Chapter XVII
"Just because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction." ~ Criss Jami
The ones left behind were in the conference room trying to focus on their tasks while waiting to learn any news from the others. Everyone was anxious about what was going to happen, about what they were going to face in that place. Was it a trap? What was it? They knew that all was part of the job but that couldn't stop them from being worried about their friends and colleagues. Even Clyde had come to that room to continue whatever he was doing.
Gloria was trying to concentrate on the file in front of her, looking for any clues that could point to what exactly Hathaway was, if the recent theory about him was right. She knew that it was in vain. If he was an undercover agent on an operator basis or any other type of spy, they wouldn't be able to find anything in a normal file. These guys could appear as anything, they could be ghosts. She knew it. She knew it from herself. But Richard wouldn't have had that suspicion for Hathaway if that man was working for the good side. He would have spotted the difference. He had known. He had known her.
Richard, a house, MQ-300's… She squeezed the A4's in her fingers. She was struggling so hard to kepp her motions at bay during those long waiting minutes. No, no. The sounds of the shots from a decade ago coming from a radio device would start ring in her ears. She had to keep it together and she had to think positively. Emily's man was going there. David, too… Her heart jumped with worry at his thought and her eyes instictively looked for Emily.
Emily was afraid for Aaron. After so many years being in love with him, she had learnt to hide it. For some reason that skill had lost its strength now. Her eyes wandered in the room. Reid and Blake were going through codes and language on the MI6 message. JJ and Clye were heavily thinking over their own papers. But Gloria was looking at her from across the table.
Emily was aware that her friend was suppressing pain and traumas. She was probably silently scared for another man's life, too. Any kind of bad news could break her down completely. Gloria noticed more anxiety than the expected to be shown on the other woman's face. She knew what she was feeling, sitting in a chair waiting to learn what the fate had decided to unravel and she realized deep down that she wasn't in any different position for twice in her life. Those two sets of eyes turned encouraging and supporting to each other. For a moment they weren't two agents having to do a job unattached by anything around and having between them whatever old or new was lying. They were just two women worrying, fearing the worst and the one had witnessed it before. For that moment that old friendship, that had passed many ups and downs, shone through.
But not for long, as Emily's phone rang. 'Aaron' appeared in the screen and she answered urgently putting it on speaker. He was OK. They were OK.
"Aaron, how did it go?"
"Everything is fine. We had no surprises.", Hotch's voice came from the phone and everyone let the breath they were holding, "And we have Hathaway in custody."
"Is he talking?", Emily asked.
"He was expecting us. He is co-operating fully. But he is asking to speak to the person that replaced Richard Whelan."
"That would be me.", Clyde replied.
"We will be in Quantico shortly."
"Be careful.", Emily said.
"We will.", Hotch ended the call.
"What the hell is going on?", Gloria murmured.
She stood up going to pour a glass of water, not because of thirst but due to uneasiness. How did Hathaway know Richard's name? Through Blackmore obviously. But would he have said it just like that waving a red flag in front of their faces?
Emily turned to her friend. For Emily the short nightmare was over for the time. But for Gloria it wasn't. Instead, things were turning worse and worse. Emily stood up herself and went near her.
"Ria, how are you holding on?"
"All I care is to figure out this bloody mess. That's all.", Gloria replied as simply as she could.
"How are you?", Emily repeated, placing the importance on the 'you'.
"I just told you."
"Ria, you are the one that's here…", the other woman started but Gloria cut her off.
"I would appreciate it if everyone stops reminding me of that.", she murmured angrily and stepped away going to sit back on her chair.
Clyde frowned hearing his former team member. Even Fidget had reminded her of that. All this time he had been worrying about the matter the prisoner had brought up far too many times. But there was an additional reason for that. In between all Fidget had said something he wasn't supposed to know really. But Easter couldn't figure out if his sayings were an afterwards assumption or if they were a knowledge in advance. It was better to wait and see what James Hathaway was going to spill.
Emily let a breath. She had never seen the other woman like that. There have always been those times that she was walking around carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. But they were rare and never lasted long. Her mind went back to a late Friday night in London, in the summer of 2002.
She and Gloria had gone out after work to nice and calm pub and they had drunk a little more than the usual. They were laughing with various stories about men and Emily was talking about her latest date.
"Can you believe it? Twelve potters? He has time to play golf once every two week but he cleans them every week because they are collecting dust exhibited around the house like trophies.", Emily narrated.
"At least can he play?"
"We went to the golf club the other day. But believe me I'm not going with him again. He has done a scientific analysis on how to put a ball in a hole."
