Still trying to come up with a title. Maybe the Birds and I will take a shot at it and you all can chime in in the comments. No Birds this week, due to Defcon 5 level foul moods in the nest, or next week, because Zoe is gone to a horror con this weekend and won’t be around for our usual birding time.

And, yes, what the hell is it with me and names that start with L? At least they aren’t all showing up in the same book, lol.

So, here’s my older FBI agent, being introduced to you all. Even my tough guys are nerds… 😛 Who stops for a smoothie on the way to drop a communiqué to their boss?  (And this is so first draft… Literally written tonight, no editing, no read through. I know, I shouldn’t. Bad author. *smack*)

The teenager behind the counter popped a plastic top onto the cup and poked a straw through into olive green slurry inside. “Here you go,” she said cheerfully and slid it across the counter.

“Thanks,” he replied, sipping a bit and stuffing a dollar into her tip jar.

She smiled even more brightly and chirped, “Thank you!”

Leo took his cup of mixed yogurt and water-soluble vitamins and wandered down the mall toward the lotto booth. Off to one side, a thin man with lank ashy blond hair put down the dress shoe he was examining far too closely and drifted along in Leo’s wake. There was another as well that Leo was aware of, but that man was behind him now and out of his peripheral vision.

It used to be that just one would tail him on his trips to the mall or the bookie’s, but lately the bosses had been sending two men to shadow him on every jaunt.

Not his real bosses at the FBI, but his fake bosses in this human trafficking ring that Leo had infiltrated. After a good six months on the inside, he was convinced it was actually a front for something much more serious. But it was looking like getting the chance to find out what it was Leo was here to give his real bosses a head’s up that his cover was in danger of being blown and that he needed an extraction plan.

He stepped into line at the lotto booth and waited with feigned patience, sipping on his smoothie to pass the time and let him glance around to locate his tails.