"I need to get cleaned up. I can just meet you at your office or,"
"I'm not going back there empty handed." Eames interrupted, shifting into park in front of the hotel.
Rainy raised her hands in surrender and exited the SUV. She instructed the valet as Eames handed over the keys. Rainy silently led Eames inside and to the elevator.
"I'm sorry if I caused trouble for you, Detective," Rainy stated around floor 20. "Bobby has mentioned your captain can be…challenging."
"So can Bobby, and most of his friends," Eames deadpanned.
Rainy nodded with a smile, "Touché."
The elevator chimed as the doors slid open. Rainy led them down the hall, inserted a keycard, and opened the door to 4409. She flipped the light switch, and on the desk just inside the room, she emptied her pockets: gun, badge, wallet, smokes, lighter, and tossed her coat onto the chair.
"There's water and whatnot in there, help yourself," she motioned to the mini-fridge and beyond to the couch and coffee table covered with newspapers and magazines. "I'll be quick." She did not wait for questions before exiting around the corner to bed and bath portion of the room.
Eames took in her surroundings. Small size suit, living area barely large enough to hold a love seat, recliner, desk and chair, coffee table, and counter space over a small refrigerator, with a coffee maker on top. She imagined the bedroom was not much larger. The window's curtains hung tightly closed. Eames took a step to them and with a finger allowed in some light. Across the way was the World Financial Center. Below was the now industrial zone of what had once been the World Trade Center. She emitted a subconscious sigh as she let go of the curtain and turned towards the loveseat.
She heard the shower turn on through the wall. Eames took off her jacket and tossed it onto the recliner, and sat on the loveseat behind the coffee table. She lackadaisically skimmed the newspapers on top, Times, Ledger, and one in a language she did not immediately recognize. Her eyes scanned stories, while her mind absorbed little. Boring of the newspapers, she shifted them aside to find a stack of news magazines featuring full color politicians and global crises of all variety. She shook her head in wearisome amusement and moved them aside as well, inadvertently knocking the entire stack to the floor.
Eames bent to gather up the stack of fallen periodicals, pushing them back together to form one pile that she picked up and placed back on the coffee table. Beneath them, a duct tape bound book lay sprawled on the floor, half beneath the table and half revealed. She pushed it closed; picking it up by is threadbare spine and turned it over to reveal a faint Holy Bible embossment.
The sound of the shower ceased, and Eames knew her solitude would soon be broken, but the detective in her took over as her fingers lightly skimmed the closed edge of the book, pushing on obtruding insertions. She opened the cover, and the creased pages flopped to the left. A photograph of a preschool age Rainy and two adults stuck to Genesis 18. Eames smiled, reading the heavily highlighted verses and absorbing the photo. She pushed on the pages again, allowing them to shift to the next marker in the first chapter of Job, a photo of two dozen tan skinned and bright-eyed children, flanked by four adults, two in navy blue FBI T-shirts and the others in lighter blue emblazoned with a white UN logo, the children in an assortment of similar Ts. Again, she read the most underlined verses, her brow wrinkled as she turned to the last bookmark. This time, the tattered pages threatened to break free of the book. Matthew 18:21 bore signs of repetitious highlighting, "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?" Forgive written repeatedly in the margins around the entire width of the page in various dialects. The picture, too, was well worn. Rainy Jay in full graduation garb indicating completion of a doctoral accomplishment, diploma in hand, flanked on the left by the same, albeit grayer, adults from the first picture, and by a younger Goren on the right. Eames' lips hinted at a smile as she softly traced the faces of the photo.
"Solve a mystery?" Rainy asked from behind, freshly showered, wet hair braided, and suit jacket in her right hand while she adjusted her sidearm with the other.
Eames shoulders jerked in startle. "Sorry, I didn't," she began.
Rainy signaled "stop" with her left hand as she crossed in front of her. "You're a detective. I get that." She sat next to Eames, tossing her suit jacket on top of her previously discarded coat.
"My graduation from Columbia," Rainy stated plainly, gesturing to the book and photo.
Eames nodded and carefully handed her the book.
