Thursday, January 24, 2013

Operation Freelance Part 4

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Charlotte eased herself though the opening and assessed the room.  Across the room, along the same wall as the door was on, she saw what looked like the agent.  He was sitting on the floor, with his knees drawn up to his chest.  His arms, bound at the wrists were resting on his knees.  He had his head leaned back against the wall and his eyes were closed.  As far as Charlotte could tell, he was either asleep or he didn’t hear her open the door.  Either that or he was pretending that he was asleep or didn’t hear her open the door.  The only other thing in the room was a metal pail in the corner opposite the agent; she guessed it was for sanitary purposes. 

As she approached him she did her best to ignore the smell.  It was clear that he had been there for a while.  She could tell from his breathing that he wasn’t asleep, so she stopped a few feet away from him and slid down against the wall, mimicking his pose.  “I’ll go first.  My name is Charlotte Grace Harper, from The Firm, and you I presume are Adam Quinn, MI5.  Would you like to settle a bet for me?”

“Bet?”  He managed to croak out with a hoarse voice, still not opening his eyes.

“Oh yes.  You see, we were sent here to extract an agent who got himself caught.  However, some of us think that maybe you wanted to be caught and the reason you are still here is that you require a little bit of assistance.”  Charlotte turned her head to gauge his reaction.

The agent shook his head and an ironic smile came across his face.  “You are correct,” he said staring straight ahead, “on half of your guesses.  I am Adam Quinn and I did intend to get caught.  However I am not here on MI5 business which is why I’m stuck here in kind of a bit of a bind with no back up.” 

Charlotte could hear the desperation in his voice.  She removed her night-vision goggles, and let her eyes adjust to the extremely low light.  She then got up, and crouched down facing him placing her hands on his shoulders.  It took him a couple of seconds to make eye contact with her.  When he did she held it for a few seconds before continuing.  “What help do you need?” 

            He stared at her for a bit, looking as if he was contemplating whether or not he could trust her.  “I came looking for an MI5 agent who has been taken by this group.”  Adam started to let the story flow.  “She isn’t a field agent, she does research and trend analysis and collects data.  She’s a really sweet woman and an asset to the agency.” 

            Charlotte unhooked her water bottle from her hip and offered it to Adam.  He took a couple of sips gratefully and continued.  “Well, she got on the trail of a Turkish arms dealer, and somehow, I guess they caught on.  The agency has known for a while that there’s been a mole, but nothing like this has happened before.  She went missing and because there was no evidence of wrong doing there wasn’t going to be an operation.  So I made the stupid decision of going after her without much of a plan and without backup.”

            “There’s evidence of at least one other prisoner in the building. “ Jayme informed the team.

            “I’ll check it out.”  Jack replied quickly.

            “So is everyone in agreement then?”  Malcolm asked.

            “I’m with the group on this one.”  Tony responded.

            Charlotte smiled and squeezed Adam’s shoulders reassuringly.  “We’ll help you get your agent back.”

            A look of relief flashed across Adam’s face and he lowered his head as if all the energy had left his body.  “Thank you.”  He whispered.

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