"Maybe they are and maybe they aren't, but a young woman is allowed to maintain her fantasies and fixations. You win... I'll grant you a six month reprieve from my affections, but trust me, you're going to kick yourself later for waiting!" She giggled and I heard her hop off the bed and dance off into the sitting room and loudly ask Sean what had become of her shoes. She must have found them, because when I emerged from the bathroom more or less ready to face the day, she was all ready to leave with her large oversized purse hung over her shoulder and waiting impatiently for me to also be ready to leave. She then made a moderately humorous remark about women always having to wait on their men to get ready to go, but I ignored it.
We snatched a quick breakfast downstairs in the hotel restaurant, but even eggs and a few paltry slices of bootleg bacon (outrageously expensive) couldn't quite bring my spirits up into a particularly happy place. I hoped that after this morning, once Bel's boss Mason Probert was subjected to some suitable menaces, that he'd be ready to spill his guts to the FBI, and my job up here would be done. I didn't much like Chicago and cared even less for the insane and draconian laws up here. I wanted to be able to eat a big Texas steak, half a dozen eggs and an entire side of bacon if I wanted to without pissing off some malevolent governmental 'Big Sister' that feels it is their right to make me eat gruel instead, in the interests of public health.
I was also still getting my head around the improbable notion that I was at all a suitable person for instructing a young and very impressionable young lady. Back home, my bosses and acquaintances at the BMA would laugh themselves silly at even the suggestion of this. Maybe with this minor success things there might be different, but I didn't think so. An old Army sergeant told me once while I was doing my obligatory military service right after school, that it only takes one "Oh Shit!' to wipe out a dozen 'attaboys', and I didn't have many of those... and far too many of the previous.
"Be not afeared lad!" Sean murmured inside of my head. At the moment he was invisibly pillaging the breakfast trays of some of the other diners and quite rather pleased with himself at the moment. "She does much look up to you and she'll mind what you tell her. Her mind is a good one and her talents are not quite so hidden as they were when you came along. She'll prove to be worthy, of that you'll see."
"That's not really the problem." I mentally replied back. "She's never cracked a book and has only learned what she does know from either accident or trial and error. She's what we'd call back home a 'maverick', a walking piece of wild magic without a bit of the proper training necessary to let loose amongst society."
"Just like your own 'proper training' prepared you?" Sean laughed. Well he did have a point. There weren't many magical laws or rules that I hadn't bent or actually broken, and a great many people believed I was already a walking menace to society.
"Aye lad. She might even teach you a bit about responsibility, caution, preparation, planning or even forethought!" Ouch. Now that was really just rubbing it in!
***************
With our early start, we made it to the FBMR office in the federal building a bit before eight. This was nice and early as the rest of the staff wasn't expected for at least another half hour. The boss, Probert, would probably be along sometime later. He usually was. Maybe sometime after nine in the morning he'd arrive at the office, but we couldn't rule out an earlier appearance for some reason. Bel and Janice were already waiting for us downstairs and their faces looked happy but tired. Undoubtedly due to a long night of passionate wrestling under the covers.
I ought not to have felt that sudden stab of jealousy that briefly passed through me, after all it was true that I'd had a romantic offer of my own this morning, but had rejected it. They certainly didn't feel anything towards me that was even close to what they felt for each other. About some things, especially emotional ones, I just seem to be an extremely slow learner.
Janice already had in readiness a team of FBI agents, with more than a few senior ones 'supervising' from the rear, but the actual takedown of Probert had been left entirely to our own hands. There was nothing like a FBI team assaulting an entire room full of rival governmental employees, especially magicians, to spark some serious immediate carnage, and make an already bad bureaucratic war at least ten times worse afterwards. Bel and I assured anyone who would listen that we could safely handle it, and we were going to leave Janice and Miranda in the client waiting area, to pretend that they were waiting for a scheduled appointment. If Bel and I couldn't handle Probert, then we were suddenly in a lot more trouble than we could ever hope to cope with.
As we waited for the next hour, the rank and file employees began drifting into work after their weekend. Most of the staff, which I had largely met earlier, was composed of Adepts, or 'Magician 3rd Class' as they called them in the FBMR. There were a few odd magicians other than Bel, but with Desmond dead, and Norman probably already a concrete shoed fixture at the bottom of Lake Michigan, the rest of the top shelf talent didn't pose much of a significant threat.
As employees all arrived, Bel and I latched a hold onto them and directed them into a nearby sufficiently large conference room for them to cool their heals until we were ready to deal with them. We wanted to explain the situation carefully and present the facts of the matter, but we really only wanted to do this once. So we politely but rather firmly kept directing everyone to sit, shut-up and wait. At about a quarter till nine, Bel figured that she'd gathered just about everyone, and we braced up our courage to face the rather annoyed mob. They weren't all that much happier once we'd finished our report either.
For the most part, everyone accepted our conclusions that Probert and several of the most senior wizards had been heavily involved in organized crime, but the shock that this organization had been supplying armaments to Deseret was considerable, and few of the more astonished magicians kept us busy with questions of proof for some time until Bel and I were nearly out of patience. No one was happy that the FBI would even be setting foot onto their premises, but the official designation that this was going to be a joint FMBR and FBI operation, faintly soothed some of their objections.
At the end, we solicited volunteers to assist us with our enquiries and about half of the staff did raise their hands to cooperate, albeit some of them didn't seem particularly enthused. There remained a slight but vocal party of opposition, led by Probert's executive secretary, a Ms. Holcomb, which was hardly any surprise to either Bel or myself. The one quality that all executive assistants possess is abundance is excessive loyalty to their boss, with the concerns of the company falling to a far distant second place in their hearts, assuming they have any. The fact that her boss was an evil, felonious traitor to her own nation was entirely secondary of importance. Malevolent criminal bosses tend to be excellent strong administrators anyway, very much a plus in their opinion.
Also still missing from the proceedings was the mentalist adept, Ingrid. We had been certain that she had been the one conducting all of the mind-wipes for the organization, and Norman had quite confirmed this to us when we questioned him, but we still wanted some additional proof and we really needed to lay our hands on her. Bel did say that Ingrid kept odd hours and was often absent from the office even under normal circumstances. Now with a major gang war engulfing the city, of which the outcome was far from certain, it seemed likely to us that she'd be involved with that mess somehow, although Bel thought that her actual combat skills were rather slight. So we waited and waited and waited.
By about ten o'clock we were all fairly certain that Probert and Ingrid were both going to be no-shows, and we gave up and summoned in the FBI to dismantle Probert's entire office and everything in it. Bel and I hadn't found any clues to anything, other than we easily confirmed that it was his personal photocopier that produced the smudged message we'd found earlier. The intrusion of the FBI into her private domain certainly did not improve the mood of Ms. Holcomb, who was now charging about like an enraged bull, fighting to prevent the government agents to remove so much as a scrap of paper from her boss's desk. Naturally, she soon lost that war and retreated to the sanctum sanctorum of her large workstation in front of his corner office and visibly fumed at everyone. As she didn't possess even a lick of magical talent, her curses could be very safely ignored, but I had to admit that they were quite explicit and colorful. Sean was giggling up a storm and I could tell that he was taking mental notes of a few of the choicer oaths to recycle in the future.
For the lack of anything meaningful to do, I sat myself into a corner of the office and kept a watchful but oblique eye upon her imperial majesty, Ms. Holcomb. If she even possessed a first name, no one knew it... or certainly no one would have
