Nowhere to Go but Up

There’s starting at the bottom, and then there’s whatever this was. Korin hadn’t expected to jump right into solving big cases, but this hadn’t even been more than a footnote and two-hour lecture at Quantico.

She’d been pleasantly surprised on her first day on the job to not be expected to make or fetch coffee, make copies, pull files, or any other bit of drudge work. When she’d been given an assignment to a major task force right out of the gate, she figured it would be something she’d need to prove herself with.

Korin took a break, walking to the coffee maker to refill her new mug with the FBI logo. The mug came with the first posting, the task force SAC told her; a welcome aboard gift from Uncle Sam. She filled the mug two-thirds of the way, sipped the strong, bitter coffee and frowned, before adding a big splash of cream to thin it out some, the light brown coffee a shade lighter than her skin.

“Don’t worry, Jackson, you’ll get used to it,” Anne said.

Korin turned to face the short special agent in charge; so pale that her suntanned features still read pink, with medium brown hair and fine crows-feet wrinkles around her eyes. “Which?” she asked, rubbing her hair, currently in the in-between stage of being close cropped and a ’fro. “The battery acid coffee, or the bank records?”

“Both.” Anne laughed. Her blue eyes narrowed as she looked up into the dark eyes of the young agent. “I remember my first assignment on a task force,” she said. “Believe me, you have a much better first assignment.”

Not in a hurry to return to the mind-numbing task of scouring through every deposit, withdrawal, payment, transfer, check, and charge against several dozen bank accounts, she raised an eyebrow. “If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am, what was your first assignment like?”

Anne laughed. “We were doing the same thing,” she said, “but none of the records were computerized. They were all on paper…and shredded.”

“You mean you were—”

“Taping together shredded documents, yes.” Anne had the air of someone about to impart wisdom when she was interrupted.

“Carter! We got something for you!” The man yelling from the other end of the open office was waving wildly.

“That’s my cue,” she said, giving the young agent a pat on the back. “And yours.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Korin returned to her desk and went back to building spreadsheets that showed each account’s total balance, by day, over the course of ten years.

The spreadsheets were on a shared server, where everyone on the task force could read and edit them. She started to notice notes being attached to some of her entries, many of them links to other documents. She stifled her curiosity, figuring that the faster she finished the mind-numbing part, the sooner she could do something intelligent.

When the day ended, Korin had no idea how much progress, if any, had been made on the case. In fact, she wasn’t even sure what case she was working on, beyond a case number.

Anne pulled a chair from the next desk and sat next to her. “Not the most exciting introduction to the field, but exciting isn’t exactly a good thing in this job.”

“I guess not.” Korin saved her work before closing her laptop. “I thought we had forensic accountants to handle all this.”

“They don’t get involved until you start talking about money laundering through a host of shell companies, or large-scale embezzlement.” Anne pursed her lips. “This is…small potatoes.”

“With a task force of thirty? Seems like reasonably large potatoes,” Korin said.

“Normally, you’d be right. But when politicians are involved, we tend to err on the side of too much manpower rather than too little.” Anne gestured at the office. “How long do you think we’ve been working on this?”

Korin took in the office. Rows of desks with laptops, folders on some, two locked file cabinets, and a large dry-erase board with photos held by magnets, scrawled notes, and lines going everywhere. “Hard to say. Weeks? Month or two?”

Anne leaned back in the chair. “This is day four. We’ll be wrapped up by the end of next week, then we’ll be back downstairs at our regular desks. Once the reports and arrests are made, I’ll be on call for the trial, while we move on to the next thing.”

Korin frowned. “I guess it isn’t what I thought it would be.”

“You’re an over-achiever, I get that.” Anne sat back up. “You completed a graduate degree in law enforcement while completing dual undergrad degrees in chemistry and forensics, with a minor in music. Graduated number six in your class at Quantico. Reminds me of who I tried to be.”

“What does that mean?”

“At first, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. Finished criminal law and contract law before I figured out that wasn’t what I wanted to do. Went to Quantico and tried my best to be top of the class.” Anne chuckled. “Didn’t make it, ended up in the top twenty percent, but not as high as you. Didn’t stop me from trying to over-achieve, at least for a while.”

“What happened?”

“After a year or so, how you did in Quantico, your degrees, your GPA…none of that matters. What matters is how you do your job every day.” She placed a hand on the young agent’s shoulder. “And most days, the job is pretty boring, to be honest.”

“Well, I knew it wasn’t going to be car chases and gunfights,” Korin said. “I’m happy that it isn’t like television, but this is…,” she gestured at the laptop with a shrug.

“Don’t worry,” Anne said. “You stick with it, you’ll get the chance to use your chemistry and forensics knowledge; maybe even your music training, who knows? You’ll learn a lot more, too. I’ve learned some physics, biology, and finally managed to wrap my head around statistics.”

“Well, learning is always a good thing,” Korin said. “I’d probably go insane if I had to stop learning.”

“You’re in luck,” Anne said with a crooked smile, “the input part is almost done. Do you know how to build a pivot table from a collection of spreadsheets?”

“No, I never learned that. I…,” realization crossed her face. “I stepped into that one, didn’t I?”

“And you just learned something else. You should always watch out for crafty, old agents twisting your words into volunteering for something.”

Korin looked at Anne out of the corner of her eye. “Crafty, old, agents? Fishing for complements?”

“Nah, they’d get you nowhere anyway. We both know I’m old enough to be your mother.” She stood. “Come on, let’s get out of here, Jackson. I’ll see you in the morning. You need to be in by 7:30 tomorrow.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re next on the rotation for making the coffee. I’d suggest you make it every bit as strong as today’s was, or you’ll never hear the end of it from the other agents.”

Korin followed the older agent out of the office and sighed. “Well, we all have to start at the bottom, I guess. Nowhere to go from here but up.”