A Meet up
Chapter 14
Agent Pearce had just finished dealing with a crisis in Mexico.
Her entire body ached and it was only late afternoon. She had already skipped lunch. Pulling out her desk drawer, she wondered how stale her peanut butter and crackers were that she kept in there for such emergencies.
She took a tiny bite as her mind drifted to the Fiona Glenanne fiasco. Had she done the right thing in assigning an untrained agent to act as a courier? They had certainly done it before and with great success. How did this mission fall apart like it had?
Of course, she had no way of knowing that The Butcher was involved in this. As always, he always seemed one step ahead of authorities. Agent McGrath was one of their best and he was excellent at covering his tracks, but not this time. And in this business, one misstep will cost you your life.
Sighing deeply, she sadly mourned for Benjamin McGrath. He was an outstanding agent with an unblemished record and a fine human being.
From the point of view of her superiors, the mission up to this point was a failure- a clean sweep for the other side, an utter rout, six months of invaluable work gone up in smoke, no microfilm, a good agent dead, and three…well, three very competent people missing.
But she had hope that Michael, Fi and Sam would come out of this alive.
Agent Pearce hated to admit it, but she had always known there was some very special about Michael Westen. He was cunning and brilliant in a way that no other agent could even come close. And put him in combination with his fearless girlfriend and loyal best friend and you have the makings of one unbeatable team. Except what she had gone and done was break up this invaluable threesome.
Dammit to everyone, she thought, how much of Michael, Sam, and Fi missing was her fault?
And where the hell was the microfilm?
The sound of her office door interrupted her thoughts as Thomas Wright entered, carrying a folder.
"Oh, god, Tom," moaned Pearce, as she eyed the file in his hand, "tell me some good news for once."
"Well, there is…somewhat," said Thomas, "You know how you wanted me to look into the whereabouts of Michael Westen? I think we know a little more about what happened to him."
That little bit of news seemed to bring a light in Pearce's eyes.
"Well, out with it, then!" Pearce exclaimed impatiently.
"Seems Westen did make it over to Nemo's Bookstore. Agent McGrath had just recently installed a surveillance camera out in the back alley of Nemo's Bookstore. We were unaware of it at the time due to the paperwork pending in the Department of…"
"…can we speed this up, Tom?" Pearce interrupted, circling her hand around in a gesture that meant move it along.
Thomas cleared his throat.
"Yes, of course," said an embarrassed Thomas, "Anyway, the video shows two men carrying out what looks to be an unconscious Westen." He handed the file over to Pearce, who looked at the grainy photos, shot from a distance at an alleyway.
Pearce bent down, scowling, trying to make out what was happening in the photo. She grabbed her glasses and put them on. She then lifted the photo towards the light, looking at it from all angles.
"Tom, " she proposed, "is there a way we can clean up the photo? Hard to make out anyone here."
"Negative," stated Thomas, "That photo has been zoomed in and cleaned up to the max."
"Any chance one of the two men was The Butcher?" she asked.
"Pictures too unclear for us to make out any ID's," said Tom, "We're not even sure if that is Westen. It's just an assumption at this point."
Pearce sighed. She looked at the blue beat up SUV with the doors open. She noted that though it was faraway and blurry, nothing had obstruct the license plate.
"Can we at least get a partial off the plate from the SUV?" she pointed to the SUV in the picture.
Thomas Wright smiled, "And that's where the good news comes in!"
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"Sam, are you STILL complaining about being hungry?"
Fi drove, with Sam on the passenger side, towards Mama Butcher's villa. They were going to do some surveillance outside the estate in hopes that The Butcher, aka Gideon Hunter would soon arrive. And that was a mighty big if at that.
Sam opened the glove compartment of Fi's car.
"Hey, there Fi, you've got something in here to snack on?" he inquired as he peered in, "preferably from the four food groups: beer, fat, sugar or chocolate?"
"I think I have a healthy snack bar in there," said Fi, "just move the gun aside."
"If I had a penny for everytime I had to move one of your guns..." Sam's voice trailed as he took out the snack bar. He ripped the top of the packaging off and took a bite. He then looked with disdain at the bar, "Crap! This taste like cardboard mixed with a glue glaze!" He then took another taste, "and with each bite, it feels like my mouth is being punished!"
"It contains lots of fiber which is healthy, Sam. And from what I have observed, you should be making better food choices. For instance, you need to add more fruits in your diet" Fi suggested, as she made a right turn.
