Free Replaceable: An Alan Lamb Thriller by J.W. Bouchard

Hammond opening one of the swinging doors, allowing her to step through, and immediately falling into step behind her.
    “That’s when I sounded the alarm,” Mayberry said. “I knew something was rotten in Denmark.”
    By the time 11:30 rolled around, Alan got the feeling that he had overstayed his welcome. Alan didn’t sympathize, but he could understand. For every minute the casino was shut down, it was losing money.
    Following his time at the casino, Alan had driven back to the Patriot Inn. He had slept fitfully. He guessed he had had the same dream about the car accident that he’d had many nights before, but couldn’t remember. He had gone against Darrow’s suggestion and skipped the drink.
    By 4:30 A.M., he was willing to give some credence to the man’s advice. A stiff drink might have delivered the peaceful slumber he had been hoping for, but he settled for a slice of cold pizza and a bottle of Ice Mountain water. After that, he had showered, dressed, and headed for the office.
    He arrived at 6:30 A.M.
    The seventh floor was mostly dead, but he could see a shaft of light spilling out beneath the door to Gant’s office. Alan knocked on Gant’s door before letting himself in. Gant was hunched over his desk, sifting through a pile of documents. His eyes were bloodshot.
    “Did you even go home?” Alan asked as he slumped down into the chair opposite Gant’s desk.
    “Long enough to kiss my kids goodnight,” Gant said. “What about you? You look like you might have missed out on an hour or two of sleep yourself.”
    “More or less,” Alan said. “Nothing’s adding up. Do you know anything about an agent named Darrow?”
    “His name’s come up a time or two.”
    “I think he’s a spook. CIA maybe.”
    “You think the CIA is involved?”
    “He isn’t with the FBI, and when I inquired about what agency he worked for, he gave me the runaround. I don’t think they’re telling us everything they know either.”
    “You know what I think?”
    “What?”
    “I think there’s a time in a man’s life when things come down to the make-or-break point. Where the outcome of a situation doesn’t just cause a ripple in his life, but actually determines the course of his destiny. That’s what this thing feels like to me. Like the outcome of these cases is going to determine our fates. If we manage to solve them, we’re not going to get any praise for doing our jobs, but if we fuck it all up, it’ll probably lead to the systematic dismantling of the GCB. There are people out there that are of the mind that taxpayer dollars could be better spent elsewhere.”
    “Isn’t that always the case?”
    Gant nodded, kneading the creases in his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “It is. But I’ve spent enough time in this game that I’m reluctant to start over.”
    “You’re not a dinosaur yet,” Alan said, feeling a certain amount of sympathy for the man.
    “No. But I am a Neanderthal. A hairy guy who walks around with a club and grunts a lot. And when I swing my club, it doesn’t do as much damage as it used to.”
    “Sounds dramatic.”
    Gant laughed for a moment before becoming serious again. “You see many Neanderthals walking around lately?”
    “No.”
    “Yeah, know why? Because they went extinct.”

 

    Chapter 8
    Later that morning, Marvin Davis paid them a visit on the seventh floor. This was highly unusual. Marvin rarely left the confines of the crime lab. It was his comfort zone; his security blanket. The area that existed outside of it was considered hostile territory.
    When Marvin stepped out of the elevator onto the seventh floor, he looked like a scared animal that had suddenly been transported out of its natural habitat and into an environment much more dangerous.
    Marvin walked past the desks situated throughout the floor’s bullpen, making his way toward Alan’s office. His eyes darted back and forth, surveying this new landscape for potential threats. The agents seated at