I like to bring back minor characters. Please review. I do own nothing besides Tay. This is a filler chapter but it kinda is important to the story. I don´t know how i feel about this chapter but here it is. I have no Idea how Seattle looks like.
She had known it wouldn´t be easy. They had gone trough it so many times she had felt like the plan was the only thing on her mind – which was good. If she had thought about this whole … event just for a second too long she was certain she would have canceled it.
When Red came into the ambulance she had wished for a second she was dead for real. In the aftermath it was really hard to describe what she had felt and noticed. Mr. Kaplan had told her to imagine it like she was in a coma. The „medicine" slowed down her heartbeat and her breathing and a hacker friend simply manipulated the monitors which displayed her vital functions. They just had a limited time frame because otherwise the drugs would either loose their effect or they wouldn´t have been able to bring her back. No one could be sure because she was only the second person on earth who used this.
A tiny part of her wished that would it have failed. She hoped that Red would notice she was fooling him. He noticed everything especially with her but this time it was different. Mr. Kaplan had showed the video footage to her. It was like she was watching a goddamn movie. Red he seemed genuinely shocked and devastated. He really cared about her.
Wasn´t it ironic that as so often you need to die first to realize who really is there for you in the end.
She turned the video off when Ressler entered the ambulance. She couldn´t watch it.
Now she sat in the back of an old, rusty truck on the way to a private airport and with any luck she would be in Great Britain in just a few hours. She looked at her her reflection in the rear-view mirror. Boy, that hairdresser was really good. It would take her a while to be comfortable with her new look but she would get along. Her hair was black now. Never again she would dye her hair blonde. Black was a lot more fitting. It was also longer god knows how the hairdresser had worked that out. Probably extensions. Then they had shaved half of her head. It was an odd feeling but at least she didn´t look like herself. The plan depended on that.
Elizabeth Keen didn´t exist anymore. She was Julia Reed from now on. She needed to remind herself every five minutes that it was the right thing to do. That her daughter had to grow up without a mother just like her was necessary to protect her. Never knowing who she truly is. Agnes would probably never know her real father. Did she even have a birth certificate? She had been in the life of her daughter for less than ten minutes and had already made a mess out of it. It was a real tragedy. She wasn´t an very religious person but she prayed that just for that one time Tom would be reliable. She had prayed her daughter was safe with him but she couldn´t sure. So she had wrote her will. She had actually forgot it after the prison but she just needed to know that someone would take care of her child.
She knew it wasn´t fair neither to Agnes nor to Ressler. If their lifes hadn´t been this fucked up Ress would probably take care of his son or daughter now. His and Audrey´s child. But if their life´s weren´t this fucked up Agnes wouldn´t exist. That one night would have never happened. Somewhere deep down in her heart she knew that it was worth it. All of it. She couldn´t be with her daughter and had lied straight into the face of the man who had willingly thrown himself between her and a bullet. It hurt and it felt she was stabbed a thousand times but she knew that for these two persons she would do anything. If it meant she had to leave their lives to protect them well it sucked but she would do it. Maybe it was for the better. Maybe she was the reason everyone and everything around her crumbled. She was like a wild fire she burned everything to the ground and all that was left when she was gone was ashes of the lifes she had touched.
„Ms Reed we need to make a change of plans. We can not guarantee for your safety in the United Kingdom anymore. Mister Solomon was seen with one of our handlers who were significant for the success of this luckily could arrenge to get you to a safe house near Seattle." suddenly the driver spoke up. This was no good sign she thought but she would just roll with it. What else should she do.
In her mind she went trough the whole plan again and again. They – Mr. Kaplan and herself had come up with it after she told Red she was pregnant. Liz contact – the same hacker who manipulated the monitors just happened to be an ally of Mr. Kaplan. The hackers name was Tay and she was not even twenty years old. Tay was also the contact who should look for more cameras in Ressler´s apartment and when she had found the footage she had noticed that it was also an trojaner that was connected to Ressler´s laptop. Tay had an hard time with decoding the thing because it used techology which wasn´t even on the market yet. Tay had said that it was probably CIA or another secret service.
The fake dead was actually Liz Idea. She had come up with it when she sat in her office because she wasn´t allowed to work in the field anymore and had gone trough Red´s file to look for some connections. Five years after he had disappeared some organization believed he was dead. For two years nobody had heard or seen him. Not a single murder could be connected to him. Afterwards it had turned out that in this time he had carefully waved network of lies and conspiracies and had used everyone and everything to his advantage. By then he was basically untouchable.
The first person who had seen him again was no one else than Special Agent Donald Ressler.
Liz thought that when the Cabal thought she was dead which they had wanted all along that they probably would start to make mistakes. Sure some of them would probably get suspicious without having seen a corpse but she just had to believe that even they had an Achilles heel and should she find it so god help her she would burn them down. For that she needed her own network. She needed people who would be 100 per cent loyal. She didn´t need friends she needed allies. People with resources. Shouldn´t be that big of problem for the daughter of a spy. She just hoped that all that time she had spend in the presence of the „Concierge of Crime" was worth it.
