parable of the Prodigal Son. In fact, it could be said that she hated that particular story and had to grit her teeth whenever some lecturing type brought it up.
There is great rejoicing in heaven when a prodigal son returns to the fold.
Really? Was that so? And what about the son, or daughter, who has stayed in the fold and worked through holidays and weekends to keep the fold safe from organized crime and corruption? What about the daughter who has sacrificed just about everything to make sure that the fold didn’t come under threat? What about that daughter? Well, apparently that daughter got shipped off to London to babysit an overseas witness-protection safe house, which seemed to be pretty much a career-killing assignment, as far as she could tell.
Special Agent Lawrence Witmeyer, her FBI boss in the LA office, had assured her that she was not being unofficially punished for her recent, very public embarrassment of the Bureau.
‘This is an important assignment, Chevie. Vital in fact. WARP has a thirty-year history in the Bureau.’
‘What does WARP even stand for?’ Savano had asked.
Witmeyer checked the email on his screen. ‘Er … WARP: Witness Anonymous Relocation Programme.’
‘That sounds like they threw in Anonymous to fit the name WARP. Otherwise they’d have WRP and what kind of acronym would that be?’
‘I guess they wanted to make it sound cool. You know these name guys.’
Chevie fumed. It was obvious that the Bureau was tucking her out of the way in London where the press might not find her.
‘I did my job, you know? I saved lives.’
‘I know you did,’ said Witmeyer, softening for a moment. ‘Chevron, you have a choice here. The rest of the group accepted the decommissioning package. You’re sixteen years old, you could do whatever you want.’
‘Except be a Fed.’
‘You were never a real agent, Chevie. You were an official source of intelligence. That’s a very different thing.’
‘But it said agent on my badge. My handler called me Agent Savano.’
Witmeyer smiled at Chevie as though she were five years old. ‘We thought you kids would like a badge. You know, to make you feel important. But it takes more than a badge, Chevie.’
‘I was on the fast track to being a proper agent. I was told that all I had to do was complete my assignment and a place in Quantico would be mine.’
‘You were told,’ said Witmeyer. ‘But there was nothing in writing. Take the deal, Miss Savano. It’s a good one. And, maybe, if you keep your head down, we can talk about Quantico in a few years.’
Chevie was not interested in the deal, but, if she wanted to be a real Special Agent, England was her only option.
‘So I report to the London office?’
Witmeyer looked shiftier than usual. ‘Nope. You report directly to WARP. The London office works mostly on hate crimes, that kind of thing. What you’ll be doing is not connected to their day-to-day operations. They won’t even know you’re in the country unless you call in.’ Witmeyer looked around excitedly, as though about to deliver amazing news. ‘In effect, you’ll have nothing to do but study distance-learning modules for your high-school diploma.’
Chevie sighed. ‘So it’s back to school for the little kid.’
‘I hate to tell you this, Chevie, but you are a kid,’ said Witmeyer, glancing over Chevie’s shoulder, anxious to shut this meeting down and join the other agents clack-clacking their weapons in the bustling office space beyond. ‘I’m giving you double years for your pension, Chevie. That’s the best I can do. You can take the pension offer or not. Either way, if you want any chance of staying on at the Bureau, you’re going to London.’
So Chevie had been in England for nine months, babysitting a metal capsule that looked an awful lot like an Apollo landing module that had been stuffed into the basement of a four-storey Georgian house on Bedford Square in Bloomsbury.
‘What do we actually do here?’ she had asked her boss on the first morning. His name, believe it or not, was Agent Orange, which must be some kind of alias, and he was grey from head to toe, from his floppy quiff to his sunglasses and his skinny suit, right down to his custom-made tasselled loafers.
‘We attend the pod,’ said the fifty-year-old agent, his Scottish accent making the word attend about three seconds longer than it needed to be.
‘What are we, podites?’ said Chevie, still jet-lagged and feeling a little belligerent.