

Agent Burns inhaled through her mouth to avoid the smell from the burning cigar. At a minimum, she would leave Kriegel's office with a headache and clothes that reeked of smoke. I didn't join the bureau to ride a desk and shuffle paperwork for a living.

Bullshit. Kriegel leaned back in his chair. For a former vice cop, you make a lousy liar. He smirked at Burns. Tell me why you left the local PD to join the bureau. And don't sugar-coat it this time.

Agent Burns cleared her throat. She hated the smell of cigar smoke almost as much as she hated Kriegel. "I was tired of serving justice in fishnet stockings and leather miniskirts. I was tired of working in a cesspool, to use your words. I wanted people to know I had a brain above my tits and ass." She watched Kriegel eyeballing her, intently, like a tiger stalking its prey, unflinching in the moment before the attack. For the first time since she'd entered the Hoover Building, she wished she'd never landed the interview.

Is there something on your mind, Agent Burns?

Yes, Sir. She took a second to collect her thoughts before she asked her next question. Why did you invite me here? A hundred senior agents applied for this position. Most have a military background and more time in the field. Why give me a second glance?

Kriegel bit into his cigar and blew smoke through pursed lips. Maybe I see something in you I don't see in other agents. Half the women in this bureau were hired to fill a quota. Half the men signed up for the hard-on they get every time they flash their badge and gun. I'm not looking for average talent, Agent Burns. The bureau's full of mediocrity. I need someone with their shit squared away. Someone who's not afraid to kick ass and take names later, within the boundaries of the law. I like you Burns. You're single without any dependents to support. You're devoted to this organization. And you can hold your own in a fight. This job is yours if you want it.

Excuse me?

You heard what I said.

Yes Sir. It's just—

Do you want it or not?

I want it, Burns announced enthusiastically, if not somewhat surprised by how quickly the words shot out of her mouth.

Kriegel pulled the blinds and opened his office window to flick his cigar at the street below. Then congratulations, Agent Burns. And welcome to my team. He retrieved a .40

Reviews for Enemy Among Us (An Espionage Thriller)

[Avid Reader · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Poorly edited with many spelling errors, which distracts from the storyline.