by Margaret Kay
“Michaela works upstairs in the tech lab,” Kaylee replied. “She invented the trackers and a lot of the other cool tech they have that isn’t bought off a shelf someplace.”
Brielle was even more surprised. “She invented the trackers?”
Both the ladies nodded. “There are even ankle charm bracelets with trackers in them on the babies,” Sienna said.
Brielle knew the look on her face was one of surprise or disbelief.
“I know, right?” Kaylee said. “That’s what I thought when I first heard about them. Putting trackers on the babies. And I didn’t like that Gary’s office was going to track my every move, but once I realized it was for my protection and why I might need protection because of what they do, I relaxed about it.”
“Anthony said Doc would be injecting yours in later today. Just a warning. It hurts like a bitch at first,” Sienna said. “Make sure you ice it all night.”
“Thanks,” Brielle said. She turned and grabbed one of the to-go containers from the cabinet. “I better make Brian’s plate.”
“How is Brian feeling today?” Sienna asked.
As Brielle used the spatula to take out a small piece of lasagna from the tray, she answered. “He’s breathing a bit easier, but he still isn’t moving too well.”
“That’ll take a little longer,” Garcia said from behind the women as he entered the room.
Brielle watched him greet his wife with a quick embrace and a kiss. She softened his rough appearance, Brielle thought. They were as unlikely a couple as Elizabeth and Doc were, appearance wise, but she saw the tenderness in Garcia’s actions and the affection he had for his wife.
Garcia grabbed a to-go container too, filled it, and then Brielle watched him take his and Brian’s and leave the room. Brielle filled a plate for herself and joined the two ladies at the table. Angel and another woman entered the kitchen. The other woman was stunning. She had smooth, long, dark hair framing a flawless complexion of light mocha skin. She wore a white lab coat over a pink top and a pair of blue jeans.
Angel pointed to Brielle. “Michaela, this is our new coworker, Brielle. Brielle, this is Michaela.”
“Welcome,” Michaela said with a perfect smile. “It’s nice there’s another one of us.”
“What do you mean?” Brielle asked. She wasn’t sure what nationality Michaela was, but Brielle didn’t think she was part Indian, Caribbean, African, and a host of other ethnicities, like she was.
“Another woman. We are definitely a minority here.”
Angel and Michaela got their plates and joined the other women at the table. It was over an hour later when Garcia returned with the two empty containers. Brielle didn't realize they sat, talked, and laughed that long. Angel announced her pregnancy to everyone, though Brielle was sure several of the women already knew. Brielle was happy she could congratulate her.
“Angel, it’s Saturday. Do you always work Saturdays?” Brielle asked. She knew her schedule would vary.
“Only when Shepherd has something special, he needs me to do. Today I worked on some financial reports he needed finished from yesterday.”
“Where is Sammy?” Brielle asked.
“I needed to concentrate. He’s with my aunt today. I’ll take a couple afternoons off as comp time this week, when Elizabeth can come in and cover.”
“We help her out with Sammy on weekends too,” Kaylee said, pointing to herself and Sienna. “But we obviously couldn’t help today because we wanted to have lunch with you.”
Brielle smiled, happy that they had. It had been a pleasant and comfortable lunch. They were all nice ladies, welcoming, and she could see that they were all good friends. No one had asked her what she had been involved in that was a Shepherd Security case, and none of them offered up any information on themselves in that regard either, but it was okay. It didn’t matter. They told her they often had movie nights or dinners out when the guys were away. They guaranteed her she would receive invitations.
“I better get back up to the lab,” Michaela said, coming to her feet.
“Yes, I need to finish this spreadsheet for Shepherd, then I can get Sammy and go home. I have tons of laundry to get done,” Angel said, standing as well.
“Shepherd told me I’d start training with you for front desk duty after lunch,” Brielle said.
Angel shook her head. “He probably forgot it was Saturday. We’ll start Monday morning. I’ll text you when I get to the office.”
“We’re going to the mall to do some shopping. Baby things,” Kaylee said. “Do you want to come, Brielle?”
“Thank you, next time, okay? I need to get back upstairs to be with Brian.”
“Understood,” Kaylee said. “I’d feel the same way if it was Gary. Is there anything you need, that we can pick up for you?”
“That is so nice of you to offer,” Brielle said, truly appreciative. “I’m good though.”
Over the next few days, both Brielle and Sherman spent time in Ops while the team was conducting surveillance. Sherman found it difficult to watch his team, and not be there with them, but he did find this side of it fascinating. To see what the analysts in Ops did and what they saw while the team operated in the field gave him a whole new perspective. He believed it would make him a better Operator.
For Brielle, watching what the team did and how they did it in an urban environment was very different from observing them in the bayou. And listening to the conversation inside of Ops, understanding what the analysts were doing to support the team, was enlightening and would make her reports more three dimensional. She made notes, not sure exactly what would be allowed to be reported on and what wouldn’t.