"I do eat fruits!" insisted Sam, sounding offended as he counted on his fingers, "why, just last week, I had carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie!"
"Sam, I'm serious," Fi said, "as you get older, you need to think more about your health!"
"Don't you worry about me, sister" winked Sam, "When I die, I plan to leave my body to science...fiction!"
Not a minute too soon, Fi had reached the outskirts of Mama Butcher's estate.
"Changing the subject, Sam, I have something to tell you that you're not going to like, " warned Fi, as she slowed her car down.
"Tell me something I don't know, Fi!"
Fi rolled her eyes.
Sam slowly turned his head to look at Fi. From the dim moonlight shining on the windshield, Sam could make out the seriousness of Fi's expression, although some of her profile was in shadow.
"Okay," said Sam, "what gives?"
Before Fi answered, she started to make a turn into the private lane of the villa. She had already turned off her headlights, slowly letting the car silently slide into a spot that had a good view of the house. Then she cut the engine.
Fi turned to Sam. She needed his full attention.
"It's about your friend, Roberto," stated Fi, "How well do you really know him?"
"How well do I really know Roberto?...hmmm...I guess I would describe us as two comfortable recliners... we go way back…" Sam joked, and then when Fi was silent, he turned serious, "why?"
"It's just that I saw him doing something strange this morning, Sam."
Sam scratched his head.
"When you say he was doing something strange in the morning, Fi, was it like, oh, I don't know…him putting jello in his oatmeal?"
Fi sighed, wondering why it was so difficult for Sam to understand her. Isn't she just the typical All American explosives expert and precision marksperson?
No, Sam…" Fi reasoned, "This is serious…It happened much earlier than at breakfast time, in the early morning hours, when everyone should have been asleep. After what I witnessed I'm just not sure if we can trust him."
Sam sat back in his seat with a thud. He remembered quite a while back when both he and Roberto were young recruits, Roberto had defended Sam against their commanding officer who then proceeded to punish both of them for something only Sam had done.
Roberto had been a true friend. And Sam owed a debt to this wonderful friend who stuck by when he needed him. But when Sam looked over at Fi, he realized that she, Michael and even Madeline were the only people who stuck by him through anything and he trusted them with his life.
Neither one spoke for a time as they both looked out of the car. The huge estate was quiet except for two lit rooms up on the first floor. Otherwise, there were no other signs that anyone was there.
"Go on," urged Sam at last, "What happened that makes you think Roberto is untrustworthy?"
Fi told Sam what she had witnessed with Roberto covertly packing something in a white van and then the vehicle mysteriously disappearing in the middle of the night.
"You didn't hear the sound of a van last night, did you, Sam?" Fi asked.
He shook his head, "No, but my room is across the way and doesn't face your side. Plus I've been taking painkillers and at night they really knock me out."
"Well, I think Roberto is keeping secrets from us, Sam."
Sam shrugged, "Maybe it's something going on in the compound that doesn't really concern us," he suggested, "For example, maybe he's getting supplies, or something else just as innocent."
"I thought of that, too," contemplated Fi, "but in the middle of the night? And then when I had breakfast with him that morning and directly confronted him about the van, he denied that a van was ever there! He said he had slept through the night, Sam! He acted like I was crazy—and don't you dare make a comment about that!"
"Hey, you're the one who left yourself opened like that!" stated Sam. He rubbed his chin as if he were in deep contemplation, "I just think there's a simple explanation for all of those happenings. Just don't go jumping to conclusions."
"Oh? So you think I shouldn't be suspicious just because he's your friend, Sam?"
"I'm just saying that maybe you need to do a little less of jumping to conclusions and more of digging for the facts."
She gave Sam a hard look,"So you want me to do less jumping and more digging? How about if we do a little less colorful analogies?" she suggested drolly.
Sam did not look happy, "So you don't trust my friend and you want to make light of my advice? That's fine by me, sister!"
Fi did not like his tone and words. She folded her arms, "Fine!"
There was silence as they faced forward to view the house.
They had been looking out the front car window for a time when Fi suddenly unfolded her arms and leaned forward, "Sam, did you see it? It looked like some movement coming from one of the lighted windows!"
Taking in the seriousness of the situation, Sam squinted his eyes.
"I musta missed it," answered Sam, "But this is what I thought was rather odd. We've been here, for what, roughly twenty minutes, and up to this point there had been no shadows against the curtains, no other lights turned on since we've been here. I've almost convince myself that the house is empty or Mama Butcher lives in only two rooms in the house!"
