Four hours and a minor surgery later, Beth sat in Lee's office, wearing a military issue sleeveless undershirt and a pair of hospital scrubs. Her right shoulder was stitched up, and the arm rested in a sling. Lee had momentarily stepped out of the office, and Amanda was sitting next to Beth, listening to her story for the third time. Both women jumped as Dr. Smyth burst into the office.
"Damn it, Elizabeth! What were you thinking?" he shouted as he knelt beside the girl, inspecting her shoulder.
"I was thinking Uncle Austin is going to kill me!" she smiled as she tried to calm her uncle down. "I'm sorry I missed our lunch date."
"Elizabeth ..." he began.
She looked up at the man. It had been almost a month since she'd seen him last. Things had been "a three-ring circus" at work, according to her uncle, and he just hadn't been able to get out to see her. He stared down at her with a concern-etched face.
He sighed. "Let's get you home, and we'll talk the whole thing out. I assume you've already been debriefed?"
"Yes, sir," she answered. He helped her out of the chair and they walked through the bullpen. Neither noticed that the entire building had come to a standstill.
Amanda was completely dumbstruck. Had Dr. Smyth just walked into Lee's office and addressed Elizabeth by name? Had he shown genuine concern? Had Elizabeth just called him 'Uncle Austin'? She shook her head in disbelief while replaying the scene in her head. Her tall husband stood in the doorway laughing at her.
"Well, the good news is Smyth isn't going to fire me for sending his niece on a drop her second day of training," Lee smiled, resting his hands on Amanda's shoulders.
"And the bad news?"
"The agent Elizabeth was supposed to deliver to turned up dead this morning in the train station men's room. Elizabeth gave the information to a boy in her history class that she happened to bump into at the station. She swears up and down that she can trust him. She says she had a 'gut feeling' about him," Lee continued.
"A gut feeling, huh?" Amanda smiled, looking up at her husband.
"I just hope she was right about this kid," he sighed, sitting down at his desk. "She says she'll be able to find him on campus later tonight or in class tomorrow."
Jamie wiped his mouth after throwing up for the third time. He didn't know what to think. Elizabeth had given him this mysterious envelope and kissed him, and then disappeared onto the train. He heard the shot and instead of going to rescue her, he'd jumped into Ben's car and floored it. Now he didn't know if she was dead or alive, and if the envelope he was staring at could end up getting him killed.
He couldn't decide whether he should call Lee or not. This didn't sound anything at all like something that would happen at IFF. Everything was always so professional and running so smoothly. If this was IFF, something had gone terribly wrong. If this was IFF, this meant Elizabeth was a spy. Jamie's stomach began to churn again and he leaned his head over the toilet bowl for the fourth time.
Austin Smyth looked about as awkward as he felt behind the steering wheel of Beth's car. It had been years since he'd driven. Something told him taking the limousine to her apartment would be too impersonal. He had assisted her into the car and then taken the wheel.
They drove in silence, Beth staring out the window lost in her thoughts. After this incident, she was certain Austin would change his mind about her job. She kicked herself inwardly for pulling the stunt she had accomplished that morning. Giving the envelope to a civilian! Not to mention a civilian she would be seeing on a daily basis. She sighed loudly as the car came to a stop in front of her apartment. Austin struggled out from behind the wheel and helped his niece up to her apartment.
Once they were inside, Austin insisted she get into bed. He went in the kitchen and stared blankly at the refrigerator. There was a picture of he and Beth at her high school graduation taped to the freezer door. Other than that, the entire appliance, inside and out, was empty. Not that that made any difference. The only thing Austin Smyth did for himself anymore was make tea at night when he was alone in his office. He put the water on to boil and made a brief search for the teabags.
Beth opened the doors onto her balcony to hear the city noises, and then climbed into her bed. Austin came in with a cup of tea for each of them, and sat at the foot of the bed. They both watched each other carefully, not sure of what to say.
"Uncle Austin, are you going to fire me?" she asked after a long silence.
"No, Elizabeth, I'm not going to fire you. I hired you because I know you're going to make an incredible agent. It's just taken me an eternity to admit it to myself."
"Are you upset with me?"
"Of course not. You haven't had any training yet, and I know you must have been terrified. What you did was incredibly brave and shows great instinct. Are you aware that your section chief pulled that very stunt almost thirteen years ago?"