Brielle also spent time training with Angel on the front desk duties. It was usually pretty quiet at the front entrance. They didn’t even receive packages through the front of the office. There were two phone lines, the public, published phone line and the private, secure line. There were different greetings and different protocols for each line. Another big part of the job was making travel arrangements for the team and ensuring meals were provided. Brielle had never had a desk job, but she knew she could adjust to the inside, sedentary environment.
On the sixth day the team was onsite in New York, they were ready to move on the suspected meth lab and distribution house. Brielle and Sherman were both in Ops. She watched camera feed from each of their men’s vests, fascinated by the process. The team was inside a large warehouse. They were geared up in black tactical clothing. It was eleven p.m., twenty-three hundred hours. Dozens of DEA Agents were there, similarly dressed. Several armored vehicles sat waiting. The local police were poised to arrest the dealers and any customers who would be unlucky enough to be making purchases when the operation commenced.
Even though Brielle knew that Brian was right beside her, she couldn’t help but think about his future safety as she watched the feed on the monitor of the team getting ready to enter the suspected meth lab. Very soon, he would rejoin his team and take up position outside of a house or a warehouse in some American city. He’d be dressed in tactical gear like he had been when he was shot. He’d be armed like he was in a war zone.
It did not escape her that the dark figures she watched were men she knew, husbands, a father. Madison stood in front of her. Brielle glanced at the monitor with the text designating Coop, her husband. Madison herself would be out there in future missions. Her eyes swept to Garcia. He would be as well.
She watched the team load up in vehicles and drive to the suspected meth lab. She heard and watched Landon’s short prayer with the team as they arrived onsite. Short, clipped words rang through the armored transport. “Go! Go! Go!”
Following the events on the monitors, through the team’s camera feeds, she watched the six men from Shepherd Security along with a dozen other agents all rush from the vehicles, assault rifles grasped in their hands. They ran along the side of the building, kept their bodies pressed to it. A large man wearing a bullet-proof vest with the letters DE
A stepped forward with a large, hand-held battering ram. He stepped up to the door, swung the heavy metal weight, hurtling it into the door. The door splintered open with a loud crashing sound, which made Brielle flinch.
That man stepped back, and the line of men rushed in, one by one. She heard shouts, “Federal Agents, we have a warrant!” Seconds later she watched the feed from Cooper’s vest, who was the first of their people to enter the building. She saw several people running from the authorities. “Freeze, federal agents!” She recognized Cooper’s voice. “Hands, let me see your hands!” Several men yelled.
One of the men in Cooper’s line of sight raised a gun. She saw the muzzle flash from Cooper’s weapon and the man dropped to the floor. By this time, the camera feeds from the others showed they were in the house. They were searching rooms. Danny’s feed showed him enter the garage to where an entire lab was set up. The back door was open. Danny went to it. In his camera feed, Brielle saw a half dozen agents standing around at least five people who were face-down on the ground.
“Clear!” Danny yelled to them.
She watched Jackson’s feed. He followed Gary up a narrow staircase. At the top, a man fired an assault rifle at them. They both leaned against the wall, out of his sight. She watched hand signals between the two of them, and then they leaned into sight and both squeezed off multiple rounds, striking the man at the top of the stairs. He fell, face first down the stairs, his body stopping before he reached Gary, who then kicked his weapon away from him before checking for a pulse. There wasn’t one.
Through the speakers in the room, Brielle heard Cooper’s and Lambchop’s voices repeating “Clear!” as their video feeds showed them search rooms, behind doors, in closets, under beds. The raid lasted less than three minutes for the team and the other agents to have everyone in custody and the whole place searched.
Then they got confirmation that all the lookouts near the suspected distribution house had been taken down. The local SWAT Team with another team of DEA Agents had completed a similar successful raid on that distribution house. At the same time, local police moved in with warrants on all the dealers who they’d observed coming and going from the distribution house. Warrants had been issued on all of them.
They also executed warrants at the same time on the three people who had been identified bringing the raw materials to make the meth into the cook house. One of them was a teacher at a local grade school. Brielle found that shocking.
In all, over sixty arrests were made, six people had resisted and were shot, four of them killed. The large meth lab was seized, over twenty-two million in product was recovered at both locations. At the distribution house, over fifteen thousand in cash was recovered as well as a thousand pounds of marijuana and several dozen handguns.
It had been a very successful operation. Brielle feverishly jotted down thoughts on it once it was all over. During the operation, her eyes had remained on the monitors. She didn’t even look to see what Yvette and Garcia were doing, though she did hear clicking of keys at different times.
She and Brian made their way back to the apartment. She was way too keyed up to sleep. She helped Brian sit on the edge of the bed and then helped him to recline. He was using his own abdominal muscles, bearing much of his own weight. She knew this meant they would get to go home to his place soon.
