"Are you ready?" Eyal asked.
"Yeah," Annie answered. She had physically paled over the last few minutes, but she still looked determined. They were currently seated at a small table a few blocks away from Jonathan Atwater's home. They'd left their car in a parking garage a few miles away and had taken a taxi to the small cafe. It wouldn't do them any good if someone discovered their car so close.
"Let's go," Eyal said nodding curtly his mind only on the mission before them. It was two in the afternoon, still hours before Atwater would return home, but it was the best time for them to slip into the house unnoticed.
They walked in silence along the quiet street. It may have been midday, but the street was nearly deserted.
They walked, first, past Atwater's home not giving it a second glance. At the end of the block, they slipped quickly around a corner and into the alley that ran directly behind the house. There was a shed in back and a waist high shrub running along the length of the property.
Eyal slipped easily through a break in the foliage near the wall of the shed, tugging Annie behind him. They crept noiselessly across the small back yard of grass that had begun to fade to brown in the crisp fall temperatures.
A large, well cared for deck was attached to the house via a set of French doors. On one end of the deck sat a stainless steel barbecue grill and a forlorn looking picnic table that both looked like they hadn't been used in at least a couple of months. Eyal leapt up the steps with Annie close behind.
From his jeans pocket, he slid two slim pieces of metal. Lock picking tools that he'd found among a handful of other items Auggie had left for them the previous morning. He flicked Annie a look before crouching down to focus his attention on quickly opening the door's lock. Eyal knew without looking that Annie had turned, positioning her back to the doors so that she could keep an eye on the rest of the back yard, allowing him to put all his thought into unlocking the door.
It only took a few seconds until the lock gave a faint click.
Eyal straightened up and turned the door's knob, slipping in quickly with Annie close behind him. Inside, he scanned the room... A kitchen. Directly in front of them sat a dining table half covered in piles of papers. To the left was a long counter and set of cupboards that wrapped around the room. It was there, on the wall above the counter next to the doors, that he spotted the small security pad.
Annie swore softly under her breath as he flipped up the plastic cover revealing the numbered keypad within.
Eyal quickly tapped out the sequence of numbers that he'd received earlier that morning via text message. "I've got it under control, Neshama," he said flashing Annie a satisfied grin and hoping to lighten the air around them. He feared that her emotions were interfering with her clarity. In a situation like this, if her emotions were ruling her too much, it could get them both killed.
A small smile spread over her lips. "How did you know?" Annie asked curiously.
Eyal shrugged, flipping the cover back down over the keypad. "There's a little sign in the front yard that announces the house is protected by DC Security. I noticed it yesterday. I met a woman a few years ago that, given enough time, can get the security code for nearly anything."
"We'll done, Mr. Bond," she quipped, her smile widening ever so slightly.
His heart leapt at the sight of her genuine smile. He quickly suppressed his emotions, though, reminding himself that he needed to take extra care to keep in control.
Annie curiously picked up a stack of papers that Eyal had noticed on the kitchen table when they'd slipped through the door. The corners of her mouth turned down as she began flipping through the pages. He watched quietly leaning against the counter as she finished scanning the first stack, let it fall back onto the table, and picked up the next stack.
"Find anything interesting?" he asked, his arms folded across his chest.
"No," she answered not looking up. "It's mostly just bills and other every day normal paperwork." She dropped the second stack of paper back onto the table before rubbing her fingertips back and forth over her temple.
"Were you hoping to?"
Annie cocked her head to the side and looked up into Eyal's eyes. "I..." she began to answer. He could see the frustration clearly written across her face. "I don't know," she said finally. "All we have is speculation. I just want to have something concrete... Something tangible that I can hold between my fingers."
Eyal thought for a moment before nodding. "Okay," he said pushing himself away from the counter, "but I doubt Atwater would have left anything incriminating just sitting here in the kitchen." His eyes flicked to a long hallway off of the kitchen. Annie smiled in realization of what he was suggesting.
"Office," she said under her breath and making her way down the hall, Eyal close behind.
At the third door Annie tried, she found a spacious office. Immediately she made her way to a large oak desk and began tugging at the drawers. Eyal stood in the doorway for a few moments, watching her, before turning his attention to the rest of the room.
He scanned the room first with his eyes and then began making his way along the perimeter searching for anything that might seem out of place. He walked past an oil painting before turning back to it. Something was slightly off. There were two other paintings on the wall with similar frames but for some reason the painting he was looking at stuck out from the wall just a little too much.
Eyal heard Annie curse under her breath as he lifted the painting.
"What's wrong?" he asked, frowning at the empty wall.
"One of these drawers... It's locked and I can't find a key over here," Annie said finally.
Eyal flipped over the painting he was holding and studied the frame. He ran his fingers along the inside edge curiously. As he passed over the smooth wood, his fingers brushed a small piece of metal that dislodged itself from the frame and fell to the floor. Eyal knelt down and picked the shining item with a smile and turned to Annie. "Maybe this will help," he said tossing the little silver key through the air.
