SAMEEN SHAW POV
"Like I said before…" Harold says as he takes out a card from his suit and presents it to Sameen. "Just in case you change your mind."
With her pistol still aimed at John, Sameen just stares at that piece of paper between Harold's two fingers. Should she?
The past forty-eight hours have uprooted her life and turned it upside down. She's legally dead and can't rely on any of the support structures she has previously, without endangering other people's lives.
These two, on the other hand, can be useful for her in the future. John here is a spook, not that he told her that, but she instantly knows what he did previously by looking at him and Harold here has some kind of a connection with Research, if what he said is true.
Without lowering the gun, she shifts her gaze from the card to Harold. The man sure is persistent in trying to help her, and he looks sincere in his gesture. Not that she trusts these two weirdos.
Fuck it.
What's the worst that can happen? She already died, and they brought her back to life.
She grabs the card from Harold and slowly move backwards to the ambulance with a smirk on her face, knowing that she's ditching them in a cemetery with no transport out. Well, not one that she can see.
She hops on the ambulance and drives away, not feeling guilty about abandoning her 'guardian angels'. Sameen glances at the passenger seat and sees her stuff that the dude she punched removed from her. With one hand holding the wheel, she checks to see her ID. Good… even though the ID is burned, it's good enough to last her until she gets new ones.
God, she's thirsty as fuck. Maybe she should have taken that bottle of water from John.
As she exits the cemetery, she opens the window and tosses the phones she confiscated from the two.
Looks like she's in Queens. In fact, she's near the midtown express… how lucky for her. Better get out of the city before someone from The Activity grows two brain-cells and double checks if she's in the morgue or not.
But that leaves her with what to do now? She barely had the time to think about what's next with her being busy with avenging Cole and protecting the program. Especially the program, The Activity are fucking assholes for killing Cole and for fucking her, but what they do is too important.
To say her life was flipped on its head is an understatement. Almost everything she has built up and have, vanished with the snap of the finger, but for all of that, she doesn't feel a single thing, as if all of this is just another pothole in the shitty road that is her life. Well, there's the feeling of being royally pissed off by that's normal.
Honestly, this is one of the few times she actually appreciates not being normal because she can't imagine how a normal person would process this.
In the end, all of this is just water under the bridge. Fuck it if she's going to be bound by what happened and she's not going to sit around twiddling her thumbs doing nothing. Not with that menace to society still out and about.
What better way to start over than to fall back onto her training? She needs to regroup and reassess her situation.
Her house in Maryland is probably ruined and bugged by The Activity, so she can't return there. Fuckers probably took her gun collection too.
Come to think of it, this isn't too bad of a situation… on the bright side, she now has more time to dedicate in finding that terrorist group, that cabal. A terrorist cabal that's been terrorizing this country for the last four years, and by her count, has caused at least 500 deaths. And who knows the actual death toll?
Despite it all, the entire intelligence community, along with Research and ISA, still fucking thinks it's all lone wolfs, some nut job or a small terrorist cell. They're all so focused on the obvious that they are blind to the obvious; that there's someone pulling the strings for most of the terrorism plot in the past four years. She tried to raise it up the chain in the past, but they rejected her 'theory' as nothing more than a conspiracy theory and that she needed to rest more because the job was getting into her head. Assholes.
Not that she's going to stop her investigation when they rejected it. Most of the intel she gathered about the cabal was in her Maryland house and now most likely rotting away in The Activity's HQ archives. Bet they all had a right old laugh when they found it in her room. Look at what's new in Chicken Little's conspiracy theory.
As much as she wanted to go into the office guns blazing to grab back her stuff, she made sure she had backups. It was one of the first things Hersh taught her when she first joined The Activity.
Speaking of Hersh… she can't fucking believe the asshole actually killed her. Sure, they weren't really 'friends' and they always made jokes about killing each other, but she never expect him to actually do it…
Wait… it's Hersh, of course he would have done anything if Control or the special counsel ordered him to.
She can feel her hand tighten on the steering wheel in anger and causing her to feel a spike of pain from her gunshot wound where that asshole Wilson shot her yesterday… or was it two days ago? Death really screwed with her internal clock.
Fucking dick… she's gonna pay him back someday. A needle to his neck or spiking his drink would do the trick.
Anyway, she can get her revenge on that asshole anytime she wants, but that doesn't change the fact that she values the lessons that asshole taught her. It's a good thing that the backups are stored in an unassuming place, and she made sure it went under The Activity's radar.
First thing first, she gotta ditch this van. It would be weird as hell to see a NYC ambulance down south. But before that, she had better check her dressing, can't have herself die from a wound infection after everything, and a dose of morphine for the pain.
Exiting the Lincoln Tunnel and entering Union city. Sameen exchange the ambulance for a lower profile vehicle, a classic Porsche 911, she saw by the side of the road that looks so ripe for the taking. When she reaches Philly, she changes the car again, but this time for the type of car that Hersh taught her to 'commandeer' because it's 'inconspicuous'.
Sameen parks the car a block away from the storage facility as the loud sounds of a jetliner taking off and the setting sun's glare shines into her eyes, but that didn't deter her from scanning the area for anything suspicious. So far, her drive here has been smooth sailing, but anything can happen. Especially knowing how close this place is with Fort Meade. When she first got this unit, she thought it would be funny that she hid this place underneath the NSA's nose, but with hindsight, it's kinda less funny now and more of an annoyance.
Looks like there's no suspicious white vans prowling around the area, so bring 'her' car forward to the facility's gate and punch in the code to enter. After the gate slowly opens, Sameen drives forward into the facility and navigates to her unit.
Oh right, she doesn't have the key in hand. With some MacGyvering from stuff she has in the car, Sameen picks the lock of her unit and pushes up the roller door. Revealing a dark but partially lit by the sunset storage unit. Looks like no one had touched it since the last time she came here.
Taking a step into her unit, and flicks on the lights, illuminating the medium-sized room. A bench on the left side with some of her spare guns on top of it, along with some boxes underneath the table and a motorcycle, along with some miscellaneous stuff taking up the rest of the space.
At the bench, Sameen grabs her USP45CT with holster and wears it on her pants.
Ah… feels good to have two guns on her again. She felt practically naked without a second gun.
Grunting a little from the pain, she crouches down to check on the boxes, then she grabs the box with the label 'Conspiracy' and plops it on the bench. She opens the box just to double check the contents, several files, pictures, a couple of thumb drives and a solid-state drive. Looks like everything is still the same from when she last updated it, but unfortunately the information in here won't have her latest leads or information. Fortunately for her, she kinda has a good memory for this kind of stuff. So, it's not an enormous loss for her… not that she can feel loss anyway.
Now she just needs the next thing… so ignoring the pain, she crouches down again and grabs the box labeled 'Documents'. As she pulls the box out from its position, she accidentally knocks it with another box, causing her to lose balance and both boxes to fall onto the ground, spilling out its contents.
Not moving an inch from where she was, Sameen let out a long-winded sigh. "Fuck."
Shit's just not going her way in the past few days…
She sits her ass down on the cool, hard cement floor and starts sorting through the mess she caused. As she grumbles away in annoyance as she cleans up the mess, Sameen comes to a stop when she sees a picture in the pile of papers.
Grabbing the picture, she gets a better look at something she hasn't seen in a while… it's the picture of her and mum during her M.D. graduation at Columbia. A ghost of a smile appears on her face as she remembers the day clearly. Mum was so happy that day, while she was just annoyed at the useless pageantry of it all and she hated that puffy ugly robe, but mum insisted that it looked good on her. Thank fuck they didn't choose her to give the graduation speech that day. Just because she was at the top of her class doesn't mean she knows what the fuck to say to people on the 'best day of their lives'. It was just like another other day to her…
Why is this picture even here in the first place?