"I hope that he hasn't done the same with every type of 'golf'.", her friend said mischievously.
"Thank God, no!", Emily laughed.
"You and your posh boyfriends, Em.", Gloria laughed offering her a cigarette and lighting up one herself.
"Like your 'bad boys' don't have their things.", Emily teased, "You haven't told me any story actually lately. What's going on, Ria? Taking a break or someone is proved not to be so bad finally?", she winked.
"Of course the first.", Gloria continued laughing.
Emily wasn't sure if her friend was lying or not. Probably she was. But with all that wine running through her system she wasn't in position to dig a little bit more. Gloria sat back a bit in the sofa of the pub and her eyes fell on the young couple in a table besides snuggling and a big-big ring was shining on the girl's finger. She took another drag from the cigarette turning serious. Emily had quitted smoking long time ago but occasionally she had one or two. The same was with Gloria but when she drank, she always smoked. Sometimes she had that habit of turning moody when she was intoxicated.
"What do you want from your life, Em?", she asked suddenly, "And I mean anything apart from job progress, catching bad guys and stuff."
She wasn't asking for just conversation. She wasn't asking in order to comment on something. She was asking out of curiosity, pure curiosity. Emily always thought that, while Gloria was her treat to the dark side, she was Gloria's treat to the normal side.
"You mean family and kids?", Emily said getting surprised.
It wasn't like her friend to go into this type of subject. She normally avoided it. They both did. Had she really taken a break from her wild, personal life with guys, the very last they wanted was to settle down? What Emily got to learn some time after that night was that, when her friend was asking those questions, she was in love, deeply in love.
Gloria nodded.
"I… I don't know. It's not like I had the best role-model of a family, you know, moving around the globe with two parents that worked so much they didn't have time for me. I'm not even talking about them seeing each other. And I haven't behaved motherly at all in the past.", Emily confessed.
Gloria exhaled a puff of smoke, smiling sadly.
"You still have more than you think."
Emily realised who she was talking to. Disagreements or not, Emily still had a mother. Disappeared for the most of the time or not, she still had a father. Gloria had no one to call a family. As for the second part of her words, Emily had spoken to her friend about the abortion before and what had stroke her as strange back then was the passive way that she had reacted. She wouldn't have judged her even in her head, Emily knew that. Gloria wasn't some conservative catholic. But still. Something in that story of teenage mindlessness had hurt her.
"Ria, it depends on the man, too. And till now no man ever thought of me becoming the mother of his children. So I have reasons not to be that confident."
She didn't know what exactly reminded her of that night out. Probably the fact that was the very first time that she realised that behind the fearless and decisive face was a girl from a broken home who had grown up to a woman with all the normal worries and insecurities of a regular woman and even more. The whole agency most of the times forgot that. Not that she was ever the out hearted person. It was that air of invincibility she had that used to change the picture. Anyway. She had tried to ask Gloria back then if she had a reason to get into that conversation. But her friend had changed the subject and Emily didn't want to push her infused by the alcohol, bad mood.
Emily's mind stuck to her own answer, though. The one man that did think of her as a mother was no other than Ian Doyle. Emily shook her head. Again with those memories…
Emily's phone rang distracting her thought and judging from the number on the screen the call wasn't for good. Of course, any call from the upper ranks was never for good.
That call only confirmed one thing. She was getting pressurised more and more to a ridiculous degree. How the heck were they expecting them to have solved this whole mess in the last 48 hours with almost nothing to start with? They had people in the streets and they didn't even know when or if a next hit was going to happen and how many were going to die. That was enough to stress about. She had gone through everything again in that hour that took the others to come back to Quantico. A solely one thing could be done and it was the same one that her gut was fearing from the start. Emily was aware that no one would be a fan of the idea. Neither her colleagues would, nor Aaron…
James Hathaway could actually pass as an agent in every bit of the traditional sense. Tall, confident, with that air of authority coming out of every pore of his body, nobody could imagine that the same man used to play Roger Peters, an immigrant transporting candies ten years back in time. He was a chameleon, Emily concluded as she watched him through the one-way glass of the interrogation room. Gloria was leaning with her side on the wall beside the glass, her arms folded on her chest. Rossi was standing at the other side and Emily could notice his discrete glances towards the woman, but she had her eyes dropped to the floor. 'Ria, stop pushing people away.', Emily thought to herself, unaware of what had happened between the two a couple of hours ago. Clyde and Hotch stepped through the door and everyone's attention shifted to what was about to happen in the other room.
