Patriks

Whatever the kid was going to do, it was going to be risky, stupid, and above all, violent. I give the kid credit, he is one hell of an operative. Smart, resourceful, deadly, and above all else, he knows how to deal with all the death and violence with our job. He deals better than I do.

But, at times, I hate the kid's guts. Like now. I feel like a damn chauffeur. He wasn't going to let Alexis anywhere near the field. So, he was having me drive her to her place, which was now empty of any and all people. It didn't hurt that he wanted me to cut their phonelines and set up a cell jammer before I release her. 1600 hours was only a few minutes away.

What made matters worse was the fact that we got stuck in rush hour traffic. I hate New York.

I silently fumed while Alexis played with her black skullcap. Her hair was noticeable through the window, and Castle sure as hell put out an APB on her. So I decided to play it safe and had her wear the cap.

"Hey, umm, why do you switch languages when talking to Trev?" she asked.

Well, I am stuck in traffic. Might as well talk to the kid, "Ever hear the story of Pacha and his three sons?"

She shook her head.

"Well, there was this big flood, and Pacha, his three sons, and their wives took shelter on a tall mountain. It was cold and miserable. So cold and miserable that the Pacha and his children did not speak to each other. When the flood finally receded, Pacha could no longer talk to his sons because they spoke different languages.

"So, you switch languages to stay in practice?"

"Yep," I nodded slightly, "It's not like riding a bike. If you don't use it, you lose it."

"Trev called me 'Poco Lexi'. What does that mean?"

"Literall, it means 'Little Lexi'," I scowled, "He did it just to piss me off."

"How?" she looked confused.

"I used to want to be a foreign language teacher. So I am still real anal about proper grammar in foreign languages," I shrugged, "It should be 'Lexia Poca'."

"Why?" she asks a lot of questions now that she is not afraid for her life. It reminded me of my granddaughter.

"'Lexia' is the Spanish form of 'Lexi'. And in Spanish, the subject comes before the adjective. You never took a Spanish class?" it was hard to believe. More kids take a Spanish class as a foreign language than any other class.

"Nope," she shook her head, "I only took German and French."

"Huh, then 'Little Lexi' in French and German is..."

"'Petit Lexi' and 'Klein Lexi'" she answered proudly.

"Very good," I smiled. This brought back happy memories with Tempe.

"Thank you," she smiled, "How did you and Trev get into Black Ops?"

I shrugged. The agencies involved were classified, but I saw no harm in telling her about them, "After Trev faked his death, he was recruited into the Intelligence arm of the State Department, Consular Operations. He specifically worked with the Political Stabilization Unit's Tracker Team."

"Consular Operations? Political Stabilization Unit? Tracker Team?"

"Consular Operations does political espionage," I explained, "They spy on foreign governments and and conduct operations on them. They are very small compared to the CIA, and very unknown. It suits them better that way. The Political Stabilization Unit is the assassination arm of Cons Ops. 'Stab', as it's known, has a Tracker Team whose job it is to track down targets, namely enemy spies and ousted dictators building their power underground. Trev was the only field operative they ever fielded," I didn't tell her how Trev is a walking polygraph and has been trained by the legendary Harrison Ambler in the art of lie spotting.

"And you?"

"I was a SEAL sniper," I admitted, "I was recruited into Office of Naval Intelligence's Destruction and Disposal Unit. It was my job to find, kill, and dispose of saboteurs and spies that were well know or couldn't be charged for some reason."

"Did that happen often?"

"More often than you think," I said, "The D and D Unit had about seven members when I was recruited to the White House's dirty little secret."

"Dirty little secret? What's that?" she asked.

"If I told you it wouldn't be a secret," I smiled at her furious expression at having been denied information. She was a lot like Tempe, "The kid joined a few years ago. Youngest operative we ever had," I didn't tell her about the COVENANT Project. We were a group of the best assassins who specialized in specific types of jobs. Arsonry(09), Tracking(12), Disposal(07), making deaths look like accidents(11), and just plain old killing lots of people(01). Of the twelve of us, only Trev and me were the only ones with military backgrounds. The rest were a assortment of crooks, mercenaries, and in 01,the Murderer's case, plain old killers.

"Why do you call him a kid?" was she ever out of questions.

"There was a psychological research project called PRODIGOUS WARRIOR," I explained, "It took kids barely out of Basic and threw them into Special Forces. In Trev's case, he was thrown into Recon training after Boot Camp and then was rocketed into the Force Recon, the Special Ops of the Marine Corps. From what I understand, he became infamous for willingness and eagerness to fight and kill. Trev was acually one of the lucky ones. Most ended up dead, and all the rest ended up broken psychologically."

"It was that bad?" she asked.

"Worse," I shuddered, "A old and salty Sailor like me can take all the blood and gore of Special Forces in stride, mainly because I have seen it before. Trev and the others were green as grass. Probably never even seen a cadaver before. And all the horror of Special Forces just reared it's ugly head on a bunch of teenagers."

"Trev didn't seem broken," she observed.

I turned to her, "Has that detective taught you how to interrogate?"

She shook her head, "No, why?"

"Cause in interrogation, you are supposed to keep the other guy talking," I said.

"Maybe I am a natural born investigator."

"Maybe," she did have the instincts of one, "Trev recovered. To the point where he is not a homicidal maniac like others of the Project."

"Oh," she kept silence after that.

"So, what are you planing on doing after high school?" perfectly respectable question, right?

"I plan on going to Princeton or Oxford. I want to study Behavioral Psychology," she said.

"Why?"

"Dad says that there is always a story. A sequence of events that makes everything make sense," she shrugged, "Take Trev for example."

"What about Trev?"

"Well, Trev claims to know Kate from early childhood," I nodded. That much was right, "And he seemed to protective for this to be a simple mission to him. So I can assume he is extremely loyal."

"'No better friend, no worst enemy'," I repeated the age old mantra of the Corps.

"Semper Fi and all that," she said, "But it seems to go deeper than that. I think he suffered a traumatic experience in his childhood, most likely mid teens."

Wow. I knew Trev's parents and little brother died when he was fifteen. It took three years of prodding and getting to know him to learn that. She figured that out from just simple observation.

"You should be a profiler," I suggested, "You're good right no, without any training. Imagine what you will be with a doctorate."

"Thank you," she said smugly.

For those of you who haven't read The Ambler Warning by Robert Ludlum, that is where I got Consular Operations and the Political Stabilization Unit from. The Tracker Team was my idea, though.

This time I want 3REVIEWS=1CHAPTER! BWAHAHAHA!