Quantico, Virginia, December, 2077, Monday…

As leader of the FBI task group responsible for hate crimes, Caitlin Murphy had plenty of paper pushing responsibility that she tried to avoid as much as possible. The computer networking made it less paper than electronic, but the idea was the same. And the paperless office that was predicted at the end of the last century was far from being realized. People carried along their sophisticated PDAs with them everywhere, yet they often asked for a hardcopy of a forensics analysis or a wanted person's dossier. Even though she had a staff of junior agents to handle a lot of the more routine stuff, there was still plenty she had to contend with.

She had started the morning badly, still trying to shake off a bad Saturday night date. Her mood didn't improve after doing her mind-numbing bureaucratic chores for a full morning and most of the afternoon, along with several long distance phone calls, videomails, or e-mails. She was definitely getting antsy. She could only take so much of it.

She was dressed in her usual blue jeans, sweatshirt and sneakers. Her only real adornment was a pair of simple gold earrings. On her coat rack was a Navy surplus coat, now the rage among college students, but this one was old. Its purpose was to hide her shoulder holster as much as it was for the cold, although Quantico in December could be bitterly cold.

In an attempt to snap herself out of her ennui, she wandered down the corridor to Dan Summers' office, who had become the lead man working the Sandy Clark case. She found him pouring over the contents of the graduate student's office.

While he had the luxury of not being restricted to a simple cubicle like a junior agent, Dan's office was not much bigger than Sandy's office at GW. She was close enough to him that his old nostrils picked up the faint scent of her perfume.

Aha, the boss does have her feminine side after all! Then he felt guilty. He respected Caitlin Murphy, thought she was a good agent, and gave her no slack because she was a woman. Her feminine side was really none of his business, especially at his age.

But I'm not dead yet. Damn it, she's a lot prettier and a lot more intelligent than my third wife. Although he was still friendly with all his ex-wives, none of his marriages had been all that successful. It was an occupational hazard - many agents had a difficult time nurturing both a career and marriage.

"Asako and her crew already went through this," Caitlin told him. "You're probably wasting your time. The reports are all here." She waved her PDA.