- Trust -

Bobby then starts to shift in his position uncomfortably, as if there is some inner debate occurring. He inhales deeply as he closes his eyes, and then reopens them as he exhales.

"...Lucy's alive, Amy."

Amy's eyes suddenly dart wide open, and her breath halts instantly at the words.

"My gunshot didn't kill her. It was a cover-up."

It was like pure adrenaline rushed into Amy's body. She jumps up, and hurriedly runs over to the table across the room. She grabs the gun and the magazine off the table and slides them back together in one instantaneous motion. She then runs over towards Bobby while releasing the safety and cocking the chamber, and as soon as she reaches him, she points the gun right at Bobby's head.

The look on Amy's face was one of maximum alertness mixed with distraught outrage. "If you're fucking with me Bobby, not only will I kill you here and now I will rip the heart out of every member of your family with my bare hands, I swear it."

But Amy's angry threats didn't seem to faze him. He continues, "I'm not lying to you Amy. It is classified information. Only a handful of people know she's not dead, and they even tried to hide it from me."

Amy stands in shock; her mouth continues to gape open in disbelief. The hand holding the gun starts to tremble.

Bobby straightens his back and lets out a bitter sneer. "All this time, even though they kept kissing my ass for supposedly killing a wanted criminal, they hid her behind my back. Even when it became known how much psychological trauma it caused me, they kept on lying to me."

Bobby's voice begins to be colored with anger and resentment. "They didn't care that they were making me believe that she died from my hands. They kept smiling, patting my back, shaking my hand, all the while they were treating her at a government hospital and arranging a secured place to lock her in once she's recovered."

Amy sees another shift as his tone brightens to a satisfied leer. "...But despite those two-faced assholes, I found out their little secret. My boss, the director of Homeland Security, might be a man of tremendous authority but he's a moron on computers. So he often asks me for help with it. During one of those times, he stepped out, and I poked around at his classified files. One of them caught my eye, titled "Diamond Project". And it was when I looked inside, I found out the truth. All the private memos, all the hush-hush agreements, all the arrangements for her treatment and transport, and where they finally put her. ...After seeing the data, I wanted to throw up, and then I wanted to strangle my boss. ...But I kept silent, thinking the more trust I gain from him, the more time he'll leave me to his computer, and so more time I have to find out all of their dirty little secrets. So I'll know exactly what we'll come up against."

"...What we'll come up against?" Amy asks suspiciously.

"Yes, when we break in there to get her out." Bobby's tone shows dead seriousness.

Slowly, Amy lowers her gun to her side. She is mentally exhausted, and her breathing is long and haggard. She raises her free hand and rubs her temple like she had a migraine.

Bobby slowly rises from the floor. Determined, but trying to look sincere, he tries to explain gently what he knows while minimizing further threats to the integrity of his skull. "Amy, they had no interest in bringing her to justice. Catching her was important to them, but they had bigger fish to fry. Lucy stole a lot of money from private companies. But you know how it is with the world's governments; the priority has been and will always be to shut down those people whose actions limit the politicians' incomes. Hunting for thieves has never been as important to them as getting even with the competition."

Bobby searches for a sign of comprehension in Amy's tired eyes, and finds it. Every government agent eventually discovers that oftentimes, the only separation between the good guys and the bad guys is who has power over what. And for those sugar-lipped suits who claim elected representation and consequently has control over the police and state, that power usually translates into cash into their pockets via whatever means in their disposal, lawful or otherwise. Thus knowing this, an agent's duty is often complicated by the need to carefully know when to suddenly turn blind, all within the context of the subject's position within the hierarchy of influence. This was a facet of the job that had begun to trouble Amy tremendously before the end of her tenure as a DEBS agent.

"They wanted any information she might know of so many other criminal organizations all over the world." Bobby continued, "And if any of them knew she was still alive, they would change their tactics and locations to head off any information Lucy would have gave to the authorities. That's why they faked her death. They knew others would try to kill her while in custody because of what she could tell them. Only people at the highest levels of government were informed. I don't know who specifically because they were all identified in the files with codenames."