She didn't remember putting it here, hell she didn't even remember having it. Thought mum would have kept it all. She must have accidentally brought it along with her to Maryland.
Sameen tosses the picture back into its box along with the other miscellaneous stuff. Despite not having any sentimental value for that picture, the thing inserted a little worm into her brain. Something that she didn't even think about until now.
Mum is going to be soo pissed off with her. Mum will most likely be angrier with her compared to when she quit her residency and sneakily joined the marines. Especially when Sameen doesn't call her during their scheduled call time in around two weeks and when mum eventually will call her when she doesn't call.
She's going to get an earful when… if she ever meets mum again.
Sameen can't put her in danger, so it's better for everyone if Sameen keeps her distance and she bets mum is having a blast living in LA. Aunty and Dani will keep her safe there, not sure about that asshole though but he won't do anything stupid to mum. However, if she even gets a whiff of anything bad, she'll fly across the country and put a bullet in him.
As she continue on cleaning up the mess and gathers up the last of the papers on the floor, she sees the back of a polaroid on the floor.
What's that?
Putting away the papers in the documents box, she picks up the polaroid and turns it around. It's the picture of Cole and her at a bar near HQ a few months ago, not long after they stopped a modern 'Tim McVeigh' from exploding a federal building in Alabama. Everyone, including Cole, chalked it up as the standard right-wing terrorism, but she knows it's not that… There were more than enough high explosives in that car to level the entire building and no random fucker can ever get that number of explosives. Even if there's a 'paper trail' that explains how he got it.
Cole looks so happy with himself here, probably from knowing he helped saved at least three hundred lives and sparing countless of people from injuries. Meanwhile, she looked like she would be anywhere else other than there at that moment. She isn't even sure who took that picture, might be Grice. The man loves his cameras.
At the bottom of the polaroid, someone -she's quite certain that's Cole's drunk writing- wrote: best team ever.
She couldn't help but let out a snort at that comment. They worked great together…
Sameen feels angry as she looks on at that picture of Cole and her, but she isn't angry at The Activity for approving the hit -because she understands their motive- or even at Wilson; she already took care of that slime bag.
Is she feeling angry with herself?
Angry at her inability to be normal and feel anything about what happened to Cole? That sounds about right…
Letting out a sigh, she tosses the polaroid into the miscellaneous box along with the other junk. There's no reason for her to dwell on it if it only makes her angry.
After putting the miscellaneous box back in its place, she then plops the other box on the bench. Then a stray thought hit her right to her core…
Cole was an only child and those assholes in The Activity can kill Cole's parents if they want to… and who's to say they won't? Cole's the one that stirred up shit and Control can be a vindictive bitch.
She can't let that happen.
From the document box, she grabs one of the few identities that isn't burned -good thing she obtained her own fake identities a year ago, guess Hersh's paranoia did rubbed off on her- and puts it in the go bag that's sitting on the floor by the side of the bench. Double checking the stuff in that bag; money, clothes, toiletries, and a spare gun with mags.
Grabbing the spare duffle bag lying on the side, she shoves her collection of guns into it. By principal alone, she can't leave these babies here. Especially her MP5SD6 and the HK416 she 'got' from a 'friend'. Along with the guns, she packs extra magazines and ammo.
Satisfied with everything, she pockets the keys to a car she keeps in another storage facility north of Baltimore. With a little bit of pain, she slings both bags on her shoulder along with her conspiracy box and exits the storage unit, to move forward with her life.
The rustling of the keys as she struggles to unlock the door while balancing a stack of boxes along with bags on her shoulder are the only sounds she can hear right now. Even though it's morning, few birds sing this time of year, despite the neighborhood being fairly wooded.
Should have just put down these boxes then insert the keys… but she's too stubborn.
CLICK
Finally… with a nudge of her feet, she opens the door to her new 'home' and she sees the interior for the first time. The place looks little under maintained in person, but she lived in worse palaces before… God, how she hated that shack in Alabama and the fucking mosquitoes.
Just as they advertised it, the living room is fully furnished. She didn't expect much given the rent she's paying, but it's livable… there better not be fucking fleas here.
Dropping the boxes on the coffee table, she then flops down on the lumpy couch after depositing the bags to the side of the couch. To her right, she can see a standard kitchen set-up, nothing too special about it -not that she'll ever use it to cook proper food, seeing how she's shit at it- and the hallway that leads to the rooms in the house.
All in all, this isn't an awful place. Could have been worse, seeing she barely took any time in picking out the place. Just saw it in an online classified and scoped out the exterior before making up her mind on the property. Took her like half a day to settle everything with her new landlord.
Thank the lord for sketchy landlords. She's pretty certain that this is some money laundering shtick for the mob or something. All the better for her, seeing that they'll be quite hands off with this place, as long as she pays on time. But it's probably smart of her to sweep this place for bugs later.
This is probably the best location for her to make her new base of operations. Like who would ever search for her in this part of New Jersey? She didn't even know it existed before the listing of this house and she grew up less than an hour away, out east in Stamford.
The best part of this place is it's vicinity to the Coles, which is a 15 minutes' drive from here, and a 30 minute drive to Midtown New York. She's already stopped by the Coles a few times before coming here, just to make sure they're safe and she didn't see anyone skulking around the house. However, she's gotta set up some spy cameras around the Coles after this, so she don't have to stay there 24/7 and she'll have more time for her own thing.
Getting up from the lumpy chair, she grabs the conspiracy box and brings it to the room with no windows. With a kick to the door and with her elbow, she turns on the light, revealing a dusty, empty room. Good thing she doesn't have any allergies, because she isn't going to clean this room.
This is one of the reasons she chose this house is because of this room. Standing in the middle of the room, facing the empty wall, she drops the box onto the ground and knocks open the lid. She grabs an empty paper and writes 'Cabal' on it, then pins it onto the drywall.
She's going to catch these fuckers, whoever they are, even if it's the last thing she does.
From there she starts pinning up everything she has on the cabal on the wall in chronological order from left to right and putting tape where she believes there's a connection. When she first started doing this side investigation after that plane going down, she didn't have much to go on, seeing that all the leads were a dead end, but she made sure to make a copy of every electronic and financial data that asshole had, even if it was clean as fuck. The case was cold for months until shit started to hit the fan in 2010.
At first, she didn't even think any of the new numbers were related to the plane attack, since everything was so 'random'. A right-wing terrorist here, a left-wing terrorist there, a small jihadist cell, lone wolfs, the list just goes on. All of them had an easy-to-understand motive to do the fucked-up things they were planning. It was all straightforward… too straightforward.
During that time, she and every one of The Activity thought the US suddenly pissed off every unhinged fucker in the world for some reason. However, in at the back of her brain, a small bug keeps bothering her about each mission. She had no clue what was causing the bug in her brain, but her instinct has never let her down before.
Not that she had the time to stop to think, seeing as Research keeps giving them numbers non-stop, causing an untold amount of stress in their small outfit and sometimes, someone was just too slow to stop the fuckers. To say those times ran her into the ground was an understatement. After months of nonstop doing work, she felt like she could have collapsed at any moment. Fuck, even Hersh looked like he wanted to die… Well, that's just how the asshole normally looks, but he looked like he wanted to die more than usual.
Then one night, just before the 2011 new year on the rare occasions when she had time off for herself to rest. She sat at home watching the overnight newscast and drinking light beer like any red-blooded American would do during their time off.
Most of the program was boring news, but then there's a segment about how the FBI is scaling back its investigation of the shot down plane that she failed to stop due to lack of any evidence or trail to follow and the FBI is asking the public for any help. She crushed her half full can of beer from pure rage, making a mess in her living room.