"That's Clyde Easter, the person you asked from Interpol.", Hotch started.
Hotch had never been in an interrogation with Easter before. But at least knowing the British agent's straight logic and objective thinking – even if he wasn't absolutely for it in certain occasions – was a reason not to worry for any situations out of hand.
"Nice to meet you. You have my condolences for the loss of your colleague, even if I am very late to give them to you.", Hathaway addressed to Easter.
There was something unsettling in the first words that came out of the man's mouth. There was no irony. He said the phrase in the most normal way that a genuine person would have said it and all of the agents noticed it.
"Let's start from the basics, Hathaway.", Clyde replied, "Why did you ask for me and how do you know about Richard Whelan?"
"I'll start from the start, Agent Easter.", Hathaway said directly, "I am a professional, private spy. I can't prove it till I am able to talk freely. For the moment you have to go with my word."
'We got another secretive guy', Clyde thought but he decided to play along.
"And what were you spying exactly by being around the Paradise Demons?", he asked.
"I was contracted for an operation on an American businessman that was involved with Paradise Demons and I offered some help to Agent Whelan, if you can say it like that."
"What?!", Gloria in the other room got confused.
"As far as I know,", the stranger carried on, "he had put someone to infiltrate the group but that person had failed. To be honest, he or she, actually my guess is that your person was a she, hadn't really failed. To get into them you had to do the real hard stuff and he hadn't let her proceed."
"That's true…", Gloria murmured.
"Thing that was strange considering that my and her type of people, we are exactly getting paid to do the hard stuff. But it wasn't my place to know his reasons."
"Who had contracted you for your initial operation and on who was it?", Hotch spoke not really expecting an answer.
"I'm sorry but I can't disclose this information. I'm also getting paid to keep my mouth shut."
"Then we have no way to see if you are telling the truth.", Easter replied.
The Richard Whelan that Clyde knew wouldn't have brought this guy into an investigation without leaving a record. Yes, he was too much into taking down Paradise Demons, too much into Blackmore, too. Yes, he took Gloria out because he was already overprotective of her. But he wouldn't be careless.
"You managed to stop that boat from Africa five days before the farm incident based on information coming from an informer working around Henry Fidget."
"That's true.", Gloria repeated.
"Agent Whelan, I guess, he insisted that there was something more than regular firearms in that boat, didn't he?", Hathaway raised an eyebrow, "He had inside information during the whole case. Who do you think was giving him that? How do you think he knew that about the boat?"
Emily looked at Gloria in question. Rossi, too. Was what the man was saying even close to the truth?
"There was inside info. That's a fact. But, bloody hell, there were already two British agencies working on them and other national and international ones feeding us things. The sources weren't always clear.", she getting even more puzzled.
"But that with the boat was information from a source close to the heads of the organisation, very close.", Emily said, "And since you weren't in, who was?"
"I never believed that Richard had learnt that from somewhere. I've always thought it was an assumption…"
"You have to explain us another thing, Hathaway.", Hotch spoke again, "How did you know that we were looking for you?"
"I knew that Agent Whelan would have left some notice for me. In my line of work I come across a lot of things and in some cases I come across the same thing twice. I know that some Paradise Demons sub-groups have been revived ad they have become 'posher'. Isn't that how would you call them in England?", he turned to Easter.
"And you put a bomb in the FBI parking lot to make us get to you.", Hotch said.
"I didn't do it. But I know who did."
"So you came here to offer help."
Something in Hathaway wasn't right, Aaron could tell. However, with the job that the man was doing no one could ever be sure when he was telling the truth, he was lying or… he was manipulating the truth.
"No, I came here because I am in danger. But before I tell you what I want to tell you, I need a deal."
"What do you want?", Unit Chief asked again.
"Full protection. Nothing more, nothing less.", he clarified, "I told you. I'm getting paid to keep my mouth shut. If I open it, I am dead. I'm very much disposable to my employers anyway."
"It depends on what you have to say."
"I want a fully written, legal deal in front of me, before I say a single word. It's only myself to take care of my own interest, Agent Hotchner. I'm very much disposable to your agencies, as well. I know that, too."
Hotch and Easter exchanged a look. The blond man looked like he had something in his mind. They stepped out of the room and into the observation one.
"What do you think?", Hotch asked the others.
