Chapter 79 – Bored Ron
Los Angeles.
IRS Ron's Special Operations Squad Headquarters.
Ron was slumped in his office chair, staring blankly into space.
It had been three days since Paige showed up. The morning after she arrived, he woke up in an unfamiliar hotel room with no memory of what happened after he'd passed out. He could only vaguely recall some kind of dream.
In that dream, there was Elsa from Frozen, Jasmine from Aladdin, Belle from Beauty and the Beast…and without exception, they all had Paige's face, as if she'd been cosplaying every Disney princess at once.
When he finally came to, Paige was long gone. All she'd left behind was an ugly-cute, unbranded cellphone sitting on the table—a parting gift from her.
On the screen, there was just one message confirming she'd really been there:
[If you miss me, use this phone to reach me. 😘]
Other than that, even after Ron used his clearance to pull up every camera feed—from Paige's house, to the Caltech labs, to the hotel surveillance—he found nothing. No trace of her anywhere.
It was as if she were a ghost.
Aside from the new phone in his hand and those increasingly fuzzy memories, there was nothing to prove she'd ever been there at all. During the exact hours he'd been unconscious, the supermarket camera outside her home even showed her calmly shopping for groceries.
But as an experienced agent, Ron still spotted the flaw:
That was pre-recorded footage looping over and over.
This girl is…way too cautious, he thought.
Then again, considering the Prism surveillance scandal had only happened a few years ago, Ron had to admit Paige's paranoia was perfectly reasonable. For a hacker of her caliber, getting exposed would mean trouble of every kind.
Better for her to keep pretending to be a normal person.
At some point, the sun had climbed high enough that its glare stung his eyes. With a lazy grunt, Ron scooted his chair sideways so the sunlight wouldn't hit him, but no matter how many times he shifted around, he still couldn't fall back asleep.
"Alright, fine," he muttered to the ceiling. "I'm officially bored out of my mind. Andy, is there anything interesting going on lately—anything that might cheer me up a little?"
Ron sat up with a sigh.
In the enormous office, he was spacing out, Andy was brewing coffee with the most expensive machine budget funds could buy while reading the paper, and Hank was cleaning guns in the corner.
If not for Hank's obsessive weapon maintenance, the Special Operations Squad looked indistinguishable from a retirement home.
Andy set down his newspaper and adjusted his glasses.
"Boss, this month we collected a total of $21.1 million in taxes from Operation Fried Chicken. After remitting the mandatory portion and covering annual salaries, bonuses, and other routine expenses, we still have over five million left in the budget."
"Our entire annual KPI is already complete. Shouldn't we be enjoying some downtime? If I recall, you yourself promised that if we managed to bring down that big drug lord, the whole team would get nearly half a year of vacation."
Ron had no retort—he had, in fact, said exactly that when trying to rally them. And now, not only had they seized Uncle Fried Chicken's assets, they'd also smashed through the first-year tax target of ten million that Francis had set.
"…But even if we've hit the year's goals," Ron protested weakly, "we shouldn't just let ourselves get sloppy. Look at you all—what is this supposed to be? I don't recall authorizing the Special Operations Squad to turn into a retirement home!"
This is not my Special Operations Squad!
Andy just sighed, as if soothing an unreasonable child, and picked up the stack of papers propping up the coffee machine. He handed them over.
"Alright, if you really want something to do, maybe there's something in here to catch your interest. These are recent shared intelligence files from the FBI—mostly case reports. When I'm bored, I read them like crime novels."
Ron was almost offended, but he couldn't bring himself to snap at Andy. After all, he'd been raised with the traditional virtue of respecting the elderly, and Andy was older even than Ron's father, Old George.
Besides, Andy's expertise in finance had been a godsend—he'd taken over most of the complex accounting work that used to bury Ron in paperwork, which was the only reason Ron had time to be bored in the first place.
"Fine, let's see if there's anything interesting lately."
Resigned, Ron motioned for Hank to come over. The two of them flipped through the FBI reports to kill time, Ron reading aloud and grumbling as he went.
"Vespucci Beach shootout? Let me guess—some car thieves got mad over splitting the loot and started blasting each other. Let them shoot it out. Those punks just sell everything for drugs anyway—no taxes to collect from that lot."
"Notorious gang boss drowns in his own swimming pool? Oh, please. Is the FBI so idle they're investigating every idiot who can't swim? Nothing surprising about that these days…"
One by one, he balled up the reports he'd finished and lobbed them into the distant trash can, treating it like a game of basketball.
But suddenly, Hank lunged forward as if possessed, fishing out a crumpled page Ron had just tossed.
Hank stared at the photo on it, muttering:
"That's Harry. I know this man."
"What's the problem?" Ron leaned in.
It was just an ordinary robbery-homicide. The victim was an old man working security for a private firm—a cripple, no less. The report said he'd been shot dead by some low-life car thief. Nothing about it looked unusual to Ron.
Hank nodded grimly.
"This old bastard was my father's war buddy. They served together in Vietnam. He was a total son of a bitch, but trust me—even with a ruined leg, there's no way a junkie with a cheap gun could take him down so easily."
"Maybe he just got confused in his old age?" Ron shrugged, still unconcerned. In Los Angeles, you could find five murders like this any given week.
"No," Hank insisted, voice rising. "Last week, my dad took him to the shooting range. Twenty meters out, he was putting every round dead center. You really think some street punk could outshoot a man like that?"
He jabbed a finger at the photo of the crime scene, eyes blazing.
"Look—ballistic analysis says the holes in the car door came from a .45-caliber round. Harry always carried a collector's edition M1911. But there was no sign of the weapon anywhere on-site."
"Maybe the killer took it after the shooting?" Andy ventured.
"Impossible," Hank snapped. "Harry was a master with that pistol. Let me ask you—could you disarm Ron and shoot him in cold blood?"
Andy rolled his eyes and fell silent.
Disarm Ron and kill him? Sure—if I'm tired of living.
Ron's expression had already turned sharp and focused again—the look of the seasoned IRS operative returning in full.
"Andy, get the FBI on the line. I want all files and evidence related to this case sent over immediately."
"No problem, Boss."
Ron turned back to Hank, his voice low but firm.
"You think this was a carefully planned hit?"
Hank pointed again at the photos, resolute.
"It couldn't be more obvious."