Spurred by anger and alcohol, but mostly alcohol. She barged back into The Activity's HQ half drunk and started pouring over the archive. It was a miracle that no one kicked her out, but that's mostly because the office was barren as the desert, with most people out doing missions.
During her drunken spree in the archive, she made a discovery that she never noticed during any of her missions since the spike of missions that started in the summer of '10. All the terrorists she killed received multiple transfers from several completely clean -too clean- accounts over the span of a few months; she didn't notice during the missions because she assumed, along with her partner, that it was unrelated to the shit they were planning, seeing how they 'easily' tracked where the dirty money they're getting to for their 'mission'.
She then checked all of her numbers, call history, text, email, every form of communication imaginable they gathered during those missions. Then she used the dates of the clean transfers as a starting point, but she didn't have to dig too deep to find that on the day itself or the day prior, there was a gap in data during those times. The records appeared to have disappeared without a trace or it never existed in the first place.
Just like that 'clean' fucking terrorist that helped down that plane. The same goes for bank transfers. Using that guy's financial records, she cross-referenced it with the clean accounts from her recent missions and found they all share similar characteristics. All of them are from accounts with 'people', 'charities' or 'companies' all of which have money from multiple different and unrelated sources.
It felt like she was opening a third eye to events that had been plaguing her for months and her instincts told her that there's more to it. So, she started pouring into the numbers that other operatives have been doing in the past six months, like some dope fiend looking for another fix.
It was lunchtime of the next day, with her having an annoying hangover and some people returning to the office, that she made the revelation. Almost all the numbers in the past six months are 'connected'. All of the 'connected' numbers used similar methods, the clean bank transfers and mysteriously empty communication records during the days of those bank transfers.
On the surface, the 'connected' numbers doesn't look like they have any connection to each other. Like who would have thought an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist cell and a far-left terrorist organization that wants to bring down capitalism would have anything to do with each other? Apparently, it's a random number of bank transfers from seemingly unrelated accounts over the span of a few months with a dollar amount that's completely random, but that's how they operate, that's how it's all connected.
The numbers aren't as clean as that fucker from Delaware, but how this unknown entity conduct itself was the same. At that time, she tried to rake her brain at the thought that if this entity knew how to successfully evade both Research and The Activity in the first place. Why would this entity make mistakes that lead to their failed plans? Then it hit her.
It is not because they made mistakes, it's because they were intentionally handicapping themselves.
For any other person, this revelation would have shaken that person to their core, but not Sameen. For her, it just made her blood boil. That there's a group, a cabal that's aiming to kill as many Americans as possible and fucking with the people trying to stop them at the same time.
Sameen remembers her being still nursing a slight hangover barging into that slimeball Wilson's office who looked like he didn't sleep and showed him her discovery only for him to dismiss it as a crazy theory. If it was so, then Research would give us the number of who's running this 'organization'. God, what a total fuck head. She did The Activity a service by killing that dumbass.
After being shot down by Wilson, she jumped rank and skipped the chain of command by contacting Control herself. Which got her a meeting with that bitch, but nothing come out of it. There's no evidence, just pure conjectures and assumptions with no basis of reality.
Everyone is just blind to the truth, not feeling deterred -not that she can feel it- Sameen went on investigating this cabal on her own. If they're too blind to see it, she'll just have to find more 'evidence'.
She tried to follow the money to find this Cabal, but when she tried that, the vast network of transfers was so overwhelming it was like staring into a deep dark abyss of accounting purgatory. She tried to get Grissom, the 'local' forensic accounting nerd in The Activity, but by the end of the day Grissom was pulling his hair out from his skull in despair and saying it's impossible to track.
With the accounting lead being a hellscape that no one wants to touch with a 10 feet pole. She then hunted down the names that were linked to the clean bank accounts. First were the 'people'. She checked that all of them have real social security numbers, state IDs, even birth certificates, along with proper jobs and legit home addresses. On the surface, everything looked legit, but that was all on paper only. When she found a name with an address, that's near to her house in Maryland, she jumped at the chance to find them only to find out that no one ever lived at that address for however long the paper said that person did. Sameen then looked at that 'person's' place of work only to find out that no one has ever heard of him but in their payroll and employee record that person exists.
She even looked closer into that person's documentation and cross-referenced it with local, state, and federal records. Only to find that it's all genuine, the date of when those documents were made corresponded with the age of that person. Fuck, she even has a picture of that person and when she gave it to the nerds in the lab to check if it was an amalgamation or a Photoshop, they told her that it's a genuine picture of a person. Sameen was chasing a mirage, a phantom, a ghost.
But she knew better. They weren't fucking ghosts, if this cabal could do those fancy tech shit with phones and electrical communication. What's to say that they can't create a fake person by using the government itself? It was then she figured out that every governmental institution in this country was compromised and not a single soul knew about it.
Second, she checked the 'charities' and 'companies'. Instinctively, she knew it would be like the fake peoples, but she just have to check on them as well. Unsurprisingly -not that she can feel surprised-, it went on as she expected. No entities occupy any of the addresses listed and none of the people working there exist, the very definition of a shell company. She checked with the lawyers that set up the firm and politely asked them about it. All of them gave the same answer. It's very normal to set up a shell company, and they never asked about it as long as their client paid them. She tried to see if there's any pattern regarding what lawyers the cabal would pick, only to find out that it was all random. Sometimes the cabal would use a lawyer multiple time, sometimes only once. The same goes with the charities.
Curiously, there were some actual charities and companies with actual people in the mix. It was like one in every four entities. When she asked the person in charge of the receipt about the transfers. They were genuinely confused about that transaction and said they never authorized it or even knew about it.
That told her another thing about this cabal. It's that they're in the computers of all of those real companies and the banks were compromised. Sameen knew it was pure irrational paranoia, but she had never been so quick to withdraw all of her money from her accounts in her life. Kinda wise thing to do in retrospect now that she's 'dead' and all.
This is such a big fucking conspiracy that it's a fucking miracle that none of this has ever surfaced. There's gotta be hundreds, if not thousands, of people working for the cabal, for them to be able to do all of this.
After all of that revelation, is when she started being more vigilant in doing her main job of hunting down numbers. Despite everyone's skepticism about her 'theory' she'll insist on investigating the clean accounts and records of every number. No matter who was her partner during those missions, whether it be Cole, Fox, or Grice. It's one of the reasons she liked Cole. The man might have been skeptical about her 'theory', but he'll shut up and investigate it with her and support her in whatever way he can.
Each time she finds a number that she suspects to be connected to the cabal -which was a majority of the time-, she would try to capture the fuckers alive to interrogate further. However, on the rare occasions when she managed to capture those fuckers alive -most of them would rather kill themselves rather than risked getting captured-, they didn't provide the relevant information she needed.
Not that she didn't try to extract it from them, because oh boy, she did everything imaginable to get what she wanted, but it was never enough. Like that fucker from '09, every single one of the fuckers she 'interrogated' feared the cabal more than whatever the fuck she can do. For such a fucked-up terrorist organization, she can admire that they sure put the fear of God into these fuckers.
There were some who unintentionally let out what they know, like how it was a guy, or sometimes it was a girl that called them, that they don't know who was above the person who contacted them, etc. etc. Not that it was ever enough for her.
What she found out was whenever she captured someone, they would always die while in custody. Be it in some far-off black site or in the US prison system, one way or the other, they will die. Be it from allergic reactions to their food, choked on a chicken bone, being shivved by a disgruntled inmate, breaking their neck from falling down the stairs or just 'passed away in their sleep'. Every time she raised it to Wilson, Hersh or even Control about it, they would say that shit happens to shitty people. Leaving her to be frustrated every time the fuckers she captured die of 'natural' causes.
