Merciless

“What? You can’t fault me for hoping for something-anything-to happen.”

“I’ll say it again. Act like you give a damn about these training assignments. You’re new. You should be enthusiastic. Rah-rah! Go FBI! and all that shit.” His pocket buzzed, and he fished out his cell phone. He said, “Turnbull,” and exited the stairwell.

I didn’t move. Instead, I closed my eyes, still unsure if I’d made the right choice joining the FBI.

When I’d snapped out of the haze following the death of my former army buddy Anna, a death in which I’d pulled the trigger, I realized I needed more out of my life than being a retired soldier, part-time rancher, and full-time drinker. Since my skill set had been honed behind the scope of my sniper rifle, there wasn’t much in the way of career opportunities in western South Dakota. I was zero for two on the attempted-career front; I’d made a lousy bartender and had lost when I ran for my dad’s old job as Eagle River County sheriff. When the FBI had set their sights on me, it’d been a boost to my ego-although I’d never publicly admit that.

But again, I hadn’t found out the job offer hadn’t been about me personally until after I’d signed on the dotted line. The Rapid City FBI office was short on agents because no one in the vast resources of the FBI wanted to fill the agency opening in our state capital in Pierre, which meant the head of our division, Director Shenker, had to divide his time between that office and ours in Rapid City.

Since our district covered such a large area, and our staff was on the smallish side, we weren’t a specialized unit like in more populated areas. We handled all the federal cases: everything from homicide to artifact theft. We weren’t even partnered with other agents, although Turnbull was tasked with showing me the ropes as my unofficial partner.

Served him right, being saddled with a rookie, after flashing his specialized FBI badge at me, denoting him as part of the Indian Country Special Crimes Unit. What Turnbull hadn’t told me? There was no such division within the Rapid City FBI unit.

After some kind of hush-hush dustup, he’d been transferred from the ICSCU in Minneapolis to “train” the agents of this smaller outlying FBI office in how to deal with Indian Country crimes. Which had pissed off the agents who’d been serving the Rapid City FBI office for years, dealing with Indian crimes without the official federal ICSCU moniker-or the funding-because for all of Turnbull’s supposed training, he hadn’t seen or done half the shit in his ten years as an agent that the Rapid City agents dealt with each year.

Guess he’d gotten quite an education for being such an expert.

Of course, I learned all this secondhand from Frances, the office manager, on my third day on the job at the FBI. She’d also shared the philosophy that when you work in Indian Country, all cases deal with crimes in Indian Country.

So far, I’d suffered with 95 percent office work, reading reports to familiarize myself with current events and cases. Nothing important had gone down since I’d punched the time clock as Special Agent Mercy Gunderson-not that I hoped for a horrific occurrence. But I hated sitting around talking about crap that’d never happen, wearing a gun I wasn’t allowed to shoot.

The stairwell door opened, and Turnbull popped his head in. “Briefing room.”

After a few moments I slipped into my chair, surrounded by a buzz of excitement. There was definitely something going on.

Director Shenker shuffled through a stack of papers as he entered the room. He glanced at the clock and stepped to the coffee center to fill his mug. “I’ve just been made aware of a situation on the Eagle River Reservation. The tribal police were brought in first, but given the sensitive nature, they’ve reached out to us for help.”

The latest departmental catchphrase touted the “new spirit of cooperation” on the Eagle River Reservation between the recently elected new tribal president, the newly promoted chief of the tribal police, and the “local” fresh Indian blood in the FBI-aka me.

“What’s the situation?” Agent Thomas asked. Technically, we weren’t assigned to specific reservations, but Agents Thomas and Burke worked the northwestern part of the state. Turnbull and I concentrated on the southwestern section, and Agents Mested and Flack dealt with the central section on the west side of the Missouri River. As the lone female agent in this office it was hard not to feel like I was just there to fill a quota.

Shenker pressed his thumb between his eyebrows. “Three days ago, seventeen-year-old Arlette Shooting Star disappeared. The tribal police instituted a search of the reservation and found nothing. The highway patrol joined in searching the surrounding area and found nothing, either.”

“No sign of her at all?”