Jennkyle: thank you :)

Noro: here you go, sorry for the long wait.

Clio1792: thanks so much for sharing what you liked best. It´s great to see that the scenes worked and all the more wonderful to know what readers associate when reading.

ShaunV76: Indeed. Will keep progressing despite all the mess their life is now. :) Great to see you again btw.

Kelleekellkell: Thanks a lot. :)

SeptemberMom: That was actually just the image I wanted to create, thanks so much for the feedback. :)

: A few answers on your questions in this chapter…or rather…little hints. But they will be answered in time. :)

Kz4valentina: Exactly. They´re having such a tough time opening up about all this and Jerry´s death in the middle of all of it makes it all the more painful. Then again, it might be part of the genesis of rebuilding trust, because they do have to talk it through if they want justice done. On Maya.. you´ll see. ;)

Justbecauseican43: Wow, thank you so much. Reading that someone reads my stories from start to current update that fast is really flattering and a great compliment. I am sorry for keeping you waiting and thank you so much for the comment on Goldwyn. His acting is actually the reason why I love these little scenes I do in this story where it´s from his point of view. He makes it very easy for me to look into Fitz´ head which I believe is not done enough in the show. Or rather which is not part of the show´s narrative too much. Hope you´ll keep reading and thanks again.

Chapter 30

Bait

The billionaire had never been known to her by any other name. She was certain to be able to guess his age at around 60, in her mind adding and subtracting years by age lines and added age lines caused by causes that were not natural but probably more the result of excessive smoking and some malnutrition in his teenage years. By now his body´s girth however told a story of plenty in a nation torn by civil war, the small hump of a belly adding a bit of a strain to his long, white cotton shirt. His hair had greyed for the most part as had his beard that he wore proudly just like so many of the men she had seen in the streets. He watched her from keen, cold eyes, a glance not unlike the one she herself was capable of creating, his stance betraying slight disdain.

There were four more men in the room, three of them armed, one sat right next to him. An interpreter no doubt. Maya spoke a flawless Arabic, but her opposite didn´t have to know. People were so much more outspoken when they thought there was someone in the room that didn´t understand them. Especially if they believed that other person to be vulnerable. And strictly speaking, she was. Abbas and Jack, her two little puppets, so willing to commit the random murder for a handful of crisp dollar bills, she had had to leave outside – not much of a surprise there.

So far the billionaire seemed very secure in his own skin, had exchanged a few sentences with his interpreter in an Arabic dialect that Maya knew was far more wide spread further south and that he no doubt had picked because he thought she´d not understand a word. She had understood everything they had been saying. The softly worded insults against the ´American she-dog´, accompanied by a supremacist smile, never tainting the fake sense of distanced, belittling hospitality. The brief exchange about what good this meeting could bring them. Maybe information about fighters in the US willing to add to their cause? Maybe top secret information on landmarks? Anything, it seemed, was valuable, and in these few minutes Maya, her body language a little less devout now but still submissive, had learned that this group was not a very organized one. Thugs, basically, that lacked the proper infrastructure they would have wanted, but for her purposes, they would do just fine. The billionaire was a typical case – the money of the IS, ruthless enough to be willing to add some chaos to the world, careless enough not to bother the empires he tore down on the way and greedy to extent his influence beyond the borders of his own sand-infested territories. In other words: the perfect little puppet for her purposes. Add some information to the money and they would be a very valuable tool. But just like he thought she couldn´t understand a word of what he was exchanging with his men, he never needed to know she was just here because she wanted his muscle. Oh it would be fun, she thought, her smile truly hidden now. The fun it would be to destroy Rowan. The man wanted order. Wanted control. Chaos was only an option if it was one that he himself had created and controlled. What she had in mind however was much more fun. Oh, sweet revenge…

"What information is it that you have for us then?"

His English bore a slight American accent – clearly he had spent some time in the States, or had had good teachers. She allowed herself to smile a thin lipped smile, reminding herself that she could not follow that exciting tingle of imminent danger daring her to be bold, tempting as the thought might be. "Enough for you to force the United States to their knees." she said.

"And yet you have come empty handed? A daring move, especially for a woman coming to this city."

"Oh I am sure we are both interested in what the other has to offer." she said. And she knew that the billionaire was curious already, that he had probably tried to find out about her and what she might bring him. "we both have connections that can be very valuable to the other."

"Let me see yours."

She shifted slightly, sitting a little more upright. "Twenty million." ahe said. "I know this is not even pocket money for you. A real bargain. Creating the biggest political crisis in the United States in the last decades for just a little pocket change. Ten I want right now. The other ten once your men retrieved the information."

Her opposite gave a dry chuckle. "I would not advise you to try and pull my leg." he said.

She smiled a little more broadly, dangerously. "I wouldn´t." she said. "and we both know that your men will keep track of us long after I left. There is no danger for you." And yes, she was in great danger, knew they would be on to her like roaches, following unseen and seen once she and her two companions left, but it was worth the thrill. What she had to offer the billionaire was worth it. What he would do with it, would be fun to watch, fun enough to risk her life for it. She had done that before. Risking her life was always fun. It was the moments when she felt the most alive.

The billionaire leant forward a little, interlacing his fingers as he looked at her. "Be that as it may, I believe before you leave we should talk a little more detail."

oooooooooooo

"We should talk a little more detail."

Liv had gotten to her feet and started pacing the Oval in that energetic way he had so often observed about her. It was actually nice to see her do it that way, because it reminded him of how things had been. Not that such thoughts were of any help right here and right now that they were sitting together, him, her and David Rosen, trying to come up with a plan to expose the murderer of his son which the longer they talked sounded more and more like something positioned at the very brink of legality.

