Once a Scalp Hunter
Carrie arrived at work early the next morning, still feeling the satisfying afterglow of her night with Quinn. She was annoyed and worried that Bakri was still in the wind, but somehow that wasn't as important as it once could have been.
A couple of hours later and with still no sign of Bakri, the excesses of the night weighing heavily on her, coupled with the mind blowing tediousness of staring at a screen full of letters and numbers, her craving for caffeine began to itch. The coffee machine on their floor was broken and the one on the next out of cups and she soon found herself standing in the HR Department.
It was a large open plan office with a number of weary pot plants distributed between desks which added absolutely no positive aesthetic to the place whatsoever. About half of the desks were occupied and there was the dull drone of conversation heard over the somewhat more exciting buzz of the PCs.
Without really thinking, Carrie moved to the middle of the room and cleared her throat. Thelma, the admin assistant, turned from the photocopier and muttered, as if in the way of explanation for her colleagues. "Carrie fucking Mathison!"
"That's right." Carrie's tone was belligerent and aggressive as she began. "I don't know who the fuck you people think you are but I am here to tell you it is not OK to do what you're doing. What the fuck gives you the right to pass judgement over anybody else? Run a fucking book on us " she scoffed.
There was a startled silence in the room as eyes widened and mouths fell open in utter shock at this completely unprovoked although possibly deserved attack.
Carrie snorted. "For your fucking stupid record," she continued. "Peter Quinn and I are just good friends so you can all just shut the fuck up!" She glared around the room, eyes flaring their challenge at everyone else there but nobody responded. "Fine!" Carrie finished and turning on her heel stalked out of the room, still with no coffee.
The silence lasted for a good two minutes after she had gone and then sour-faced Susan pulled her cheeks together as if she was sucking lemons, shook her head and pronounced in her voice of gravel and glue, "They're fucking already... Twenty bucks says he'll have her pregnant by Thanksgiving. Black ops guys go at it like rabbits when they get the chance." And then as an afterthought she qualified, "So I hear!"
Everyone then started talking in thoroughly thrilled astonishment that their day had been enlivened by such drama. Thelma nodded vehemently in agreement with sour-faced Susan. "Crazy motherfucker," she muttered and then turned back to the photocopier.
Suneeta Chankria was a beautiful woman from the tips of her six inch stiletto heels to the top of her perfectly coiffured, curly black hair and all points in between. Physically attractive, she enhanced her natural beauty with the most expensive fashions and the most expertly applied make-up. She expected to get her way in all things and would always use her womanly wiles to ensure that was the case. Almost fifty now, she knew that she looked at least ten years younger and her looks appealed to men of any age. The power of presentation was everything to her.
However, she was not a vacuous woman, far from it. The only daughter of an Indian doctor who had finished his training in the UK and never returned to his own country as planned, preferring instead to explore westwards to the States and who soon found himself scandalously married to the heiress of a rich New England family, Suneeta had lacked for nothing, and had used her cosseted start in life as a spring board to launch herself even further upwards. Her trajectory was truly incredible as she carved out her career, taking in her stride her latest appointment as Director of Black Operations at the CIA, as just another step towards her ultimate aim to become the first Indian, woman President of the U.S. Her dream since childhood because she always aimed high and always got what she wanted. The fact that she had no experience in this particular field did not worry her at all, she was possessed of a brilliant mind, the ultimate chess player, a strategic thinker with few equals and what was covert ops if not moving the available pieces to the correct place at the correct time? It was all a game to her, but a game that she truly relished. She laughed at her critics and bit back with the line, "You don't need to get your hands dirty to know what filth is and how to eradicate it!"
She also prided herself on her ability to read men, to understand what made them tick and to ruthlessly exploit it to get what she wanted which was why she was confident that she could deliver in the male dominated world of black ops. She sat now in her office using her well practised skill to appraise the man that stood in front of her: spiky hair, unshaven chin and rumpled jacket, dark rings around his blood shot eyes; he looked like he had been awake all night. He had obviously made no effort to impress and so he was not immediately the sort of man who would attract more than a cursory glance from her, but she had found that about a lot of her new staff; what did your appearance matter when you were able to melt into the background and avoid being seen apparently at will? It was an organisational habit she was finding increasingly tiresome.
"Sit," she commanded.
He cleared his throat. "I'd rather..." he began.
"Sit," she repeated, fixing him with a contemptuous stare until he shrugged unconvincingly and complied.
She sat back into her own chair, regarding him. There was a nervous energy that she saw manifested by the muscle flicking at the side of his cheek but apart from that he appeared unperturbed, holding himself together pretty well. She wondered how long that would last, some of these black ops guys were pretty tough she had to concede but while they knew how to operate in their own world of the alpha male, none of them had the slightest skill in managing a thrusting and dominant female. None were a match for her. She well understood the rules of the game, to achieve as a female in a man's world she had to be more extreme in every area that her male counterparts; it was a role she was born to play. Yet again she thanked dear Dar Adal for his outdated and old fashioned masculine methods which she was now able to exploit mercilessly to ensure that she got what she wanted in the end. This brought her rather nicely back to the agent in front of her.
"Peter Quinn," she began. "I've been wanting to meet you for some time. I believe I owe you my thanks."
