We're on the homerun leg of this story kids, but buckle your seats belts - we're about to hit a bit of turbulence. R&R please. [Thank you to last chapter's reviewers - I PM'd you! :) ]
37. The Ties That Blind
"He outright admitted to me that he's not the only one in this!" Booth shouted, clenching his good fist. "How much clearer do you want me to make this to you?"
Andrew Hacker stared at the ground, and shook his head. "There's no good in simply knowing something, Agent Booth, if you can't prove it."
"But we have the proof," he argued. "I can quote every word of that phone call."
Hacker shot him a look of reproach, and so Booth backtracked. "Regardless, the message was pretty clear," he finalised.
Hacker took a seat at his desk. "I can't provide any more funding without quantifiable evidence."
"Andrew-"
"Director Hacker, Agent Booth."
"Assistant Director Hacker - you've got my hands tied. We need the funding, okay? This case is huge. It's our primary focus-" Booth halted when he was interrupted.
"Our primary focus? No - your primary focus." Beneath the calm of Hacker's expression, lay a smirk that Booth wanted to burn out.
"-The CIA are involved - are you really going to brush this off?"
"Brush this off? Hardly. We can't afford it."
"Bullshit."
"I can try discussing it with my superiors-"
As if you would even lift a finger on the matter, you son of a bitch, Booth thought bitterly. Despite his thoughts, he managed a curt, "Then do."
A loud rap interrupted what was about to become an extremely heated stalemate.
"Sir?"
Hacker stiffened - and Booth supposed he wasn't only standing to attention above the table.
"Sophia," Hacker managed, with a begotten smile.
Booth gagged.
The dark red-haired woman tossed her wavy locks disapprovingly. "Agent Rogers, Assistant Director," she corrected him, with a hard eye. "Let's not make the situation uncomfortable with informalities."
Hacker's grin fell.
Booth felt a bubble of self-satisfaction within. "Did you come to see me, Rogers?" He asked smoothly, eyes glinting with the smugness he would not allow his lips to portray.
"As in fact, I did Sir. Your car is waiting to take you home."
Booth stood. "You're not driving?"
Sophia eyed Hacker - with no particular interest, more so, as if he were a blunt object on display. "I have errands to attend to. But if you'll come this way, I need to get a few documents from you first." She motioned towards the door.
"Goodbye, Agent Booth," came Hacker's somewhat dry voice.
Booth lifted half of his mouth in a wry smile. "Always a pleasure, Andrew."
Following Sophia out into the hall, he was surprised when she broke out into soft laughter . "He really hates you," she said breathlessly, answering Booth's unspoken question. "What did you do; kill his favourite cat?"
"I took his girl," Booth answered simply. "Although…technically he took her from me, so…I don't know why he has the right to be pissed."
"Ah."
They arrived at the lift, and Sophia punched the request button.
"What do you mean 'ah'?" Booth derived.
"What does 'ah' ever mean? It's a fill-in response. I don't know either of you three well enough to be the judge of the dynamics of your relationship."
"But?"
She smiled. "But I seen enough classic love triangles to know that someone always comes out the loser."
"Hacker," Booth coughed indiscreetly, winking at his fellow agent.
"Always the charmer, aren't you?" Sophia acclaimed.
Booth rolled his shoulders - concealing a wince. "I try my best."
"Obviously."
They arrived at Booth's office.
"Get your things," Sophia instructed, checking her wristwatch. "You have five minutes."
After only two, Booth joined her again with a satchel of papers, and followed her down on through to the car park.
Watching him off as an agent took him away, Sophia retrieved her phone, and hit the first number.
"Sophia," a smooth male voice greeted.
"Are you sure this is the right thing to do?" She asked into the receiver, without any greeting.
Clint sighed over the other end of the line. "The Agency says this is the only way to bring the both of them out."
Sophia bit her lip. "It's potentially dangerous, Clint, and the FBI doesn't know that there are certainly two people working on this case. We haven't told them yet-"
"Sophia."
She drew a deep breath. "Okay. They're driving him out now."
"Thank you, Agent Rogers."
Sophia ended the call.
She liked Booth; and she really hoped that the operation would pull through - because a lesson that she had come to learn in her field of work, was that, in fishing...it never worked out so well for the bait.
.
- B&B -
.
"Who was that?" Brennan asked from her place on the couch, when Clint stowed away his phone.
He strolled over, and flopped down on the sofa, lifting Brennan's legs and putting them on his lap.
"The Boss," he replied nonchalantly - a hint of humour dancing across his eyes. After all, it wasn't a lie. In all the time that he had known Sophia, her strong personality dictated everything - from assignments, to the restaurant they dined at for lunch, or to which clothing stores his closet was stocked from.
Brennan - as if reading where his train of thoughts were headed, innocently asked, "So what's the deal with you and Sophia?"
Clint frowned. "The 'deal'? What about Sophia?"
"It was her that you were talking to, wasn't it?"
"But you said you didn't know who I was talking to...?"
"I never said that I didn't know; I just asked who you were talking to," Brennan corrected him simply, smiling contentedly. "Then, you just confirmed my suspicions, so…"
Clint shook his head. "And you wonder why there's are target painted on your forehead," he sighed. "You're almost too smart for you own good."
Taken aback a little, Brennan defended herself with, "I tricked you; anyone can pull a party trick." She tucked her legs away from beneath his hands.
