AN: If anyone has any suggestions on improving the character of Joseph Solomon, let me know! Reviews bring updates, so let's try and hit a milestone of ten!
CHAPTER THREE
"I am so drunk."
After so many years of friendship, Joe shouldn't have been surprised when he picked up the phone to hear her uttering those words. Abigail Cameron was talented when it came to flipping her emotional switch on and off through the day. He supposed tonight was one of those moments where she flipped it off, most likely the product of a haywire mission or a particularly regrettable action.
He sighed and glanced at his phone to check if they were on a secure line. "Where are you?"
"Roseville Carnival. The bars were having a special and I was feeling festive." There was a loud crash on the other end and a distinct 'oops'. "I think I might need you to pick me up. The owner is getting impatient and Rachel is going to be upset I was drinking."
Joe rubbed a tired hand over his face and glanced at the clock. It was eleven o'clock at night, and he was severely jetlagged from days of hopping across Europe. "And Matt isn't there either?" Throwing his friend under the bus was a last ditch effort, he knew, and a pathetic one.
"He's with Cammie on the merry go round. If I go anywhere near that damn thing, I'm going to be sick."
He stared up at the ceiling and groaned. "I'll be there in ten minutes. Don't... don't touch any guns."
"Oh, Joe," she reprimanded him, her grin evident in her tone. "What did I say about mentioning Porto Alegre?"
With an exasperated eye-roll, he quickly hung up the phone and grabbed his jacket off of the back of his chair. He quickly closed the copies of Katherine's mission briefings and slid them into a safe. Grudgingly, she had allowed him to peek into the circumstances of her mission and sent him the files two weeks later. Though he had them engraved into his memory, it was the second day in a row that he sat down to stare at the profile of her target.
David Schmitz. Famous black-market entrepreneur. And, though no one knew it, he was a very prominent donor to the Circle of Cavan.
Blackthorne Academy had a group of notable alumni that they advertised with pride to their students. None of them were particularly good men, each one submerged in the underground world of covert operations, on the wrong side of the law. The Schmitz family was one of those notable alumni. David had never gone to the school, probably due to the fact that his father and grandfather could offer him a perfectly sound education at home, but he was one of the recruiters that wandered around campus regularly. Though he seemed like a leisurely friend to most, he had a very sound focus: to entrap the teenage boys of Blackthorne in the Circle's business.
The more boys he had, the more pawns he could have to put on missions in his favor. Eventually, his wealth surged and the Circle remained fully funded.
Joe Solomon was one of those pathetic boys—desperate, homeless, and trained—that fell into his trap. And now that David had his lackeys from the institution on his tail, there was no way that he was going to evade capture from both the Circle and the CIA.
It was that easy. Exposure could ruin everything that he had built for himself after some very small mistakes.
Ten minutes later, just as he'd told Abby, he pulled the key from his ignition and waited in the parking lot. He could see the glow from the rides and happy chatter. The smell of corn dogs and buttery popcorn filled the air, and he grimaced when his stomach growled. He activated the tracker that he had on the woman's phone—standard protocol in their friend group, in case one of them went missing. When the red dot blinked over Gallagher Academy in the outskirts of Roseville, he hit his steering wheel with an open palm in anger.
"Drunk, my ass," he mumbled.
She had lured him out right where she wanted him, and he had no choice but to follow into the school. He idly remembered Rachel pestering him about attending a career fair that many Gallagher alumni returned for, but advertising his work at a girls' school was definitely not his priority. Though he knew that plenty of officers and high level officials from all the spy institutions made a special appearance for the academy, it reminded him too much of the sinister version of career hunting at Blackthorne.
"See, I told you he would come." Rachel turned to her younger sister and smiled triumphantly, but the woman was busy flashing Joe a mischievous grin.
She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and eyed the man surreptitiously. "Well, I guess I was wrong." She flashed him a blindingly white smile. "It's a good thing he showed, huh? Repair his image and all..."
"My image doesn't need repairing," he grumbled.
Ignoring his words, Abby looped her arm through his—pinching him when he tried to pull away—and towed him through the grand doors of the Gallagher ballroom.
"Looks like the girls like you, Mr. Eye Candy," she hummed under her breath.