He was sat on one of the sofas, the spot closest to the fireplace that faced the Resolute Desk, Rosen had picked the sofa opposite of him, his whole body language betraying nervousness and an edginess he had not seen in the other man before, even though truth be told he had always had the impression that the Attorney General had appeared very guarded around him. Maybe it was that what was slightly off right now. Olivia had told him all about the attack on the man, so it was only natural that Rosen was even more fidgety. And for more than one reason.

"Well, talking detail is difficult when our hands are tied. We do have enough to lock your father away for good, Olivia," Rosen started again after clearing his throat, recapitulating the conversation that had started to go in circles in the last couple of minutes. "But as I told you, the problem is that if we use the files which we are legally obliged to, actually, we do not just expose him. We expose the fact that there has not only been a secret special ops force that conducted an assassination on the president´s son, but also that this very unit was approved by the president, and not only this one, and that that all of this was kept a secret from the American taxpayer. Not to mention that it would reveal that the leader of the free world seems to not have an inch of control over B316 so the people would realize there is a highly dangerous government funded special ops unit running rampant within the United States. It´s the wet dream of any crazy conspiracist out there."

Fitz watched her cross her arms, noticing it was just the same defiant stance that he had faced so often. He crossed his legs and proppsd his chin on two fingers. "Not to mention the damage this would to abroad." he added. "If exposing Rowan means exposing B316 it will cause far more damage than an interior crisis."

"There are other forces in the mix as well." David said, shooting him a short glance from the corners of his eyes. "I don´t even want to know how infiltrated we are and where his secret agents might be. I frankly had enough of a taste for it, so if we do go after your father, Olivia, we need to do it in a way that does not show the world what kind of strings he is really pulling." He threw up his arms. "And by god I should not even be part of this conversation."

"So you´re telling me, we can´t do this? That we shouldn´t?" Her voice had a sharp edge.

Rosen shook his head. "I think we should. But we can´t. We need to but the question is what we pull down with it. We´ll definitely be included in the carnage, that´s what I think."

"So in other words, I have my Attorney General telling me that we cannot go after the murderer of my son because it could weaken my image?" Fitz noticed that his voice had gone up a notch, that he was speaking in the kind of tone that breathed authority and that would make most people stand down. He regretted his own emotions filtering through, but he could see that the effect wasn´t lost on the other man.

"It´s a lot more than that. All I am saying, Sir, is that I think…"

"This is not about you, David." Her voice was calm, but determined. "This is not about me, or about you or about what the world or the American people might think." She turned her head and faced Fitz directly. He read determination in her eyes and the attempt to mask whatever might be going through her mind right now in order to focus on what she was doing right now. Her job. "It´s about what you want Fitz. You are my client in this and I always go for what my client was. And I get that done."

He stayed silent for a moment. There was no need for him to elaborate what he wanted. He wanted justice. He wanted to know that the murderer of his son was dealt with, that the puppeteer behind the scenes was gone. She knew that and her words showed it. But it wasn´t quite as simple. He was her father after all.

"To expose my father, the files would be a good start. We need to go through them to see if we find any information on Jerry, but I doubt there will be any." She said nothing more and Fitz understood. This had not been a B316 operation. This had been far more…personal. He recalled that conversation in the hospital. ´You, Sir, want a head on a silver platter.´ and ´if anyone harmed my child that´s what I´d do.´This had been a personal vendetta. Fitz felt his guts tightening, his mind drifting until her voice interrupted his darkening thoughts. "…was something that he planned on his own, something he coordinated all on his own, but we can assume he had a helper. He never even went near Jerry himself, so we need to find out where the mole is and I bet it´s someone close to you, Mr President."

He wondered if she was only calling him that because Rosen was in the room or to reassure herself of a professional distance she was keeping in this situation, a distance rooted in the fact that right now she wasn´t…whatever she was to him or him to her, but the fixer, the woman who had to radically and unemotionally ignore all her personal involvement in this to get the job done for her client. He knew her well enough to see that this was her agenda right now, but still, the distance brought across by this simple way to address him stung quite a bit.

"We need to prove the backgrounds in the murder." she said. "we need to investigate him on those grounds and those grounds alone and leave B316 out of it. For now. He´s Command. If we topple him, B316 will be back under your control. Tactically, we do not need any more than the murder. It will be more than enough to lock him away."

He knew her well enough. She kept her mouth open for a split second longer after stopping to speak, leaving her sentence basically unfinished. It would be enough to lock her father away. Probably though, even enough for the death sentence. And he had no way of telling whether that was an option for her. Or whether he even wanted it to be one. His own feelings here were a different matter. But things just never were simple that way, weren´t they?

He turned his head again as he noticed Rosen had bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees with a sigh. "So we expose him by revealing he was responsible for the murder? How to not get the government involved? How to do that without an official charge conducted by my office for one?"

There was, suddenly, a change in her features. The thinnest of smiles. "By involving someone who will do the job for us." she said. "All we need to do is to get the right amount of information to a place where someone looking for hot news can hack in and find them."

Rosen leant back, a frown of mild confusion on his mind while it started to dawn on Fitz that this was an idea that could actually work. "We need to do the ground work first." she continued. "We will need to … find out who was involved. Who actually did it. We need to get to know who inside this White House works for my father. We need to get fool proof information and make it appear like it could not possibly have been information that we had. We make it look like it´s something only my father had full access to. We need to, even when we know who killed Jerry, stay silent about it. And then we place it on the internet and set the trap."

He could follow her thoughts, much more easily than Rosen, it seemed. And despite himself, despite the gruesome nature of the subject of this conversation, he felt the smallest of smiles creep across his lips. She was smart. So smart.

"A whistleblower." he concluded her thoughts, explaining them to the Attorney General. "You´re setting a trap for a Whistleblower."