Chapter 22
Amin sat back and looked at the computer. He shouldn't have done that, but he didn't like the implications he was getting from that person. Was Tim missing? Was he actually being forced to do something he didn't want to do?
"Xandra, have you seen anything about Tim McGee being missing?" he asked.
Xandra looked up, her brow furrowing.
"No. Should I have?"
"I don't know. Check it out, would you?"
Both Sams looked up from their work.
"What's going on Amin?" Sam asked.
"Nothing, I hope...but I'm afraid it might be something."
"What's the nothing that might be something?"
"Someone was talking about whether or not Tim McGee could be forced to do hacking."
"What?"
"Exactly what I said. I'm worried that this means something, that Tim might actually be missing."
"He is," Xandra said.
Sam and Amin turned to her.
"You already know?" Sam asked.
Xandra smiled wryly. "Wasn't hard to find out. There's been a lot of covert chatter about it. Guess who else is missing and probably taken by the same people."
"Who?"
"Bill Joyce."
Sam let out an incredulous chuckle. The other Sam swore in surprise.
"That's something pretty big for us not to know. Why weren't we told? Bill and Tim taken by the same people? That's huge!" she said.
"What's going on?" Lawrence asked.
"Tim McGee and Bill Joyce are missing," Amin said.
"Tim for about a week and a half. Bill for longer," Xandra added.
"Why weren't we told about this?" Sam asked.
"I don't know," Lawrence said. "It's news to me... very bad news."
"What are we going to do?" Xandra asked. "Can we really just stand aside and do nothing?"
"Is there anything we can do?" Lawrence asked. "Legitimately, can we do anything about it?"
"We can listen," Sam said. "There's got to be some kind of chatter about this beyond the government's chatter. This could drastically affect what we do. We need to know."
"Do it. See if there's anything to find."
"I'd like to see if I can find the person who was talking about him, first," Amin said. "There's got to be a reason why that particular question would be asked."
Lawrence considered it.
"Okay. Go for it."
Sam and Amin put aside their other work and started seeing if they could track down some information.
Their jobs would be that much harder to do if Tim and Bill were forced to work against them. Anything they could do to stop it would be worth it.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Ray wasn't sure how he felt about being asked to step back into something he had stepped out of years ago. He was officially dead in the eyes of pretty much everyone who mattered to him. In fact, he was currently living in a kind of unofficial witness protection, not that he was a witness to anything but his own actions. Going back to DC was stepping back into the life he had destroyed...or that had destroyed him.
He looked around the small apartment in which he lived. There were no photos, nothing to remind him of the life he'd lost. No family. No friends. No one at all. Certainly, it was better than he'd had before, but it still was empty. An empty life and no real way to fill it that he could see. However, he'd stopped drinking and he could mostly accept his actions. They still filled him with disgust at his choices but they didn't leave him drinking himself into a stupor anymore. Things were better. They just weren't good. Perhaps they'd never be.
He had been so sure that there was nothing anyone could have said to him that would entice him to go back to DC. He'd left all that behind and was focusing on trying to do something with his life that might expiate some of what he'd done. He hadn't figured out just what to do, but something meaningful. He had time to figure it out.
But if Tim needed his help, he had to give it. Tim had risked a lot to save him physically and emotionally, and even if Ray wasn't always sure he was glad he had survived the explosion in Yemen, he felt obligated to try to return the favor if he could.
That was why he was packing a bag and preparing to go back to the one place he desperately didn't want to go back to. ...or rather, he wanted to go back there but only if he could also go back in time and not do what he'd done. Since that wasn't possible, Ray didn't want to go, but he would.
It took very little time to make the arrangements.
He was back in DC by the evening.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Tamara watched as Levi lay down, once more exhausted by the work he was trying to do. Bri swore that he really was mostly sitting around, but it wasn't completely about the physical exertion. It was about the fact that he just couldn't do what he used to do, but for Tim McGee, he would keep trying to do it. He hadn't tried working all day since he'd been abducted, and he was finding that working as he was left him tired out.
She wanted to berate him for risking his health like this when he was fully aware that there were a lot of other people working on it, but she knew it wouldn't help. This wasn't even really about Tim. It was more about Levi himself. He would deny that, not out of dishonesty but out of unawareness. Tamara could see exactly what was happening. Tim wouldn't expect Levi to do this. He wouldn't be happy to know that Levi was running himself ragged trying to track him down.
But Levi wanted to repay to whatever extent was possible. He knew he owed a debt, an insurmountable debt, and his meticulous honesty required that he be focused on repaying what he owed, even though he also knew that he couldn't. The bar was set extremely high and, physically, Levi could barely get off the ground, but it didn't stop him from trying. Like an athlete trying to do the pole vault without a pole. He couldn't succeed, but he kept trying. So all she could do was try to keep him from going so far that he couldn't recover from it.
