Chapter 14
"Wow, I didn't realize high horses were bred down here."
Chapter 14: Secrets and Lies
Caitlin climbed the staircase to the second floor. She had gotten a message from the night guard that Valdez wanted to see her as soon as she awoke. This wasn't unusual, in fact, not a day went by when he didn't call her to come to him.
For the past two weeks, Caitlin had been discreetly observing Valdez's movements within SD-3. Though she was closely monitored herself, it had been almost too easy to gather information about the workings of the organization and relay them to the CIA.
Well, she amended to herself, the first few days couldn't have been qualified as "easy." Hours alone in a darkened cell, deprived of food and water, endless interrogations. She had cried out in pain to Valdez one day, "Why?" He had replied, "Trust is nothing without enduring tribulation."
Two days of utter misery. But at the end, she had apparently gained either Valdez's respect or trust, and he had moved her out of the cell to a private room. Every day he seemed to include her more, asking her opinion on various intel. Every day she got closer to finding out his agenda.
She reached the door of his office, and held up her hand to knock. "Tres dias. Si. A los muelles," she heard his voice say behind the door. "Gracias. Adios."
Caitlin’s hand stilled. Three days, at the docks. Was he talking about the commodity trade? He had to be, there was no other explanation. She again raised her hand and knocked tentatively on the door. "Entre," Valdez said. His face lit up as Caitlin entered. "Querida. Thank you for seeing me."
"Of course," she replied as she sat in the armchair in the corner.
"I'm astounded by your loveliness every day, Caitlin." His eyes grazed up and down her body blatantly.
She smiled, pretending she wasn't repulsed by his attention. "Gracias. How can I help you, Rafael?"
He crossed the room, a small stack of papers in his hand. "Phone records from Security Section. I'd like you to double check these, if you don't mind. And also..." He gazed at her inquisitively. "Have you been down to the docks lately? I hear they're quite lovely."
She wrinkled her brow in confusion. "So I've heard, but no, I've never been."
"Would you like to accompany me in a few days? I have a little business to attend to."
She nodded, not quite believing her luck and his loose lips. "I would love to." She rose from her seat. "If you don't mind, I would like to write a letter to my mother. It's her birthday soon."
He placed his hand on her shoulder, rubbing up and down. "That's fine, my dear. You know you may do whatever you wish here...within reason. Just let the guard read it before you go out."
"Thank you. Have a good day." She extracted herself from his grasp and exited.
Valdez smiled as Caitlin walked out of his office. Unless he was wrong, she was headed to make her contact with the CIA.
And Rafael Valdez was not accustomed to being wrong.
She thought that he was completely unaware of her agenda. He had seen her CIA backup at the hockey game, the four or five men that just didn’t fit in. Unconsciously, she had walked right into his trap.
He would continue to call her bluff. Caitlin could keep on thinking that she was destroying him and his operation. Keep on unknowingly destroying herself and her colleagues, reeling them in to his plans.
He grinned. Three days.
In three days, he would use Eric Weiss to teach Caitlin her final lesson.
In three days, the CIA would realize the error of underestimating SD-3 and Rafael Valdez.
~*~*~
Caitlin walked down the main hallway of SD-3. "I need to mail a letter," she said smoothly to the security guard.
"Hand it here," he said gruffly. She gave him the letter, knowing that he expected to find something incriminating. Despite Valdez's apparent trust of her, none of the other SD-3 employees believed that “the American” was loyal to them. She knew the guard would be disappointed to find a simple "Happy Birthday" wish to her "mother."
He nodded firmly and put the letter back in the envelope. "Right. Go ahead." He waved her on through the front door. She had been surprised when Valdez had told her that she could go anywhere in the city alone. "Caitlin, we're learning to trust each other, remember?" he had told her. "And if you betray that trust, it will be at the cost of your family's life."
She shuddered. Her family was in danger because of her. She just had to make sure Valdez never knew her true loyalties until it was too late for him to do anything. Caitlin smiled inwardly. Little did the guard know that simple phrases such as "I'm fine" or "Give Mrs. White my best" had completely different meanings. Eric would read these sentences as "The security code changes weekly" or "Valdez's office is on the second floor." Each little word, every cue phrase, even the slant of her handwriting conveyed messages to the CIA about SD-3's operations that she wasn't able to transmit over her communications device and would be dangerous to discuss in person.
And the most important message of all: "Mom, I can't believe it's been three years since Dad passed away."
"Countdown: Three days. Noon, at the docks."
She couldn't believe that it had been that simple. Just walking to his office, overhearing the last thing he said before he hung up the phone. Three days.
She reached the mailbox at the end of the block. She stood in front of it, pulling a stamp out of her jeans pocket and placing it on the envelope. A voice came from the crowd, just behind her.
"Perdon, senorita. ¿Donde esta el restaurante Sanborn?"
She smiled slightly. "Alli. Al otro lado de la calle, a la izquierda."
