Page 9 of Operation: Sharp Angel

“His title and division were all I could get, but I believe so as Mr. Nick DeSoto does hold a PHD in chemistry,” Brielle said.

“Do you think their employment has any bearing on what happened?” Jackson asked.

“Right now, everything has bearing,” Shepherd said.

“If we accept this case, you need to look at every aspect of their lives,” Cooper said.

“You meet with the Elliot woman at fourteen-thirty,” Shepherd said. “I’ll expect your decision on whether we should take this case by fifteen-thirty. Cooper and the rest of the team are due to leave for the airfield by sixteen hundred.”

“One note on the potential client, Rebecca Elliot,” Brielle said. “She’s an attorney.”

“Is she also employed at Well-Life Pharmaceuticals?” Tessman asked with a groan.

“No, she works for a firm in Chicago that specializes in trusts, wills, and other estate issues,” Brielle said.

“I would think she set up her sister and brother-in-law’s wills and should know the contents,” Cooper said.

Brielle shrugged. She didn’t have any information about that.

“Find that out too,” Shepherd said. “Also, for this case, no one discloses their federal creds to Miss Elliot. We don’t want questions from her. As far as she knows, we are a private security firm. That’s all Detective Davis disclosed to her.”

“I’m thinking we should just decline this case outright,” Cooper said.

“We’ve already set up the initial meeting. We decide after talking with her. If you decide we should decline this case, I’ll want justification for that as well as if you decide to accept it,” Shepherd said.

They all came to their feet, knowing they’d just been dismissed. Having a good fifteen minutes to kill before the client meeting, Tessman jogged up the stairs to his office. Wilson and Burke, his two Charlie Team members who were deploying on the next CIA Referral Case, were in Burke’s office on the seventh floor. He wanted to catch them before the client meeting.

“Hey,” he greeted them, coming into Burke’s office. Burke had been staffed in his place when he’d been pulled for the Elliot Case. “Did you get enough time to review that case file, Burke?”

“I’ll review it while we’re en route,” Burke said. “I’m sorry you were pulled from this one. I know you had put in a lot of time on it already.”

Tessman’s eyes shifted to Wilson. “It all pays the same,” he said, borrowing Wilson’s favorite phrase.

“I’d say Tessman caught a good one to be staffed on,” Wilson said. “I wish I’d been slotted for it.”

“That’s just because it’s local and you’d rather be on it so you could be home with Rae and Lilly instead of flying out to Boise today.”

Wilson snickered and both Tessman and Burke laughed, but Wilson didn’t actually respond.

“At least he isn’t saying it isn’t like that,” Tessman added, his teasing gaze now fixed on Burke.

Now Wilson laughed. Rich Burke had yet to come clean about his relationship with a woman who had three children Burke was playing daddy to. They were in Virginia, which was where Burke had been spending all his time off the past few months. Whenever Burke was asked or teased about his relationship with the woman, his reply was always ‘it isn’t like that’.

Burke laughed out loud. “Fuck you, Tessman. Wilson gets it. And believe it or not, he was just saying how he would have liked to be assigned to the Elliot case to increase the type of cases he’s considered for.”

“Charlie Team’s time turning screwdrivers on the PGP Project is coming to an end,” Wilson said. “I want a variety of cases I’m assigned to going forward.”

“I thought they all paid the same?” Tessman teased.

“They do, but the private security cases have the potential to keep me closer to home, closer to Rae and Lilly. They also aremore likely to not come with drug-dealing scumbags shooting at me,” Wilson said.

“Yeah, I hear you on that one. I think we’ve all had more than our fair share of the DEA Partner Missions, but they’re not going away anytime soon,” Tessman admitted.

“I agree with Taco,” Burke said. “I want a wide range of different types of cases. I heard Shepherd is considering a security contract out at O’Hare investigating and securing international shipments of cargo. I’d like to know what kind of cargo requires armed guards.”

“Who’d you hear that from?” Wilson asked.

“Eddie Winston,” Burke said. Winston was on Bravo Team.

---