The Maze

"No, sir. This place is a maze."

"It's got more than two million square feet. It boggles a normal mind. I still get lost, and my wife tells me I'm not all that normal. Give yourself another ten years, Agent Sherlock.''

Mr. Petty shook her hand. "Welcome to the Bureau. I hope you find your work rewarding. Ah, did anyone ever refer to a tweed hat?"

"Yes, sir."

"Sorry, Agent Sherlock."

It was hard not to run out the door of his office. She didn't even stop at the women's room.

Savich looked up. "You found me in ten minutes," he said, looking down at his Mickey Mouse wristwatch. "That's good, Sherlock. I understand from Colin Petty that you're wondering why I had you reassigned to my unit."

He was wearing a white shirt rolled up to his elbows, a navy blue tie, and navy slacks. A navy blazer was hanging on a coatrack in the corner of his office. He rose slowly from behind his desk as he spoke. He was big, at least six two, dark, and very muscular. In addition to the martial arts, he clearly worked out regularly. She'd heard some of the trainees call him a regular he-man, not a G-man. She knew just how strong and fast he was, since he'd worked her over in that Hogan's Alley exercise. Her stomach had hurt for three days after that head butt. If she didn't know he was an agent, she would have been terrified of him. He looked hard as nails, except for his eyes, which were a very soft summer-sky blue. Dreamy eyes, her mother would have called them. Her mother would have been wrong. There was nothing soft about this guy. He was patiently looking at her. What had he been talking about? Oh yes, why he'd wanted her reassigned to this unit. She smiled and said, "Yes, sir."

Dillon Savich came around his desk and shook her hand. "Sit down and we can discuss it."

There were two chairs facing his desk, clearly FBI issue. On top of the desk was an FBI-issue computer. Beside it was a laptop that was open and humming, definitely not FBI issue. It was slightly slanted toward her, and she could see the green print on the black background, a graph of some kind. Was this little computer the one she'd heard everyone say that Savich made dance? "Coffee?" She shook her head.

"Do you know much about computers, Sherlock?" Just Sherlock, no agent in front of it. It sounded fine to her. He was looking at her expectantly. She hated to disappoint him, but there was no choice.

"Not all that much, sir, just enough so I can write reports and hook into the databases I will need to do my job."

To her unspeakable relief, he smiled. "Good, I wouldn't want any real competition in my own unit. I hear you had wanted to be a Profiler, but ultimately felt you couldn't deal with the atrocities that flood the unit every moment of every day and well into the night."

"That's right. How did you know that? I just left Mr. Petty less than fifteen minutes ago."

"No telepathy." He pointed to the phone. "It comes in handy, though I much prefer e-mail. I agree with you, actually. I couldn't do it either. The burnout rate for Profilers is pretty high, as I'm sure you've heard. Since they spend so much time focusing on the worst in humanity, they wind up having a difficult time relating to regular folks. They lose perspective on normal life. They don't know their kids. Their marriages go under."

She sat forward a bit in her seat, smoothing her navy blue skirt as she said, "I spent a week with them. I know I saw only a small part of what they do. That's when I knew I didn't have what it took. I felt as if I'd failed."

"What any endeavor takes, Sherlock, is a whole lot of different talents. Just because you don't end up profiling doesn't mean you've failed. Actually, I think what we do leaves us more on the normal side of things than not.

"Now, I asked to have you assigned to me because academically you appear to have what I need. Your academic credentials are impressive. I did wonder, though. Why did you take off a year between your sophomore and junior years of college?''

"I was sick. Mononucleosis."

"Okay, yes, here's an entry about that. I don't know why I missed it." She watched him flip through more pages. He hadn't missed it. She couldn't imagine that he'd ever miss a thing. She would have to be careful around him. He read quickly. He frowned once. He looked up at her. "I didn't think mono took a person out for a whole year."

"I don't know about that. I just wasn't worth much for about nine or ten months, run-down, really tired."

He looked down at a page of paper that was faceup on his desktop. "You just turned twenty-seven, I see, and you came directly to the Bureau after completing your Master's degree."