She shrugged.
"He handed a package to Amanda, your mentoring agent. That's how she became involved in the Agency in the first place. Of course, he wasn't shot, but he did get roughed up a bit. That's Scarecrow. We all know he's the one with no brain," Austin said glumly as he sipped his tea.
"So what made you decide to hire me all of the sudden? The last thing I remember you saying to me before you put me on the plane to London was 'Forget about secret agents and spies, Elizabeth. It's not a world for little girls, and it won't afford you anything but heartbreak.' Even when I mentioned it a few months ago at dinner, you got in quite a huff," she smiled.
"Elizabeth, I can't think of anyone more suited for this job than you. You're second in your class at Georgetown. You speak Russian and Farsi fluently. You have incredible people skills. You're strong, you're fast, and you think on your feet. And you're beautiful," he continued. "Your father would have my head for giving you a job if he were still here. But you know it as well as I, darling. You were born to be a spy. I wanted to snatch you up before MI6 so I can keep an eye on you. The world has been watching you, Elizabeth. And you're ours now," he smiled.
Beth shook her head at him. Uncle Austin, always wanting to 'keep an eye' on her.
"You did a good thing today. You've still got plenty of things to learn, but that's why we call you an agent candidate," Austin smiled slightly.
"Do we know what happened to the man I was supposed to meet this morning?" Beth asked.
"No, we haven't heard anything yet," he lied. "I'll see to it myself we get to the bottom of this, darling. I don't want you to worry your pretty little head about it. Take the rest of the day off, stay home from class, and relax. If you need anything, call the office. I'll try to get over and check on you later tonight."
He took the empty mug from her hand and stood up.
"Elizabeth," he said softly.
"Yes, sir?" she answered.
"I'm glad you're all right, darling," he said and brushed some stray hair out of her eyes. He patted her head and left the room as quietly as he had entered it.
Beth leaned up against the headboard of her bed and listened to the front door click shut. She got out of bed and watched from the balcony as her uncle stepped into the limousine waiting in the parking lot. She still didn't quite understand how limousines appeared out of thin air for him, but she was fairly certain she never would.
The shoulder was starting to bother her slightly as the pain medication wore off. The bullet had just grazed her, but when she fell after being hit she dislocated the same shoulder. The sling was really unnecessary and she removed it to stretch the arm.
She had to find the boy from her history class. Glancing at the clock, she realized she had missed class and he was probably really freaking out. Sighing, she stepped into the shower to quickly bathe. She dressed in simple jeans that hung loosely on her small form, and a t-shirt to cover up the injured shoulder. Beth took three aspirin, slipped into her sandals, grabbed her keys, and made her way over to campus.
After Jamie had managed to get his nerves and stomach under control, he took a shower and fixed some soup for lunch. He stood in the kitchen eating and listened to the television in his roommate's bedroom. Nothing about a shooting at the train station, which was a good sign. He rinsed out his bowl, started the dishwasher, and went back into his room.
He didn't know what to do. He had no way to find her. If she was a spy, Elizabeth Anderson probably wasn't even her real name! If she was a spy, his whole world was about to come crashing in on him.
When he was fourteen, things had been easier to deal with. Lee had saved his life; his family was finally coming back together and making sense to him. His mother was a spy, but she was a damn good spy, and what she was doing made her incredibly happy. His mother's husband, his stepfather, was one of the world's best agents. His codename, Scarecrow, was known all over the world. What his parents were doing for a living was making the world a better place.
Jamie reached under his bed and pulled out the trunk. He hadn't been through it in a few months. Things had been busy since school started two weeks ago, and he'd been interning in Moscow all summer. He pulled out all the volumes of journals he had finished. He knew exactly what book he was looking for, what page and what sentence.
'When I grow up, I think I'd like to be a spy like Lee.'
He was sixteen when he wrote it. Since then, lots of things had changed. Lee took an administrative job after Matthew was born, and the Agency's strongest team was spending a lot more time in the building than running around DC chasing villains. They picked their cases, and there had still been several times since then that Lee had almost been killed. One incident in particular had left Lee in the hospital in Germany over Christmas. That was during Jamie's senior year of high school.
