We Didn't Start The Fire ... (Ring of Fire)
It's official. We are now a real task force. We are an actual part of the FBI, flunky of the federal government, and subject to all the regs and rules therein.
I swore I'd never go in for government work and now here I am.
It's been a wild couple of weeks.
While Bailey spent time tracking down funding and resources, John made sure that George, Nathan, and I met all of the FBI requirements. We spent two intense weeks at Quantico learning (or, in my case, relearning, since I'd done the program once already) all of the basics-- crash-course forensics for George and Nathan, shooting qualifiers for all of us, take-down procedure and so forth for George and I. John took a few courses, too, so as not to look completely useless but for the most part he stood around and smirked at us, drank in the Boardroom, or ran the Yellow Brick Road over and over.
Where Sam Lawson was during all of this is still a mystery to me. She hasn't been around much over the last few weeks. Apparently she has family somewhere but she keeps very tight-lipped about them. I get the definite feeling that there's more to Sam Lawson than people are saying.
By the time we made it back to Atlanta, the new building was ready for us. It took a week to move the contents of George's office, my office and lab, and all of our files over to the new building but it was well worth the effort. It's a gorgeous building, state of the art. Definitely a step up from the cement hole they put us in over at APD. The lab is incredible-- I've got all the space I need, a separate decomp room, a huge refrigerator, and, bliss of all blisses, my own office. Now I don't have to dictate reports standing over a corpse unless I absolutely have to.
Our first official case was a string of arsons stretching from Atlanta to St. Louis to Detroit.
I hate fire. Not just professionally--though it's absolute hell on earth to work a fire scene when you're trying to salvage evidence and the fire crew is trampling everything into the ground-- but personally, too. Fire scares me because it's unpredictable. It's insidious. It can destroy more thoroughly and with fewer traces than a human being can. You can see why working arsons is not my favorite way to spend my day.
I was really able to watch Sam in action. I still don't know how she does what she does. She says there's no trick to it but there has to be something that she uses to start with, some jumping off point to track these weirdos. She manages to comprehend people who show up in my worst nightmares and send me running with my hands over my ears. I simply don't understand how she does it.
Bailey sent some fan mail from a sick admirer of Sam's down to the lab. There was O-neg blood all over it, but not much else. No prints. Definitely no DNA match-ups. She got this funny look on her face when she saw it-- confused and afraid. Angry. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there's something going on here, something that no one is willing to talk about. I asked George what he knew about her and between the two of us what we know about Sam could fit on half of an index card. Nathan knows even less than we do. If John knows something-- and I think he does-- he isn't talking, which is not like John at all.
It's a helluva way to start out as a team-- secret keeping and lies. Knowing that Malone, Lawson, and John are hiding something from the rest of us is a slap in the face. But I've also been in this job long enough to know that eventually something will come to light. Someone will let something slip. There really is no way to keep a secret, even in a building this big.
I swore I'd never go in for government work and now here I am.
It's been a wild couple of weeks.
While Bailey spent time tracking down funding and resources, John made sure that George, Nathan, and I met all of the FBI requirements. We spent two intense weeks at Quantico learning (or, in my case, relearning, since I'd done the program once already) all of the basics-- crash-course forensics for George and Nathan, shooting qualifiers for all of us, take-down procedure and so forth for George and I. John took a few courses, too, so as not to look completely useless but for the most part he stood around and smirked at us, drank in the Boardroom, or ran the Yellow Brick Road over and over.
Where Sam Lawson was during all of this is still a mystery to me. She hasn't been around much over the last few weeks. Apparently she has family somewhere but she keeps very tight-lipped about them. I get the definite feeling that there's more to Sam Lawson than people are saying.
By the time we made it back to Atlanta, the new building was ready for us. It took a week to move the contents of George's office, my office and lab, and all of our files over to the new building but it was well worth the effort. It's a gorgeous building, state of the art. Definitely a step up from the cement hole they put us in over at APD. The lab is incredible-- I've got all the space I need, a separate decomp room, a huge refrigerator, and, bliss of all blisses, my own office. Now I don't have to dictate reports standing over a corpse unless I absolutely have to.
Our first official case was a string of arsons stretching from Atlanta to St. Louis to Detroit.
I hate fire. Not just professionally--though it's absolute hell on earth to work a fire scene when you're trying to salvage evidence and the fire crew is trampling everything into the ground-- but personally, too. Fire scares me because it's unpredictable. It's insidious. It can destroy more thoroughly and with fewer traces than a human being can. You can see why working arsons is not my favorite way to spend my day.
I was really able to watch Sam in action. I still don't know how she does what she does. She says there's no trick to it but there has to be something that she uses to start with, some jumping off point to track these weirdos. She manages to comprehend people who show up in my worst nightmares and send me running with my hands over my ears. I simply don't understand how she does it.
Bailey sent some fan mail from a sick admirer of Sam's down to the lab. There was O-neg blood all over it, but not much else. No prints. Definitely no DNA match-ups. She got this funny look on her face when she saw it-- confused and afraid. Angry. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there's something going on here, something that no one is willing to talk about. I asked George what he knew about her and between the two of us what we know about Sam could fit on half of an index card. Nathan knows even less than we do. If John knows something-- and I think he does-- he isn't talking, which is not like John at all.
It's a helluva way to start out as a team-- secret keeping and lies. Knowing that Malone, Lawson, and John are hiding something from the rest of us is a slap in the face. But I've also been in this job long enough to know that eventually something will come to light. Someone will let something slip. There really is no way to keep a secret, even in a building this big.