Moments
A/N: Yay for return of cast! And Hayley Atwell's dubsmash victory ; )
Anywho, enjoy!
Ramirez Rescue
"Carter, my office!"
Peggy silently sent up a prayer of gratitude that she had taken the time to have two cups of tea at lunch. It was never a good shift in the office when Jack started it off by bellowing at her.
Not even making the side trip to her desk to set down her purse or remove her gloves, she did as she was told, and without being told, she shut the door behind her. Jack only called her into his office to discuss business that he did not want anyone else to know about. If he didn't mind, he would sit on the edge of her desk and drawl out his orders for one and all to hear.
Once the door was shut, he blurted, "Ramirez is late checking in. He sent Palmer to follow your boy Vinnie, while he tailed the other party the weasel just had a meeting with."
She ignored the almost accusatory 'your boy Vinnie', as Jack tended to get surly when he was truly worried about his agents and as this was Ramirez, now was not the time to call him on it. Instead, she quietly and evenly asked, "How late?"
"Over an hour," he replied, and then he stood up and began to pace, even as he ordered, "I want you to take Wallace and Fisher and go see if you can track him down."
Peggy opened her mouth to ask where, but Jack cut her off, as he hastily explained, "I would have you take Sousa too but he's out following one of his infamous hunches and I think it is a good one. And I need someone to hold down the fort while I am in that blasted oversight budget meeting."
She snorted softly, "If you didn't have that meeting, you would be leading the charge yourself, wouldn't you?"
"Yeah," was his wistful reply as he stared out the window.
She could see in the bunched up shoulders and the clenching and the unclenching of the hand that wasn't in his pocket that Jack was all sorts of worried and frustrated. She could do nothing about his feelings of powerlessness or anxiety. To be a man of action and not able to act because your position of authority confines you to a chair must be maddening. She knew that there was nothing she could do or say to alleviate that, but she could remind him that he was doing the best he could.
"Wallace and Fisher will be sufficient," she asserted softly, and at his nod, she added, "And, Jack, you don't need to explain yourself to me. You're my boss."
Apparently, she had gone too far in the reassurance department, because he whipped around to glare at her, snapping, "I know that, Carter. I was in the Navy, if you recall, and they had the same 'how high' philosophy when it came to orders."
Before she could apologize, his demeanor changed once again. He flopped back down into his chair, and almost pleading for her understanding, he continued to explain himself. "It's just that I got a bad feeling about this, which is why I am sending two senior agents with you. I need agents I can trust to come back, to not go charging into some place half-cocked and blazing for glory because they need to prove themselves."
When his pleading blue eyes met her gaze, she held it, wanting him to know that she had received his message loud and clear. She didn't need to prove herself anymore. She had already done so, and she had better not get her or anyone else killed by thinking she did still – or he would find a way to make her afterlife very miserable.
Trying not to get all affected by both his confidence in her and his concern for, she briskly stated, "Alright. Where to?"
He slid a piece of paper across his desk towards her. It contained the address of the pay phone box Ramirez had called from.
While she was mentally mapping out the location, she inquired curiously, "Do Fisher and Wallace know yet?"
"No, weren't you listening? Take them with you. Start out how you are going to go, Carter," he gently chided.
She nodded and left, realizing that he was making her leader of the operation to save one of the few agents Jack would call a friend. For once, she was a little bit terrified of disappointing the man.
~A~
"This is the place?" Wallace asked as he pulled up to the curb. They were in one of New York's many late-night entertainment districts. This one catered both to the sophisticated, with its plays and musicals, and to the less so, with its dance and gaming halls and risqué gentlemen's clubs. She used the term 'gentlemen' loosely.
"Yes. That's the phone that he last called from," she pointed out the front passenger's window to the red phone box. "Per Ramirez's last check-in, he thought that the gentlemen he was tailing were waiting for someone before they went into one of these clubs."
"It's the Checkered Hall."
Both she and Wallace shot Fisher, who was sitting in the back, looks of disbelief.
"It used to be the Candied Striper," he stated as if that was all that was needed to explain his certainty.
Apparently, it was, for Wallace nodded sagely, saying knowingly, "Krezminski's old haunt?"
