Top Ten Read Online Free PDF Page B

fiend.
    “All right then,” Jaworski said, and pushed himself up using both arms of his chair. With a grimace and some difficulty he stood and came around his desk, heading for the door. “Your learning curve here is going to look like the steep side of the Matterhorn.”
    “I can handle that,” Ariel said. She stood and followed her new boss out of his office. They made a quick left through an outer office, and a right after that, heading down a long, dim hallway. Stacks of boxes yet to be unpacked crowded the passage, creating chokepoints through which one had to slip sideways. Jaworski took those walking straight on.
    He moved fairly quick, considering, Ariel thought. But then maybe being up was better than being down. A physical thing. Maybe mental, too.
    Her mother had done housework all through her chemo. Called it her ‘therapy’. She did the dishes the day she died, looking better than the man walking ahead of Ariel right then. Walking as he started talking.
    “Welcome to Task Force Ten, Agent Grace,” Jaworski said. “Around here we call it Base Ten. Someone nicked it that. I don’t know why.” At an intersection with another passage they turned left. More boxes cramped their way. A lone window in the distance washed the corridor with dim and dirty light. They walked toward it. “The Bureau rented it for our operations when we outgrew the space at the Utica R.A.” The R.A., or resident agency, was the Bureau equivalent of a police substation, a local presence maintained in areas from which a field office was too distant, or where one was deemed necessary. “The building is vacant except for us and the rats.”
    “How many agents are you running?” Ariel asked. The bulge of her hip-holstered weapon snagged a box as she squeezed by and almost sent it tumbling.
    “Sixteen counting you.”
    “I only saw one agent at the door when I came in.”
    “I believe in field work, Grace. Our freak is not going to walk in here and hold out his hands. This ain’t Hollywood. People who work for me work leads. Cold, warm, or hot. That’s how I run Task Force Ten. I only wish I could get out there more.”
    “Someone has to run things,” Ariel reminded him.
    “It’s kind of you to put it that way,” Jaworski said. “So how many did you run, Agent Grace?”
    “Forty full time.”
    “How long?”
    “Ten months.”
    “So you were around for this numbering crap.”
    “I was,” Ariel said.
    “Tell me, did it ‘focus task force efforts’ any more by having that number tacked on to DeVane.”
    “It was crap, sir, like you said.”
    Jaworski glanced back at her as he walked. A smile flashed. “Glad to see me and the other five thousand or so people aren’t alone in our thinking.”
    “Washington comes up with some beauts,” Ariel said. She knew that now better than most.
    They neared the window. It had once been clear but now was filmed opaque with grime. A heavy door was set into the wall to the right of it. Jaworski mustered all his strength and shoved it open, letting them into the stairwell. They started up.
    “Did you take the elevator up to three, Grace?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Use the stairs from now on. They don’t break down twice a week.”
    “Thanks for the warning.” They made it to four and passed through another heavy door and were in another hallway when a question came to Ariel. “Why are you on three, sir. If the building’s vacant.”
    “The rats have one and two. They rarely come to three.”
    Ariel looked at the ground as they moved down this hallway and wondered how often they came by four.
    “How much do you know about our freak, Grace?” Jaworski asked her. His pace had slowed. His breathing hadn’t.
    “Some.”
    “I’ll give you the quickie on him before I show you something. He calls himself Michaelangelo. Like the artist, but he spells it wrong. One extra ‘a’. He thinks he’s an artist, too. A master, even. He’s killed six already. Two just this last