He looked startled at this. "You do?" was his guarded response. Whatever he had been thinking was going to be her opening gambit it was certainly not this. She liked to be blunt, found it a useful weapon particularly with people who were so used to working with smoke and mirrors that they forgot the power of the sun.
She smiled coolly, continuing on the same vein. "I believe you murdered my predecessor."
He gulped, his Adam's apple working up and down his throat, as he considered his response. His pause was vaguely impressive to her; most men, being anxious to plead their innocence, would have jumped straight in. Finally he said, "I didn't murder him."
"But you killed him and in doing so you laid the way clear for my next career move, so I thank you."
A wave of distaste swept across his face for an instant and it looked like he was about to snap back but then he closed himself down, features falling into that secret service neutral face that they all kept in their lockers; another trait that Suneeta found extremely annoying.
"Do you see yourself as a King, or in this case a Queen maker, Peter?" she asked.
"I find any death regrettable," he replied steadily.
"Any death?" she repeated. "What a strange comment for a trained assassin, but then I'm not surprised, I've read your file and an interesting story it tells." His gaze was solid and sure, his jaw, the twitching muscle now controlled, was set firm and she knew he was not going to respond. The confident stillness that was around him like a cloak was intriguing but she enjoyed the challenge of breaking it, more than the thought of admiring it, and so she continued. "You remind me of the girl in the nursery rhyme with a curl on her forehead. Do you remember the one?"
His eyes narrowed and she could see the confusion and doubt there as he tried to fathom her attack strategy. Finally he shook his head. She smiled, "When you're good you're good but when you're bad you're horrid! Does that fit you, Peter?"
"I don't know what you mean, ma'am," he said stiffly, falling back into starchy formality.
"No, I don't expect you do." She sat and stared at him for a long time and he remained aloof and composed, comfortable in the silence, not faltering beneath the authoritative gaze that had reduced many other men. Eventually she sighed and looked away, extending her hand to inspect her perfectly varnished nails. "I know what they say about me," she began. "I'm only here to improve the diversity figures, pick me and you get two ticks in the boxes for the price of one. Is that what you think, Peter?"
"It doesn't matter what I think," he said. "You're here to do a job, that's all that's important."
She laughed at that. "Oh I wish that it were so," she said wistfully. "Politics always get in the way." She tossed her head, knowing her curls would dance flirtatiously. It did not seem to affect him so she skewered him with her most serious stare. "Now let's get back to you. I would not have let you back on to the Team even if you had passed the physical assessment."
That shocked him, caused him to jerk forward on the chair. "May I ask why?"
"You know this place is like Hotel California?" He raised his eyebrows quizzically, obviously not getting her meaning. God, these people were all so engrossed in their jobs, they were all cultural philistines, she thought not for the first time, before continuing. "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave?" He shook his head slowly baffled by her words. She signed and decided to resort back to being frank. "Because you lot always keep coming back. Once a scalp hunter as they say... but not you. I don't trust you; I don't think your heart is in it. From your file, I don't think it's been in it for some time. How many times did you ask to quit?"
He drew in a deep frustrated breath. "This is all fucking academic, don't you think?" he snapped. It was the nearest she had come to getting an unguarded reaction out of him and she made a mental note to remember this particular chink in his armour.
She rolled her eyebrows. "Don't be facetious and watch your mouth. If there is one thing I cannot stand it is bad language, it shows both a lack of respect and a disgraceful lack of vocabulary!"
He sat back then as if to remove himself from her attack range, his expression fixed and unreadable almost like a naughty school boy being disciplined yet again in the principal's office, she thought. Her smile widened, she had gone far enough for now, time to let him ruminate on the experience for a while. "So what am I going to do with you?" she asked her tone more gentle. "I have long admired people who can train, who can pass their skills and experience on to the next generation, who can nurture potential into performance. Do you think you can do that?"
"I believe so ma'am," he responded stiffly.
She sat back now appraising him once more. "There is one more thing," she said. "I expect complete devotion from my boys. I think that's where you might falter, Peter. I think your loyalty lies elsewhere. So I will say only this, if I find that you have divulged my secrets to either Saul Berenson or Carrie Mathison or have acted against my interests in any way, I shall make it my utmost priority to destroy both of them and I shall ensure that you are there to witness the whole thing before I annihilate you. Do I make myself clear?"
He nodded. "Perfectly ma'am."
"Good." Her smile turned sweet. "Then I believe we are done here."
Quinn exited into the daylight and Rob approached him with a knowing smile on his face. "Quite a ball breaker isn't she?" Quinn grunted noncommitedly so Rob continued, "Maybe she'll be all right."
Quinn rolled his eyes. "You fucking think?"
Rob's smile widened as he acknowledged Quinn's rebellious choice of language. "Well she's certainly different from Dar. She good about our plans?"
Quinn snorted. "I guess, although it was pretty hard to tell. When do I start?"
"Got a new bunch coming through, started last week, we could do with your help."
Quinn's phone buzzed. He read the text and then looked back at Rob. "Right. I just might need a little time." Rob raised his eyebrows. "I got something else going on," Quinn continued by way of explanation.
"Didn't our new Mistress give you her talk on loyalty and what she expects from her 'boys', Peter? She'll take great delight in ripping off your balls if she finds out you're playing away."
Quinn put his phone back into his pocket and grimaced bleakly. "But she's not going to fucking find out, is she?"