A/N: Vacation is over, this may slow down.
Chapter Eleven
"Malcolm, is Phlox alright?" He had evaded my questions all the way to the secured area and I had had enough. "Stop right here, I'm not going any further until you answer my questions, is that clear?"
Jonathan knew better than to go against my wishes and stopped dead in his tracks. "If I were you Malcolm, I'd answer her questions right now, you don't want to see T'Pol's temper, I can promise you that."
He continued to look everywhere except at me. "Malcolm, I want some answers and I want them now. Just look at me and tell me is he alive or is he dead." My heart began to beat faster with anxiety.
"He's alive." He shifted back and forth on his feet before finally looking at me. "T'Pol, he's been taken to the Vulcan Compound Medical Facility. A Dr. Sural is taking care of him. He has sustained several serious injuries but Sural says he's going to make it.
"Sural wants us to bring you to the Compound, T'Pol. But, we have a mole somewhere, whoever is doing this knows your every move. I think you realize that we can't risk moving you out of here until we are in complete control; and, as if things weren't complicated enough, there's a medical convention scheduled, starting tomorrow. We're going to have medical professionals coming out our ears and their going to be roaming the floors of this facility."
Jonathan was beside himself and his emotions were pounding at me, threatening to push me over the edge as well.
"Malcolm, how are you going to find this mole before they get their hands on T'Pol, or worse, finally succeed in killing her?"
"We're going to go back to the basics, Sir, pound the hallways, check every ID with our personnel files, ask a lot of questions.
"Let's get T'Pol out of the halls first, okay, we'll go to the command center and find out what's going on. After we've got some answers for you, we'll get you settled into your new home away from home."
We wound around the evacuation route to the elevators, going deeper into Starfleet. We were in fact, in Starfleet's Command Center. Jonathan had often referred to it as the War Room.
Having entered almost unnoticed; I looked around. It was much like Enterprise's Plan Room. Harris spotted me and headed toward us as Malcolm tried to usher us away into a quieter part of the room.
"Captain Reed, hold up there, I need to talk to Ambassador T'Pol." He was coming almost at a run now, leaving us no choice but to stop and wait for him, and, he didn't come to a stop until he was almost on top of me. Grabbing my wheelchair away from Malcolm he immediately took me into a side room with the others trying to keep up.
"Hey, Harris, hold up." Jonathan was not happy. Catching up, he literally pushed Harris away from me. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Harris?"
"You stay out of this, Admiral, I'm in charge down here and I have some questions for the Ambassador. Get out of my way, now, or I'll have you physically removed, Sir."
"Calm down Jonathan." I did not like Mr. Harris. 'Jonathan, the sooner we comply with his demands the sooner we will be allowed to leave.'
'The hell with his demands, he has no right talking to either of us in that manner. I've had enough of this pompous ass.'
'Please, Jonathan, all I want to do is get out of here, I need to be alone with you. Do you understand my meaning?' I had his attention now.
'Oh, you mean….!' His demeanor changed. Bringing his attention back to Harris, he glared at him. "Make it fast Harris, before I go over your head, and don't think I won't, because, I will."
"I want to talk to her alone, Admiral." Harris brought himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest, daring Jonathan to make a scene.
'Jonathan, give us a moment alone, I'll leave my shields down, come in whenever you deem it necessary.' Slowly he turned and left the room with Malcolm.
"Mr. Harris, I believe you have the floor. What is it that you want from me, and what is so important that it won't wait?"
His face was reddening and his eyes looked as though they might bulge out of his head and I could feel his anger raging out of control. "I expect your complete cooperation in this investigation. I expect you to follow my instructions explicitly, not Malcolm's, and to do whatever I tell you, is that clear, Ambassador? I intend to use you as bait to get to Ambassador Ral."
"Mr. Harris, I would advise you to calm down. Of course I will do everything in my power to help with this investigation, however, you can't honestly expect me to put myself in your care. Malcolm says you have a mole. I have been targeted for assassination twice, Mr. Harris; twice, what are you going to do to protect me from another attempt?
"Also, for you're information, you are not in charge, Mr. Harris. Captain Reed is, and now, unless you want Jonathan and I to both go over you head, please let Malcolm get on with my debriefing. I have nothing more to say to you, Sir."
Jonathan stormed into the room with Malcolm right behind, probably afraid Jonathan was going to attack him. "Now if you will excuse us, Harris, Malcolm has some debriefing to do, get out!"