She flipped back to the first photo. "My parents, Dietrich and Sushan, on the day they finalized my adoption. I was five. They were… older. The whole thing seemed somewhat impractical, but it worked out. They said they felt like Abraham and Sarah."
Eames smiled as Rainy flipped to the next photo.
"Gus," she pointed to a blue eyed, blond haired man in light blue, "and my partner Eric," she pointed to the imposing-but-friendly looking man next to her in the photo wearing navy blue. "Sports…soccer, they're a great unifier out there. On the field, nobody is a Sunni or a Shiite, or a Christian or a Jew, just kids playing a game. Although, the team FBI kids kicked the UN's ass." She smiled fondly but her hand visibly trembled as it lingered above the photo before turning the pages.
She handed the third picture back to Eames and set the book on the coffee table.
"My tatik… my maternal grandmother, suffered from dementia late in life. My parents traveled a lot, so they put her in a place close to where I was, from the city here. I'd go visit, and some days all she would do was yell at me in Armenian about why wouldn't I take her home to Yerevan. Despite our lack of physical similarities, she usually thought I was my mother. When she was too far gone into her delusions, I'd walk around, visit other residents until she calmed down or until I left. I met Mrs. G there; she was a favorite on a good day. I met Bobby later when he came home from the Army, but I didn't know much about him."
Rainy smiled, shook her head and shifted uncomfortably. "Tatik passed away not long after that, and I stopped going out there. I ran into Bobby by chance in the city, we decided to grab a bite and talk and things just developed from there." She shifted in her seat again before continuing. "We were happy for a while, you know? We talked about our future in white picket fence terms. I was about to finish my doctorate, had been accepted to Columbia Law and he was a rising star in the police department. Things were good.
"That February," she gestured at the photo, "was the first Trade Center bombing." She stood and began very Bobby-esque pacing in the small area opposite Eames and the coffee table. "My father, Dee, he was an ecumenical Lutheran pastor with the age-old mission of unifying Judaism and Christianity. He mostly taught, but they were always off some place for research or outreach. He and Sue were here in New York when the bombing happened and all of a sudden, they were in the midst of this fresh interest in this mysterious land known as the Middle East. Everybody wanted to know who these people were and why were they trying to hurt us, us Americans, you know? Dee already had strong ties to several countries out there and decided it was time to start reaching out to more than just Jews and Christians. So they, he and Sue and their friends, started holding these big," she gesticulated widely, "get to know Islam events, teaching, preaching and studying with renewed interest and fervor. They contacted their associates in Israel, planned outreach missions to go and work with the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It was all very optimistic. My graduation was that May, and they left a few days after. I planned to join them for the summer, but Bobby and I had scheduled a little celebratory vacation first.
"There he and I were, soaking up the surf and sand on the Jersey Shore and I get this phone call, saying my peaceful, optimistic parents who had dedicated their lives to loving people; who had spent years and years in Israel and all over, helping the people… They were preparing to leave Jerusalem for Tel Aviv and a car bomb exploded outside their facility, two dozen missionaries and humanitarians, different backgrounds, different faiths, all killed."
Rainy stopped pacing and stood still, eyes smoldering into the closed curtains in front of her. "And the worst of it is," she whispered after a moment, "the people who claimed responsibility, it wasn't the Palestinians, Hamas, the PLO, Hezbollah, none of the usual suspects. It was the Israelis. The people my parents had worked so long to help, and they just, killed them and none of their good works mattered." She sank into the chair she had early thrown her coats onto, still avoiding any type of eye contact with Eames, and breathed for a moment.
"I was mad. Really, really mad. I wanted to go out there and kick their asses for it." She shook her head disdainfully. "My first impulse was to join the military. Bobby talked me out of that one. So, I mourned, brooded and sent out applications to the FBI, CIA, DEA, the whole damn alphabet. Bobby tried to talk me out of that also, but I was determined. I wanted, I needed to do something. The FBI called back first and because of my language skills, within a year I was working 30 miles from where my parents had been killed."