Jamie flipped to the page he wrote on the night they finally heard about Lee on Christmas Eve.
'I've changed my mind. There's no way I could be a spy and leave a family behind. If Lee had died over there I never would have forgiven him.'
When Amanda and Lee came home, Lee put in a request for no more overseas assignments, and she went off active duty for almost a year. Since both the younger children were in school now, they'd both been in the field a little more often the past few months, but nothing serious. They valued things too much to be taking risks.
Jamie remembered the look on Beth's face changing during their walk to the train. He could tell she was battling between being professional and being scared. He stopped himself. He wasn't even sure she was being 'professional' in the first place. She may have been doing someone a favor. He shook his head. The odds of that were a million to one. And either way, she was somehow involved in a risky business.
If she was still alive. The wave of fear washed over him again. If she were dead he'd never forgive himself. Jamie somehow felt like he would know if she were dead. He'd be able to feel it. He didn't know how or why, it was just something he felt. He was fairly sure she was alive, and probably looking for him. He was so sick with worry he hadn't gone to history, which was where she would find him. He decided to stop thinking for a while and go to the coffeehouse on campus to read. He grabbed his bookbag and headed out the door to catch the bus.
Beth scanned the coffeehouse. It was Tuesday night, and more crowded than she would have liked it to be. She looked over to an empty corner of the room, where she saw a single figure reading a newspaper. It was almost completely dark, but she could tell it was the boy from her history class. Obviously, she couldn't just approach him and ask him for her envelope back. He was going to want some sort of explanation. She sighed. Beth never was a very good liar, but she needed the practice.
Jamie smiled at the waitress as she set his tea down on the table in front of him. When he put down the newspaper to add lemon to his tea, he noticed the note. The waitress must have set it down without him noticing. It read 'To the man that saved my life this morning' on the front of the note. Jamie's breath caught in his throat, and he picked up the paper with shaking hands.
'Meet me in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 20 minutes' was all it said. He jumped out of his seat, not even pausing to pick up his books, and ran out of the building. The metro ride lasted an eternity, and he ran from the station all the way over to the Memorial. It was about ten o clock by now, and the area was abandoned and silent. He saw no one, and plopped down on the steps to wait for her.
Beth watched him run all the way to the Memorial steps. She couldn't help but smile. He had to hold up the shorts that were obviously to big for his thin frame as he ran. He nervously toyed with the collar of his polo shirt as he looked around for her. She took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be easy.
Jamie didn't see her come, and didn't notice her until she sat down next to him on the steps.
"Hi," she said, with the quiet accent.
"Hi," he managed.
"How are you doing?"
"Better now. I heard the gunshot this morning and I was pretty nervous," he sighed, too nervous to look at her.
"Well, I'm fine. I want to thank you for rescuing me this morning."
"I didn't rescue you. In fact, when I heard the gunshot, I got the hell out of there."
She smiled.
"Well, I don't blame you for that," she said. "Did you bring the envelope I gave you?"
"Yeah," Jamie said, reaching into his pocket. "Here it is." His hand trembled as he handed it to her.
"Thank you," she said as she took the envelope out of his hand. "I don't even know your name."
"I'm Jamie. Jamie King," he said, looking up and offering her his hand. Beth smiled in recognition.
"It's nice to meet you, Jamie. I'm Elizabeth Anderson," she smiled, taking his hand. "Call me Beth."
"Well, Beth. What was all that about this morning? Or would you have to kill me if you told me?"
"Well, until that stunt I pulled this morning I was an agent in training for the FBI. I sort of lost my job offer this afternoon."
"Oh, the FBI?" Jamie sighed in relief. "Well, I'm sorry about that."
"Don't be. I don't know what I was thinking, starting the academy while I'm finishing up my degree," she smiled.
"What's your degree in?"
"International Political Science," she smiled. "I'm minoring in Russian."
"That's awesome. I'm minoring in Russian too, actually."
"Oh, I know. I hear the name Jamie King on a daily basis in the Foreign Language building. I didn't think you were a real person, in all honesty."
"Well, I am."
"I can see that."
There was a silence.
"Beth, would you like to take a walk with me?" he finally asked.
"No, I wouldn't."
There was another silence, until she spoke again.