"Levi, do you need anything?"
Levi took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He looked at her and smiled.
"No...at least, nothing that anyone on this earth can give me. Just rest."
"All right."
Tamara started to leave the room, but then, to her surprise, Levi sat up and grabbed her hand.
"I take that back. There is one thing that I need."
Tamara smiled, knowing what was coming.
"What's that?"
"You."
"You have me...even when you're being absolutely infuriating."
"Good."
He lay back down and closed his eyes. In moments, he appeared to be asleep. Tamara smiled and sighed a little. Then, she leaned over and kissed him on the head. No, he wasn't the way he had been when they were younger. No, he'd never be that way, but he was better than he had been. She saw glimmers of his old self, and more than that, she saw what he felt. He wasn't effusive, but he'd never been that way, either. He was a private person in the best of circumstances, but now, he was letting her see how he felt and he was showing her how much he loved her. Their wedding had been very low-key, but she had heard the love in his words, even if no one else had.
With one last glance, she left him sleeping in their bedroom and went back out to the living room where Bri was sitting and reading.
"Thank you for coming, Bri. I really appreciate it, no matter how your father feels about it."
"I'm really not doing much beyond driving him around."
"No, you're a constant reminder of what he knows he needs to do. He knows why you're here. He knows why I asked you to come. So when he sees you, he remembers that he needs to slow down...whether he actually does it or not."
"I think you might be overestimating my influence, Mom," Bri said.
"I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit."
"He's doing too much, Mom. My being there isn't stopping it. He's focused on finding Tim McGee. Nothing else."
"That bothers you, doesn't it," Tamara said. She didn't really need an answer. She could see it.
Bri looked away and predictably didn't answer her mother's question.
"He would do it for you, too, you know."
"He didn't," Bri said, softly. "When I was in Yemen, he didn't. He brought Agent McGee along so that he didn't have to."
"No. He brought Tim along so that he could still save you when he knew he shouldn't."
"How could you know that, Mom? You weren't there. I know Dad doesn't talk about that stuff, especially not to you."
Tamara leaned over and took Bri by the shoulders, forcing her to make eye contact.
"Because of what he said to me when I marched into his office and demanded that he save you."
"What?"
"He said, and I quote, 'I will do the same for our daughter as I would for any one of my agents like her.' And he said it after intentionally aggravating me so I didn't notice those last two words. Like her. He had no other agents like you because only you are his daughter. And he would go much further for you than he would for any of his agents. He told me later that he knew I wouldn't notice it but that, for you, he would set aside his normal restrictions and do whatever it took to find you and get you out. Having Tim along just meant that he could do it without feeling guilty for it because he had someone else who would insist on it."
That made her uncomfortable, too, Tamara knew. What little she knew about what her daughter had done to Tim was bad enough. For Bri, knowing that Tim had been willing to risk his life for her was an added source of discomfort because she still didn't want the pain of admitting that she had been wrong, orders or not.
"Your father loves you, Brianna. He always has, but he hurt you deeply when he wouldn't show it. Things are getting better, but you need to realize that it's rare that you can put someone in one role with nothing else. Your father was willing to violate his own rules to save you, but he made sure he didn't have to."
"Because being honest is more important than anything else," Bri said, seizing on something she could still put up against what Tamara was saying.
Levi would hate what she was about to do, but Bri needed it. She needed to have some insight into why her father was the way he was. The complications of his family history made everything more difficult, not just for him but for all who came into contact with him.
"Bri, the reason your father never lies is because he's terrified that his lies will kill people."
"What?" Bri asked. "What are you talking about? Dad doesn't get scared, not about something like that."
"Yes, he does. When he was young, his mother showed him all of his family who had died in the Holocaust and she told him, more than once, that lying was what killed his family. Lying was what killed his father. Once, he lied to her, and she told him that he had done exactly what the Germans had done in killing his father. Lies killed his family. That is what he grew up knowing. Bri, your father doesn't lie because he promised his mother he wouldn't, because he always has felt that the worst thing he could ever do is lie. Lying is something that scares him, although he probably wouldn't say it that way. He told me one lie in all the time I've known him and the only reason he did it was because he thought it was going to save me."
Bri was silent, but in a different way. She was shocked.
"You don't understand everything that drives your father. Some of that is his fault because he won't say it, won't explain himself, but some of it, probably most of it, is simply that you are unwilling to give him a real chance. You don't want to try to understand. You want it handed to you or it's not worth knowing. Understanding your father is going to take time, and you have to be willing to hear some hard things. I love you, Bri, and I always will, but you need to open up your mind and accept that you don't know everything. You still have a lot to learn, not just about your father, but about life, and you have time, but it's not infinite. You'll run out eventually and you'll regret it if you never tried to learn."
