Watching
Nathan had gone to bed early in order to be up and in the office early, but sleep was proving to be illusive. The last new member of the team would be in the office tomorrow, and Nathan had reservations about the man.
Nathan liked working with this team; each of the men in it brought unique qualities and abilities that made a cohesive group. Even better, they treated each other as equals, a rare thing in the black man’s experience.
When Buck Wilmington had called him to ask if he would be interested in joining the new ATF team, Nathan hadn’t really expected much to come out of it. Chris Larabee had a reputation of being a hard man to work with, never mind for, and Nathan was sure that his own well deserved reputation as being stubborn and argumentative would put him off.
When the accident occurred in front of him that first morning, Nathan hadn’t stopped to think about it when he grabbed his first aid kit and jumped out of the car to help. Before he knew it, three hours had passed and he was very late for the meeting.
He had arrived at the federal building down town fully believing that there was no way he was going to get a job working there. When Chris had berated him for being late without even asking what had happened, Nathan had lost his temper and snarled at him that a human life was more important than any meeting.
Apparently he had said something right, because Chris had stopped and looked at him closely, taking in the small splotches of blood that dotted his sleeves and pants. The next words out of the man’s mouth were, “You’re hired.”
Nathan remembered blinking in surprise and asking him if he was joking.
“I’d never joke about something like this,
~~~~~~~~
Nathan unconsciously shook his head in wonder as he remembered how things had come together after that.
Larabee had mentioned what positions they still had to fill and Nathan had immediately recommended his long time friend Josiah Sanchez to be their profiler. Chris had heard him out as he spoke about his friend and said he would check him out.
Josiah and Nathan had been friends for years, ever since Nathan had been a rookie on the Denver Police Department. The FBI had sent Josiah to help a taskforce they had put together to catch a murder. Everyone at the DPD had discounted the profile Josiah had worked up because of his maverick reputation and ostensibly off the wall conclusions. It seemed like only Nathan understood what Josiah had seen and believed him. Together they planned accordingly, and that belief and planning saved their lives and the lives of several other members of the taskforce. They had kept in touch after that, growing to be very close friends over the years.
Nathan had been bothered when Josiah told him he was going to retire, but he could understand a little of the frustration Josiah was feeling. For twenty-five years Josiah had dealt with the pressure to conform to the Bureau’s expectations, even when he had proven their methods didn’t work. Nathan figured he would have had enough, too.
Not that long ago, Nathan hadn’t known Vin Tanner from Adam, still didn’t know him that well, but in certain ways Vin and Chris reminded him of one another. Both were quietly dangerous men with good hearts. Chris might keep it more hidden than Vin, but it was still there. Nathan had seen the dangerous side of both of them in action, but the first time Vin had shown it, and saved his life in the process, had been before they actually met.
Nathan hadn’t even known there was anyone behind him until he heard a high pitched rapport that he knew wasn’t from an ATF weapon then a startled cry from behind him. He had turned just in time to see a second man behind him and Chris get picked off after a second high pitch shot. After the smoke cleared and all the perps had been carted off, he had started looking around for the man that had saved their lives. When Coker started needlessly yelling for the sniper to come down out of the rafters, he had stopped and joined the men watching the slender young man walk up behind him silently and tap him on the shoulder. It had been funny to watch the team leader jump away and nearly land on his ass on the ground.
The next few days, when Chris was arguing with Travis about getting Vin on the team, he had wondered if Chris wasn’t taking his gratitude a little far. Well, if gratitude had been the only thing motivating Chris, which he highly doubted for he had found that the man had an uncanny ability to read people when he wanted to, he was certainly glad it had. Since he had joined the team, Vin had saved several lives with his phenomenal aim.
~~~~~~~
The next addition to their crew had surprised Nathan as much as Tanner had, but in a different way entirely.
Nathan had known Chris had chosen an electronics expert he thought would fit with the rest of them, but the man that arrived for the interview looked like he was in danger of being arrested for truancy! JD Dunne didn’t look like he was a day over sixteen, and Chris and he had both thought there was no way he could do the job. With both JD and Buck arguing for giving him a chance, Buck had suggested a probationary period, to see if either party involved had problems. When Chris agreed to the idea, Nathan was surprised. Chris had a reputation for never taking advice from anyone.
Within two weeks, JD had fixed half the computers in the building, the ones that Tech support never seemed to be able to get to stop crashing every hour, and reconfigured the firewalls to be more efficient. He agreed whole-heartedly when Chris had said that the job was all JD’s if he still wanted it and silently cheered when JD agreed. JD was energetic and boisterous to an extreme, which lended even more to his air of wholesome youth, but he knew his field inside and out.
Which brought Nathan’s thoughts back to the man he would meet the next morning.
The files Chris had given each of them on Ezra Standish had
been pitifully thin, but they showed rather obviously that the man had turned. Nathan could hardly believe that Chris had
missed it, or worse, had ignored it and was still going to bring the man on the
team! Standish had been good, Nathan
would admit that, but it was obvious he had thrown the
Nathan had done a little research of his own after Chris’s announcement, and he had found that the records concerning Standish were just as scarce as the information in that file had indicated. Someone had worked very hard to see to it that no one could trace the man. To Nathan that just confirmed his suspicions. Nathan wasn’t in sure where Chris had gotten all of the information he had, but he was convinced that nothing good could come of the man joining the team.
Nathan rolled over again and tried to find a comfortable position to fall asleep in. Chris had warned them to give Standish a chance, so he would….but only one and he would be sure to keep a close eye on the man.