"I prefer to drive. I have a convertible, how about a drive instead? It's a beautiful night."
"Sounds great," he grinned, and offered his hand to help her up. They walked to the BMW in silence, and drove off into the DC night.
"Damn it, Elizabeth! What were you thinking?" he shouted as he knelt beside the girl, inspecting her shoulder.
"I was thinking Uncle Austin is going to kill me!" she smiled as she tried to calm her uncle down. "I'm sorry I missed our lunch date."
"Elizabeth ..." he began.
She looked up at the man. It had been almost a month since she'd seen him last. Things had been "a three-ring circus" at work, according to her uncle, and he just hadn't been able to get out to see her. He stared down at her with a concern-etched face.
He sighed. "Let's get you home, and we'll talk the whole thing out. I assume you've already been debriefed?"
"Yes, sir," she answered. He helped her out of the chair and they walked through the bullpen. Neither noticed that the entire building had come to a standstill.
Amanda was completely dumbstruck. Had Dr. Smyth just walked into Lee's office and addressed Elizabeth by name? Had he shown genuine concern? Had Elizabeth just called him 'Uncle Austin'? She shook her head in disbelief while replaying the scene in her head. Her tall husband stood in the doorway laughing at her.
"Well, the good news is Smyth isn't going to fire me for sending his niece on a drop her second day of training," Lee smiled, resting his hands on Amanda's shoulders.
"And the bad news?"
"The agent Elizabeth was supposed to deliver to turned up dead this morning in the train station men's room. Elizabeth gave the information to a boy in her history class that she happened to bump into at the station. She swears up and down that she can trust him. She says she had a 'gut feeling' about him," Lee continued.
"A gut feeling, huh?" Amanda smiled, looking up at her husband.
"I just hope she was right about this kid," he sighed, sitting down at his desk. "She says she'll be able to find him on campus later tonight or in class tomorrow."
Jamie wiped his mouth after throwing up for the third time. He didn't know what to think. Elizabeth had given him this mysterious envelope and kissed him, and then disappeared onto the train. He heard the shot and instead of going to rescue her, he'd jumped into Ben's car and floored it. Now he didn't know if she was dead or alive, and if the envelope he was staring at could end up getting him killed.
He couldn't decide whether he should call Lee or not. This didn't sound anything at all like something that would happen at IFF. Everything was always so professional and running so smoothly. If this was IFF, something had gone terribly wrong. If this was IFF, this meant Elizabeth was a spy. Jamie's stomach began to churn again and he leaned his head over the toilet bowl for the fourth time.
Austin Smyth looked about as awkward as he felt behind the steering wheel of Beth's car. It had been years since he'd driven. Something told him taking the limousine to her apartment would be too impersonal. He had assisted her into the car and then taken the wheel.
They drove in silence, Beth staring out the window lost in her thoughts. After this incident, she was certain Austin would change his mind about her job. She kicked herself inwardly for pulling the stunt she had accomplished that morning. Giving the envelope to a civilian! Not to mention a civilian she would be seeing on a daily basis. She sighed loudly as the car came to a stop in front of her apartment. Austin struggled out from behind the wheel and helped his niece up to her apartment.
Once they were inside, Austin insisted she get into bed. He went in the kitchen and stared blankly at the refrigerator. There was a picture of he and Beth at her high school graduation taped to the freezer door. Other than that, the entire appliance, inside and out, was empty. Not that that made any difference. The only thing Austin Smyth did for himself anymore was make tea at night when he was alone in his office. He put the water on to boil and made a brief search for the teabags.
Beth opened the doors onto her balcony to hear the city noises, and then climbed into her bed. Austin came in with a cup of tea for each of them, and sat at the foot of the bed. They both watched each other carefully, not sure of what to say.
"Uncle Austin, are you going to fire me?" she asked after a long silence.
"No, Elizabeth, I'm not going to fire you. I hired you because I know you're going to make an incredible agent. It's just taken me an eternity to admit it to myself."
"Are you upset with me?"
"Of course not. You haven't had any training yet, and I know you must have been terrified. What you did was incredibly brave and shows great instinct. Are you aware that your section chief pulled that very stunt almost thirteen years ago?"
She shrugged.
