Page 121 of Chaos has a Name
“Ethan and Callen are going to be running interference with the Native Council. So, use your best behaviors,” she admitted. “Or you will be off this team, and busted down to mop cleaner. See if I’m kidding. I chase big-time killers, so I need big-time techs.”
Benjamin reassured her.
“Everyone in here graduated with well over a four-point-oh. We’re the smartest people on the team.”
Uh-oh.
Chris knew what was coming.
What was it about this side of the country that always got his wife spicy? Every time someone inferred that she was‘dumb’or‘was given her job’,she busted balls.
HARD.
Even Tony gasped and stepped back to give the man space to bleed.
Metaphorically.
Benjamin was going to need some ice when this conversation was over. Implying that he and the techs were smarter than her…
Someone needed a‘come to Jesus talk’.
Moving toward him, she stood toe-to-toe with the man, and laid down the law.
“Son, you’re not the only one with multiple degrees. You’re also not the smartest one here, or you would have read the room. See how no one else is making themselves a target in the pack? That’s intelligence. Don’t make problems by assuming that I can’t and won’t chew you up, spit you out, and put you in the unemployment line faster than you can spell Lucifer. I get real mean, and when I do, blood won’t only be on the crime scene. Do I make myself clear?”
He stepped back so she took that as an answer.
Elizabeth pointed at the men there she rode with, and called husbands.
“Doctor Blackhawk is highly intelligent, and plays in the minds of crazies, and Doctor Leonard has about seventy-five letters after his name, along with being the gold standard in Forensic Science. Don’t go there.”
The man swallowed.
It was clear no one ever dressed him down before because he looked scared.
“You’re forgetting who I am. I runthe Violent Crimes Unitbecause I’m batshit insane. I’m the Deputy Directorbecause I’ve seen some shit. When you reach thirty, come talk to me about intelligence. Because it’s far from smart to wear a bullseye on your back from your boss on the first day. I will bust you down to autopsy table cleaner and you won’t ever forget my name. We’re a team here. There is no freaking‘I’in team, Benjamin. Got it?”
She turned, and left him speechless.
Now, she was done.
Elizabeth had more work today than should be legal.
“Everyone into the vans. We’re meeting the Chief of Police out front to follow her to the scene. Callen and Ethan, let me know how it goes. Let’s go,” she said, walking toward her blacked-out ride with Uriel and Ivan flanking her.
Gryphen stayed with the two men.
When she was out of earshot, that was when Chris sighed.
“Benjamin, you need to learn to read a room. She’s not the one to poke,” he admitted. “She’s going to be your biggest cheerleader, or your biggest obstacle. Choose better, or she will have me drop you from this team.”
He could see that.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I guess that came across kind of rude. I meant more that all of the techs here were the smartest of the FBI techs.”
Chris patted him on the back.
Yeah, that wasn’t accurate either.
