d a bit of makeup, then she changed clothes and
rechecked herself.
Judging her appearance normal enough, Mandi removed the flattened soft drink
can that had kept the roof door from latching and headed down to the
forty-second floor.
She cracked the stairwell door slightly and saw that a few people were
waiting for the elevator across the hall. Two minutes later, they were gone and
the hall was empty. Mandi stepped out, took the elevator to the fourth floor,
and headed for the room that had been issued to her for the mission.
Frank Stearns of the NIA stepped out of room 423 and a big grin formed on
his face when he saw Mandi. Mandi, on the other hand, sighed and thought, 'Oh,
damn.'
Stearns wasn't as bad as some men. He genuinely didn't seem have any
reservations about working with women, for instance. He did, however, have an
overbearing personality and seemed to view himself as every woman's dream come
true.
He also seemed to have an unyielding curiosity about Mandi, which was
actually quite understandable. When Gary had added her to the operation roster,
he'd waited until the last possible minute to do so, dropping her in as a
standalone with little or no explanation to anyone.
Mandi didn't 'liaison' with the teams or team leaders. She hadn't attended
even one of the briefings and her introduction had been so brief and
uninformative that some of the team honchos -- leery of working with unknowns --
had been more than a little pissed at the time.
While she was pleasant enough when someone happened to encounter her, she
didn't work or socialize with people from any of the teams. For the most part --
even if they weren't exactly accepting of the terms -- everybody seemed to get
used to the arrangement, but not Frank Stearns.
His inability to find out anything at all about Mandi through channels
seemed to bug the hell out of him. When official queries failed, he'd resorted
to overt friendliness, inviting her to lunches, dinners, and even a party, and
he seemed to take her continuous refusals as some sort of personal challenge.
"Well, hi, there, gorgeous!" said Stearns. "I'm about to go get a late
lunch. Care to join me?"
Returning his grin with a small, polite smile, Mandi said, "Thanks anyway."
"It's just a lunch, Mandi. I don't like to eat alone."
"Sorry, Frank. Get somebody else."
Turning to watch her walk past, Stearns asked, "Well, how about