"He handed a package to Amanda, your mentoring agent. That's how she became involved in the Agency in the first place. Of course, he wasn't shot, but he did get roughed up a bit. That's Scarecrow. We all know he's the one with no brain," Austin said glumly as he sipped his tea.
"So what made you decide to hire me all of the sudden? The last thing I remember you saying to me before you put me on the plane to London was 'Forget about secret agents and spies, Elizabeth. It's not a world for little girls, and it won't afford you anything but heartbreak.' Even when I mentioned it a few months ago at dinner, you got in quite a huff," she smiled.
"Elizabeth, I can't think of anyone more suited for this job than you. You're second in your class at Georgetown. You speak Russian and Farsi fluently. You have incredible people skills. You're strong, you're fast, and you think on your feet. And you're beautiful," he continued. "Your father would have my head for giving you a job if he were still here. But you know it as well as I, darling. You were born to be a spy. I wanted to snatch you up before MI6 so I can keep an eye on you. The world has been watching you, Elizabeth. And you're ours now," he smiled.
Beth shook her head at him. Uncle Austin, always wanting to 'keep an eye' on her.
"You did a good thing today. You've still got plenty of things to learn, but that's why we call you an agent candidate," Austin smiled slightly.
"Do we know what happened to the man I was supposed to meet this morning?" Beth asked.
"No, we haven't heard anything yet," he lied. "I'll see to it myself we get to the bottom of this, darling. I don't want you to worry your pretty little head about it. Take the rest of the day off, stay home from class, and relax. If you need anything, call the office. I'll try to get over and check on you later tonight."
He took the empty mug from her hand and stood up.
"Elizabeth," he said softly.
"Yes, sir?" she answered.
"I'm glad you're all right, darling," he said and brushed some stray hair out of her eyes. He patted her head and left the room as quietly as he had entered it.
Beth leaned up against the headboard of her bed and listened to the front door click shut. She got out of bed and watched from the balcony as her uncle stepped into the limousine waiting in the parking lot. She still didn't quite understand how limousines appeared out of thin air for him, but she was fairly certain she never would.
The shoulder was starting to bother her slightly as the pain medication wore off. The bullet had just grazed her, but when she fell after being hit she dislocated the same shoulder. The sling was really unnecessary and she removed it to stretch the arm.
She had to find the boy from her history class. Glancing at the clock, she realized she had missed class and he was probably really freaking out. Sighing, she stepped into the shower to quickly bathe. She dressed in simple jeans that hung loosely on her small form, and a t-shirt to cover up the injured shoulder. Beth took three aspirin, slipped into her sandals, grabbed her keys, and made her way over to campus.
After Jamie had managed to get his nerves and stomach under control, he took a shower and fixed some soup for lunch. He stood in the kitchen eating and listened to the television in his roommate's bedroom. Nothing about a shooting at the train station, which was a good sign. He rinsed out his bowl, started the dishwasher, and went back into his room.
He didn't know what to do. He had no way to find her. If she was a spy, Elizabeth Anderson probably wasn't even her real name! If she was a spy, his whole world was about to come crashing in on him.
When he was fourteen, things had been easier to deal with. Lee had saved his life; his family was finally coming back together and making sense to him. His mother was a spy, but she was a damn good spy, and what she was doing made her incredibly happy. His mother's husband, his stepfather, was one of the world's best agents. His codename, Scarecrow, was known all over the world. What his parents were doing for a living was making the world a better place.
Jamie reached under his bed and pulled out the trunk. He hadn't been through it in a few months. Things had been busy since school started two weeks ago, and he'd been interning in Moscow all summer. He pulled out all the volumes of journals he had finished. He knew exactly what book he was looking for, what page and what sentence.
'When I grow up, I think I'd like to be a spy like Lee.'
He was sixteen when he wrote it. Since then, lots of things had changed. Lee took an administrative job after Matthew was born, and the Agency's strongest team was spending a lot more time in the building than running around DC chasing villains. They picked their cases, and there had still been several times since then that Lee had almost been killed. One incident in particular had left Lee in the hospital in Germany over Christmas. That was during Jamie's senior year of high school.
Jamie flipped to the page he wrote on the night they finally heard about Lee on Christmas Eve.
'I've changed my mind. There's no way I could be a spy and leave a family behind. If Lee had died over there I never would have forgiven him.'