"You're just full of surprises," she said as he joined her at the desk. Annie leaned down and quickly unlocked one of the bottom drawers. She tugged on the drawer, opening it to reveal...nothing.
She slammed the drawer shut and sighed.
Eyal laid his hand on her shoulder squeezing it lightly. "It was a long shot."
"I know," was all she said before leaving the office. In the hallway, Eyal stopped and gripped her arm, effectively stopping Annie in her tracks. "What?" she asked.
He raised a finger to his lips and he heard it again, the unmistakable whir of the garage door. Eyal glanced at his watch and his eyes widened in momentary panic. Atwater was supposed to still be at the office. Auggie had checked with the deputy director's secretary that morning and sent them a message.
He rushed into the living room as a key rattled in the front door lock. He cursed himself silently. Eyal had thought they would have more time to get themselves into position. Now they would have to improvise.
He pulled Annie to the wall beside him and held his breath. They were going to have to take Atwater down quickly and quietly before he was able to call for help or reach for a weapon. Although the CIA didn't normally carry guns, Eyal was sure Atwater was expecting Annie to come after him.
Eyal held his breath as the door opened and Atwater stepped through. Eyal latched onto the other man's wrist and wrenched his arm back while at the same time snaking his other arm around Atwater's throat. In the same moment, Annie slipped behind both men quickly closing and locking the front door.
Atwater clawed at Eyal's arm with his free hand, tearing at the fabric. Eyal tightened his hold around the other man's throat until Atwater's hand loosened and Annie moved in closer to search for a weapon. A moment later she stepped back, a 9mm glock in one hand and what he could only assume was Atwater's cell phone in her other hand.
Eyal half drug Atwater across the room and deposited him into an arm chair next to the sofa. Annie stood next to Eyal, the gun in her hand trained on the center of Atwater's furrowed brow as he rubbed a hand over his throat.
"I knew you would show up sooner or later," Atwater coughed and then hissed through clenched teeth.
Annie's eyes formed tiny slits and her lips pinched together. "Well, you sure did a terrible job of protecting yourself from me."
"Really?" Atwater asked smiling.
"You are a bastard," she hissed. "I never did any of those those things. It was you, all along. Everything. It was you who was working with the Rubio brothers laundering money and funding terrorist groups."
"Let me guess, Ms. Walker. You want to know why I chose you." Annie didn't move, her expression stone. "You're no longer useful to me." Atwater hesitated for a moment, settling into the armchair. "When I looked into you when you took this deep cover assignment I saw a woman who was already having her own problems with the agency. You're evaluations are very interesting, Ms. Walker. Before this assignment you were on your way out because of your...relationships with traitors and foreign spies."
Atwater glanced at Eyal with a smug smile that made his blood boil.
"Funny," she hissed, her anger thick in the air.
Eyal frowned. Annie was loosing her control.
"Ms. Walker to be completely honest, I don't care one way or another of your innocence. The truth is, I have enough information to easily paint you as the traitor and put you away for the rest of your life. And conspiring with an ex-Mossad agent," he said tipping his chin at Eyal, "well that just makes you seem even more guilty." A sinister smile crept over Jonathan Atwater's lips. "The American government will believe they have their traitor and I can retire saddened that something like this could happen under my watch."
Annie snapped. She balled her fist and swung wildly, clenching her jaw. Eyal tried to stop her but he wasn't fast enough. He heard the crunch of Atwater's nose as her fist made contact. A moment later a trickle of bright red blood dropped onto upper lip.
"Bitch," the man muttered.
Eyal laid his hand on Annie's arm before she could launch herself at him again. He had a feeling that beating the man to a pulp wouldn't help her situation in the least. If he would have thought it would've helped he would have done the job himself the moment Atwater walked through the front door. Instead, the ringing of Atwater's cell phone in Annie's hand startled them both.
"That's my security team. You might want to let me answer that," Atwater said, the smile returning to his face.
Annie looked down at the phone for a moment before stretching her arm out to hand it back to Atwater. "He's right," she said to Eyal. "If he doesn't answer, his security team will be in here in minutes."
Atwater answered the ringing phone. "Alpha bravo zulu one eight nine five."
Annie whirled on Atwater and cursed loudly as she torn the phone from his fingers. She threw it against the opposite wall where it broke into pieces. "Duress code," she breathed, her eyes wide and frantic. Annie turned to Eyal. "They'll be here in minutes. You have to go. They don't want you."
Eyal caught Annie's wrist and looked her directly in her eyes. "I'm not leaving. I won't ever leave you."
A moment out of the corner of his eye caught Eyal's attention. Atwater sprang from his seat and ran toward the kitchen. Eyal spun quickly and released his hold on Annie. He launched himself at Atwater and tackled the other man to the floor. Eyal struggled, trying to hold Atwater to the ground, when suddenly it seemed like all the glass in the house shattered and everything went bright white.