However, from that mess, she figured out the fucking CIA was compromised because The Activity 'used' CIA black sites and if the CIA is compromised, that means the other intel agencies might be compromised as well. And she never did manage to figure out if ISA was compromised or not before her unexpected retirement from The Activity.
She puts the last tape onto the bank account information of the last 'connected' number she killed just prior to her mission to Berlin.
Taking a step back to view her wall of conspiracy. The wall is filled with paper and tape that she used to connect one number to the other, creating a conspiracy chain. It takes up three of the four walls in the room.
There were some lines or information that shows of a possible 'lieutenant' in the cabal's organization, but she doesn't have any tangible proof that these 'lieutenants' even exist. It's all derived from the grains of information she managed to get.
This is three years' worth of investigation, and she barely has anything that can lead her to find the fucking puppet masters who are pulling the strings behind the curtain.
She let out an annoyed sigh as she rubs the fatigue out from her eyes. How long did she spend this time going through her wall? Two hours? Four hours? It wouldn't surprise her if it's been five hours since she started putting up this wall.
And honestly, it looks like a jumble mess of paper and tape with a lot of question marks peppered around, all desperately trying to connect each number. With it all tying loosely back onto the paper where she labeled 'Cabal'.
Guess those assholes in the Activity weren't entirely wrong when they said this is just a conspiracy theory…
"Maybe I am going crazy." Sameen said to herself as she continues to stare at her wall of insanity, thinking what her next move is to find the fuckers.
The sounds and buzz of the busy downtown Philadelphia street reverberate around Sameen as she's trails behind a person who she believes might be connected to the Cabal. Maintaining a good ten paces away from her target. A petite woman nearing 50 but still looks young with burn scars on her face, walking towards her office that's near here.
The target's name is Beatrice Bayes, and the reason as to why she's stalking this innocent-looking woman is because of her company Revolutionary Extinguishing Devices. After being at a loss at what to do with her theory, starts back with the basics of finding shit; she followed the paper trail. So, she picked the latest number that she believed to be connected and went with it.
With her not being employed anymore, Sameen had a lot of time on her hands. She spent a month and a half non-stop following companies after companies like a blood hound chasing a scent. Sameen went through thousands of companies with ghosts working in them until she finally reached a company with genuine real people working in them.
Which leads her to this woman, whom Sameen has been following for the past three weeks. Everything about her is normal, a rich woman that owns a fire extinguisher manufacturer, with no immediate family since all of them died in the fire that gave her the scar, no relationships, and not much of a social life. Tends to be a private person and closed off, rarely speaks to her employees directly but still works on the day-to-day aspect of her business. When she checked to see if the woman has any record, only to find she has the normal shit people have like speeding and parking tickets but nothing bad.
What Sameen is trying to figure out is how this little old lady is involved in a grand conspiracy that funds and commits a massive amount of terrorism in the country. She's looked into every single aspect of the company she could have gotten her hands on and found nothing suspicious. Sure, there were some inconsistencies in their books and their taxes, but every company this size dodge taxes. It would be more suspicious if their books were perfect.
So why did this company pay multiple shell companies for services that didn't exist for the past two years?
She would love to just barge in there and flash some federal agency badge to get some answers, but she can't do that anymore. Not without raising too many flags, especially with this size of company. They'll call to see if she's legit or not. It would only put her back on ISA's radar and its consequences.
As she continues on her morning observation of her target, she feels her phone vibrate. She comes to a dead stop, not bothering to follow the woman since Sameen knows where she's going, when she sees it's a motion sensor notification at Cole's parents' house.
Fuck…
The way she set it so, only a large object like a car or a standing person would notify her.
Never before had her finger pressed the view screen faster than this.
There's a car slowly driving in the wooded area in front of the Coles. She can't see who's driving from this angle, but she isn't taking any chances she needs to get back to New York as fast as possible. So, she turns around to go back to her car, her eyes never leaving the phone.
As the interloper's car comes to a slow halt, now she has a better angle to see who's inside. Bringing the phone closer to her face and squinting a bit, she sees it's a man in a suit.
…
John?
What the fuck does he want?
Her legs come to a stop by a newsstand, as she tries to rack her brain about why he would be there. Turning her head back towards her target, she can see the woman entering her office building where she's going to stay for most of the day. Glancing back at her phone, she sees John taking out a binocular.
Is he there to look for her… or is it about the Coles? No, John is a soldier, and he follows orders. So, what does Harold want? Is Research involve in this? Like before, with them 'saving' her. Unless it's something else…
…
Oh… it must be about that fucking news article that came out today. Those assholes can't just let the dead be dead.
Leaning by the newsstand, she lets out a long sigh of frustration and glances back at the office building.
Are the Coles in danger?
If they are, then she needs to go back… but what about her target?
It's been three weeks of her looking into every aspect of this company and that woman's life with a magnifying glass, but nothing has come out of it.
She might have been fooling herself into believing that this was a lead that could blow this conspiracy wide open. When it could have easily been like those other real companies where they were ignorant of what's going on.
There's nothing special about this company or its owner, other than it's the latest and only thing she could latch on.
And yet, she didn't move from her position as she continues to look at her target's office window. As irrational as it sounds and against every evidence she's seen. Her gut is yelling at her, saying that there's more to it and wants to believe it.
But what about the Cole's? She can't protect them if she's here, yet her gut is telling her to stay here.
Her head touches the wall of the newsstand as she closes her eyes to sort through her thoughts. What she's doing is not rational at all. Driven by desperation -she don't know if that's the correct term to use seeing she can't feel those emotions-.
As much as she trusts her guts with her life… there's no reason for her to continue on this lead. It's a dead end, just like everything else in this fucking conspiracy.
She opens her eyes again to see that woman leaning into her seat by the window, as if she's thinking through something.
Maybe she'll compromise with her gut feeling…
She'll stay here until lunchtime and if nothing happens -which is the most likely scenario- then she'll head back to New York permanently.
Even though she still doesn't trust those two men, she's seen John take three bullets from her and still followed her to make sure she's safe. She'll trust John to keep the Coles safe until she reaches there later in the day.
The sky is clear, and the moon's soft glow illuminates the woods below as Sameen hides behind a tree to observe John from a distance. Her trusty pistol is in her pocket, just in case, even though she knows the man isn't a threat. But… she hasn't shoved a gun in someone's face since they booted her out of The Activity, and she missed doing that.
Tall and broody is leaning out of his car talking to someone, probably Harold, while looking out at the Cole's house. She's been here for a while now and he's just doing the same thing ever since.
This got boring after thirty minutes. She should mess with him before greeting him.
A feint smile slowly grows on her as she goes around the woods and intentionally makes noises. Causing John to take out his pistol and scan his surroundings, but not in her direction.
"I know you like this woman, Finch." John says as he walks in the direction where she made the noise. "But if the agency taught me one thing… It's that the most effective spy is the one you never suspect."
Well, that answered her unspoken questions. The tall dude was a spook, that's not surprising seeing how he handles himself, and Harold's name is Finch.
John still isn't looking in the right direction… It would be rude to not help him out and her parents didn't raise an impolite daughter.
Sameen takes out her pistol to rack it and points at the back of John's head.
John went dead still at the sound of her pistol. "Gotta call you back, Finch." His voice is the same as before, not showing surprise.
He raises his gun to the air, showing her that he comes in peace.
"Hello, Shaw." John says as Shaw walks forward and grabs the pistol from the taller man.
Now disarmed, Sameen takes a few steps backwards and John slowly turns around with a slightly sheepish smirk on him, all the while her gun is still pointing at his head.
"I thought I might just find you here." John says casually, as if she isn't pointing a gun at him.