"...And so why do you tell me? Just to get even with them?" Suspicion still lingers in Amy's voice as her face rises to meet Bobby's.

A look of sorrow appears again on Bobby's face. His eyes close briefly as he sighs deeply. "There's that, but also... I'm not going to bother trying to gain your forgiveness, Amy. But I do want it from myself."

Amy stares at him, still unsure as to what to think. "Bobby, tell me this is real. Tell me you're not just giving me false hope." The voice aches, almost pleading to him.

Bobby looks sharply into Amy's eyes, hoping to make his statement clear. "This is the truth, Amy. I swear on my mother's grave I'm not lying to you." His voice echoing with definitive assuredness.

Amy takes a step backwards, and her breathing continues to quicken. Amy believes him. She probably shouldn't, under the circumstances. Take away the emotions involved, and she still believes he speaks the truth. Bobby bringing up his mother only accentuated her trust in him, as she knew from before that Bobby would rather cut off his right arm with a rusted steak knife than to make a derisive statement in regards to his mother. For him, this promise goes beyond any oath or commitment to any authority, law, country, or religion.

Lucy is alive... Lucy Diamond is alive... The thought repeats gleefully in Amy's mind. Her voice seems to be incapacitated as the implications of that possibility feel overwhelming in her head.

Bobby interjects, breaking Amy's train of thoughts effectively. "But I'm telling you now, it won't be easy."

Amy settles herself. Her face morphed into a sculpture of focused determination. "What do we need to do?"

- Operations Center -

"What... the hell!" Scud asks Amy, sounding completely exasperated. "You let... him go?"

"Yes." Amy answers plainly. Amy sits on her, or rather, Lucy's desk, her eyes fixated on the virtual screens in front of her, showing what little information they had of the schematics and floor plan of the large warehouse where Bobby told her Lucy was being held.

"How do you know he won't just send an entire army of agents on us as soon as he can?" Scud asks, panicking.

"He won't. Even if they knew he was here, they wouldn't be able to get our location out of him. For our protection and his, I had him blinded before he was driven out to a safe area, at which point he drove home by himself."

"And may I ask why?"

"He needs to go to work today to avoid suspicion, and when his boss is at lunch, he'll get into his computer and copy the updated plans to Lucy's jail. Then he'll e-mail it to us. Later tonight, we meet up and he'll help us infiltrate the facility and get Lucy out."

"And why in God's name would he risk himself to do that?"

"...He wants to make amends for the past." Amy says hesitantly, knowing full well that wouldn't be a good enough answer for Scud.

Scud has heard just about enough. He pulls Amy's chair back and around towards him, pulling her sight away from the screens. To show his seriousness, he leans and rests his hands on the armrests, looking directly into Amy's eyes.

"Amy, I want for it to be true as much as you do, but think about it. We had him on a noose. He would say anything to get out of it. He knows that Lucy is your weakness. Don't you think his story is just a tad too convenient?"

Amy looks up at him, her eyes also conveying seriousness. Her voice becomes quiet and reassuring, "I know how it looks, Scud. You KNOW me. Something like this, I won't take lightly. But, I believe he is telling the truth. I know Lucy's out there, waiting for me to find her. And whatever it takes, I WILL find her."

Scud sighs. He never had any success in convincing Lucy not to do something he disapproved if she's bent on doing it. And he knew, he won't have much luck with Amy either. And just like Lucy, he would just have back her up the best he knows how, in case something goes wrong.

"And how do you know he can get you the plans?" Scud asks solemnly.

It was right then, the virtual monitors beep upon a received signal and several new screens pop up, each showing detailed schematics of the warehouse, with a detailed plan of Lucy's own cell, along with locations of guard postings and perimeter defense information.

Both Amy and Scud look at the information in awe, slack-jawed at the detailed data they're seeing. Amy turns back towards Scud, and with a sly smile on her face, she says, "I have a hunch."

- to be continued -