He noticed, too. The room had delved into an awkward silence for a fraction of a second, before the bustle continued. He could tell they were staring at him, whether they be twelve or eighteen, and he was growing increasingly uncomfortable. Many of them were eyeing the way Abby held his arm, as if trying to calculate the extent of their relationship. He was growing more and more amused by the teenage hormones, until he caught the eye of a suited man near the Interpol booth.
"Fucking hell," he growled. Max Edwards was looking him up and down, as if judging his casual pair of trousers and light sweater.
Abby laughed next to him. "Fashion police," she announced dramatically. "I'm going to leave you for some actual booze this time. Madame Dabne has champagne in her room." She patted his chest lightly—a movement that did not go unnoticed by the girls. "Feel free to join me once you sort out your differences."
And with that, she pecked him on the lips and disappeared with a fluorish.
Joe blinked. As did many disappointed young women around him.
His best course of action was to evade Max. The last thing he needed was to look like the "bad guy" in front of dozens of spies in training, many he would see on the field eventually. He blindly ambled outside the ballroom and in the direction Abby had departed; he was better off getting a drink rather than conversing with infatuated teenagers about his life. A tall figure was standing in front of pictures of Gallagher alumni by year, and he nearly collided with her when she turned suddenly.
Catching her by the elbows, he thought it was Abby for a split moment—the two had almost identical dark hair. However, his mouth opened in surprise when he realized it was someone else entirely.
"Katherine," he greeted, releasing her immediately.
She looked just as surprised to see him. "What are you doing here? You definitely didn't graduate from here, and I doubt you're manning a stall with Edwards."
"I had a few... friends that wanted me to come," he explained, wrinkling his nose. "What about you?"
A small laugh bubbled from her lips, a break from the professional attitude she carried around him before. "I'm Gallagher alumni." At the expression he gave her, she said, "Don't look too impressed. I wasn't recruited until my junior year of high school and spent summers and breaks trying to cram my education into two years."
His gaze flicked to the framed picture of girls that had graduated her year, to the image of a young woman with the typical off-the-shoulder gown. A small smirk played at her lips, her tired eyes staring into the camera. Not much had changed over the past ten years, except for the increased maturity age brought and a narrower frame from an onslaught of stress.
They dissolved into silence and he scanned the other names in her graduating class. When he reached some of the initial names of the alphabet, he found Abigail Cameron.
As if reading his thoughts, she chuckled. "We were in the same class, yes. Roommates, too, and good friends over the years." Her lips quirked upwards and she cast him a curious glance. "Color me surprised when I caught wind of a new significant other. I didn't know you were..."
"No," Joe said quickly, grimacing. She must have seen the spectacle that Abby had made in the ballroom. "She has a..."
"...unique sense of humor," Katherine finished.
Impeccably timed, Abby's loud call echoed across the entrance. "Goddammit, Joe, don't tell me you were leaving!" She slinked closer and a grin broke out across her face when she recognized her friend. "Well, if it isn't Cara Pierce! How's London treating you?"
Grey eyes sparkling with amusement, she wrapped her arms around her friend. "Just got back a few days ago." She looked embarrassed for a split second over the nickname, and ran her fingers through her hair to express her exhaustion. "I was just about to—"
"Oh, bullshit." Abby looped her arm through hers, grabbed Joe by the shirt, and towed her companions into the staff lounge for a night of alcohol.
Madame Dabney did the best she could to ensure proprietary within the room. But behind closed doors and secluded from the girls that had retired to the upper floors for the night, there was nothing she could do to control many of the adults in the room. Though the numbers dwindled after the event to a tighter circle of companions, copious amounts of champagne were consumed.
"What agency did you join after Gallagher?" Professor Smith, the retired operative and Countries of the World instructor, was interrogating Katherine in the most polite way he could muster.
Joe watched her run her tongue over her dry lips. "I'm hired on contract by the agencies, sir," she said, addressing him as if he were a drill sergeant rather than a man that had undergone plastic surgery more times than Megan Fox. "I've been popular with the CIA, Interpol, and MI6."
"And what do you do under your contracts?" he pressed.
She answered in a heartbeat. "I eliminate their targets."
