Root continues to work for the Office of Special Counsel, hears about a rogue agent threatening the secrecy of the program, and decides to have a chat with said agent. HINT: IT'S SHAW.
[Takes place mostly during 2.16 (Relevance)]
There was something tangibly raw and hurried about that particular morning, noticeable the moment Root placed Ms. May's purse next to her chair. For one, she had come in early in hopes of continuing her slow, systematic examination of files, carried out for more than a month now, but the noises coming from Special Counsel's office dashed those hopes. The noises themselves were intriguing, too; Special Counsel was not given over to loud phone conversations or pacing, preferring instead to sit at his desk and converse in calm tones. Today, though, a flurry of raps, footfalls, and a few cursed exclamations escaped from behind the closed door within the space of a few moments
Cautiously, Root stood next to the door and lowered her head to listen.
"-telling him these things at all- ask questions we'll have to- it was taken care of- where is she?"
These snatches were quickly stored in Root's mind, even though she was not certain to what they pertained.
Footsteps alerted Root that Special Counsel was approaching his door. She quickly sat down and began noting meetings busily on the desktop calendar she had pulled up on her computer.
"Ms. May?" Special Counsel stood behind her chair. She turned, and in a moment her eyes had identified the slight crook of his tie, the shirt mis-buttoned just above the belt, and eyes red at the inside corners from lack of sleep.
"Yes, sir," Ms. May answered seriously. Root's eyes strayed to the tall, imposing woman who exited Special Counsel's office behind him without a backward glance. If his eyes had not followed her somewhat fearfully down the hall, it would have seemed as if Special Counsel had not known that she was there at all.
"Coffee, please," Special Counsel pleaded before falling back into his office.
Root shrugged and set off down the hall to the break room. She had all day to find out what was going on.
Root straightened her jacket and smoothed the pencil skirt over her hips before entering the mid-level hotel. It was fairly large, anonymous; she nodded slightly in unconscious approval of the site for a clandestine meeting. Stepping into the lobby pressed play on the scene she had mapped out the night before.
She strode across the small lobby, staring straight ahead and walking with purpose to avoid any appearance that she did not belong there. Once washed in the sickly light of the elevator, she reached into her purse and gripped the stun gun within loosely. She arched her neck to look up at the lit numbers indicating floors until she reached the floor she wanted. Nine. Ten. Eleven. With a soft ding and the pneumatic swish of the doors, she exited onto the industrial carpet of the twelfth floor.
She padded down the corridor, past 1218... 1222... 1226. She squared her shoulders and knocked with purpose. She kept a careful watch on the eye in the door until she saw it darken, then lighten again a moment later. She waited again, but there was no answer or sound to even indicate the presence of another person.
She knocked again, harder.
"Ms. Sinclair?" she called softly. She momentarily debated between declaring herself to be Agent Shaw or claiming to have been sent by the ISA agent, but quickly decided on the latter. "Shaw sent me." Still there was no answer. "She said you knew Michael."
Finally, the door swung open on noiseless hinges, but only as far as a sturdy security chain would allow. A brown eye and dark hair were all that were visible.
"I told her to come alone," Veronica Sinclair stated. Her voice was clear, but meek; she was unused to covert meetings and the danger that necessitated them. "Who are you?"
"I'm a friend," Root assured her. She allowed fear into her voice. "Sam told me what happened to Michael. She said if I didn't hear from her by this morning, I had to come here and find out what happened." She glanced around. "Can I come in? I don't know what's happening." Her last statement bordered on pleading.
The door swung shut, only to open again a moment later, this time to reveal the full figure of a blonde woman in business clothing. She stood back to let Root enter.
"Thank you," Root said gratefully. Veronica shut the door behind her, and when she turned around, Root was there. She pulled the stun gun from her purse and pressed it quickly to the side of Veronica's neck. Veronica's eyes, wide with terror and confusion, bore into Root's as she fell away from the other woman.
"Now," Root chirped, busily pulling cord from her purse, "you're going to have trouble talking for a couple minutes. That's okay." She grabbed Veronica under the arms and dragged her laboriously into the bathroom. "I know we're expecting company, so we'll make this quick," she grunted, tipping her prisoner over the lip of the tub. "Sorry," she added michievously when the back of Veronica's head thumped against the tap. She busied herself with binding Veronica's hands and feet to each other.
"Don't worry, I don't need much information," she assured her captive. Veronica was starting to regain some range of motion, and her head twisted slowly away as if ignoring her predicament could make it disappear. "I just need to know where the Machine is."
At that, Veronica's head twisted back to look at Root. Her gaze was filled with terror, even more than it had contained before. Root smiled.
"So you do know what it is."
Veronica opened her mouth and spoke thickly. "I don't know where it is."
"But you know how to find it," Root pressed. She raised her stun gun and spoke in a cajoling voice. "Telling me now is going to be a lot less painful than being noble."
"I don't know," Veronica answered desperately. She started to struggle sluggishly against her restraints. "I swear."