I was afraid Harris was going to hit Jonathan, but he finally retreated, turned and stomped out mumbling something about calling the President. "Jonathan, you really didn't need to make things worse. I don't believe he handles rejection well." I could hear Malcolm trying to stifle a laugh.
"Come on you two, lets settle down in the back room and try to figure out what's going on here." Malcolm motioned for us to follow him.
"Ah, Malcolm, could you see if the Cafeteria was affected, we haven't had anything to eat. Maybe you could have something delivered, unless you have something down here." He was looking around. I had already looked but could see nothing.
"Sure, what would you two like? We have our own cafeteria down here. T'Pol we have soup and salads. I tell you what; lets go check it out before we get down to business, this is going to take awhile, plus I know you'll want to check on Phlox."
We followed Malcolm, finally coming to the cafeteria. We went through the line and after getting a cart to push our trays back to the debriefing room we settled down to eat.
I realized Malcolm was staring at us. "Is something wrong, Malcolm? I thought you were hungry too."
He was looking at my tray. "Malcolm what is it?"
Looking at me and then at my tray, he pointed. "I don't believe I've ever seen you eat that much in your entire time on Enterprise, T'Pol."
I looked down. Sitting in front of me were two trays. On the first tray was an assortment of salads, a large helping of spaghetti, two servings of garlic bread, minestrone soup, a serving of fried oysters and a bowl of plomeek soup. On the other tray were various desserts; chocolate pie, chocolate pudding, a chocolate covered donut, chocolate ice cream and of course a cup of tea. "There's no red meat, Malcolm, you know I don't eat red meat."
I looked over at Jonathan's tray. He had duplicated mine.
Malcolm was looking at Jonathan's trays, too. "Sir, you don't even like spaghetti."
Jonathan looked up at me shocked. "I don't even like spaghetti, T'Pol. What the hell's going on here?"
"I told you that you could expect to experience some unusual side affects to our pregnancy, Jonathan. This is just a small side affect." I went on with eating my meal.
Malcolm was hysterical now. "I'm sorry, T'Pol, I can't believe this, are you saying he's pregnant, too?"
"Somewhat." I looked up, avoiding Jonathan's eyes. "Perhaps we should begin with the debriefing while we eat, it could take us awhile."
Nodding, Malcolm pulled out his briefcase and spread out his paper notes. "We've got to do some real brainstorming here, otherwise, this guy's going to get away from us, completely unscathed. We want him and his gang.
"T'Pol, Ral needs you out of the way, but why? What damage can you cause him? What can you say that he doesn't want anyone to hear? What do we need from you that he doesn't want us to know about?"
Jonathan jumped in next. "He has his eyes on the highest office in his government. His position now is a stepping-stone to that highest office. He is part of a very profitable business venture as a silent partner in a sex slave ring. We can put him right in the middle of this successful business venture as at least part owner, maybe even as owner. A scandal of this magnitude would ruin his chances. But, the most damaging thing she can prove, is that he killed the Prime Minister's daughter."
Shaking his head, Malcolm looked over at me. "I was going to go over everything we've done over the last few years on this investigation, but I don't think we have time. This animal has too much to loose, he's desperate to silence you, T'Pol. We haven't even hit on the Treason aspect. We don't know if the rumors of a coup are real or not. I think he may very well have intended to knock off the Prime Minister until you came into the picture.
"Harris threw you into the mix, T'Pol, to put a scare into Ral. When he found out you might have encountered this gang, he was gungho to put you right in the middle. He started throwing your name around; and sure enough, Ambassador Ral contacted us wanting you as the negotiator. Harris had no intentions of telling you that it was Ral, he kept saying lets just wait and see what happens. I couldn't reason with him so I contacted Admiral Marshall and he contacted Shran.
"We know what he's done and he knows we know, T'Pol." Malcolm looked down we had both emptied our trays.
Shaking his head, he smiled, "Do either one of you want anything else?" He could barely restrain himself.
"No thank you, Malcolm. I believe we have both had enough." I looked over at Jonathan's empty tray; he had eaten all of his spaghetti.
"We are all in agreement as to what is going on, now we need a plan of action, but first, could you check on Phlox, please?"
"Certainly, I'll do it right now." Malcolm got up and went out to the command center.
"Just what kind of plan you got in mind, T'Pol?" Jonathan was frowning.
"Lets wait until Malcolm comes back, then we'll go over our options, Jonathan."
TBC