Chapter 22: Hot Mess of a chapter

A/N: OK, fair warning and APOLOGIES in advance to everyone reading this. This chapter sucks. It's the worst chapter I've written. I've written myself into a corner and I need to provide all this background and context to set up the end game for the story. So, what follows is a very clunky, boring chapter. A few of you have PM-ed me and asked me to hurry up and move the story along and get to the Liv-Fitz reunion, so I feel like I have that hanging over my head. I wish I could just scrap this chapter but I feel like I need to show Huck and Fitz working together to find Olivia. Not my best work. Sorry.

"So, Huck, how can we prevent this latest video of Liv from going viral?" asked Fitz. Cyrus had arranged for a conference call between Fitz, Cam, Cyrus and Huck.

"YouTube is the most natural destination for this video to turn up," Huck replied. "If there were some way to block it from showing up there, that would pretty much reduce the number of people who could see it and share it."

"So, how would we do that?" Cyrus asked.

"It's tough. You'd have to get Google to block it, but that's easier said than done. Google is notorious for not wanting to help government authorities," Huck replied.

"Well, we'll see about that," Fitz replied. "I'll take care it."

"Mr. President, what exactly do you have in mind?" asked Huck, curiosity was killing him.

"Let's just say that I'm going to make Larry Page (Google's creator) an offer he can't refuse," Fitz replied, chuckling.

Cam and Cyrus exchanged puzzled glances.

"OK, Huck, please give us a status report about what else you've been up to and what you've uncovered so far," Fitz continued.

"Well, I discovered that the man who hired Olivia for this assignment, Farheed Davi, is a ghost. He doesn't exist. All I can say is that whoever he is, he's good. Damn good. He has left virtually no trace," Huck reported.

"Virtually no trace?" Cam asked. "Meaning absolutely no trace or the slightest hint of a trace?"

"The slightest residue of a trace. The $250,000 he deposited in Olivia's bank account came from an offshore bank account, ownership unknown. I took a close look and found that the money was routed through three different bank accounts in Asia, Europe and America before it landed in Olivia's account. I traced the money back to a Swiss bank account. This Farheed Davi probably thought that having the money come from there would give him privacy protection but it doesn't."

Cyrus began to laugh. "That idiot probably didn't realize that under a new law the IRS now has the power to force Swiss banks to identify who is the owner of a Swiss bank account. If we know which bank this money came from, we can force them to identify who owns this account!"

"Follow the money and you'll find the kidnappers," added Cam.

"But even though we've got the law on our side, it's probably going to take weeks for them to release that info to us. We don't have weeks," Fitz said. "We've got to find an alternative way to find these kidnappers. Cam, can you put a call in to Alistair Middleton and ask him about their intelligence assets in Pakistan. Maybe if we asked him specifically if there's been any chatter about an American female, that would pinpoint where Olivia is."

"I can ask, but he's not going to be willing to share info on something like this. MI-6 has been working for years on infiltrating the Taliban. Alistair isn't going to be willing to potentially jeopardize his spies just to save one American. You've got to offer the British something in return," Cam said.

Fitz turned pensive and didn't immediately respond. Then he said, "OK, I'll take care of that too. What's next?"

"We still haven't identified who the leak is in the White House," said Cyrus.

"Well, we could plant false info and see who takes the bait," said Cam.

"Yes, we could, but do we really have time to do that? Laying a trap will take time and time is in short supply. Olivia has been in captivity almost three weeks. We need to find her and get her back. If we all keep our mouths shut and the info we've discussed today doesn't go past these four walls, I say we try to figure out later who the mole is," Fitz said.

A/N: OK, so the meeting is over and the lion's share of the workload has fallen on Fitz's broad shoulders. His "Things to Do" list includes the following:

Call Larry Page, the CEO of Google, to ask him to block the video of Olivia from showing up on YouTube. Page initially won't agree but then Fitz makes him an offer he can't refuse…a seat at the table of an upcoming economic trade summit with China and a personal introduction to China's top politician.

Call David Cameron, prime minister of England, to ask him to get MI-6 to activate their spy network to look for Olivia. Initial resistance evaporates when Fitz promises that the CIA will share what it knows about terrorist cells targeting the U.K.

OK, a very boring chapter but had to get this out of the way to get to the good stuff. Sorry for the clunkiness of this chapter but my heart just wasn't into it.

From the very beginning, I've been writing chapters out of sequence, writing scenes when the inspiration hits me. (Chap. 17 was the very first chapter written, even before the prologue. And what I anticipate will be either Chap 26 or 27 was written a week ago but I have yet to write Chapters 24-25!) Unfortunately, this one just didn't flow and I felt forced to write it today because I needed to provide a chapter showing Huck and Fitz working together. Normally, I'd sleep on it and see if I could make it better in a day or two, but I'm trying not to lose momentum by taking off too much time between chapters. Sorry!

If I get inspired at a later date, I may come back and rewrite this chapter, but for now I'll post it since I need the context to provide a bridge to the final stage of the story.