"And you decided to drop in for a visit?" Shaw quips back at him.
"Stakeouts can get a little tedious." John plays along.
Huh… he didn't spot the cameras then.
"And what made you think I wanted the company?" She retorts. "The time I shot you, or the time I ditched you at the cemetery?"
"I'm persistent." John deadpans.
"Or maybe you just can't take a hint." She says with a grin and shakes her head at his audacity.
He just gives her an innocent look as he tilts his head slightly. Looks like he just wants to talk, so there's no point in continuing this charade.
She lowers her gun, and he nods his head towards the Cole's house.
"Darlene and Evan Cole." His eyes wonders away from her to the house. "Your former partner's parent."
Isn't he captain obvious? But he got one thing wrong.
"Dead partner." She corrected him.
He looked back into her eyes as he said. "The government framed Cole as a domestic terrorist. I thought you might come back here to set the record straight."
That was such a bullshit excuse… his parents knew he worked for the government, just not what part of it. Also, there isn't much she can do about setting the record straight without causing unforeseen consequences on to others.
"How'd you figure that?" She humors John.
"That's what I'll do." He replies instantly with such intense conviction.
Oh…
She looks away from John and sees the Cole's 'happily' eating their dinner, oblivious to what actually happened to their son.
"Control killed their son." She shakes her head in anger. "They didn't need to take their memory of him."
Turning back to John, who just looked at her with a knowing look and she continued. "Even the CIA wouldn't stoop that low. They'd just sweep their mess under the rug and give them a star on the wall."
Maybe joining an 'illegal' government clandestine unit wasn't the best career choice, but she doesn't regret it and she knows Cole doesn't either.
"Your former employers killed Cole for discovering the truth… and nothing stopping them from killing his parents too…" John takes a few steps closer to Sameen, but she didn't make any moves to stop him. "… But you already know this. That's why you're out here and not in there."
She's never met them before… so barging into their house to eat dinner together while explaining that their son was a secret government badass that flew too close to the sun would be really weird.
… But she understands what he's implying.
Taking a sharp breath. "Next time you want some fresh air…" taking a second to think. "… pick a different spot."
Not having anything else to say to John, she walks forward to her usual location while staking out the Cole's. As she passes by John, she gives back his pistol by hitting him with it in the chest.
"A friend once told me…" John says suddenly with some emotions in his voice causing her to stop and turn around.
"…In our line of work," He once again look deep into her eyes. "We walk in the dark. Doesn't mean we have to walk in it alone."
Those words hit her quite hard… but she can't place why.
John nods at her and turns around to get back into his car as she just stares at his back.
She knows she can walk in the dark easily; she was born to walk in the dark. But it does get lonely at times…
Sameen looks on as John drives away in his car.
Cole was the one that was supposed to walk in the darkness with her, but he's dead and nothing will change that.
… Maybe she'll take Harold's offer.
Well, not until she figures out a way to clean Cole's name and makes sure no one is coming after them.
Sameen stayed in the woods for the next few hours just to make sure until it's past midnight and then she went back to her New Jersey home to get some proper sleep.
The morning light shines through the curtains and into her eyes, causing her to rise from her deep slumber with a stretch. Rolling out of her bed, she drops onto the floor and starts doing some morning push-ups. After the light exercise, she does her morning hygiene routine and grabs the newspaper at the front door.
She quickly scans the paper for anything interesting and her eyes stop dead at the article on the back page.
"Motherfucker." Sameen slams the door shut and tosses the paper onto the couch as she rushes back into her bedroom.
Took her a few minutes to find it. Harold's card, along with his phone number.
Comparing it to the last three months, this will be so much easier for her.
Sameen is standing outside of an 'abandoned' building in Midtown, ignoring all the people walking on the busy street.
So, this is where they're at?
A messed up closed library that looks like it's been in perpetual 'construction' for the past decade.
From what she saw last time, Harold looked like a nerd, so this place does fit his aesthetic.
The front door looks like it's closed and blocked off from the inside. There must be an entrance somewhere around here. Unless Harold invented teleportation, an entrance would be somewhere out of sight.
She walks into the dark alley behind the library and stops when she reaches a door. Bingo… this looks like it's frequently used.
Making quick work of the locked door, Sameen enters the library and sees what's inside.
Geez…
She isn't a neat freak or anything, but someone seriously needs to clean up this place.
Dust and cobwebs are everywhere, along with a lot of books on the ground. It projects an image of an abandoned library that's been ransacked multiple times in the past.
Yet she knows it's not abandoned and hears a voice in the distance.
She follows the sound up the stairs, making sure to avoid making any noise as much as possible. Won't be fun if it isn't a surprise.
After going up the stairs and to her right, she can see Harold at the desk, typing away that seems important. The man is completely oblivious to her presence, but the dog raises his head towards her before putting it back down onto his bed.
Is that a Belgian Malinois? That's cool. She hasn't seen one since she was in the marines and by the looks of it, the good boy doesn't mind her entry. Oh, it must be the dog woke her up in the cemetery. Guess he liked her scent.
"I have news." Finch says urgently.
Better make sure this place is clear before saying hi to Harold there. She turns to her left and walks down the corridor. Looks like the layout is a circle. How convenient.
"I've cracked Lee's encrypted emails. They're messages reporting back to his father, a high-ranking official in the Chinese Communist Party." Harold's voice echoes throughout the library as she looks around. "Lee wasn't spying for a company. He was spying for his country. We just picked a fight with the People's Republic of China."
That sounds spicy and fun.
"Let's use the new accommodations. Mr. Reese. I'll catch up to you as soon as…" Harold stops talking as Sameen enters his view.
He looks a bit shocked by her appearance here as he stands up from his chair.
Sameen comes to a stop by his table of computers. "It's not nice when someone hunts you down, now is it?"
"What brings you here, Ms. Shaw?" Harold asks pleasantly, trying to hide his initial shock.
"I assume you wanted to me to find you." She replies instantly. "Why else would you have given me your number?"
This was so easy to find. Only took her around 24 hours to figure out where Harold is.
The dog wakes up from his bed and sits by her side after smelling her right hand, looking up at her with those eyes that only dogs can do.
Isn't he a good boy?
She nudges the dog a bit and quickly goes back to his bed.
"I guess I imagined that you would just call…" Harold's comments as she turns to the glass board with pictures of people and information of a person named Monica Jacobs stuck on it. "… I suppose this works too."
Is this what they do? Stalk people who are in danger? If what he said to John was correct, then this person's life was most certainly in danger. But why would they help?
"My offer still stands, you know." Harold continues to extend his invitation for her to join whatever this is.
She turns to face him. "You think I should have a hobby. Now what would that be?"
Too bad for him. She already has one.
…
Well… she had a hobby… until a few days ago… unless she gets a new lead, she's kinda dead in the water on that one.
"Hanging around a derelict library with you, your poorly socialized guard dog," Sameen nods to the dog. "And the good boy here?"
"Bit of a comedown from saving the world, I guess, but we have our moments." Harold tries to pitch her this 'hobby'.
"And what's your end, Harold?" She stares into his eyes to see if he's sincere. "Is this your hobby? Running a halfway house for retired assassins?"
"I hate to see talent go to waste." He replies instantly.
"Awfully trusting of you now, isn't it?" Sameen retorts back.
"I'm quite confident, Ms. Shaw, that you're the first person to ever said that to me." He replies, and she isn't sure if he's making a joke or being sarcastic. "Besides, you're not holding a firearm."
Sameen walks around the table to get closer to Harold as he continues to talk. "Looks like progress. What can I do for you?"
She dumps the yesterday papers that she brought with her on Harold's table. "Interesting story in the news yesterday. A CIA operative died in the line of duty on a covert operation. He'd uncovered a domestic terrorism plot."