"Gracias." He leaned closer to her and whispered, "The bus stop a block down the street. Five minutes." She slipped him the letter, and then he disappeared back into the crowd.
She waited a few minutes and then followed in the direction Weiss had gone. Her step quickened when she saw that dark head of hair inside the bus shelter. He was seated on one of the benches, apparently people watching.
She entered the glass shelter and sat down casually on the bench next to him. "Hey." It had been two weeks. They had been apart even longer than they had ever been together. And still, she was relieved at the sight of him. Relieved that after three more days, she wouldn't have to go even two days without him.
He grinned. "Sinclair. You look good. Considering..." He gazed sympathetically at her, then quickly turned away.
She sighed. "You listened to everything." It was a statement, not a question. She had hoped that he wouldn't. She should have known that he would.
Eric nodded, his eyes darkening at the thought of what she had endured, of the hell that he had been forced to listen to while pacing a desolate hotel room, with no control over what happened to the person that mattered most in the world. "You OK?"
"Yeah. That day with the truth serum was pretty, um, excruciating," she admitted. Excruciating wasn't enough of a word. She had spent 24 hours curled up in a ball, shuddering from the drug coursing in her veins, trying to close her ears from the endless interrogations from SD-3's psychologist.
Eric clenched his fist in his lap. Valdez would pay for that one. "Anybody following you?"
She shook her head. "No. Valdez ordered that I be allowed to go wherever I want. But Eric," her eyes went panicky. "My family."
"I know, Caitlin. We've had security teams on them since day one."
Caitlin visibly relaxed. "Thanks."
"Least we could do," he replied. "Got your note," he said lightly. "Way to make a guy lose his focus."
She blushed, remembering what she had written in the note, and more importantly, what she had written in the letter that Sydney had in L.A. "Sorry."
"It's alright. Just don't let it happen again."
"Shut up and give me the plan, Weiss."
He grinned and nodded. "OK. Three days?"
"Yep. Three days."
"You have to distract Valdez on the day of the trade."
"Distract as in wear a low-cut top?"
His head snapped up. "No,"he said vehemently.
She chuckled. "Got your attention."
"A little professionalism, please?" At her snort, he shrugged. "Hey, do as I say, not as I do. OK. You need to tell Valdez that you have some information about the CIA that would be useful to his operation. Tell him this before the trade, but also tell him that you don’t want to interrupt his work, so you'll discuss it later. This should set his mind on things besides the task at hand. We'll have an observation team set up at the site. When you get to the docks, we need you to tell us how many guards there are. Do the same when the other party arrives. If it's less than five, tuck your hair behind your ear. Less than ten, hands on your hips." He went on to tell her the rest of the signals. "Got it?"
She nodded. "Not too complicated."
"Right. We also need you to take a picture of the other party, since as yet we have no idea who it is." He glanced at the necklace hanging just above her collarbone. "I can't believe they let you keep the jewelry."
"Me either. I figured when I told Valdez that the necklace was from you, he would get rid of it immediately. But he ordered the psych expert to let me keep it, even during all the tests."
"Huh. He's either really stupid, or not as much of a bastard as we thought."
"He's definitely a bastard, so I'm going with stupid. Or blind." She thought of the passes Valdez had made to her in the past weeks, the suggestive comments with double entendres. She had fielded them as well as she could, but she wouldn't be able to avoid his advances much longer without his getting more aggressive with his moves.
"Yep, no arguments here." Eric's mind went in the same direction as Caitlin's. Yep. Valdez had a lot to pay for.
"Once the trade is in progress, once we have enough concrete evidence to nail the both of them, our team will move in." He paused. "You're not gonna like this next part."
"Just say it."
"You have to get out of the way during the takeover."
Caitlin stiffened. "You were right. Eric, this is my op. I am not sitting on the sidelines in the eleventh hour because you want me to."
He held up a hand. "I want you safe, that much is true enough. But I wouldn't stop you from being a part of this; it means too much to you. This order comes from Devlin. He doesn't want Valdez to grab you and use you as a hostage during the arrest."
She sighed. "Bitter feminist lives again."
"It's alright, I'm pretty fond of her." He looked down at the letter Caitlin had written that morning. "Once we arrest Valdez, we go into SD-3. Thanks to this information, I'm predicting a complete success."
Caitlin nodded. "All in a day's work," she said smugly.
"Wow, I didn't realize high horses were bred down here."
"Good comeback."
"I try." He slid the envelope back in his jacket. "You need to get back."
"So do you."
"Me? Nah. CIA agents like me never do any real work, you should know that by now. We just sit around and eat donuts, play cards, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam."
"Right. What was I thinking?" she said as he stood up.
"You were thinking wrong."
"I was thinking wrong." She smiled up at him briefly. "Three days."
He nodded. As long as these weeks had been, the next days would be the longest in his life. "Three days. Caitlin..."
"Yeah?"
"Stay safe."
"Right back atcha," she said. He nodded shortly, reached down to quickly stroke her cheek, and walked away.
Posted by Carrie on 11:40 AM