Time for Rita to enter the story and not in a good way.
Within an hour, she was on her way to the consulate, while a second team made short work of the truck. Three hours later, she had been poked by a doctor, consumed a scrumptious meal, and was about to relax in a tub of fragrant bubbles with a huge glass of red wine at the ready. Her time in the hellhole had left her with a lingering rancid aroma that needed to be expunged if those bitter memories were ever to be erased.
At breakfast the next morning, she was informed that a de-briefer was en route and should arrive in a day or two. With AC, a fluffy bed, and the promise of a regular meals, she was not complaining. She thought the mission report was quite simple. A leak had tipped off her mark. He chose to take offensive action during her hasty retreat. Her value was then monetized to a local fight club where she fought well enough to persevere until a lucky lapse created an opportunity.
When the agency de-briefer arrived, she seemed only vaguely interested in her tale until Kate asked why there was no rescue attempt. That's when things got a bit testy. Unfortunately, the fight venue and the hellhole were surrounded by sympathetic locals. Any insertion of a rescue team would not go unnoticed and lead to an unpredictable outcome. Kate wondered if anyone had spoken up about the very real toll on the captive. To her, these guys only had her back if it was easy. If there was a risk of blow back, they saw all sorts of impediments. Towards the end of the day, the de-briefer sought an honest assessment of her state of mind after the events in the truck. Kate responded that the place was no summer camp. She was a hostage and had no qualms about using lethal force to escape.
Unbeknownst to both, Rita had taken a special interest ever since her capture was confirmed. Within hours the agency knew that the mission mark was behind the abduction. When rescue plans were proposed, she blocked every iteration. Many guessed her former family connection made her overly cautious. The truth was far more complex. Rita's initial recruitment of Kate was unusual because Kate actually broached the subject first. Well, that wasn't quite the whole story. Much earlier, Jackson had written wistfully about her potential as an agency operative. When her break from Castle was confirmed, consideration began anew only to be rendered moot by Kate's unexpected overture.
Reports from the abduction scene told her that Kate didn't go without a fight. The agency game theorist developed two possible scenarios depending on what motivated her captor. If it was all about revenge, torture and hopefully a quick death were probable. If it was about greed, ugly servitude, probably to the highest bidder, was the most likely outcome. Rita dismissed the first option because the mark had suffered no real harm. Instead, she asked for a local perspective of who might bid for her. It was an astute question as locals suggested fight clubs would be the most likely. Groups of females indebted to these organizations for all sorts of tragedies were popping up and filling a lucrative entertainment niche.
For Rita, a couple months under those harsh conditions might be a desirable outcome. With a small subsidy, the club could offer the best price, break her hesitancy issue, and return her relatively unscathed without Kate ever being the wiser. Most would consider these considerations callous, but not Rita. She was focused on the success of this new unit, and providence had provided an opportunity to fix an otherwise competent operative. Rita quickly decided the pain was worth the gain, and local intermediaries found a club willing to cooperate.
When Kate arrived back in New York, she found that the agency had made it look like she was on an extended vacation. Her super even reported that he had seen her leave with a full set of luggage. With more than a month to get her life in order, she started to resume her normal activities of regular exercise and frequent trips to the fight club. Some of the regulars tried to taunt her back into the ring, but she resisted any renewal of those encounters.
When she returned home one afternoon in the second week, she was not surprised to find Rita waiting. The woman loved locks. She began by saying, "I have read your report on your time away from us. You seem to have persevered quite well under the circumstances."
"I had no choice. Do your part or get punished. Truth be told, I got to like the spectacle and adulation of the fans. Those fights weren't fake. It is a real competition where you match stamina, strength, and skill. In my time back, I have even visited an underground club upstate. I enjoyed it. Our job offers precious little of that."
Rita was caught totally off guard by Kate's frank assessment and said, "That is an extremely selfish outlook. What good are you doing by indulging your desire for personal adulation? Our mission is serious work. What you are suggesting is beyond frivolous. You are here to accomplish better things than playing to the baser instincts of the crowd."
Kate responded, "Our work has left me alone, cynical, and skilled at doing heinous acts. Not exactly the kind of of life anyone aspires to. How did you and Jackson handle the bleakness? The truth is we are perhaps effective at the margins. The threats, as you call them, never seem to abate."
Rita was perplexed about how to respond to this assessment. Kate was a good agent because they had aligned the agency missions with Kate's strong sense of justice for others. The raw talent Jackson recognized many years ago had been molded into an effective asset. Yes it was a thankless job, but the potential harm reduction was well worth the sacrifices of the few. Unsure how to proceed, Rita went into the usual patriotic diatribe hoping to hit a responsive chord. This was not a new condition. It even had a name - Agent Angst. Very few remained field agents for years like her deceased husband. When Rita left, she knew Kate's skepticism was tamped down, but certainly not resolved.
During the week before Kate's leave ended, Rita requested to be informed when her status changed from red to green. The call came a day later, and her handler reported nothing unusual except a desire for a full brief on the geek crew doing the advance work. This was not customary, but not unprecedented. The mission went off without a hitch. The bugs inside recorded no hesitation gaps in her attack. It was by all accounts a textbook mission where Kate was now fully living up to her potential Jackson. The excellent report prompted Rita to keep her very busy. The idea was to feed her sense of justice hoping it would allay those early seeds of doubt.
Her sixth target was located outside Milan, and she was in a holding pattern because the geeks were still assessing who the target actually was. She was a ransomware developer, and the plan was to make her digits far less nimble for a long time to come. Kate welcomed the respite and used it to sharpen her skills by spending additional sessions at the fight club. At the club she had unexpectedly fallen into a pattern of meeting Karl for shared training routines. He was former military and not bad on the eyes.
Their first hookup was both spontaneous and very pleasurable. After an agency vetting, the plan, Castle conjured, led her to initiate a similar arrangement at a nearby rather shabby hotel. Once again, the proprietress was glad to oblige for a nominal fee paid in cash. Jason, her only sex buddy since Castle, had taught her that the accommodations had little to do with the pleasures to come. In fact, more often than not, she opted to switch off the room AC and silently appreciate the confluence of their carnal sweat. Lying next to a resting Karl, she pondered her vastly contrasting experiences with the ubiquitous sheen. Right now, it was part of the afterglow of satisfying sex; on the Island, it was a taxing unrelenting irritant that made everything harder.
Her new relationship demonstrated just how much her views on men had changed. Her one-and-done days were now a distant memory. Relationships were about fun, and fun, by definition, included rewarding sex. In the long view of her sex life, Castle would always be at the top because of the deep emotional connection they shared. However, if the only criteria was just raw sex, Jason would be on the top because of his staying power and salacious disdain for her being fully dressed in public. At first she was a reluctant exhibitionist, but that soon changed. She took great perverse pleasure discerning when and what others did once they caught on to her deliberately incomplete attire.