She leaned back and sighed then leaned forward, hunched with her forearms on her knees, staring at the floor. "I'm not some sort of blood thirsty, vengeful person. I just wanted justice, you know? After a while, I wanted more than justice for my loss, but for America's losses, every American who had stepped out there for the sake of the greater good or otherwise and been wronged as thanks. It worked for me. I thought I was doing right, investigating real crimes and catching real bad guys, finding justice, black and white, good versus evil…" she caught Eames eyes for the first time in the few minutes of her confession.
Rainy stood again, moved back towards the window, and pulled on the cord, sweeping the curtains away. She blinked in the sunlight. "Then that happened," she gestured to the window, "and everything changed again. Nothing is black and white anymore and instead of investigating crimes we can prove, or bringing justice to our people we have to chase these, these apparitions. And because that wasn't satisfying enough, we start this ridiculous war, war on a verb. A verb, a, a tactic! War on Terror. What the hell does that even mean? Who am I looking for? I've been asking for years, for a name, for a face, something tangible and I still can't get a straight answer," she sighed, clouding the window glass as she leaned her forehead against it. "So now, we just chase this fantasy of justice, lying to ourselves that we're still doing good, doing right, when we're hardly doing anything at all." She rolled her head against the window before pushing off it and turning back towards the chair and sinking down again.
She bit at her fingertips while looking to the open window. She cleared her throat. "Eight months ago I was in Baghdad. My team and I, we were looking for this apparition, this, terrorist," she spat the word with contempt, "I got a big tip, I wanted to follow it fast, not let it slip away. My partner, Eric, wanted to wait, jump through the bureaucratic hoops of validation and permission. I told him no. Said I was sick of sitting on my hands, never closing a case, never having a living person to slap cuffs on. Never having results. Told him, I'm sick of this nonsense and following the lead with or without you. He acquiesced, said I'm your partner, hell and back, and we're already in hell. So he came along; me, him and two of our government protection grunts. We weren't on the highway thirty minutes and our humvee is hit with an RPG from God knows where. Next thing I know, I'm alone, fifteen feet away, smashed and broken in the dirt with the truck smoldering in the street and Eric at the wheel." She paused and cleared her throat before whispering, "Lord giveth, and Lord taketh away." She brushed her fingers across her eyelids, but instead of tears, her emotions poured out of her mouth.
"And now, here I am, back in this country that I've gone from venerating to hating, to just plain wishing I could rid myself of altogether, waiting for my own personal inquisition," She leaned forward and put her face in her hands. "I will be truly sorry if the NYPD ends up as another blotch on my warpath of self destruction. That was definitely not on my to do list when I called Bobby yesterday. But there you have it." She sat up straight, arms stretched at her sides. "Rainy Jay Jansen in a nutshell. Now at least you know who I really am when your captain starts quizzing you when we walk into that squad room." She leaned forward again to put her face in her hands, jerking back when her chin made contact with the sticky road rash of her hand.
Eames exhaled cautiously, eyes searching the room, overwhelmed. She gazed at the photo she still held before placing it back into the pages of the bible and hesitated before asking, "What happened?"
"To what?" Rainy pushed through pens in the pocket of her computer bag under the desk she sat in front of.
"The white picket fences."
Rainy finally produced a band-aid from another pocket in the bag, unwrapped it and placed it over the wound on her hand while answering. "He said joining the Bureau was a mistake, that I shouldn't go, that it wouldn't get me what I wanted and everything would change. I didn't listen, went anyway. Took me a long time to realize he was right. I'm lucky he stayed a good friend despite my ignorance." She stood and began gathering the items she had left on the desk, gun back in ankle holster, badge on belt next to her holstered sidearm, suit jacket and coat on, smokes, lighter and wallet back into coat pocket. She lifted the computer bag to the desk and slid the bible into one of its larger pockets. "I'm sorry for the soapbox. Your captain is probably dancing like a cat on a hot tin roof by now."
Eames nodded, not knowing what to say. Instead she simply stood, put on her jacket, and followed Rainy to the door.