Fisher nodded, "Before he met his girlfriend."
Peggy eyed the Checkered Hall, saying doubtfully, "It seems to be a bit too…" She wanted to say 'classy' but as it was a strip club, that wasn't quite accurate. She finally settled on, "…upscale."
"Mhmm…Yeah, well, it got bought out and revamped." Fisher, their follow-the-money man, knowingly asserted.
"Bought by who?"
"The Ilyich brothers."
"Who have Leviathan connections," Wallace queried resignedly.
"Yeah."
At Fisher's confirmation, all three stared at the club, assessing it as if it was a fortress.
After a few moments, Carter outlined her plan, "Okay. Fisher, you'll blend in the best." Neither she nor Wallace could pass themselves off as a businessman, and the Checkered Hall's clientele this early in the day were down-on-their-luck stockbrokers who battled depression by getting their jollies off watching women sell their bodies. "See if you can get the lay of the land, while, Wallace, you scout the perimeter. I'll keep an eye out for any activity at the front from here."
Fisher again nodded, straightened his tie, and then left the car, striding towards the bright lights of the club entrance. Wallace waited a few beats before leaving to go and disappear down the dark side alley.
And she hunkered down to play the waiting and watching game.
The only thing worse would be to be in Jack's shoes right now.
~A~
The meeting had been excruciating. Hours of pontificating and verbal scrapping for budget crumbs for pet side projects or special equipment. Jack didn't even get a chance to defend his training program.
And every other tick of the second hand that slowly crawled by, all he could think about was what if it was Ramirez's last. Or would it be Carter's? Or would he be making calls to Fisher's or Wallace's wives tonight? How would he explain that he had sent them into danger while he went to a pointless meeting?
Excruciating.
So it was an enormous relief to see the wan and tired but triumphant faces of all four of his agents in his office.
He had masked it, of course, and had simply grunted in true Dooley fashion, "Report."
After Ramirez had recounted how the Borislav Twins had gotten the drop on him and of their initial round of interrogation in the club's back rooms, he stated, "…And just when I thought my last sight was gonna be the ugly mug of that chilito, in walks Carter – and you should have seen her boss."
Ramirez proceeded to tell of a hair-twirling, gum-smacking broad, who took one look at the scene before her - a battered and bruised man tied to a chair and two thugs – and then bluntly and brazenly states: "If you were wanting to uglify a pretty boy's face, I could teach you a thing or two."
"And then while their cave-men brains were trying to process that, she pops off and says to me, 'Honey, I hope you charged double for this hour of foreplay, or Sammy's gonna have more than your hide'."
While Ramirez cherished this utterly absurd and lewd approach to a rescue operation (Jack always knew his friend had twisted sense-of humor), Wallace interjected dryly, "What I want to know is how a gal like yourself knows of Sammy, the pimp-king of queers?"
Carter responded to all of their questioning stares with a casual shrug, admitting diffidently, "It's always been my policy to be well-informed."
Over Wallace's grunt, Fisher continued their report, "Well, the long and short of it was that they were so befuddled with fury by her insinuation that Carter was able to do her own version of a blitz attack, quite effectively demonstrating her method of 'uglifying' and allowing me to extract Ramirez and meet Wally who had our escape route covered."
"Way to ruin my punch-line, Fishy," Ramirez whined.
Fisher rolled his eyes not dignifying the complaint or nickname with a reply.
To Ramirez, Jack inquired concernedly, "You see the doctor yet?"
"Yeah, mommy-Marge insisted."
"He's fine. Confined to desk duty for a week or two," Carter reported.
Jack gave a curt nod, stating briskly, "Good. I expect your reports on my desk come Monday."
All nodded and began to file out, (limping in Ramirez's case). As Carter shut the door, he mouthed to her a silent 'Thank you.'
She smiled in acknowledgment.
He watched her through his office window blinds as she walked to her desk with her head held high, and he wondered, as he often did, how Dooley ever did this job without having the utmost confidence in and use of Carter.
He never could figure out an answer to that question, and he prayed every day that he never would have to.
Translation: "chilito"means "little dick" in Spanish
A/N: Thoughts?