Tamara left her sitting in silence, knowing that this might not have been enough but maybe it had been a revelation shocking enough to get her to start thinking.
There was a knock on the door that surprised her. Quickly she walked over, checking to see if she knew who it was. She didn't. She was quite sure that she'd never seen this man before, but he looked harmless enough.
She opened the door cautiously.
"Yes? Can I help you?"
The man smiled, although he didn't look happy at all.
"Hello, I understand that Levi Carew lives here. I need to speak with him if it's possible."
"He's asleep."
"I understand. This is going to sound strange since I know you have no idea who I am, but could I possibly stay the night?"
"Could you say who you are, first?"
"Ray Cruz."
That hadn't come from the man on her doorstep.
Tamara turned around and saw Bri, looking more than a little surprised.
Ray smiled.
"I didn't expect to see you here. What name are you going by now, Lauren?"
"Just Brianna. I left the CIA. What are you doing here?"
"I was asked to come back. By your father."
"You know him, Bri?" Tamara asked.
"He was in Yemen. He was my contact."
"For all the good it did," he said.
"Levi is expecting you?" Tamara asked.
"Probably not here, but it is his fault I'm back in DC."
Tamara smiled at the wry statement.
"I'm sure a lot of people feel that way. Well, please, come inside. Unless it's urgent, I don't want to disturb Levi. He gets tired far too easily now."
Ray nodded and stepped inside.
"I don't need to talk to him right this instant. I just got in tonight and I haven't had a chance to figure out where I'm going. If I could crash here tonight, that would be helpful."
Tamara glanced at Bri and there was no warning or caution in her expression so Tamara nodded.
"Bri will you show Mr. Cruz..."
"Just Ray."
"...Ray the extra room? There are a few boxes in there, but there is a bed that you can certainly sleep on."
"Thank you. I appreciate it."
Bri took him back and Tamara closed the door. This was an unexpected development.
Yet another person who had an ambivalent relationship with her husband. Tamara was beginning to think there was no end to them.
Hopefully, she'd find the numbers thinning out, but if he was here to help find Tim, then, she was happy to have him here.
Anything to make it easier and faster.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Curtis Jacobs was awake long into the night. He knew that Tim would wake up again, that he was barely sleeping, but at the moment, he was asleep. It was definitely starting to affect him, and Curtis was getting to see exactly what he had failed to protect Tim from. He felt terribly guilty about it. If it had just been about his own life, he would have been more than willing to sacrifice himself. But Lia was an innocent, and he just couldn't bear standing aside and letting them murder his wife.
But now, he was seeing just how serious this was. He knew that some of the CIA agents assigned to guard Tim never really understood how much it truly mattered. Some even complained about the assignment although they still did their best, of course.
If I get out of this, I'll shut that down if I can, he thought.
Tim deserved all the protection he could get. He knew things which was why people wanted to control him, but it was more than that. He was a good man and there weren't too many of those kinds of people around. Looking at Bill Joyce, Curtis knew that there was no relying on him in a pinch. He'd save himself before anyone else, but for now, he was useful and certainly, there was no reason to leave him behind.
Tim sat up again in the dark with a shaking breath, obviously trying to stay quiet. He got up in the darkness and walked over to the window where he sat down, looking out at the open yard.
Curtis had found the weakness in their prison the first day although he'd tried not to show it, just in case this smartdust stuff was actually real. He knew very little about it. It was need-to-know and, before all this, he hadn't needed to know.
He wished he knew now.
Regardless, the bars on the window looked strong, but they weren't actually set in the concrete. His father would be proud to know that his son was using his growing-up years to help him in his job now. Curtis had helped with more home renovations than he could count, including the ongoing renovation of his family's own home. He recognized shoddy work when he saw it. The bars might be strong, but the concrete wasn't set right, and it had been a rushed, sloppy job. It would take a little bit of time, but Curtis knew that he could get those bars out. It might take two minutes but not much more. However, there'd be no point in doing so unless they had outside help. If Tim had really managed to do that, then, they definitely had a chance.
If...
But no matter what else, only his own life was on the line now, and Curtis promised himself that he would get Tim out of this, even if it did require his own life. He didn't want to die, but he would to do the job he'd failed at before. He would do better.
As he lay there, silently watching Tim as he sat against the window, Curtis made Tim a promise, although he didn't say it out loud.
You're getting out of here. I'll make sure that you get out of here alive. No matter what it takes.