Harold has a poker face on him as she continues. "Now, the agency would neither deny nor confirm this. Of course, but a journalist received leaked documents from Langley itself."
Four eyes grabs the paper to give it a good look and says sympathetically. "I saw the story, too. It's very sad. He seemed to have died heroically."
She'll give him this. He has one hell of a poker face.
"You and I both know that Cole did not work for the CIA." She says pointedly. "So, I have this crazy theory that someone hacked into one of the most powerful clandestine agencies in the world and created an employee who, up until recently, did not exist."
Harold narrows as if he's considering her words. "That does sound somewhat farfetched."
She let out a soft snort. This asshole neither denies nor confirms her theory, but they both know who did it.
Looking away from the four eyes asshole, she spots a familiar face on a picture pinned onto a board behind Harold.
"My friend from the hotel." She comments, causing Harold to turn around to see the picture as she walks forward to the board. "Our conversation was cut short. Yet we seemed to have so much in common."
There's two pictures of that woman, one is a candid photograph from above while she's walking out from a building, and the other is a headshot picture of her looking quite different from how she looked in the hotel room. The board is filled with bank statements, a map with markings on it, and other information about this woman.
Sameen glances back at Harold and says. "Tell me about her."
"My relationship with that woman is rather complicated." Harold sounds a bit hesitant and somewhat fearful as he takes a step nearer to the board. "What's your interest?"
She steers her eyes towards a piece of paper just below the pictures.
KNOWN ALIAS
ROOT
VERONICA SINCLAIR, NEW YORK–NY
KELLY DYSON, RELTON - MD
JANE VON NEUMANN, SEATTLE - WA
CAROLINE TURNING, NEW YORK–NY
LAURA HOPPER, BIRMINGHAM–AL
REBECCA BROOKS, INDIANAPOLIS–IL
SOPHIA LOVELACE, SAN FRANSISCO–CA
WILLOW BACKUS, DENVER–CO
"Root…" Sameen whispers as she looks at the board.
There's several pinned-up papers up with the name Root, so she'll assume that's the name she goes by. Odd choice of name… she didn't look like a botanist or a dentist.
No… these last names. She's pretty sure she has heard of them before. Turning, isn't he the computer guy from WW2?
root… She's an overly enthusiastic Linux user to name herself after an admin username.
"She's a hacker?" Sameen asks and glances back at Harold, who's just looking at Root's picture.
Root here must have done something nasty to Harold here for him to be perturbed by a picture.
"Yes… along with other morally reprehensible activities." Harold says with a hard tone.
Does fit the bill of her friend from the hotel.
A hacker, huh? They aren't too hard to find if a person knows where to look and she knows where to start.
Her eyes drift to another paper on the board.
POSSIBLE ASSOSICATE
PAULING
Hmm… looks like she has something to do now.
"You think I need a hobby, Harold?" Sameen grabs the paper of the known alias.
"I think I just found one." She says to a blank faced Harold and leaves, but not before giving the dog a pat.
She initially started her search for Root online, but nothing came up. Which wasn't surprising. Only dumb fucks or the feds would advertise the things Root does on the surface web. She could have searched for information on the DarkNet, but that was more of Cole's job. Sameen, on the other hand, prefers a more hands on approach to this stuff.
Before she started knocking down doors, she did some due diligence on the known aliases, and all of them were 'dead'. The bank accounts that were linked to the names were all terminated and any other services that were linked to those names were canceled as well.
So, she did what she does best. Knocking down doors. Started with the small hacker dens that learned from her time in ISA. The Activity knew about their existence and tolerated them because they weren't a threat to national security. Which was a reasonable approach because who cares about what these gray and black hats do? Compared to the shit The Activity prevents it's nothing.
She started off small, starting with individuals she knows that operates in the big apple. When the people she interrogated didn't know about Root, she went to the next place that they told her about that might know. Rinse and repeat a few times and now she's here.
Sitting in her car observing the normal looking red brick townhouse in lower Manhattan, there's around seven people in there from what she's seen in the past day she's been here. She glances at the clock. All of them should be awake now.
Exiting the car, she walks the short distance to the house and knocks on the front door. She made sure she used the pattern the nerd yesterday told her about. If it's wrong, she's going to track him down again and kick his ass.
After cracking her neck, she takes out her suppressed USP. Not that she expects they would put up much of a fight. When it comes to physical violence, these people fold easily.
Less than a minute pass when someone came to the door. The second door opens slightly, she kicks the door wide open, causing whomever to stumble backwards. She raises her pistol at the stunned guy, causing him to widen his eyes in fear as she takes a few steps into the house and closes the door behind her with her feet.
He looks like he recovered a bit of his senses as he raises his hand up in surrender.
"Move." Sameen orders as she tilts her pistol towards the living room.
The guy nods his head so much that it looks like it could fall off as he stumbles into the living room with her following close behind him. The living room resembles a computer den with desks filled with computers and laptops and wires sprawling around. It looks and smells just as she expects.
The room is full of nerds and all of them have their heads glued to their monitors with headphones on them, completely oblivious to what's happening. Plus, the door guy, it looks like everyone is here.
Rolling her eyes in annoyance at their cluelessness, she points her suppressed pistol at the ceiling and fire.
The reactions are immediate as everyone snaps their head towards her, and their eyes are filled with fear. Some of them are frozen in place, some raise their hands like the door guy after seeing him and some didn't know what to do, so they stand up only for them to freeze, not knowing what to do.
"Just stay seated boys…" Sameen glances at the corner where the lone female is sitting in stun silence. "And girl."
"W-what do you want?" A wavering voice asks, causing her eyes to snap at the curly hair glasses guy who's sitting in his chair and gripping it with dear life. "I-if you want money, we don't have cash on hand! We can transfer any amount you want, just don't kill us!"
Looking around, she can see some of them are just shaking with fright and one of them looks like he's going to pee himself. These are just a bunch of nerds…
She points her pistol down towards the floor and says. "I'm not robbing you guys."
Some of them looked calmer after she said that, but some were still apprehensive. The door guy is still standing, so she nods her head to him, telling him to sit down, which he quickly does.
Sameen leans onto the desks that's beside the entryway of the living room and spots an open bag of Ruffles. Seeing that she hasn't eaten breakfast yet, she grabs a few chips and eats them, causing everyone in the room to look at each other. They're at a loss, which is quite funny.
They really need to chill. She's being as non-threatening as she can.
"Look, I don't really care what stupid shit you all are doing. What I need is just some information, and a little bird told me that you guys might know it…" she grabs another handful of chips to eat. "So, do any of you nerds know of a hacker that goes by the name Root?"
After she said the name, it stirred a bit of a reaction from everyone. Some of them look downright confused, but the majority of them recognize that name and are giving the others knowing glances. God, they have such shit poker faces. It's too easy.
"I'm going to shoot one of you if you guys to spill the beans." She threatens as she raises her pistol at them again while the other hand grabs another chip.
"Okay, okay! Please… Just don't shoot us…" The curly hair glasses guy quickly yields. Looks like he's the leader of this little group. "Root isn't a widely known name, but in certain circles, their name is infamous. But I swear to God that I've never met that person."
She can't help but smirk a little. Now they're getting somewhere. Her eyes wander to the others who knew the name and making them uncomfortable.
"Yeah, we don't even know Root's gender or if it's a single person or a hacker group." The lone Indian in this group explains.
Well, good thing Sameen knows Root looks like and can't help but say that she's an attractive woman. Too bad she's going to put a bullet in her the next time they meet.
"What's your name? And…" She asks the curly hair glasses guy as she lowers her pistol again and eats another chip. "Tell me everything you know about Root."
