Page 69 of S.O.S. Mizzay

“Now you also may have noticed we’ve welcomed Missy Andriopolos back into our office.”

Again, a few sour faces.

“The reason for that is two-fold. First, as most of you know, she’s been working with the SOS team for over four years, and has become an integral part of their operations; even being included in some of our activities as our two factions have collaborated. But second, and most importantly, she neveractuallyleft this particular case.”

“What?” The question snapped from Agent Georgio, but Beranger’s eyes were also shooting daggers.

“That’s right,” Baskins answered, ignoring the undercurrents. “After Sawyer Blue’s location had been compromised for the fourth or fifth time, we led everyone in both offices to believe that AgentSmalleyalone would be the one in charge of keeping the man safe. That meant whoever was looking for Mr. Blue took to surveilling Smalley.

“They may have believed our agent was just so damned good that he always stayed one step ahead of them in his efforts, but in reality, Agent Smalley often had no idea where Mr. Blue had been placed, so he wouldn’t lead anyone to his location. Which is why the man’s whereabouts remained well protected.”

He looked around astutely. “Whatactuallyoccurred was that we assigned Missy Andriopolos to become Mr. Blue’s guardian.”

“But…she was fired. Everyone heard you,” Agent Englewood looked suitably puzzled, and DAAG Cavateral took over.

“Yeah. About that.” He looked a bit smug. “Ms. Andriopolos actuallyneverworked for the FBI.”

“What?” Several voices raised around the room.

Missy could barely keep the grin off her face.

“That’s right,” Cavateral confirmed. “When she purportedly left the DOJ to work for the FBI here in Boston, she was, in fact, undercover for the DOJ, seeing if she could rattle a few cages. Unfortunately, that didn’t pan out, but she stayed on here because it would have seemed too suspicious to take her back into the DOJ ranks.”

“So when Director Baskins fired her…?” Wiley posed.

Cavateral chuckled. “She wasn’treallyfired at all, because she didn’t work for him. But shedid, in truth, separate from the DOJ at that point—at least on the books—right before she went to work for SOS, because she was tired of sitting around looking unemployed.”

“Wow. That’s amazing, Mizzay,” Perk gloated. “Nice one.”

Missy knew that if he were close, he’d be giving her a high-five.

She would have enjoyed that.

“So where does that leave us now?” Agent Georgio questioned, still looking skeptical at what he’d been told.

Baskins got the ball rolling again, this time with a scowl.

“You’re all aware we finally uncovered some highly unethical things about Agent Tertia which Iwon’tbe sharing, but happily it allowed us to find our rogue agent here at the FBI office. We’ve interrogated her several times over the past few days, but she’s maintaining her innocence, which means, unfortunately, we’re no closer to finding out who else in the Bureau could be involved, or who might be partnering with her from the DOJ.”

Poor Tertia, Missy thought. Sitting several floors below in a cell. Although she had Sloane Vessers for company, which probably meant the two were playing some cutthroat games of poker right about now.

“We’re still fairly certain, however, that Elody Tertia has one or more accomplices who are still at large,” Baskins continued with a sigh. “But here’s the bottom line. Since this case has gone on for so many years, we’ve finally decided to take our chances on moving forward and wrapping things up.”

He regarded his watch. “As of an hour ago, my counterpart in the CIA will have located and taken El-Umar into custody.”

Mizzay looked around for any over-the-top reaction, but saw none.

What a shame.

Baskins was still speaking. “We’ll be sending a team from here to extradite him to the States. Concurrently, we’ll be taking Sawyer Blue out of hiding to debrief him before he testifies that El-Umar was the one to order the killings at the UN office so long ago.

“Our primary goal from here on out is to keepbothmen alive until we can see justice done, which may sound simple, but as you know, every person we’ve uncovered so far, has met with an untimely death.Thatis why we’ve asked SOS to assist. There are very few Bureau agents whom I trust implicitly; the few of you here being among that number. But that won’t serve our purposes for adequate protection. We obviously needed moreable bodies to make sure nobody gets to El-Umar or Blue before our as-of-now unspecified court date. So here we all are.”

Missy bit back a smile. She thought it was a nice touch for Baskins to say that all agents in the room were trustworthy.

“On that note,” he plunged ahead, “we’re going to split you into three teams. For obvious reasons, Deputy Cavateral and I will not be boots-on-the-ground. We’ll be coordinating from our respective offices, which means fifteen of you will need to be on your toes to pull off this very sensitive operation, hopefully without a hitch.”

From his tongue…Missy sent up a short prayer.

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