Page 29 of Jep

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll give him a wide berth. My guess is, he’ll dig his own grave. Then I can be rid of him once and for all.”

Chapter 7

Jep stoodat the elevator bay with his leather jacket hanging from one hand and his helmet from the other while he watched the numbers change.

“Hold the elevator!” someone shouted as the doors opened.

Jep turned to see Pearce jogging over and leaned against the frame until he got on.

“Welcome officially to the team,” Pearce said as they rode up.

Jep had taken several days to study the files as well as make arrangements for his shop to continue operating before returning today.

He’d remained in contact with Pearce, who had filled in the gaps, but a lot of questions were still unanswered. There was no doubt that the case was an unusual one. It felt an awful lot like they were being fed exactly what the enemy wanted them to hear. If they were going to get ahead of these guys, whoever they were, they’d have to start looking from a different perspective. That wouldn’t be easy for most of these guys.

“Backto the team,” Jep said as the doors slid shut.

“Right. Back. I hope I was able to answer all of your questions satisfactorily.”

“You did your best.” When Jep saw the wary look on Pearce’s face, he added, “I mean, it’s a tricky case. There’s not a lot of information to go on.”

“That’s true. Usually we’re sifting through piles of details, trying to figure out what’s relevant and what’s not.” The elevator doors opened, and Pearce followed Jep to his desk. “Do you have any initial thoughts?”

Jep deposited his helmet under his desk and draped his jacket across the back of his chair before pulling the paperwork out of his backpack.

“My main concerns,” he said as he tossed the files onto his desk, “are the gaps.”

“What gaps?”

“The wide gaping holes in the reports.”

“We’ve put in everything we have.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“If you’re concerned about the data in the reports, Sylvia Gardener is the one to see. She’s head of analytics. She can answer any questions you have.”

“Gardener?”

Pearce pointed toward her office. “Straight through there. She can be prickly, but she’ll help you if she can. Would you like to speak to her now?”

“Actually, no. I’d like to have a look at the site of each of the incidents from the past several months. The last one was the only one in which any agents were injured?”

“Yes. And most of our leads are dead ends.”

“Dead ends or dead agents. Not a great starting place.”

“That’s the reason you’re here.”

Jep sifted through the files and pulled one out, handing it to Pearce. “What about this one?”

“What about it?” Pearce thumbed through the pages.

“No survivors.”

“Them not us. That’s where we got our biggest lead.”

“The one that led our agents to their doom.”

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