"Ah… my name is Rob… and Root's name has been floating around since the early 2000s…" Robs answers, sounding calmer than before.
"Yeah, but some of the older folks said they heard of Root since the 90s." The lone woman in this group adds on with a bit too much enthusiasm for someone in her situation.
"Name?" Sameen nods to the woman.
"Zoey." She answers instantly.
After that, it's just silence from everyone.
"Come on, you guys must know more than that." Sameen tries to be more friendly with them as she grabs another fistful of chips.
"There's speculation that the null worm that infected the FBI and millions of other computers was Root's doing." The lone Indian breaks the ice.
"There's proof that Root was the one that did that." The door guy retorts almost instantly.
"I know a guy from GoatSec that says it was Root. He checked the code from that null worm and it's similar to Root's other codes." The Indian argues back.
God, she doesn't want this to devolve into some nerd fight.
"Okay, Root is some computer super nerd. So, why is Root infamous?" Sameen taking back the reigns of this conversation.
Everyone that knows about Root shifts slightly and gives each other an odd look.
"Root's a killer." Zoey finally answers.
"You don't know that." The door guy retorts.
This dude is awfully defensive of Root, which is awfully suspicious. "Why do you say that? You seem awfully invested in Root."
The door guy quickly shakes his head in denial. "Never met Root before, but I admire some of the things they pulled off in the past."
So… this guy has a crush on someone he never met?
"Seriously Steve? There's a reason why they have that reputation in the first place." Rob challenges.
"Yeah… there's those rumors." Zoey comments softly.
"What rumors?" Sameen snaps at the lone woman.
The woman jumped a little and give sporadic glances towards Rob who looks nervous.
"That they started out as your normal black hat, then they moved on to physically blackmailing people, and then they moved on to contract killing…" Rob explains. "… Then they joined a 'group'."
"What's the group's name?" Sameen asks, no longer paying attention to the chips.
"We don't know." Rob shakes his head.
She lets out a sigh of frustration and raise her pistol at Rob again.
"Really, we don't know!" Rob quickly reiterates with his hands raised in surrender again.
"Y-yeah." Zoey picks up. "We don't do those types of things, so we have never interacted or even heard of their name, but we've heard stories."
Rob nods his head in agreement. "They say that if you need anything illegal, this group can give or do it to you. Like you need someone gone without a trace, fixing the market, brand new government issue identities or removing the heat from the police."
That sounds kinda fantastical to Sameen, but she's not one to deny such things, if her search for the cabal has anything to say about it.
"I hear this group does consultancy for organized crime." Zoey adds.
Consultancy? What a fucking dork term. Next thing she'll hear, they do taxes as well. However, if they are involved in organized crime, then the FBI should have something on them…
Rob snorts and says. "Yeah, and I hear they even kill police or feds for a price."
What?
"Wait, hold on. If that happened, the government would be fucking hunt them down to oblivion. How could they fly under the radar?" Sameen challenge. Even Sameen in her small alcove of the federal government would have heard of such a thing happening.
"Because they never leave any evidence. Everything they do is clean." Rob answers as if he's telling some kind of campfire horror story.
Clean… No evidence… The fuck?
"U-huh. Those older folks I know said that this group could make a murder look like an accident or a natural death. Like an allergic reaction, a vehicle accident, or a choking on food to death." Zoey elaborates.
Rob continues to explain after Zoey stops. "They're like phantoms, or a better analogy would be a black hole. We know they exist, but we can't see them."
Ghosts… Phantoms…
What the fuck?
On the surface, her face might look blank, but there's a storm raging inside her.
What the actual fuck?
This must be a fucking coincidence… but there's a small voice at the back of her head telling it's not and this is it. If it's not a fucking coincidence and this group is the same people as her cabal, then that means Root is part of that conspiracy or knows someone in that group who's part of it.
Wait… on that board in the library, there's an associate…
"Does the name Pauling ring a bell?" Sameen asks Rob as she intensely stares into his eyes and makes him gulp in nervousness.
Maybe this Pauling is the fucker who's Sameen been chasing.
"Never heard of that name before." Rob answers and from the look of it, he's telling the truth. Then she turns her gaze to Zoey, who instantly shakes her head.
"You said they deal with organized crime. That means they worked with the five families or the Russian mob here?" Sameen inquiries.
If so, then she knows which doors she's going to knock down next.
Rob shakes his head. "Not that I know? I don't think they've ever worked with the mobs here."
Huh, that's weird.
"Got a suggestion?" Sameen asks as she gets up from the desk.
"You could try New Jersey or Philly?" Zoey answers, but she doesn't sound sure herself.
Well, shit… she didn't even know NJ still had a functioning mob, thought it was part of the five-family's territory. Guess that's better than nothing. Guess she'll go to Newark next and then Trenton if the first place is a bust.
"Thank you." Sameen puts her pistol in her jacket and leave the nerds, but not before grabbing another bag of chips from the desk.
"Go on." Sameen orders Michael as she puts her suppressed pistol to his spine and hiding behind his figure.
A few days have passed since her chat with the nerds, and since then she's been busy going around Newark, shooting people -not killing though, that would attract too much heat, which she rather not deal with- until she reached here.
Michael obediently did as she asks and soon the door opens. "Michael? I thought you went to the club for the night."
She shoves Michael, causing the man to stumble forwards and opening the door wider for her to get a clear angle of the greeter. The man looks bewildered by what's happening; that he didn't even register, she shot two times. One on the leg and the other on the shoulder, causing him to fall onto the floor.
Taking a few steps, she enters the building and closes the door behind her. All the while, she has her pistol pointed at the downed man. She shoves the greeter around to face the floor and remove his gun.
"You better keep quiet and stay here." She tells the greeter before she shoots his other leg and knocks him out.
Looking back at Michael, who's somehow on the floor as well. He is just looking at her with fear and occasionally darts back to the greeter with worry.
"Ugh, he'll be fine if we finish quickly." Sameen moves forward to kick Michael. "Come on, get up."
Michael's face was flush with anger as he scrambles to get up and follow her orders. They make their way deeper into the building and Sameen just shoot anyone that's in the way. So far, she's shot around 6 people.
Must be a slow day or they're all out partying because she expected more resistance.
They're coming up to a big double leaf wood door. This must be the big boss man cave, seeing that it's gaudier compared to the rest of the building.
Michael walks up to the door and knocks on it. "Dad, it's me."
"Yeah! Come in." A man's voice was all muffled up by the door.
Just as Michael opens the door, Sameen pushes him forward into the room unceremoniously, Sameen then raises her gun towards the older fatter man in a Hawaiian shirt and takes a shot.
"Hands up and get your ass up, asshole." She orders the older man, who was stunned by the sudden invasion and by the new bullet hole in his chair headrest that's just beside his ear.
"I don't have all day, asshole." Sameen moves further into the room with her pistol aimed at the older man and Michael craws forwards on all fours.
"What the fuck is this, Michael?" Senior defiantly stares at Sameen.
"Sorry, pa but she's fucking scary." Michaels whimpers.
He's God damn right.
"She's a fucking midget." Senior points at her as he berates his son, ignoring that he has a gun pointed at him.
A jolt of anger courses through her. This fucking asshole…
She lowers her pistol and shoots the floor a few centimeters away from Michael's hand. He should be thankful that the floor is wood and not tile or concrete.
"Jesus Christ!" Michael exclaims in fright as he retracts his hands away.
"Alright, alright, you fucking crazy bitch." Senior raises his hands and gets up from his plush chair.
"Now come over and take a seat." Sameen using her pistol to point at one of the chairs in front of the ridiculously large desk. "You too, Michael."