"Well someone was in the house a second ago, because I'm sure I saw a shadow walk across one of the lighted windows."
"So what's the plan?" Sam asked.
"I vote that we storm the place!" stated Fi.
"Storm the place? With one gun? I think that's more like we'll drizzle the place," Sam said, "…another option is, we could go in under a cover guise."
"Why? You've got a special ID with you?" Fi asked.
"Why no, Fi, not at the moment,"Sam said drolly, "You see, I left my Superspy mustache box back in my other Hawaiian shirt pocket."
"Okay, then we'll do it my way," she decided.
"That's the only way I don't want to do it," commented a truthful Sam.
"Don't worry, I'll play nice," stated Fi, "I always do…it's just that the other side tends to get the worse of the 'nice'."
"Oh, Christ, why do I think I'm going to regret this?" Sam asked.
"Just follow my lead," she replied, "Come on, let's go, Sam!"
"Ah, geez," complained Sam, "I give you an inch, and you become the ruler!"
The villa was suspiciously silent as they got out of the car and walked up to the front door.
"Wait!" said Sam, "Let's strategize before we do anything rash..."
"I agree," Fi nodded, as she did the complete opposite. She reached up and rang the doorbell.
Ding-dong.
"Ah, Whatcha do that for, Fi?…" asked Sam, stunned.
"It was for the benefit of the other side...so they know to answer the door."
"No, what I mean is-"
"Ssshh!" Fi said, "Just listen for footsteps!"
They waited.
No answer.
However, from inside the house, they heard the ringing of a phone. Or more like a cellphone since it had a ringtone. The intro song played on, but no one answered it.
"I don't think anyone is home," whispered Sam.
"If you truly believed that, then stop whispering!" declared Fi
From inside, they heard the cellphone ringing song start up again. No one picked up. Sam looked worried as dread flooded his chest.
"What is it, Sam?"
"This doesn't add up," Sam remarked, "No pick up on a cellphone? Most people on planet earth don't go anywhere without their cellphones."
"You're right…" responded Fi.
"So maybe we should…" Sam suggested.
"I'm right there!" Fi exclaimed, as she again did the opposite of what Sam wanted and brought up her fist to pound loudly on the door, "Mrs. Hunter!"
Nothing.
Sam pressed his ear on the door. When he straightened his body again, he had an expression of repugnance.
"Fi…" he said slowly," …is it me…or…is there a foul stench in the air?"
"Break the door down," Fi demanded
"Again, Fi, " Sam said as he pointed downward, "My leg?"
"Oh, that excuse is getting soo old now!" Fi said, as she lifted her foot.
"Wait!" said Sam.
She stopped mid-motion as he tried the knob.
Fortunately, the door was unlocked.
"I know I'm not going to like what we'll find inside..." predicted Sam
Fi took out her gun as they entered.
The minute they entered, the smell of death assailed their senses.
They took five steps in, and froze.
The first thing they both noticed was two feet whom they assumed belonged to Mama Butcher. The feet were bare and were strapped to the coffee table with duct tape. It was, of course, attached to a body, the dead body of an elderly woman. On the floor next to the body was a power drill.
"Oh man, Crap!" exclaimed Sam, as he took a closer look at the bloodied scene.
There were precise, neat holes, perfect tiny circles of maroon red, through her toes and deep into her heels.
They assumed correctly that the holes made in her feet were due to the power drill. Stepping slightly closer, Sam and Fi also noted a drill mark on her rib cage, and through her cheekbone. Her terrorized face stared up at them, her eyes twisted. She had died in terrible pain.
Sam was the first to turn away, not wanting to think about the whirring screech and the screams that followed it as the drill must have decisively pierced through flesh and cartilage and penetrated bone.
"God almighty," Sam remarked, "You think her own son would do this to her?"
The morbid scene even affected Fi slightly, as Sam noticed she needed to swallow hard before responding, "I'd like to think not…there would be no reason for him…to…to...torture his own mother like this…"
She never had the opportunity to continue her sentence as they both suddenly heard a gruff voice behind them.
"Drop the gun and put your hands up or I'll blast away at both of you..NOW!"
Fi recognized the voice. It was The Butcher. Fi had no choice, but to drop her gun. And like a cliché in every gangster movie, both Sam and Fi put their hands up and slowly turned around.
Gideon Hunter, aka The Butcher, stood firm, his eyes as black as coal and his expression solemn as he pointed two guns directly at them.
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