Clint grinned, complimenting her. "Not everyone."
Brennan then sighed, allowing the conversation to close, and a new one to develop. "When can I go outside?" She asked. "I'm desperate for some fresh air."
Clint pointed to a window.
"No," Brennan chided. "You know what I meant."
Clint groaned in good-nature. "Oh, I s'pose I could take you for a play outside," he teased. "Come on."
The crisp, cool air of the atmosphere outside was a welcoming sensation, and Brennan relished as the sun's warmth was soaked up by her pores. "And for almost a week, this is what you've deprived me from?" She called out to Clint, whose eyes were glued to the screen of his iPhone. "Clint?" She pressed, when she received no response.
He finally looked up. "I have to take a phone call. Stay where you are," he made her promise.
She rolled her eyes. "Do I look like an intolerable five-year-old to you?"
"Yes," he answered shortly, lifting his phone to his ear. "I'm serious, Temperance. I'll just be around the corner."
"Secret stuff?" She probed.
"Yeah," he answered distantly, walking off. "Something like that."
Though he was moving out of earshot, Brennan heard him greet the director of the CIA, and then she could pick up no more. Taking a seat on the steps of the house, she closed her eyes, and placed her hand on her womb, allowing herself to drift away into a place just below conscious.
.
- B&B-
.
"Where are you taking me?" Booth demanded, craning his neck to see through the tinted windows.
His driver stared ahead, emotionlessly. "I told you - we're making sure that you're safe."
"Bull shit you are," Booth fired back, reaching for the latch of his seatbelt.
"What are you going to do?" The quizzed tiredly. "Jump out of a moving vehicle?"
Booth glared at the road ahead in silence.
The agent took a hand off the steering wheel. "I'm from the CIA - I'm a friend of Sophia's. Broadsky put a hit on you, and we're getting you out. Our servers detected movement in on you, and Dr Brennan."
"But how did he get past you guys? The Jeffersonian has the cell phone he left me at the cemetery."
"Which is exactly where we want it; we needed to separate the lock, from the key."
"Turn around!" Booth ordered. "Now! Giving the phone to them may have ensured my safety, but it sure as hell has jeopardized theirs!"
"No, sir. I'm just following orders, but you don't give them."
Booth pulled his phone from his pocket.
"Don't try," the agent halted him. "It's been disconnected."
Booth threw it down. "I need to warn them."
"I'm sorry, but you can't do that without giving away our location."
"What the hell-?"
"We had to remove you from the equation. I'm sorry, but neither you, or any information or evidence you have against Jacob Broadsky is safe in the hands of the FBI."
"Why?"
"Because you've been compromised!" The agent fired back. "Someone in the Bureau is working with Jacob. Someone on the inside, who has access to all of the information - to Dr Brennan's location, to the files…resources. You name it. Jacob Broadsky has someone in on his operation, and it sure as hell ain't the Tooth Fairy. I mean, I can turn around, and we can go back and warn your friends, or I can keep on driving, and you can safe your girlfriend. Though the choice isn't really yours, I'm decent enough to give you the ultimatum."
Booth felt his body - an empty shell - collapse against the passenger seat. He already knew what his choice was going to be, before any of this had happened. Before everything. It was Brennan, and it was always going to be, Brennan. "Where is Temperance?" He asked, sealing the deal.
"She's with an agent - he was just on the line to another, informing and discussing the current situation."
"How do you know that it's someone from the FBI?"
"Is it really not that simple to you? How did Jacob Broadsky stay off the grid so easily after he assassinated Public Enemy Number One? How do you think he was able to get the addresses, and phone numbers, and security codes and just about every other piece of information he needed?"
Booth sat in sick silence. "I know who it is," he finally managed, meeting the agent's stern eyes. "Pedal on the gas, now!"
.
- B&B -
.
Though it had only been a couple of minutes since she had closed her eyes, what felt like years later, Brennan woke with a start to the sound of tyres churning gravel. Shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun, she stared up to the sleek, black bulge of an S.U.V.
The window buzzed down, and a frantic face peered out.
"Get in," Andrew Hacker ordered. "I have to take you to another location. You've been found!"
Brennan's eyes swept back towards the front door. "My things-"
He slipped out of the car with haste, and went around to the passenger door. "Agents will collect them for you. Quickly, Temperance!" He held her side open for her. "Every moment more you spend here, is putting you in even graver danger."
She jumped in. "Where are you taking me?" She asked, as the tires screeched on the gravel road during it's turning circle. Clint, she thought in a panic, peering out the window as best she could. His solid figure was bounding after their car, but the attempt was in vain.
Though he didn't answer her question until they were out on the bitumen road, when he finally did, it didn't take much for her to comprehend.
"To a place where they can't find you," Hacker told her.
Brennan exhaled sharply, and a sick fear melted into her whole being. "Stop the car!" She shouted. "Pull over now!"
Hacker pulled a white handkerchief from his blazer pocket, and pressed it to Brennan's face.
Fighting with every cell her body against inhaling the chloroform, eventually, she had no choice but to deliver her desperate lungs.
Everything faded.
Ultimatums, corruptions...kidnappings - it's the homewards gallop, and I'll bring out all the big guns! Tell me what you think, please :) I'll update asap.
And MERRY CHRISTMAS MY LOVELIES! Enjoy the day with your families! xx