When Amanda and Lee came home, Lee put in a request for no more overseas assignments, and she went off active duty for almost a year. Since both the younger children were in school now, they'd both been in the field a little more often the past few months, but nothing serious. They valued things too much to be taking risks.
Jamie remembered the look on Beth's face changing during their walk to the train. He could tell she was battling between being professional and being scared. He stopped himself. He wasn't even sure she was being 'professional' in the first place. She may have been doing someone a favor. He shook his head. The odds of that were a million to one. And either way, she was somehow involved in a risky business.
If she was still alive. The wave of fear washed over him again. If she were dead he'd never forgive himself. Jamie somehow felt like he would know if she were dead. He'd be able to feel it. He didn't know how or why, it was just something he felt. He was fairly sure she was alive, and probably looking for him. He was so sick with worry he hadn't gone to history, which was where she would find him. He decided to stop thinking for a while and go to the coffeehouse on campus to read. He grabbed his bookbag and headed out the door to catch the bus.
Beth scanned the coffeehouse. It was Tuesday night, and more crowded than she would have liked it to be. She looked over to an empty corner of the room, where she saw a single figure reading a newspaper. It was almost completely dark, but she could tell it was the boy from her history class. Obviously, she couldn't just approach him and ask him for her envelope back. He was going to want some sort of explanation. She sighed. Beth never was a very good liar, but she needed the practice.
Jamie smiled at the waitress as she set his tea down on the table in front of him. When he put down the newspaper to add lemon to his tea, he noticed the note. The waitress must have set it down without him noticing. It read 'To the man that saved my life this morning' on the front of the note. Jamie's breath caught in his throat, and he picked up the paper with shaking hands.
'Meet me in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 20 minutes' was all it said. He jumped out of his seat, not even pausing to pick up his books, and ran out of the building. The metro ride lasted an eternity, and he ran from the station all the way over to the Memorial. It was about ten o clock by now, and the area was abandoned and silent. He saw no one, and plopped down on the steps to wait for her.
Beth watched him run all the way to the Memorial steps. She couldn't help but smile. He had to hold up the shorts that were obviously to big for his thin frame as he ran. He nervously toyed with the collar of his polo shirt as he looked around for her. She took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be easy.
Jamie didn't see her come, and didn't notice her until she sat down next to him on the steps.
"Hi," she said, with the quiet accent.
"Hi," he managed.
"How are you doing?"
"Better now. I heard the gunshot this morning and I was pretty nervous," he sighed, too nervous to look at her.
"Well, I'm fine. I want to thank you for rescuing me this morning."
"I didn't rescue you. In fact, when I heard the gunshot, I got the hell out of there."
She smiled.
"Well, I don't blame you for that," she said. "Did you bring the envelope I gave you?"
"Yeah," Jamie said, reaching into his pocket. "Here it is." His hand trembled as he handed it to her.
"Thank you," she said as she took the envelope out of his hand. "I don't even know your name."
"I'm Jamie. Jamie King," he said, looking up and offering her his hand. Beth smiled in recognition.
"It's nice to meet you, Jamie. I'm Elizabeth Anderson," she smiled, taking his hand. "Call me Beth."
"Well, Beth. What was all that about this morning? Or would you have to kill me if you told me?"
"Well, until that stunt I pulled this morning I was an agent in training for the FBI. I sort of lost my job offer this afternoon."
"Oh, the FBI?" Jamie sighed in relief. "Well, I'm sorry about that."
"Don't be. I don't know what I was thinking, starting the academy while I'm finishing up my degree," she smiled.
"What's your degree in?"
"International Political Science," she smiled. "I'm minoring in Russian."
"That's awesome. I'm minoring in Russian too, actually."
"Oh, I know. I hear the name Jamie King on a daily basis in the Foreign Language building. I didn't think you were a real person, in all honesty."
"Well, I am."
"I can see that."
There was a silence.
"Beth, would you like to take a walk with me?" he finally asked.
"No, I wouldn't."
There was another silence, until she spoke again.
"I prefer to drive. I have a convertible, how about a drive instead? It's a beautiful night."
"Sounds great," he grinned, and offered his hand to help her up. They walked to the BMW in silence, and drove off into the DC night.