“Watching the raid was incredible,” she said, sitting cross legged on the bed, facing him. “What does it feel like to you when you’re there, doing it?”
“A lot different from watching it in Ops,” Sherman replied. “You’re pumped up, your adrenalin really coursing through you all the way to the mission site and while you’re holding in position. Once the go command is given, everything moves so fast. Training and instincts take over.”
“Do you think about the danger at all?”
“No, not until the shooting starts, then you just focus on getting them before they get you.”
“But it’s a rush, while you’re doing it, isn’t it?”
Brian looked disturbed by her question. He ran his hand over his scruffy chin and then glanced away. “Look, I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t. And anyone who does this job, yeah, they’ve got to be an adrenalin junky. But it’s more than that. There is also a pride, knowing you’re doing it to protect the United States and the innocent civilians. There is also pride in knowing that there is a very small percentage of people out there that have the skills we do, the training, and the grit to go into these situations and handle them.”
“Yeah, I get that,” she said. “Do you get used to it? Does it ever seem routine?”
“No and the second it does is the moment a person needs to stop doing this job. That’s the kind of thinking that will get you killed. There is nothing ever routine about these kinds of operations, be them civilian or military.”
“And that rush? Has it changed over time?”
Sherman shook his head no. “It’s the same today as it was when we kicked in doors and cleared houses in Afghanistan.”
Brielle was again surprised to get a meeting invitation from Dr. Lassiter. It was nine a.m., zero nine hundred. Brielle sat her phone back to the small table in the apartment and then she gazed at Brian, who sat across from her sipping his coffee. She’d managed to help pull him out of bed that morning. His pain was significantly less, and he was moving a bit easier. She hoped that meant they would be able to go to his place today.
“Dr. Lassiter. He sent me a meeting invitation for this morning.”
“He wants to check in on you because last night’s mission was the first you’ve witnessed since I was shot. It’s protocol that we all have regular check-ins with him, especially after a mission.”
“But I wasn’t there, with the team,” Brielle argued.
“You witnessed it. That’s enough. I watched you closely when the gunfire started. I was worried about you too.” Sherman took her hand in his. He kissed her knuckles. “We’re lucky to have Lassiter. Lucky Shepherd understands we are human beings and they need to be sure we’re handling everything okay. Trust me, all units aren’t like this. Go talk with Lassiter and be honest. It’ll save you a lot of grief in the long run.”
“I’m okay, Brian,” Brielle insisted, even though the sound of the gunfire had caused her to replay the moment Brian was shot in her head last night. She expected it would just take longer for that to go away.
Later that morning when she sat in Lassiter’s kitchen sipping a cup of tea, she remembered what Brian had said. She didn’t plan to tell Dr. Lassiter about the recurring visions of Brian getting shot, nor did she plan to tell him that she did dread when Brian would be released to full duty. She didn’t want to be banned from watching the mission feed. But just a few minutes into the meeting, she let it all tumble out.
“When that happens, I want you to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Focus your thoughts instead on Gary and Doc’s expertise in treating him. That memory hit as you were in bed with him last night, and it may tonight too. If it happens, try to concentrate on how it feels to hold him, to drive away the memory of him being shot. It’s going to take some time and focus on your part to drive that image away,” Dr. Lassiter said.
“I was okay watching the team last night.”
Lassiter nodded. “It was perfectly natural that you flinched when the shooting started.”
She wondered how he knew she had. This man seemed to know everything. “I don’t want anyone to think I shouldn’t be in there. I want to do this job.”
“I’m not going to recommend you be pulled from duty,” Lassiter said. “Brielle, that isn’t what this is about.”
“Then what is it about?”
“It’s just a check in to be sure you are okay. The more interactions we have, the more likely you are to trust me and open up to me when you need to. And, I need to know every member of this team, so I will know when something is wrong.”
Brielle chuckled. “I’d imagine you have a hard job with all these macho guys
not wanting to admit that things bother them.”
“It’s actually you ladies who put on a stronger front, like you think vulnerability will get you relieved from duty.” He shook his head. “Not expressing your emotions is what will get you pulled right away but admitting what you feel and owning your emotions show me you’re not covering anything up.”
Brielle nodded. “I’ll remember that.”
She went back to the apartment and wrote her article on the raid she had witnessed the night before. Later that afternoon she got the heavily redacted copy back from Shepherd. He’d sent it along to Director Manning after he’d removed the parts that he deemed classified. She was quite upset he’d deleted as much as he had. She went back to her original copy and compared the two, trying to analyze why he removed what he had so she understood and would not include anything like it in the future.
It was the next day that Doc gave them the okay to go back to Sherman’s condo. Sherman was off the pain killers, so he had weapons privileges back. Sherman knew he could not get in and out of either of his own cars. They were both sports cars and sat way too low to the ground. Shepherd agreed to let him borrow one of the agency’s SUVs as it would be more comfortable.