They both did as ordered, but Senior mumbles some cruses as he does it.
Sameen, for her part, takes a position where she can see both outside of the door and the two assholes, all the while having her back to the wall.
"Wait, a minute…" Senior points at Sameen. "You're that crazy son of a bitch that's been going around town and dropping my guys." He fumes. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you this instant."
Seriously? Does he not see the situation he's in?
"Because I have a gun pointing at you." Sameen deadpans.
"Dad… you better listen to what she has to say. She shot Tony, and he's bleeding out." Michael tries to reason with his father.
"Why should I have to listen to anything this bitch has to say?" Senior continues being annoying. "She comes into my house gun a blazing while dragging my useless son with her like some whipped dog."
"This isn't a house." Sameen deadpans again and feels like she's hitting her limit with this nonsense. "I'm going to shoot your balls if you don't cooperate."
"You wouldn't dare." Senior challenges her.
Not one to back down, she takes a shot, hitting the chair near to his crotch, causing the man to jump slightly and snapping his head down to see any damage.
"Look, you can continue to be an asshole, and I'll have to torture the information out of you. Or you can corporate and not waste our time." Sameen points her pistol at Michael, who stares back at her eyes widen with fear, driving it home to senior on who she's going to hurt.
"What the fuck do you want?" Senior relents as he shoots daggers at her.
"I'm looking for a group that you assholes hired as consultants." Sameen looks directly at Senior. She's of course, bluffing, not that they know it.
Senor's eyes angrily snap towards his son, who just gives a defeated shrug. Gotcha…
"You know what I'm talking about, don't you?" She says with a smirk.
"What the fuck do you want with them?" Senior asks, while looking a bit tense.
"Nothing too hard for you. Just tell me everything you know about them, and I'll let you go." She lowers her gun slightly. "Let's start with a name, how you got to know about them and how did you contact them."
"Ya don't know their name?" He shakes his head in disbelief and leans into the chair. "Everyone has a different name for them, but they officially go by Collective Service Solutions or CSS in short."
Collective Service Solutions? What a dork name…
"Word about them came down the grapevines when I was a capo in the mid-90s, but they went by a different name at that time." Senior continues. "I had a friend in the Cleveland family that used their services. That's how I got into contact with them."
That means the way to contact this CSS is to have a referral. Kinda old fashion but effective.
"You used them. For what?"
"What the fuck do you think?" Senior snorts. "How do you think we survive the turn of the millennium with the feds and police breathing down our necks?"
"What? You're telling me with a snap of the finger all of your problems went away?" Sameen was still skeptical about this group's ability.
"All the of fucking rats died and god knows what else they do." Senior says smugly.
If the Feds were involved, that means this group killed people who were in witness protection. This lines up with her theory of government agencies being compromised by the Cabal. Wonder if searching for witnesses being killed in the 90s will tell her about CSS past exploits.
"What else do they do?"
"Heh, just about anything you want." Senior scratches his beard. "Need guns, identities, meds, cars, or drugs. They can give it to you in any quantity you want as long as you pay their fucking high fees. You need something to explode. They can do it, same with delivering packages, doctors, etc. etc. They can even find someone you're searching for or be a banker if you need."
Basically, he's saying that they'll do just about anything under the sun. The more she thinks about it, this CSS might just be the cabal she's been looking for.
"Now, what do you even want with them?" Senior turning the tables and asking her.
He has balls, she'll give him that.
"Just thought about having a chat with them…" She says with a smile. "… Does the name Root mean anything to you?"
Senior gives her a confused look. "Never heard of that name before."
He seems truthful about that. Huh… the nerds that doesn't know the name of the group and say she's involved in this group but here the man who has used them before says he never heard of her before.
"How about Pauling?" That incites a reaction from this asshole. He widens his eyes in surprise.
"How the fuck do you know that name but not know the group's name?" Senior chuckles and gives her an odd look. "Pauling… she's the boss of the whole thing."
Huh… that's unexpected… so that means this Pauling is the one that's she's been after the past three years?
She thought finding out the person she'd been chasing for years would have stirred something in her, but nothing of that sort happened. It shouldn't be surprising to her, yet she wanted more…
"You're going to introduce me to Pauling and be my reference." Her voice sounds hard as steel.
"What? Like hell I am!" Senior explodes and waving his hand around.
She has had enough of this bullshit and aims her pistol at Michael.
"I'm going to shoot Michael in five seconds if you don't cooperate."
"You're bluffing." Senior seethe at her.
Michael looks downright panicking at the moment as his heads turns between his dad and her.
"Four."
"Bullshit."
"Three."
Senior just stares back at her as his son is prodding him to budge.
"Two."
"Just shoot already because if I do what you're asking me, I'll be signing my death and the death of my son." Senior spat as he points at himself and his son. "Along with the rest of the family and she will destroy everything I've built in the past decade."
That fear… it's the same as that asshole from three years ago and all of those fuckers after that.
She lowers her pistol and asks. "What does Pauling look like?"
Michel instantly sunk deeper into his chair, as if he lost his coiled tension. While Senior here just glares at her.
"Never met her." He replies instantly.
"How do you contact Pauling?"
"I don't."
"Then how do you contact this collective?" Feeling irritated by his stonewalling.
Senior grips the armrest tightly and generally looks uncomfortable. "Look, when I made overtures to the CSS through my buddy from Cleveland, Pauling was the one that contacted me. But after that Gary was my point man in CSS. The times I've talked to Pauling is when I needed something that Gary can't approve, and she's the one that will call me."
"Was?" Sameen tilts her head at that odd phrasing.
"Yeah, got a message today saying that Gary is going to retire soon, and a new guy will replace him soon." Senior shrugs.
Her gut is spinning wildly and telling her that there's something wrong with what he's saying.
"Did Gary send you that message?" Sameen leans forward from her position.
"No, it was odd." Senior scratches his cheek. "A message just appeared on my phone; it wasn't an anonymous sender either. There wasn't a sender."
Fuck…
If 'retiring' means what she thinks it means, then this Gary isn't going to the farm to live off his golden years in peace. She needs to find him now.
"What's Gary's full name? Tell me what he looks like and how do you contact him? Is it a number?" Sameen demands as she stands up from her position. Even if it's just an alias, she can track someone down with just a name and a number.
She needs to be fast. If this is the cabal, then he won't have much time left and if he's dead, she can't get to Root, who in turn will lead her to Pauling.
Senior pauses to think for a moment before shrugging.
"Name is Gary Bidwell. He's tall, blonde, has a mustache, a scar on his right cheek, and he always wears that dumb sunglass." He points back at his desk. "I got his card there. If you let me."
After getting a nod from her, Senior quickly gets up from his chair and once again behind his desk, with Sameen following behind him. She can see Michael being the obedient pup he is and continues to sit.
Senior grumbles as he opens the top drawer and searches for something. She moves slightly to get an angle to see that there's no gun in there.
After a minute of searching, he presents her a card with a phone number on it.
"That's the number I've been using."
Sameen grabs the card and sees that it's a local number.
"Now, can you please fuck off?" Senior could barely control his rage.
With her other hand, she takes a shot at Senior's leg, causing him instantly to yelp in pain and collapse onto his plush chair. "Jesus fucking Christ."
"Dad!" Michael gets up from his chair but quickly sits his ass back down after she shoots him a glare.
"Fuck!" Senior puts pressure on his wound. "You fucking said you'll let me go."
"Never said I won't hurt you and you better not find me because if you do. You'll wish you were dead." Sameen turn away from Senior, who's desperately trying to stop his bleeding and walk away.
She gives a mock blow kiss to Michael as she exits the room and towards her next target.
A/N: Updates might be slower in the coming months due to work, but I'll try to post once every 10-14 days.