I shrugged him off.
“Follow me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the senior agent, that’s why. Do you have to make everything so damn difficult?” Turnbull headed for the door marked STAIRS, assuming I’d follow.
Another ass-chewing session. I grudgingly admitted I preferred Turn-bull’s private approach rather than our boss’s public browbeating-not that I’d been on the receiving end so far.
We entered the small concrete landing to the stairwell. I rested my shoulders against the cement-block wall, half wishing I smoked. Would I look tough and cool if I flicked my Bic and squinted mysteriously at Turnbull through the smoky haze?
No. Turnbull would see right through me. He had that uncanny ability. Which sort of sucked ass for me.
“Would it kill you to look alive and at least partially interested in this training session, Gunderson?”
“Yes, it might kill me, because it’s boring me to death. I don’t see the importance of knowing riot procedure. There’s not enough population base here to even have a riot. And historically, the guys in charge call the National Guard.”
Turnbull lifted a brow. “Has it somehow escaped your notice, Sergeant Major, that more than half the South Dakota National Guard troops are currently deployed?”
I scowled at his pointed reminder of my army rank. “Doesn’t matter. Training assignment is busywork. I wanna be out there doing something. Not sitting on my ass.”
“The FBI’s success rate is based on ninety percent office work and-”
“Ten percent fieldwork, yeah, yeah, I recently lived the manifesto.” Standard training time for new FBI agents was five months at Quantico. I fell into the “special exclusion category” since at thirty-nine I was older than the federal government’s mandated final hire age of thirty-eight for federal employees. With twenty years’ service in Uncle Sam’s army, and a pension in place, I’d been allowed to skip the firearms portion and specialized tactical maneuvers of the training program, allowing me to shave off four weeks in Virginia.
Agent Turnbull studied me in his usual fashion. Not looking me in the eye, because engaging in a stare down with me was an exercise in futility. And Special Agent Turnbull hated losing. So instead, he gifted me with the half-exasperated/half-amused look of superiority he’d perfected in his ten-plus years as a G-man.
“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!