Emily was surprised by what was heard. Gloria was staring at the man through the glass. He was familiar. Not as a person or a face, of course. But his way of thinking, 'the hard stuff', 'disposable', 'only myself to take care of my own interest', was familiar. Private spies, spies on an operator basis were all the same, at the end. Nobody to depend on, except themselves. Their life and their death was in their hands. Everything was all about a mission and a survival. She knew all that too well. But probably when you were not that egotistical or when you learnt to trust and depend on someone, then you would turn into the mess that she was. Or when your own life was not that important even to you… She shook her head. The confusion that she had in her mind was enough. She really didn't need to profile herself.
"He doesn't give any signs if he is telling the truth or not. The guy is good at his job.", Rossi answered.
"There is something but the three of us we should talk first.", Clyde suggested.
Emily nodded and the Interpol agents retrieved to the room next door.
"What do you think about him?", Emily asked.
"All that he says backs up.", then British guy started.
"So do you believe him? Are you for real, Clyde?", Gloria protested.
"I said that his words back up. I didn't say I believe him.", Easter clarified ignoring the woman's aggressive tone, "Whatever he said could be facts he has learnt from someone."
"He knew too many details, inside details.", Emily said, already getting worried by what Clyde was implying.
"So we have a snitch?", Gloria realised.
"And that's why we should be really careful with the other thing you've been thinking about.", Clyde carried on looking at Emily, "This can turn worse than Doyle. In that story we got the mole after. In this we have him already."
"Clyde, you see there is no other way. We are chasing our tails. None of these people are going to give us something solid to proceed with evidence. To what extent can we be sure that we have an informer?", Emily pressed.
"Emily, Fidget, also, knew more details than he was supposed to know.", he started turning to Gloria.
She looked like she wasn't getting what he was about to say, exactly what he was expecting. She had been so shocked and distracted by the memory itself and the revelations that she hadn't noticed it.
"I didn't say anything because I wasn't sure on what base he said it. At the same time, if he hadn't said it, I wouldn't be sure that Hathaway is lying.", he shook his head, "But they both know too much."
"What did Fidget say, Clyde?", Emily asked confused by the continuous stare between her two colleagues and Gloria's dumbfound expression while Clyde was clearly trying to warn her for something.
Clyde pressed his lips. He had to say it and he had to find the 'lightest' way to word it.
"Fidget knew that it was Richard or Gloria going into the farm, not both of them."
"Richard Whelan couldn't just stand and watch and he wouldn't let his mistress step into that farm, would he?"
Gloria squeezed her eyes runinning her hand through her hair. How on Earth she had missed that? Because the rest had hurt too much...
"It's not you that has to go in."
"You are staying here, Gloria.", he replied without turning to her as he was getting ready.
They didn't know for how long, but thankfully they were alone in that tent.
"Richard.", she called reaching for his arm and that time he turned, "I am the team member. You are the leader. Since one of us is to go in, I am the one."
"No, you aren't. You are part of the intelligence.", he spoke decisively, "It's my choice who to send. I'm making it."
"Don't endanger yourself for me. Richie…", her voice broke.
It was the very first time in her life that she was in such a panic. She could die just for him to be safe. She would be OK with that. She loved him. She loved him more than her own life.
"Things may not go well. I can't stand the worry of you getting caught in any crossfire.", he said softer, his hands sneaked to her face.
"I told you I am not…", she tried to say.
No, there was no other reason of not risking herself. Whatever they had in mind those last days didn't exist, at least it didn't anymore… If it had, like her heart was telling her, it was all her own fault, a fault of her own body. She didn't matter so much for him to risk his own life.
His thump on her lips shushed her.
"It doesn't matter. It's you, Gloria. You matter to me. You matter. Don't ever forget that."
He just kissed her quickly but firmly taking her breath. She clang to him. She couldn't change his mind. All she could do was to pray in every single god she knew that he was going to be safe.
"Be careful, please…", she breathed pleadingly her lips closed to his.
"I promise I'll come back. I love you."
And that was the only promise he didn't get to keep, because no god ever answered those prayers.
"Ria?", Emily asked worried.
Gloria had to focus. Those were the moments that haunted her all those years. He had died to protect her. 'It should have been her.' And he had died due to a betrayal, too. Her body was aching for one more time. She had to focus on something and Emily's previous words were the first ones available.
"Clyde is right. He couldn't know that.", she spoke quickly, "But what exactly are you two thinking of doing and 'there is no other way'?"
"These people they operate in a closed cycle. The only way to gather the evidence we need to stop them is an one-way: Infiltration.", Emily replied, deciding not to stay on the previous point and not to ask for any reason. Something was telling her that she didn't really want to know it.
"What?!", the other woman got even more surprised, "Emily, this thing needs time. It can't be done so fast."
Emily took a breath. She knew that her friend wouldn't take the news well. Clyde, either.