Meanwhile, Danny Ross walked into the 1PP bullpen clearly fit of pique. He stormed passed Goren's desk with his finger pointed at the detective. "My office. Now."
Goren had barely returned himself and only just sat at his desk. He nearly began to question his superior before catching himself, taking a breath, standing, and following his captain to the room ahead. He entered, closing the door gently behind him.
"Who the hell was with your partner this morning?" The captain nearly shouted while pulling his arms from his overcoat and tossing it onto the back of his chair with clear irritation.
"With… My… Uh," Goren staggered, clueless to the events in Morningside Heights, "I asked someone to go along, translate if need be, she's a…"
"A lunatic!" Ross interrupted, his hands on his waist, "And a huge liability to the department! What were you thinking involving an unauthorized civilian in a police investigation?"
"Uh, beg pardon, sir," Goren tilted his head in bewilderment, "A, a lunatic?"
"She chased the suspect up a ladder, across a roof, jumped off a building, and attacked the man several blocks away!"
Goren withheld a smirk and brushed his forefingers across his chin. "Well, if she got the guy," he shrugged.
Ross cast him a contemptible glare before retrieving his coat from the chair and a hanger from his coat rack. "It's still a liability I'm holding you responsible for, Detective." He hung up his coat and moved to his chair.
Goren contemplated while rocking slightly on his heels. He extended his left arm, away from his bearded chin, about to speak but interrupted by a light tap at the door. He looked to Ross for permission, who nodded, and Goren opened the door.
He moved aside for his partner and Rainy Jay to enter the office.
Catching sight of them, Captain Ross immediately rose from the chair he had sunk into moments before. "Detective," he glared at Eames, "and…"
"Special Agent Rainy Jay Jansen," Rainy offered her hand, "I apologize for not properly introducing myself earlier today."
Ross begrudgingly accepted her greeting, but continued to scowl. "FBI? You must be new to the New York Bureau. Allow me to acquaint you with how joint cooperation with the NYPD works."
Rainy began to protest but felt Goren bump her elbow. She grinded her teeth together, bracing for whatever Ross was about to offer.
Thankfully, before the captain could begin, his office phone beeped and woman's voice spoke, "Captain Ross? Supervisory Special Agent Pace, FBI, line two."
"Thank you," Ross grunted, continuing to survey the trio in front of him. "You two," he pointed at Goren and Eames, "out. You," he motioned at Rainy, "sit."
Goren opened the door and his partner led the way from the office.
"I knew this was a bad idea," Eames muttered as the door clicked closed.
"Rainy Jay can hold her own," Goren began but was cut off by Eames' glare, which clearly read that wasn't what I meant. He stopped speaking, startled by her sudden silent abrasion, and followed her to their desks.
Once seated, Eames avoided his glances, busying herself with the papers that had accumulated in her absence.
"Did she really jump off the building?" Goren asked, suddenly.
"And onto another," Eames answered tersely, still not looking up.
Goren too turned to the papers on his desk, turning his eyes up to his partner every few seconds, but she continued to ignore him. Though the blinds blocked any view of the interior of the captain's office, his gaze drifted in that direction in between his looks to Eames. The papers on his desk remained untouched and unread.
Without Goren's immediate notice, the captain's door opened. Ross strode to their desks, his body language unrevealing.
He stood rigidly for a moment before speaking. "Agent Jansen will be providing linguistcal support for this case, as well as any other expertise you find useful. As much as we might like to deny it, when individuals of certain origins, like Mr. Fayyad and Mr. Okaly, become embroiled in cases such as these, it makes people nervous. While I'm sure the worry of those people in this case is unfounded, Agent Jansen will liaison if necessary." He cleared his throat deliberately before warning, "Keep an eye on her."
Eames said nothing, only nodded her understanding, while Goren hid a knowing smile behind his hand, on which his head was propped. He raised an eyebrow upon noticing Rainy's approach from the captain's office.
She joined the group at the desks and said nothing, only looked to Ross expectantly, waiting for instructions.
"Mr. Fayyad is in holding. Get me something I can take upstairs." Ross turned and left the group, heading back the direction he came.