This is the first recently written story I’ve ever posted on my blog. I’ve always been embarrassed that my stories are tripe, but I’m confident enough about this one to put it out into the public eye! It’s the prologue for a sort of Hannibal-Lecter-esque story, and I’ve drafted and redrafted and abandoned and restarted it countless times over countless months. I hope you like it 🙂
PROLOGUE
I’d say I was rather cooperative when it came to Roberts. As cooperative as one can be, at any rate, when faced with such a whiny, nagging post-graduate. Now that I think about it, he can’t have finished training more than two weeks before our first meeting. Why he was partnered with me, during such a critical assignment, was beyond my comprehension. I don’t know what I could have done to make the Assistant Director want to lump me in with Agent Carl Roberts. Perhaps I’d accidentally used his favourite coffee cup or something.
We first met on a chirpy spring day in ‘99 – the last kind of day on which one wants to meet Carl Roberts. I can remember the feeling of apprehension when I saw the pulsing light on my answering machine, indicating that I should report to the Assistant Director’s office at once. It’s not a good sign when the A.D. wants to speak with you.
“Come in,” said the Assistant Director, after I tapped on his door.
I entered his office and immediately noticed we weren’t alone. A young man with sleek black hair was standing just behind the A.D.’s desk, smirking with youthful arrogance.
“Sir,” I said to the Assistant Director.
“Agent Solace,” he replied. “Take a seat.”
The Assistant Director was an odd man. He wore the same bland beige suit every day, and was always puffing away on a big chewed-up cigar. His name was Booth Denning, and he’d been in charge for as long as anyone at the Bureau could remember. He had one of those authoritative yet offhand airs that command attention and obedience from anyone in his presence.
I sat down opposite him.
“It is not often, Agent Solace,” said Denning after a moment of silence, “that something truly confidential crops up within the Bureau.”
“I’d say that most of our cases are quite confidential, sir,” I contradicted.
“Not within the Bureau, Agent. Not within.”
I saw what he was getting at.
“This, Agent Solace,” Denning continued, waving his cigar in the post-grad’s general direction, “is your new partner, Special Agent Carl Roberts.”
I shifted. “New partner, sir?”
“New partner, Agent.”
I breathed out slowly, barely containing my frustration. Had it been anyone else, I might have offered the excuse that I found it easier working on my own, and didn’t need a partner; but this was Assistant Director Denning, and I sat back into submission.
“How do you do,” said Roberts, coming forward with an extended hand. I shook it begrudgingly; the smirk had not left his expression.
The Assistant Director looked at me keenly, as though he were about to say something he knew I wouldn’t like. He inhaled deeply, choked on his own breath as though his lungs only got by on smoke, and drew in from his cigar again. “Agent Roberts,” he said after a brief pause, “is greatly looking forward to his partnership with you, Agent Solace. I wish there were more time for you to get to know one another, and for Roberts to settle into your office. But there’s a new case which I’m assigning you both to, which must be begun as soon as possible.”
He leant over the desk, breaking through the acrid cigar smoke that thickened with every breath. “Remember what I said about confidentiality, Agents.” But he was looking at me as he handed me the case file.