Inferna Nuntius

Chapter 16

16

            Save for the continuous shuffling of paper, the large conference room was eerily quiet, especially given the number of inhabitants that currently occupied it. The steady hum of the air conditioner had long ago faded into the background; the occasional clearing of someone’s throat was the only break in the monotonous silence that filled the room. Cassidy and Derrick sat in a far corner, secluding themselves from the rest of the group by a solitary row of tables and three mounds of files. They sat back to back in the office chairs, leaning just far enough back that they were able to exchange glances out of the corner of their eyes without having to move their heads. They had a system going and for all intents and purposes it was working fairly well. Derrick would grab one folder from the desk, peruse through it and then pass it on to Cassidy for review. When finished she would do one of three things- shrug, smile, or simply shaker head. Each movement correlated to the placement of the file in one of three piles- maybe, yes, and no. They had been at this for almost three hours and so far they had been able to thumb through almost twice as many folders as anyone else.

            Bellinson had placed himself at the front of the room, just a few feet from the door, commandeering the largest table to his files. For the first hour he had resisted the urge to prop his feet up on the desk and lean back in his chair, trying to maintain a professional appearance, but as the day wore on he finally gave in and threw his feet up onto the corner of the table, garnering a few light snickers from the other inhabitants of the room. And that’s where he stayed, leaving only a handful of times to answer his cell phone when it refused to stop ringing.

            The silence of the room was only compounded by the utter silence that consumed the hallway as well. Bellinson had chosen this room for a reason-he knew the other agents would most likely be using the rooms on the first floor, closest to the parking lot.

            Damn smokers, he though snidely to himself. He knew the farther away they were from the parking lot the less likely his smokers were to take unnecessary breaks. He needed their minds on the case, not on whatever gossip was floating around with the smoke. His choice of rooms was mirrored in the occupant’s choice of seats. The smokers had positioned themselves closest to the door while the non-smokers sat farther into the room. And then there was New York; from the beginning he knew there was something different about those two, but he had yet been able to put his finger preciously on it. While the other officers had grabbed a stack of files and found their own space, New York grabbed their stack and secluded themselves from the group, but not from each other. Bellinson watched as Derrick took a folder, skimmed through it and then handed it to Cassidy, who did the same, and then chose a pile to place it in. Bellinson could only speculate that if she was the decision maker here, that their relationship followed the same pattern back home.

            He felt the corners of his lips begin to turn up as he allowed himself to picture her in a non-dominant position, submitting to the whim of someone else. For a brief moment he let himself believe that he could be the one dominating her, but quickly shook that thought free from his mind.

            As he cleared his mind and refocused on the file in his lap, Bellinson heard that tell tale sound of thick rubber soles as the stormed down the hallway at an alarming pace. Eager for a distraction, Bellinson tossed the folder onto the table and swung his legs off, standing quickly to see who was running down the hallway. As he exited the room, he found himself face to face with not one, but three other agents.

            “Someone lit a fire under you, did they?” He joked with them. The small smirk left his face as he saw their faces covered with the same mix of emotions-panic, fear, and excitement. A dangerous combination.