„I´m doing all of this for you, Agnes. Forgive me, darling" she said into the silence.
She looked out of the window. They were driving right into a thunderstorm, she could hear the thunder. In a short distance she could see the lightnings dancing over over the black sky, tearing it apart. That was exactly how she felt inside. In the back of her mind she made room for all her hopes and dreams. She needed to put them away, lock them away to work efficiently. She wanted to destroy one of the biggest conspiracies in the history of humanity which meant she couldn´t start to cry about her daughter every five minutes and it meant there was no room for childish fantasies about the man she had no future with anyway. She needed to put all of it aside to stay focused.
She wanted to get back to them one day which sadly meant she needed to forget about them.
„Miss Reed are you alright?" she barely heard the voice of her driver. „Miss Reed I am terribly sorry to wake you but you screamed in your sleep. We will change cars for the last two hours. We will soon arrive in Seattle to meet your contact."
Only now she took notice of her surroundings. They parked somewhere in the woods. Next to the rusty pick up truck there was a another car. She didn´t recognize the brand but it was probably one of that cars your ordinary soccer mom used to go grocery shopping. They would blend in perfectly. That was all she needed, all she wanted. To just blend in, for once.
The sky was colored in a mixture of pink and orange and the sun was just about to rise. Beautiful she would have thought if she had an eye for it.
This was her daughter´s first sunrise and it would be a wonderful weather today. Damn she needed to work on that whole putting hopes and feelings into boxes thing because she felt like the first tears were rolling down her cheeks. „Miss Reed …?" her driver asked.
„I´m fine." she cut him off. She got out off the car and went straight to the new car. She didn´t have any luggage. No photos, nothing. All the money she possessed was already in the safe house. They had only been back on the road for two minutes or so when she took notice of a loud boom behind them. Birds were flying to the sky and she saw a gray cloud of smoke. The car she just had sat in was exploded. „What the hell ..." she wondered.
„All evidence that you are alive needs to be destroyed. The same car will never be used twice." she got informed.
„But doesn´t that draw attention to us?Someone could have heard the explosion." she questioned. Why did everything always have to explode. A minute later she could read on a sign. Attention! This area is used for military training. Clever she thought.
Not even twenty minutes later they were back on the already crowded highway. She had already spotted at least two cars which were the same brand as the car they were currently using. They blended in perfectly.
She looked at the clock in the car. 7.45 am. She had slept another hour. The adrenaline of the birth and everything that happened did really have left her body. Not even 24 hours ago she had given birth and now she started to feel it. She felt as if she had participated in a marathon and afterwards had been hit by car which had dragged her with it for few miles. She barely could keep her eyes open and the skyscrapers of the city in front of her started to blur. Shit she needed to stay awake.
Suddenly they turned right into a more quieter and a bit darker alley. It was this part of the city where you expected drug dealers, junkies and homeless people on the street but there was no one which calmed her not a bit. The walls of the buildings were filled with graffity. Not some stupid vandalism by fifteen year olds who tried to be cool no but actual art. It was pretty in its own way. And suddenly they stopped.„We are at the safe house. Todays code is Romeo" the deep voice of her driver told her. She almost choked. Then she was alone, the driver probably on his way to let the next car explode.
She took a closer look at the building in front of her. It was four storage's high and looked a bit shabby. It was made of gray concrete and some of the windows were replaced by newspapers.
She was half way around the building when realized someone was following her. She turned around, punched them in the face and kicked the person into the stomach, pinning them onto the floor. She froze when she realized who her follower was – Ezra. „Why do we always meet like this … Julia" he asked with a smirk and gave her a hand.
„Woah, if we want to work together you need to stop to beat up my best people. Even though I have to say I quite enjoyed the show and he really deserved it. I am Tay by the way" another person came out of … like nowhere. Like she had told Red, Tay was the one contact not corrupted by Tom but although Liz had found her they never really met in person. She had worn a ski mask when they had met the last time and used a voice distorter. She was very beautiful in person and that was the last thing she said „You are pretty" before she sunk to the ground and lost consciousness.
That little show had taken every bit that was left of her energy out of her.
She woke up to AC/DC ´s „Highway to Hell" and the smell of coffee. Tay was standing next to the bed. It was 3am.
„Good you are awake. I didn´t want to hit you but you screamed in your sleep." she greeted her."Sorry, I –„ Liz started but suddenly she realized that her one arm was cuffed to the bed.
„Free me!" she demanded. „No. First you will answer my questions … Liz. Is that right? What´s the code?Who is Agnes?" Tay wanted to now. Liz was too tired to protest. „Romeo. Agnes …. she is my daughter."
„How old is she" was the next question. „A bit more than twelve hours" and again she could feel the tears on her cheeks. Tay looked at her she seemed genuinely shocked. „Shit. I – I am sorry. I just needed to be sure that you are you listen, if you really want my help you need to tell me everything." she said while she opened the cuff. „It is a rather long story" Liz tried explain.
She didn´t know if she was even able to talk about it. „Well I do have plenty of time." the woman handed her a mug with coffee.