You know my muse is being kind when I upload another chapter within 24 hours ;) enjoy kids!

[and i do apologise for keeping them short, but time's not something i have a lot of these days :( ]

35. CIA

"I really don't think you should be back at work," Cam fussed, helping Booth out of her car. "I mean, if the fact that you can hardly walk without wincing isn't an indicator, then-"
"Camille," Booth halted her. "You know me. I wouldn't have healed any better in there than out here; not while Bones is God knows where, and she can't come home until its safe."
She slung his briefcase over her arm. "It's a bad idea."
He gripped her arm. "I have my good hand, and I can fire a weapon. I can defend myself."
"Uh huh. And your breathing?"
"Tolerable."
"Running?"
"Manageable."
Though Cam still eyed him with doubt, she let it slide; no doubt a coworker would have a go at him for returning to work soon, and she didn't need to add to his list of troubles.
After bidding Cam farewell from the elevator, Booth entered his floor, only to find all the agents circle around one of the numerous televisions, glued to a youthful - but solemn - female reporter.
"…The CIA have pledged their services to these confirmed acts of terrorism performed against the general civilian public," she informed seriously, eyes staring down the camera. "Rogue turned-fugitive military sniper Jacob Broadsky is the primary suspect suggested responsible. The explosions makes two in the last twenty-four hours, which were both believed to revolve around-"
Booth muted the television. "What's going on? How do they know about Jacob?"
It was Charlie who braved the storm, and replied with, "The CIA are involved."
Another agent intercepted. "The Agency is pretty tight about this sort of thing…"
"It was an anonymous source," a third intercepted - a woman, with dark red hair, and shocking blue eyes; a newbie, Booth supposed. "Who ever gave them the tip, saw it as being the right thing to do," she continued, "now that he has been classified as a terrorist-"
"But he isn't!" Booth argued. "This isn't a matter of National Security. This is a patriotic man exterminating persons he deems unfit to live. The CIA shouldn't have stuck their damn noses in-"
"My husband works for the CIA," the redhead interrupted him. "Have care how you speak."
Booth checked himself. "Why have they confirmed these events as acts of terrorism?"
"According to the information that we discovered yesterday after the first explosion - which we had to disclose to the CIA last night - Broadsky was in the Middle East two months ago."
"Not possible. He wouldn't have slipped through our radar-"
"Well he did," Red cut in.
Booth turned a hard eye on her. "Who do you work for? Them, or us?"
The woman bit her cheeks, and diverted her stare elsewhere.
"Regardless," Booth surmised. "The fact that he travelled to the Middle East eight weeks ago, and has been plucking off citizens ever since, does not make him a terrorist."
"Do you know how many casualties resulted from the bombings yesterday?" It was the agent that had spoken after Charlie - a middle-aged man, with black hair galloping towards grey. Thin lips, long nose; Donald Sutherland.
Booth shifted on his feet; Sutherland had been in the legal system for years - and though he had only recently joined the FBI, having left the CIA after twenty years of service - the man knew his stuff.
Now, he folded his arms confidently across his chest. "The Bali Bombings in the Kuta Strip in Indonesia killed two-hundred-and-two people. Eighty-eight Australians, thirty-eight Indonesians, and five Swedes. It was classified as an act of terrorism. "
"Because it was performed by Al Qaeda," Booth supplied impatiently. "Broadsky isn't the Al Qaeda. He's a man who's so hell bent on revenge that he's lost his mind."
"Yes, but between the car accident, and that morning explosion yesterday, nearly fifty people were killed. fifty, Agent Booth. The definition for terrorism stands that it is when another country, or personal uses acts of violence against the general public and/or military force. For means of power, destruction…yadda yadda. You understand what I mean."
Booth sighed. "Broadsky isn't-"
Red interrupted him. Again. "Then maybe it's not all Broadsky - and that's the CIA's point. They're coming in to determine who - or if - someone else is behind this with Jacob."
Donald spoke up again with, "Think about it; everyone of Broadsky's murders has moved further up the food chain. What if he suddenly decided a senator didn't deserve his seat, or the elected president was a wrong choice?"
Booth pinched the bridge of his nose. "I need to…go and look into a few things. You guys keep on here - stay with the tracker, come and get me if you've found anything serious. I want a print-out of every blog and article that hits the web about this."
A desk jockey amongst the assembled agents grumbled as he walked away, but all the rest had returned to viewing the breaking news.
Booth dropped into his desk chair with as much care as he could. He took a pencil between his fingers, and played with it. It was such a simple piece of equipment, but it brought him entertainment for at least ten minutes.
Something small can turn into something big, he thought. But big things create even bigger things.
At that moment, he smirked to himself; if he had spoken those words aloud, and Brennan had been there to hear them, she would have complained about his 'unintelligent cop talk' - but to him, it made sense, and her anthro-mojo didn't. That was how they worked - but they complimented each other.
A tight pain shot through his chest.
He missed her, and it had only been a day.
And one, very long night.
For a while, his thoughts lingered on his partner. Their child.
And then, when the clock trilled to mark midday, he found his mind snapping back to a train of thought that had almost been all but forgotten.
At that moment, there was a pounding fist at the door.
He looked up.
It was the woman.
Booth waved a finger, permitting her entrance.