Root checked her watch; it was nearly five. Another dip into her usefully-packed purse and a piece of shiny silver duct tape adorned Veronica's mouth.
"We'll come back to it," she assured Veronica brightly as she leaned over. She raised the stun gun and frowned sympathetically. "I'm sorry, but I think we both know you'd never stay quiet." Regardless of Veronica's pleading eyes, Root quickly pressed the gun to her throat and hit the switch. Veronica spasmed and fell still; this time her eyes were closed. Root leaned back on her heels to admire her work. She had begun to find the sweet moment between pain and death when her subjects could be rendered unconscious easily.
Root exited the bathroom and examined the room swiftly, taking in the bed, chairs, desk, and accoutrements. She eyed the bed; it allowed the most room for creativity, but also made things difficult to manage. The desk chair would provide her more control over Agent Shaw. She set herself down carelessly on the workaday blue chair in the hotel room's small sitting area to wait.
It did not take long; Agent Shaw appeared to be a very punctual woman. Three seconds past five, there was a sharp rap at the door announcing the arrival of her guest. Root adjusted her expression to one of apprehension and swung the door open.
"Hello, Veronica." Shaw was full of tense energy that pressed at Root at once, with eyes that bore down full pressure as they passed Root to scan the room.
It was hardly worth it to say 'come in,' as Shaw was already halfway through the door, but she did so anyway. The fearful woman in the bathroom would have.
Shaw was across the room before Root could turn around. Her focused manner allowed no room for deviation; she assumed control of the room automatically.
"Any chance you were followed?" Shaw demanded as she removed her coat. Root's eyes trailed up from Shaw's feet to her face, surprised at the power contained in such a small woman.
"I don't think so, but I haven't been in the field since I was at the farm." She answered calmly, but as if there were something else underneath. Veronica had not seemed to know much, but she knew enough to set a meeting far away from the ISA.
Root smoothed her skirt with her hands. "You're Sam, right?" Shaw's head came up at that. Root knew that her first name was Sameen, and that Shaw was not really her last name, but she had taken a guess at the more familiar nickname. "Michael talked about you." She settled into one of the chairs and immediately shifted to perch on the front edge nervously. "I mean, he didn't tell me about what you guys do or anything, but he liked you."
Root left her words ambiguous, but wondered in just what sense Cole might have 'liked' his partner. Shaw's brow lowered the barest shade in response, and Root knew he was dead.
"What happened to him?" she asked fearfully.
The answer was short and to the point. "He was killed." Shaw paused, betraying no sign that she had returned any feelings her partner might have harbored for her. "On a mission," she elaborated briefly. Not one for unnecessary words, Agent Shaw, even for someone she obviously at least respected. "The less you know about all of this, the safer you'll be. But I do need to know what he talked to you about." Ah, there was the point; Shaw was here to take information, not give.
Veronica roused herself from worry and refocused on the task Shaw had given her. Report to Shaw. Let her fix it so Veronica could go home and sleep again. "Mike sent over details of wire transfers to a nuclear engineer named Daniel Aquino. They appeared to originate out of accounts affiliated with Hezbollah, but someone had electronically spoofed the transfers." She hesitated. "I was able to track down the real originating accounts. They were out of the US Government."
Shaw kept her voice low, calm and compelling. "Which part of the government?"
Shaw's neat conversational style drew Root into the rhythm, and she answered almost without thinking. "A group out of the Pentagon called the Intelligence Support Activity." Recognition, and more than that, anger, spread across Shaw's face. "Have you heard of them?"
"You could say that," Shaw admitted in a dead-pan voice. "Up until yesterday, I worked for them."
Veronica wanted to help. More than that, she wanted to pass the information on so her hands were clean, unaware that information was harder to wash away than blood. "Their budget's confidential, but it stretches back five years. Huge amounts coded to a project called Northern Lights."
"What was the project?"
"I don't know. But Aquino was part of it. They built a facility of some kind coded as Research." There were more small signs of recognition on Shaw's face. "But I can't find the names of anyone else involved in the project."
Shaw's eyes nearly pierced Veronica through to Root. "Mike said Aquino told you the name of his contact in Northern Lights. Do you remember it?"
Suddenly, a stray bump from the bathroom tilted the atmosphere sideways into stunning, buzzing alertness. Shaw was on her feet in an instant, tense muscles coiled with power.
"Stay here. And keep away from those windows."
While Shaw crept to the bathroom, Root leaned over and snatched the stun gun from her purse where she'd dropped it. She stepped up swiftly behind the agent and jabbed it into the softer underside of her jaw. Shaw went rigid, still staring into the bathroom where Veronica Sinclair lay bound with rope and duct tape. Root held the charge longer than she should have had to before Shaw finally collapsed.
Shaw was heavier than she looked. Muscle, undoubtedly. Root could feel it jumping from the electricity, hard straps of it that stretched under Root's hands as she dragged Shaw awkwardly into the room's rolling desk chair. Zip ties provided the restraints she needed. She had just finished pulling the last one tight around Shaw's feet when the agent's eyes drifted open.