Rachel tore her gaze away from the elderly headmistress of Gallagher. She glanced at Joe, putting the pieces together instantly, and frowned. "Who do you target? Terrorists, or agents that are viewed as liabilities?"
Her younger sister sighed, reading the woman's sour attitude and intervened. "Rachel—"
"I'm sure you will understand when I say that information is confidential."
Joe's eyes narrowed and his suspicion spiked. She shouldn't have known what Rachel was referencing, and judging by her snappy tone, Katherine had felt the need to defend herself. From what he had gathered, Max Edwards had commissioned her under the false pretenses of a black market entrepreneur to lead her to Joe. Unless, of course, he had been the primary target all along. He had been cautious from the beginning, and instantly understood the distaste apparent on Rachel's face. Sometimes her mothering carried through into her daily life, but he knew she meant well. She always did, from the first day that Matt had introduced her.
The atmosphere had shifted to slightly more forced, and he could tell that Katherine remained purely out of obligation to her former headmistress.
"What do I call you?" he asked suddenly.
Her eyebrows drew together in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Agent Pierce, Katherine, Cara..." he trailed. He gestured at his glass of wine and smiled. "After all, we've shared drinks. I think 'Agent Pierce' is a bit too formal."
For a minute, he thought he had overstepped some sort of invisible boundary. "Cara," she finally answered. "And I suppose Joe is fine by you? Unless you'd like me to adopt one of Abby's ridiculous pet-names."
Joe shook his head and chuckled. "I think 'Joe' will suffice—"
"Headmistress Williams." Agent Edwards knocked against the door lightly and inclined his head to the woman. "I just wanted to thank you for the evening." He held a large briefcase in his hand, most likely filled with the products of his recruiting booth for the Interpol.
Joe found it hard to ignore him, especially when the man repeatedly glanced between him and Cara mid-conversation. The headmistress offered him refreshments, but instead, he politely declined and tapped Cara on her shoulder.
"I would like a word with you before I leave, Agent Pierce."
Her response was a curt nod before she departed; the façade of formality returned and Cara was instantly replaced with Agent Pierce.
Max barely glanced at her while they strolled across the Gallagher's lawn, dimly lit in the darkness. "How has your mission been progressing?"
"Well enough," Cara replied curtly. She could hear a group of boys outside the gates—most likely drunk from the carnival—whispering about breaking in, and she idly wondered whether she should inform someone.
"I am glad to see that you are fostering a relationship with the Morgans, as we planned. However, I did not anticipate your friendship with Abigail Cameron."
She bristled, irritated. "With all due respect, sir, my personal connections are none of your business. I made a contract with you on very specific terms, and I will honor them."
He stopped walking, and whether it was from anger or annoyance, she did not know. "It is imperative that you understand the importance of the task I have assigned to you. You will get close to Joe Solomon and serve his head to me on a platter. That man entered the CIA with barely any record of his past other than Blackthorne, and I refuse to acknowledge that he is entirely innocent."
She pursed her lips and brushed her hair out of her face when a breeze swept through the air. "I told you before, Mr. Edwards. I have a contract with you, and I will honor it. I am sure you have researched the rate of success I have with my missions."
"Ninety-seven percent," Max confirmed. "Again, I appreciate your help. God knows that proving his connections with the Circle of Cavan will be no easy task. Catherine Goode had to come out in the open for any agency to believe me, and by then, she had gone under too deep of a cover for anyone to catch her."
She slid her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and rocked back on her heels. She didn't know the redhead well, but she was in the same year as Rachel Morgan and a legend in CoveOps. She thought back to the ordeal in the lounge room, and frowned. Rachel would definitely be a problem, and she knew why she had always avoided her during their school years. She was beautiful and guarded, and even her younger sister's best friend could not break through to her. Briefly, regret flashed through her for bringing Abby in the crossfires, but she knew sacrificing her personal connections was inevitable.
Regardless, it brought a bitter taste to her mouth.
"You know, when you hired an assassin, the assumption was that I would be burying a target for you. Simple tailing and deception are not my usual methods."
Max chuckled lowly. "In due time, Agent Pierce. You will have your chance to pull the trigger, as soon as I have exposed, evicted, and walked all over Agent Solomon."