Holly caught up with Bond just as he was about to enter the conference room. ‘Can I sit this one out, I’m not feeling to well it must be the heat.’ Holly did look pale but Bond had thought it was only the harsh lighting from the reception area.
‘Of course you can, are you sure you’re ok?’
‘Yea, I just need to sleep.’
Holly left towards the elevator, with Bond watching her go, her health since they had been here had been adversely effected and it concerned him. Although she was a medical officer, she was reluctant to see anyone about it. He knew he would have to sit back and observe for the moment.
The briefing room was clean, the rest of the unit were already waiting and had begun without him. Knight had drawn up a profile of the killer and was reading it to the rest of the team.
‘Hold on a minute, that may not be pertinent.’ Mac interrupted.
‘Let me finish.’ Knight said, irritated by the interruption.
‘But he may have something to shed on what you’re saying.’ Carter added, but Knight continued regardless.
‘I’m not gonna waste my time waiting for you to listen.’ Mac stated abruptly as Carter and Knight verbally slugged it out. Mac stood and picked his papers up from the table and walked for the door. Waving a handful of papers at the team. ‘I’ll get them Xeroxed and you can read them when you’re ready.’ Bond noted that Mac had a face like a slapped arse. It was obvious he was annoyed at the lack of professionalism shown during the meeting.
It had made a point as the room went quiet, Carter and Knight looked around the table, Lee looked bemused and Dex looked unperturbed. The door opened again and Mac walked in holding a larger batch of paper this time. He walked around the table and placed a copy of his and Holly’s findings in front of each agent. It had the effect Mac wanted each agent picked up the papers and began reading.
It was not long before Carter had finished or he had got bored with having to read himself. ‘I still think that someone should speak with Shaman’s and get the lore on the Coyote Spirit,’ Before he could finish his sentence Knight and started round two.
‘Ooh, Magical Coyotes, do you think there’s something in it, or is it the killer.’ Knight obviously did not think there was any credit in the Indian Legend and was determined to let Carter know.
‘No, but…’ Knight stepped in again. ‘So what’s the point in wasting time trying to find three old goats who’ll spout on about old tales?’
‘Give me a chance to finish, what I was going to say is that obviously someone around here does believe it and..’ Carter was showing patience, a virtue he had not shown before and was probably the wrong time to start.
‘Ooh perhaps it is the magical coyote, trying to throw us off the trail.’
‘Damn those pesky FBI agents I would have away with it if hadn’t been for them.’ Knight was now bordering on the ridiculous and starting to show himself up.
The room suddenly quietened, the coffeepot sitting on the drink trolley fell over and crashed onto the floor. All looked at the pot and then at each other. Lee stepped forward and started picking up the shards from the glass pot and putting them into a paper towel. No one said a thing, no one could offer an explanation or even attempt to start to offer one.
The telephone in the corner of the room started ringing and Bond jumped. Its ring had sounded like thunder in the quiet. Glad for the respite Bond got up and answered the telephone. ‘FBI Agent Bond speaking.’ In the politest voice, he could muster under the circumstances.
‘It’s me, Holly.’ Her voice sounded broken and weak. ‘I need to talk now, can you come up to my room?’
Bond agreed and put the telephone down. The other agents were looking at him waiting for him to return. ‘You lot carry on I’ll be back shortly.’
He made his way up to Holly’s room, knocking on the door once to announce his presence he twisted the door handle and stepped in. Holly was sitting on the end her bed, resting her head in hands with her elbows on her knees. As he walked in, she turned her head to meet Bond.
Sitting down next to her, Bond could see she was distressed and wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him. ‘What’s up.’ He said softly.
‘On my way up here, I passed out as I was unlocking my room door. When I awoke I was laying on my bed and there was someone sitting in that chair.’ Holly spoke as if she did not believe what she saying.
‘Ok, Ok.’ Bond tried to comfort her, ‘Are you ok?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine apart from a stinking headache.’ The headaches were beginning to worry Bond, it was even more worrying that she had now passed out due to one.
‘Look, you’ll have to get yourself checked out. It ain’t good you having these headaches.’ It sounded obvious but he wanted to assert it to Holly.
‘I know, Ill get it checked out when we are back in Washington.’
Relieved that at last she was seeing sense, Bond needed to know more of her encounter. ‘What happened to the person in the chair?’
‘She said she had found me lying in the corridor and bought me in here and waited for me to come round.’ Holly seemed to be gaining more control of her. ‘Oh, she asked how we were getting along on the case, and if we had made any progress yet. And if the newspaper clippings were of any help.’ It all seemed to stream out of Holly as if she was remembering it as she spoke.
‘Did you get a look at her?’ She did not sound hostile, but it was unnerving that she should know so much about our current case and aid us with clues.
Holly thought for a moment, ‘Not really, the room was dark when I woke. She did have long dreadlocks.’ Silent once more, she leant on Bond. ‘She said there is another agency tracking us who are interested in getting to the murderer before us.’
‘Did she say who?’ It maybe that Mac had been right, he could have had two tails in Phoenix.
‘Majestic.’ Holly said quietly.
Bond now sceptical thought Holly needed some rest, ‘You get back to bed and I’ll check up on you later. Do you want someone on the door?’ He did not think she was in immediate danger but it might make her feel safer.
‘No I’ll be ok.’ Bond kissed her forehead gently and let her go back to sleep.
Majestic, he could not believe she given that name. Majestic, even if they had ever existed had not been around since 1946 and then it was only rumoured. It was more than likely a ruse to throw Holly off a line of questioning.
Returning to the meeting room, Bond stopped at the conference room door. The voices were lower and they seemed to be talking. Walking in, his team sat around the table.