Root rocked back on her heels and regarded her captive with sparkling eyes. In Root's experience with the stun gun, someone her size should have taken at least a few more minutes to regain consciousness. Shaw was as resilient as she was skilled.
Before she began, she went to the closet and retrieved the iron. She had terrorized the other Girl Scouts silently for the scant three weeks that her mother had remembered the meetings, but Root still believed in being prepared.
"Veronica and I had a bit of a chat before you got here."
Shaw's eyes flicked to hers, but her face did not betray a single feeling, not even contempt or hatred. Faint annoyance, perhaps. Very faint.
Root leaned over to plug in the iron at the handiest outlet.
"She tried really, really hard to remember anything else that could help me, but she didn't know anything." Root leaned across Shaw's knees until she filled Shaw's vision. For her part, Shaw maintained her passivity.
Root grinned. "I read your file, and I'm kind of a big fan."
Shaw raised an eyebrow, faintly. Root could feel the subtle flex of the muscles in her legs signaling that she was regaining control over her body.
"So, I really don't wanna hurt you." She really didn't, but she also did not expect Shaw to believe her. The agent was too used to the game not to see the dangerous intent Root wore just behind her smiling mouth like a shield, and they both knew that whether Root wanted to or not, she was perfectly willing to hurt her captive.
Root sighed fondly and shook her head at Shaw's stubbornly blank face. "I just need the name." Shaw's control over her facial muscles was fascinating. With only the faintest of shifts, she could convey her amusement and annoyance at Root's wasted attempts to talk any information whatsoever out of her.
"You really have no idea what you're caught up in, do you?" Root tried. "Who you're actually working for? Did you honestly think the source of the numbers was Guantanamo? Some sad taxi driver rotting away in a cage somewhere?" Her voice took on a mocking tone. Shaw was smart enough to figure it out. It was more a matter of the sheer will-power necessary for such an intelligent woman not to ask questions of her employers, and that was what Root was picking away at. Loyalty could be a powerful weapon when it could be turned.
"I mean, you should know torture almost never produces good information." She smiled happily. "Well, almost never."
Root picked up the iron she had started a few minutes before.
"Sadly, we are on a bit of a clock." She nodded at the bathroom. "Wilson's men started looking for Veronica here three hours ago."
Root licked a finger and swiftly pressed it to the iron, where her spit sizzled and burned out. With a low hum, Root lowered the implement. "Now Aquino was hired to build a home for something very special, something I wanna find." She was nestled comfortably over Shaw's knees.
The agent eyed the iron briefly, but then her eyes met Root's again, dark and uncaring.
"So you're gonna tell me the name of his contact," Root finished brightly.
For the first time since Root had revealed herself, Shaw opened her mouth. She spoke quickly in a dangerous, low tone.
"One of the things I left out of my file? I kind of enjoy this sort of thing." That said, Shaw shut her mouth and waited for Root's response with hooded eyes.
Root smiled genuinely. It was so refreshing to hear something besides pleas and terror. "I am so glad you said that. I do too."
Their gazes clashed for a moment, Root's smooth and light like the drip of water against the hard rock of Shaw's eyes. Just then, there was a beep from Root's phone.
She grabbed the device from the coffee table and read the alert.
"Oh. And just when we were starting to really connect." She threw an apologetic smirk at Shaw, whose neck was cording with muscles as she raised her head from the chair.
"I'm sorry. A little rude, I know." Root wrinkled her nose and headed for the door. "We'll do this again soon." She hip-checked the door open and ducked out.
The hallway was empty, but Root suspected that that would not last long. She made long strides to the stair well and headed down. She could hear rapid footfalls making their way up, and a quick glance down to the lower floors showed a crewcut head rushing up the stairs.
Root swung onto the stairs and climbed until she reached the next floor. Once there, she walked quickly down to 1326 and slipped her master key into the lock. The hotel computer had revealed that the room was empty that week, but she had taken the liberty of fudging the reservations so it looked occupied. She wanted to at least listen to the show, even if she had not gotten exactly what she needed.
The laptop she had stashed in the room showed the scene downstairs: men rushed the room in which Shaw still sat captive, but with one hand free. She shot two of them and then... was that John?
Root leaned closer to the screen. It was Harold's hired muscle. The Machine must have sent them Shaw's number. Oh, but that was exciting.
Root had long since given up on wiping her digital traces beyond her normal stringent standards. She could not operate effectively without her electronic realm, and it had been clear from her adventures with Harold that the Machine doled out very limited drops of information to a very select few, and that was it. In fact, Harold had been so careful that he had effectively blocked the Machine from being able to protect itself. It would not alert anyone to her involvement or activities, not as long as she avoided plotting murder or terrorism. She was not above that, but still. Easy enough to keep the leash on for now.
Shaw was in good hands, then. Root rose from her thoughts in time to see her shoot John. Right in the chest, the heart if Root had seen clearly. Yes, she really liked Agent Shaw.
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