Chapter 29 –
Garcia sat in her office, her fingers poised over the keyboard but then she took a deep breath, pushed her red framed glasses up the bridge of her nose and started to type away furiously. Knowing that her first task was to concentrate on Jack Vauxhall she gained access to the visitor logs of the Polunsky Unit but was unsurprised to see that the only person that had visited him in the last six months had been his lawyer, sporadic visits to start with but increasing to three a week in the last month. Without a break in her momentum Garcia highlighted the lawyer's name, Chris Petersen, and focused her search on a new monitor and tried to find out more about his background. In a matter of minutes Garcia had an array of information, from the fact that he moved to the country 18 years ago, having been born on an American Base in Germany he had been educated in Germany before attending university in England he then landed a job at the American Embassy in Berlin. Garcia felt her heart pump a little faster as she read the information, it didn't take her long to find out that Chris Petersen had been working in the embassy at the same time as Emily's mother. Immediately her fingers had frozen, resting on the A, E, F, I, L, R keys, her mouth dry as she struggled to think about what her next move was going to be. All of a sudden another window opened up on her screen, Garcia had temporarily forgotten that she had requested Chris Petersen's phone records, blinking her eyes she regained her focus and ran a trace on the numbers for the last three days, Garcia bit down hard on her pen as she waited for her 'babies' to carry out their task. Hearing the beep that announced that the results were back, she almost wanted to walk out, not wanting to know what had been returned, but she also knew that she had to know in order to help the team.
"Oh no! Who is going to want to know this?"
Garcia cried out, putting her hand up to her mouth as she read that Chris Petersen had phoned Ambassador Prentiss four times in the last three days, the phone calls lasting from 30 seconds to 14 minutes. This is what she had been dreading, and now she didn't know what to do with the information.
JJ kept one arm around Emily's waist as she smiled at her friend, moving the free hand up to brush the tears away from Emily's cheeks.
"She really squeezed your hand?"
Emily sat up slightly as JJ nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes! The doctor is in there now just checking her over."
Emily tilted her head back to rest against the cold concrete wall as she took the information in, she puffed out her cheeks fully before letting out an extremely large sigh of relief.
"Oh god, thank you so much Jen, for being there with her."
JJ stood up and reached her hands down, capturing Emily's fingers she helped her friend stand up before JJ gently placed her soft palms onto Emily's shoulders, smiling once again as she spoke.
"No problem Em."
JJ let her hands drop as Emily nodded silently in reply, her heart pounding hard and fast as they left the bathroom and headed back towards Natasha's hospital room.
Garcia pushed her chair back and stood up, muttering nonsensical things under her breath as she paced around the dimly lit office, she knew that the tears were welling up in her eyes as she tried to process what she had just discovered. It had only been four minutes since she had found out the link between Petersen and the Ambassador but why they were connected she didn't know, and to be honest with herself she wasn't sure that she wanted to know either. All of her natural instincts were telling her to call one of the team but she knew that they were all busy, her boys would now be at the prison without their cell phones and the others were at the hospital and there was no way she was going to burden them with this on top of what they were already dealing with.
"I can't believe I am even thinking about this!"
Garcia paced once again around her office as she spoke out loud, what she was contemplating went against all of her rational thinking but this was an unusual situation and needed some bizarre decisions as Garcia walked out of her office and up towards the domain of the person that in private she referred to as the she-devil.
"Technical Analyst Garcia, what can I do for you?"
"Uh ma'am?"
"Please come in and shut the door."
Garcia felt her cheeks flush as she walked in the office of Erin Strauss, nervously she walked over to the desk as the older woman took her glasses off and leaned back in her chair, gesturing for Garcia to take a seat.
"How can I help you Penelope?"
Garcia shifted uncomfortably in her seat, she sat up straight and looked down at her hands, feeling that she was in the office of a high school principal and that she had been caught cheating on an exam.
"I was looking into the records of James Vauxhall's lawyer, a man called Chris Petersen. He was born in Germany but on an American base so is an American citizen."
The words flew out rapidly of Garcia's mouth as she stopped to take a breath, looking over she saw Strauss nod for her to continue.
"The lawyer has placed four calls to Ambassador Prentiss in the last three days, one of which lasted for 14 minutes."
Garcia sucked her bottom lip as she finished, not knowing whether or not she had done the right thing in letting Strauss in on the information, but at that point she didn't know what else to do. She watched as Strauss sat up and pursed her lips, sensing the tension the other woman was feeling Garcia swallowed hard.
"Thank you Garcia, I'll deal with this there is no need to worry the rest of the team unnecessarily. I'll go and speak with the Ambassador."
"Ok ma'am."
Garcia quickly stood up and walked out of the intimidating office, glad that Strauss was going to go and speak with the Ambassador she also knew that there was no way that she wasn't going to keep that piece of information from the team.