‘Glad you could make it back.’ Mac offered sarcastically.
‘Yeah, I’m sure.’ Bond poured a coffee for himself and stood at behind his chair. ‘Holly has just had a visitor, it sounds like it could have been one of your tails from Phoenix.’
‘Is she ok?’ Mac asked, genuinely concerned.
‘She’s fine, her visitor wanted to know how we were getting along on the case.’
‘Does she know who they are yet?’ Knight enquired.
It worried Bond, there was many agencies in the country and not all of them well known and some just did not exist on paper. ‘No, but she said there was another interested agency tailing us.’ Holding back the name of the second agency. ‘Holly, didn’t even get a good look at her Samaritan.’
‘Lee when this is over I want you to go to security and check their reception camera’s, they may have captured her on video.’
‘Ok, I’ll do that.’
‘What’s happening, have we made any progress yet?’ Bond hoped they had.
‘We’re nearly done, we have a few leads to follow up on but most of them are quite weak.’ Dex offered. ‘We need you to follow up on the rental car plates in Phoenix.’ He continued to explain.
‘Why? Anyone could do that.’ It was a simple task.
Dex sighed. ‘We’ve already gone through the normal channels and returned zilch. The rental company doesn’t have a car on their books with those plates.’
‘Ok I’m with you now, you want me to try and have a look round.’ After spending five years in computer fraud, Bond’s knowledge of computer security was virtually the best. He relished the thought of a new challenge, however he knew the rental company’s computers would offer little resistance, but it would be nice to exercise his talents again. ‘I’ll sort that that out later then. What about the rest of you?’
‘Lee and I are following up on Digger hire. Carter and Mac are going to see the sheriff and arrange to meet with the Shamans. Knight is looking into mining companies in the area.’ It seemed they had sorted their differences out and drawn a plan for tomorrow. Happy with the arrangements, Bond broke up the meeting.
‘Not going up yet are you Sam?’ Mac asked as Bond was leaving.
He was going to check on Holly, but it could wait. ‘No what do you have in mind?’
‘I thought we could have a chat in the bar.’
Bond did not drink but it had not stopped him from frequenting bars before. It had been a long day and it showed no signs of drawing to a close. Both agents sat in the hotel bar chatting over the day’s events. Bond was sipping from a glass of fizzy water that looked mixed with a lime cordial. In front of Mac was a glass of beer, only slightly touched.
Mac picked up his drink and flicked the beer mat off casually that had become stuck to the bottom of the glass. ‘You’re going to have to sort out Knight, he was crawling all over Carter in that meeting earlier.’
‘I’ll speak with Knight, he was out of order trying to provoke Carter like that, he seemed to be measuring his reactions. He is young and over zealous, but does have a lot of potential to become a great Agent. But he’s impetuous and that could be deadly.’
‘What if I take him under my wing, I’ve chatted with him and he seems an ok lad just needing guidance.’
Bond smiled, it was what he had hoped. Not knowing much about Mac’s background, he was not sure how Mac saw his role within the team. Nevertheless, it seemed that Mac wanted to be active and not just treat this as a rest stop while others sorted out his career for him.
‘I think that’s what he needs. Two other things though Mac. What was the idea of storming out of the meeting like that this evening?’
Mac drank some more from his glass so he could measure his reply. ‘Ok, it was wrong to do that, I’m just used to working with experienced agents.’
‘Experienced agents? Except for three, the rest have been in the service for at least three years. I‘ve been in the service for six and I don’t ever recall anyone doing that.’ Bond was annoyed, there was no excuse for such bad manners even if others did not have any it did not excuse a senior agent for resorting to childish antics.
‘Em, that did come out wrong, what I meant to say was that it was a complete waste of time me trying to explain my findings so I went outside and got them Xeroxed. It would have given them the chance to digest the information in their own time’
‘Ok, they are over indulgent from times and I acknowledge you had some light you could have thrown onto Knights Profile of the killer, but I still expect you to act like a senior agent and not a kid. We all make mistakes and we don’t like making them. But the younger members watch us, they take more notice of our actions, our mannerisms, what we say and if they see too many displays like this evening then they’ll think its ok.’
‘Right I get your point and I apologise, but if you see me making a mistake like that again pull me up on it before I do it. Likewise I’ll do the same for you.’
He had missed a mature agent he could speak frankly with, Mac seemed keen to share the workload and Bond was grateful.
‘Did you notice anything peculiar about Holly while you were away.’
‘No, I can’t say that I did.’
‘Its just that she has been having a lot of headaches since we have been here and this evening she blacked out.’
The concern for his fellow agent was touching and Holly seemed to get on fine with Bond more so than anyone else in the team. ‘It could be the heat, change in the atmosphere the dryness almost anything.’
‘Well you’re the only other qualified medical expert within the team, so I want you to keep an eye on her, as you’ll probably know what you’re looking for.’ Bond paused. ‘Don’t mention it to Holly though, so far she has refused to seek medical aid on this one and I don’t want her to know I broke her confidentiality.’
‘Ok, I’ll do that.’ Mac nodded in agreement.
‘I’m going up to finish off this report for Garrett, I’ll see you in the morning.’ Bond finished his drink and left the bar.
Bond made his way back to his room, stopping outside Holly’s room. Letting himself in he crept around the bed, Holly’s table lamp was still on and Holly seemed restless in her slumber, tossing and turning, even kicking out in her sleep.
Slipping under the covers next to Holly she turned over and wrapped her arm about his waist. Soon her breathing was steady and rhythmic. He lay there resting against the headboard, watching Holly sleep.