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he said as he extended his hand to Mark. “Thanks for coming out.” He shook Mark’s hand, then Wendy’s. He turned away and walked from the room. His shoulders were slumped forward and Mark could see tears starting to roll down his cheeks. Amanda Bennett walked them to the front door. “God bless you both. Don’t worry about us, we’ll be all right,” she said as she opened the door to let them out.
    As they walked to the car, Mark asked, “Well, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the best, how do you think that went?”
    “It was a ten until the end, and then it deteriorated into a four or five,” she said as they got into the car. “I feel so bad for them.”
    He didn’t start the engine right away. “I’m not sure I would ever want to do that again. I hope that I retire before my turn comes up again. Do you think that being a sidekick, like I was today, starts building up my credentials for this kind of assignment?”
    “That’s the way it worked with me. Once you do it, you’re on the list.”
    Mark could see why Dennis chose her for this assignment. “I guess you’re right, but the fewer assignments I get to be a bereavement messenger, the better.”
    “Did you know that in the armed forces they have personnel that specialize in that? They even have a training program. I think it’s called Bereavement 101.” She half smiled as soon as she said it. She continued, “Do you think that when they leave the military they’re recruited by mortuaries?”
    They both smiled. On the surface it seemed to be extremely inappropriate behavior, but they both needed the levity to take the edge off of the situation.
    Mark remembered that he needed to call Dennis. He hit the speed dial and within twenty seconds, Dennis answered.
    “How did it go?”
    “Okay, I guess. It’s was hard, though, especially with them having lost their other son to the war a while back. They seemed like such nice people.”
    “They are real Americans, Mark. Thanks again for handling it for me. Look, I know these things can be physically and mentally draining. Why don’t you and Agent Farrell take the rest of the day off? I’ll give Chief Jacobsen a call. I’m going to let them do the follow-up at Atronen for now. I want to keep Brice’s FBI connection quiet, so the CPD can probably open more doors at this point than we can. We’ll pick it up once our plan solidifies. Right now, we’ll let the cartel think that we buy the pretense about how he died. Remember, I want to see you in my office tomorrow morning at eight.”
    “Thanks, Dennis. I’ll see you then.”
    Mark turned to Wendy. “It looks like we both have the rest of the day off. Dennis wants to see me in his office at eight tomorrow morning.”
    “That’s cool. I’ll take care of the required paperwork for this trip and copy you on it.”
    He looked over at her and said, “I don’t know about you, but I could use something right around now to take the edge off. John Wellman and a few others are meeting at O’Sheas around seven for a couple of beers. We’re a little early, but I’d like to join them. What do you say?”
    She thought about it for a minute and said, “Sure, why not? I could use a couple of cold brews right now.” Mark started up the car and headed back to Cleveland.
    Whatever extra time he thought they would have was easily consumed by unforeseen traffic. It would normally be light going toward the city in mid-afternoon. Unfortunately, one of the cars going south crossed the median and caused a three-car pileup across all three lanes of the highway. It took over two and a half hours to go a distance that would normally take about thirty minutes. That just added to the tensions of the day, so by the time they got to O’Sheas they were much in need of a few brews.
    When they entered the bar, Mark only recognized a handful of the agents. He couldn’t help but notice that Wendy was well known at O’Sheas. Nobody yelled “Wendy” when she went