Snippet Time! Here's #03 from the Upcoming Witness Enchantment. (book4)

<Unedtited>






Nicolas Craven carefully threaded his way around the various Marshals and offices workers in the main building of what many in law enforcement called WITSEC. The real name was the US Federal Witness Protection Program. Most officers in uniform wore patches using the acronym FWPP. Confusion was part of Government life. Almost everyone in the building wore black armbands or something over their badges. Half a dozen of their own were melted just yesterday. His men wanted revenge for what happened to their friends and brothers in arms and he was about to see the man who could make that happen.

“No. Forget it Nick.” Special Director John Calvin held up his hand as soon as he saw Craven.

“Sir, we can get these guys! Witnesses at the scene said it was either Geovanni Orlando or someone who looked just like him. He’s the key to all of this. Let me take some of the Marshals and …”

“Damn it, Nicky! No. What does this mean?” The director held up a plaque with the programs name on it.

Nicky grimaced. “Witness protection.”

“Exactly. Witness protection. We protect. We do not go rogue and hunt down suspects or murder them. Let the FBI and local LEO’s do their jobs. Please Nic.” John looked into the eyes of one of his best men.

“Come on John. The FBI? The local office can’t find their ass with both hands and a pack of hunting dogs. Those guys are useless!” Craven flopped down into one of the director’s office chairs.

“I will admit that Agent Martelle’s office is a little disorganized but…”

“Disorganized? Do you remember the Sheffield case? If we hadn’t have switched rooms at the last minute Sabina would have died. They were even tailing the guy that shot up the room. Since he didn’t kill anyone they let him go!”

“Their procedures are a bit restrictive. They have way too much paperwork and regulations to just shoot people. You should know that since you were former FBI.” John smiled at him.

“Oh, please. Just bring that crap up, will you. Yes, yes. I was FBI for all of a minute. The dress code and I had serious issues that and I refused to kiss my bosses ass.” Craven smiled at the memory of telling his boss off and tossing his badge in the trash.

“Don’t go Ronin on me. OK?” John looked across his desk at him.

“Fine. I promise no lone-wolfing it. What are we going to do with him? Court is in three weeks and if we try to move him we are going to lose men again. Some of those guys were my friends!”

John smiled crookedly at him. “We have help coming. Someone higher than me has arranged for Magical Crimes to take this one from us. Before you start it came from way, way, way up there. Even I don’t recognize the authorization.”

“Magical Crimes? How can Jack help us? He’s human like us. We need to handle this ourselves. Don’t we still have those Russians on the payroll?”

“We do but they are occupied elsewhere. Agent Jack Dalton retired from Magical Crimes. He’s not who’s coming.” John tossed Nick a thick file.

“There’s a team now. Five Agents instead of just one. That’s everything I could dig up on them. Some of my bosses are calling them the Lost Children. Word is they’ve tackled some pretty crazy cases already.” John pointed at the file.

“Like what?” Nick cautiously opened the folder. He eyebrows went up at the first page. “She’s just a kid!”

“That Kid almost took down the entire FBI Academy by herself on the first day of classes. The moron they has as director attacked her and tried to arrest her. She left him hanging about twenty feet in the air for half the day. The Marines hate having her there but shes handed them their hats more than once.”

Nick continued to read. “So two Were’s, a Vampire, a Witch, and a human Agent? Who is he?”

“William Maxwell, he goes by Bill. You might remember him from the Ponzo case. He was the arresting Agent for Robert Ponzo. The story I got was he took down ‘dapper Bob’ alone when Agents caught him just after a hit.”

The Marshal shook his head. “If only that guy could have followed the rules. He just had to have a sausage sandwich at three in the morning. The only place to get something like that in Nevada was Vegas. His tombstone should read he died with a sausage in his hand. Stupid. So how did Bill end up in charge of these kids?”

“Oh, he’s not in charge. He works as their liaison. The Witch is the one in charge.” John motioned with his head to the file.

Nick flipped back to the picture at the beginning. “Nice looking. Just who is Agatha Blackmore and how much trouble is she going to be?”