Page 10 of Anathema
She might not be fully aware of my plans for us right now, but she would soon enough.
I was going to make her see just how perfect we were together.
“Hey,Derek,yougota minute?” Snapping back from my distracted thinking, I turned to see Dean standing in the doorway of my private office.
Dean and I worked well together, but we weren’t as close as he was with Marcus. They were best friends, about as close as I was with AJ. He only came to me if he struggled with an assignment and needed a senior agent’s opinion or if Deputy Director Conrad needed something, and he sent him in to retrieve me.
“Yeah, what’s up?” I turned my chair sideways and rested my elbow on the desk.
Dean entered the room and shut the door behind him before pulling out a chair and sitting opposite me.
“Well, first of all, here is the busted laptop you insisted we take from Alexis. I don’t understand why you couldn’t let her have it back that night. It’s useless to us in this state.” He set the laptop on the desk between us, and I grinned.
I knew it was useless to the CIA, but she wanted it, and I wanted an excuse to see her again, to lure her into my presence without having to follow her around like a crazed stalker—so I took it. But he didn’t need to know those additional unhinged tendencies.
“Secondly, Conrad has issued a new assignment, and you and I have been partnered on it,” Dean added, a frown on his face.
“You don’t look too pleased to be working with me. Is there a reason why you are telling me this and not Conrad? Was there a briefing I missed this morning?” I asked, raising a brow and lounging back in my chair. I knew waiting outside that apartment all morning was going to be a bad idea.
Conrad probably picked me for this assignment simply because I missed the briefing—out of spite. I’m sure Dean would have preferred to have been paired up with Marcus instead; I sure as fuck knew I did.
It wouldn’t have been entirely unusual for Conrad to have issued this assignment under the table, either. Most of the time, he conducted a standard briefing for the entire floor to ensure everyone in the agency was on the same page and could collaborate if needed. But there were rare occasions when he only assigned them in private.
My best guess was that if this was being kept under wraps, the fewer agents involved, the better. Agent-classified assignments were few and far between—the only assignments issued under the table by Conrad. I had only ever been on one in the past six years of working for the CIA, and it was the biggest pain in my ass.
“It’s not that, and no, you didn’t miss anything, but this case needs to be kept between you and me—and possibly an additional third party, if needed—but that's it.” Dean dropped a folder over Alexis’ laptop, and I leaned forward to pick it up.
I could tell he was trying to keep a calm and straight face, but deep down, he felt uneasy about the assignment that had just been dumped into his lap, and I, being his assigned partner, didn’t help.
I opened the folder and browsed the documents inside.
“What’s this?” I questioned, glancing up at him.
Like AJ and I, he had started drifting to a similar wardrobe over the past six months: a white T-shirt, dark denim jeans, and a leather jacket. Gone were the typical white button-ups and black slacks he and Marcus wore every day. Come to think of it; they had changed a lot since AJ's departure, acting like grown men instead of the college frat boys they started out as—well… maybe not Marcus entirely, but Dean, for sure.
“Have you heard of this group? What they’re known for?” He placed an elbow on the chair’s armrest and started chewing on his thumb.
Dean was anxious, and I could understand why. This case was entirely out of his wheelhouse, and Conrad was essentially throwing him to the wolves, but luckily for him, it fell into my area of expertise. I now understood why the Deputy Director selected me to work with him on this assignment.
“I do. Anathema has been on my radar for several years. I worked on a case involving them back in DC before I transferred. I’m familiar with their—work. What does Conrad want with them?” I asked, interlacing my fingers and resting my forearms on the desk.
No one fucked around with a group like Anathema, including government agencies. They were a nationwide pain in the ass. Youleft them alone to do whatever sick fuckery they were up to, and they let you live.
Their crimes were usually justified, which was why most agencies turned a blind eye—other times… not so much. Sure, what they were doing was illegal and wrong, but if a savage mercenary group was taking criminals off the streets before they could do any serious harm to innocent civilians, would you stop them?
They did what the government legally couldn’t. The members of Anathema were vigilantes but corrupt as shit. They were working more like mercenaries-for-hire who only did good deeds when they felt it necessary to balance out their debts. They weren’t the heroes of this country, far from it. But they did a service that couldn’t be ignored—at least in the sense of shutting the secret society down entirely.
“Conrad believes they are planning something big, establishing themselves in Minneapolis as of late. He wants us to find an ‘in’ to their ranks and determine their plans.” Dean rubbed his brow and then dragged his hand down his face, physically attempting to wrap his mind around what he had just said out loud.
“Let me get this straight. He expects us to infiltrate an underground, murderous group of mercenaries nobody knows about and gain intel on their big plans?” I scoffed. “Do you hear how fucking ridiculous that sounds? How impossible this kind of assignment will end up being?” I let out a sarcastic chuckle, aggravated at the situation before me.
Who comes up with this shit? This assignment was built for failure.
No one in the public eye sees or hears about this group until it’s too late, and even then, they kill most of their witnesses as well, all a part of their prerogative. The only ones excluded are persons or government entities deemed useful to them.
“Conrad’s orders. I’m just here for the ride.” Dean shrugged. Even though he came off weary and nervous at first, he gave less fucks about this case than I did now that he had all of the information I was willing to give him.
With his sudden relaxation, I knew full well that Dean expected me to do most of the work. He knew little about Anathema's history, leaving me the most knowledgeable individual on this case. All he knew was the fear of what they could and would do to us if we got caught infiltrating their group and spying on them.