"There is a leeway. If the person that is going to approach them already existed.", she said steadily, "And the previous version of Paradise Demons have seen the person. Like Lauren Reynolds."
"Are you insane?", Gloria told her, "Lauren Reynolds is dead."
Her head was spinning with memories she wished to forget and new information that made everything even crueller and on top Emily wanted to step into a dangerous situation all by herself!
"She is not going to be the first one that faked her own death.", Emily replied calmly.
"Em, if these people have an inside snitch, they know far too well that Lauren Reynolds was fake, after what happened two years ago.", Clyde tried.
"Interpol only made known that Doyle escaped. What happened after had to do with the FBI. The informer is in us, not in them."
"That sick priest in London knew the story!", Gloria insisted, "What makes you think that these psychos now don't?"
"The priest's connection was with the FBI.", she started before being cut off by the other woman again.
"If you think that infiltration is the only way, we can try it. We can follow a strategy similar to the extraction one. But let me do it. Me. Not you.", the British woman suggested more calmly.
"Ria, you know that this out of question. You are too close."
"I have the experience. I know how to infiltrate fast. I've been around the Paradise Demons before. I know the ways.", she reasoned.
"What makes you think that they don't know about you?", Emily turned around the other woman's question.
"Emily, my files are covered by multiple layers of security. If they have a name, they know nothing more. Fidget knew my face because he had seen me crying. That's all. But even if they do know exactly who I am, I am the very last face they are expecting."
"I cannot authorise this. That's not a personal vendetta.", Emily argued.
"And going under is a desperate reaction!", Gloria raised her tone, "Like so many of yours! It's not gonna be the first time!"
"Gloria, you have no right…", Emily raised her own voice.
"To state the obvious?! Emily, you are cornered by everyone! They want you down and you are trying to get to the surface as fast as possible! And to do it you are ready to screw yourself!"
"Another time thinking that you know everything.", Emily shook her head.
Sometimes her friend's tendency were unnerving her. She was exaggerating but she was telling truths in between. Probably that was the reason it was annoying. But she wasn't completely right.
"Tell me! Tell me where I am wrong.", the other woman challenged, "You have me here and you want to send yourself, while your sole experience is another mission out of desperation to go up."
Clyde tried to speak, but the argument between the two women was heating up. It was heating up dangerously, indeed.
Emily started to get angrier. For one more time Gloria was lecturing her about Doyle's op. She was against it, she had never changed her opinion and Emily never understood the real reason. Was she really questioning her abilities that much? Or was she really thinking that she was about to do all that to only save her own skin from this political game?
"I can't trust your judgement.", she said firmly.
"You don't trust 'me'! That's the problem! You didn't trust me even before my own life had to do with this shit!"
Emily felt guilty for a moment. She had questioned her far too much those last days. She knew she had hurt her.
"I was wrong about that, Ria. But you are in no physical condition! You are emotionally involved!"
"And what? I can still shoot. Am I going to blow Blackmore's brains out and blow up your case? Believe me, if I wanted to, I would do it anyway! Do you think that I can't? Emily, you have a very small idea to who you are talking to!"
Ria could play the invincible as much as she wanted but not to Emily, Emily knew from her own self and for far too long that wasn't true.
"Exactly because I know, I'm not letting you! You are not going to kill the guy in cold blood. But you can very easily get yourself killed! What do you want, Gloria? More victims by these guns?", Emily regretted the last phrase the moment it came out of her mouth.
"Sorry, but you are the one that has experience in that!", Gloria exclaimed.
"Gloria, that's enough!", Clyde finally intervened.
"Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good." ~ Lao Tzu
Wow… Those last lines hurt both sides… Trying to protect each other ending up saying the wrong things or right things in the wrong way…
Consider this chapter as a compensation to you for the weeks I didn't update, one of the longest (actually the longest till now) and pretty juicy ones, I think. A bit of Emily and Gloria's friendship (I know there was no much suspense for you, since you did know from the end of the previous chapter that nothing dangerous happened during Hathaway's arrest.), a glimpse to their past relation (and some talk about kids… By chance? I don't think so…), the rather weird Hathaway and the explosion of that luring tension between the girls…
And what Fidget knew that he shouldn't just got revealed for all of you who may wonder but you didn't share your thoughts with me. ;)
Spoiler: This political game in Interpol is part of the guy's they chase game…
But what has come between the girls? Will they be able to heal from that? And if yes, how? I'm not spoiling anything on this matter, guys, till the end.
However, I'm more than eager to read your thoughts… :D