"What do I call you, Red?" He asked dryly, oblivious to how her eyes narrowed when he nicknamed her in reference to her hair.
"Agent Sophia Rogers," she replied evenly, a flame of irritation wavering through her being. "I'm stepping in for Agent Shaw."
She was very pretty, Booth had to admit. Sophia had an amazing figure, and an air that, once upon a time, Booth knew he would have fallen for.
Offering her a tight smile, he indicated for her to take a seat. "What have you discovered, Ms Rogers?"
"Agent Rogers. Don't antagonise me sir."
Booth put both palms face-out to her. "My apologies - I'm a little short on manners in these…trying times." He leant back into her chair. "Now, what do have to tell me?"
Sophia stood. "You say that Broadsky's motivation to hurt you and your wife, is purely to have revenge on you, correct?"
Booth's eyes glazed over. "Temperance isn't my wife, but Broadsky wants to hurt her, because he knows it's the only way he can really hurt me."
Sophia's hands clasped together, and she probed them with her nails. "Why does he hate you so much?"
"Because I picked the wrong side," Booth answered simply.
Before he could say anything more, Sweets had entered the office, and leant over the desk.
"Hi Sophia," he quickly acknowledged, then turning on Booth with a narrowed eye. "What are you doing at work? You're supposed to be resting!"
"Sorry Mom," Booth answered shortly.
In the meantime, Rogers studied Booth intently. "He doesn't hate you because you're the fed that's trying to arrest him," she observed, as if the two men had not spoken. "His anger stems from something much older than a few weeks of the FBI chasing him."
Sweets glanced between the two, and put the pieces together. "Agent Rogers is right."
"Oh, so I'm Agent, now?" Sophia's eyebrows jutted skywards.
Booth exhaled so sharply, it appeared to his company as though he had been gutted.
"Booth!" Sweets went to his side.
"Agent Booth?" Sophia, too, moved towards him. "Sir?"
He shook his head, as if shaking off a bad memory. "It can't be," he whispered.
"What do you mean?" The other two asked in unison.
It took him a while to respond. "Almost twenty years, and he's still taking me for trips down memory lane."
"I'm afraid I don't understand," Sophia said slowly.
Sweets concentrated intensely for moment. "You were twenty. What happened when you were twenty years old?"
"Broadsky was training me to be a sniper," Booth replied quietly.
"What happened?" Rogers pressed.
No answer.
"What happened when Broadsky was training you to be a sniper, Agent Booth?" Sweets supported Sophia, with a tone that had as much force behind it, as hers had.
Booth rose from his chair slowly, and moved to the decanter of liquor that he kept for his office.
"I advise that you don't drink-" Sweets began, but trailed off when Booth shot him a look.
Pouring himself a glass of whiskey, he downed its contents with one toss back of the head. "It was my first mission as a sniper," he began, sitting in one of his armchairs. "Jacob Broadsky had just spent the previous six months training me as a sniper - he had been assigned to me when a general saw me practicing with my firearm during a routine exercise, and he scouted me immediately. Given my…ability, he thought that I could do quite well." Booth looked up from his glass, to the two young people. "I wasn't experienced enough, and natural talent only gets you so far…I wasn't ready for what they sent me into."
"What did they send you into, Agent Booth?" Sweets asked quietly.
Booth took a deep breath. "We ran into a group of insurgents - 'terrorists' as the office later pronounced them - in a village on one of our patrols. Jake took out two of the nine, and I went to shoot as well, but then, this woman - this young, woman ran out crying for them to be spared-" Booth cut off and swallowed hard. "My compassion won over what was morally right. What should have been done...so I pulled Jake away. He was furious, and he wanted to go back. a fortnight later, the survivors of the same group bombed one of our bases."
"As an act of revenge?" Sweets wondered aloud.
"Oh my God," Sophia said breathlessly. "Jacob Broadsky could have been awarded that day for saving lives, and he didn't, because of you."
The psychologist snapped his fingers. "It's like Broadsky's having a midlife crisis, and blaming you for everything turning shit in his life."
"Nicely deduced," Booth chuckled dryly, standing. "Nah, I just…I didn't think anything of that time - I mean, it happened to long ago, and there was just no way that his fury could have come front that incident, because even though he was upset, he stood up for me when I got shit for it, and he told me that I was right to have trusted my gut - even though I wasn't…"
"You can't be the one to take him down," Sophia announced. "You're too personally involved."
"Everything is personal, in this world," Booth said tiredly. "Past or no past, I need to take him down; he tried to kill me, and my girlfriend. If I let him go for too much longer, he'll take down someone else I care about" - he directed his stare at Sweets, pointing a finger - "including you."
"Right," Sophia sighed. "Well I need to get a written report of the events that transpired between you and Jacob Broadsky around that time. Anything else pops up, throw it in."
"Why to you?" Booth demanded. "You're not even a Special Agent."
"No," she replied, shaking her wavy locks. "But my husband is the CIA. They're going to want a copy of this."
Sweets pinched the bridge of his nose.
Booth clenched his teeth.
Great.
When Sophia pulled out her phone to text message her husband, Booth's Blackberry vibrated.
Upon reading the message, Booth's tongue went sour.
"What's it say?" Sweets craned his neck.
The Special Agent revealed his screen.

TAKE IT PERSONALLY. I KNOW I DID.

see that box, down the bottom? it's looking pretty empty - i'd love it if you left me a prezzie! 3 please don't read and run, i write this for you guys!

[thanks for reading - and to my reviewers/favs/follows from last chapter, god bless :) G xx ]