Chapter 15
"So if you don't wear a bulletproof vest, I'm going to be really pissed off."
Chapter 15: What Are Friends For?
Caitlin tossed and turned in her bed, exclaiming softly as the dream overpowered her mind. Voices and images came from all sides, torturing her with their messages.
Valdez. "Remember, if you double cross me I will destroy everything you hold dear."
Eric. "We're in this together, Sinclair, whether you like it or not...Caitlin, nothing's going to happen to me. I'm not going anywhere."
Gunshots.
Not again not again not again.
David. Dead.
Eric. Dead.
My fault my fault my fault.
"No! Eric!" She shot straight up in bed, screaming, her blond hair flying around her face.
Across town in a dilapidated hotel room, Eric was tormented by a similar nightmare, similar voices wreaking havoc in his sleep.
Caitlin. "I'm terrified that because of me, something terrible is going to happen to you."
Valdez. "I nearly felt remorse for what I had to do. Nearly."
Vaughn. "There will be more to lose, so you'll be more willing to risk everything to save it."
Sydney. "Don't let her go."
The images assaulted him. Caitlin sprawled on the ground, a gun pointed at her chest. He's running to her, running as fast as he can. Gunshot. Too late too late too late.
"Caitlin." Eric jolted awake, shouting her name. He gasped for air, acclimating himself to his surroundings in the dim light of dawn.
Vaughn stirred and awoke in the next bed. "Where's the fire, Weiss?"
"Just a bad dream, man. Go back to sleep."
Vaughn shook his head and turned on the bedside lamp. "Well, I'm up now. So you might as well tell me about it."
Eric grimaced. "You know the drill better than anyone. A guy falls in love with a CIA agent, he's bound to have a nightmare or ten about her untimely demise."
Vaughn winced. "Ooh. One of those. I think I had them nearly every night until Sydney quit."
Eric threw back the covers and walked to his suitcase to get dressed. He had to get out of that hotel room. "Not exactly the most comforting thing you could have said, Mike. I don't see Caitlin retiring anytime soon."
"All right, I'll try again. I know you're worried about her. I am too. She's definitely in a very precarious situation. But Caitlin's smart, and she's tough. She'll be all right." He grinned sleepily. "And can I just tell you how funny it is to hear you talk about love?"
Weiss threw a shirt on and glared at his friend, who shrugged and laughed. "It's payback time. Don't say you didn't have it coming."
With the dawn had come heat and humidity. Eric walked out of the hotel onto the crowded streets of Bogota and glanced at the sun rising in the sky.
Now this reminds me of home. Crowds and smog at 6:00 in the morning, can't beat it.
He walked a few blocks until he came upon a sidewalk cafe. He sat down at a small table with his notebook and ordered a cup of coffee from the waitress. Oblivious to what was happening around him, Eric flipped open his notebook and started reviewing the plans that he had made the day before.
Eric didn't even notice the man walking to his table until a shadow fell over his paper. He looked up to find a short, Hispanic man with a bushy mustache staring down at him. "¿Puedo ayudarle a Ud?"
"Agent Weiss," the man said with a heavy accent, "I am here to tell you one thing."
"Which is?"
The man nodded at the notebook Eric had been trying to shield from view. "Things such as what you're working on...they are not always as simple as they seem." He glanced to his left and right, apparently very nervous about something. "Just keep in mind that generally, the best defense against an attack is to surprise the enemy before they get the chance to strike." With that, he placed a small slip of paper in Eric's hand, turned and began to walk down the street.
"Wait," Eric called. The man turned. "I don't understand. Who are you?"
"A friend, Agent Weiss. Just consider me a friend. If you'd like to learn more, meet me tonight at that location." He motioned to the piece of paper Eric held in his hand and then suddenly vanished into the crowd.
Minutes later, Vaughn glanced up as Eric walked back through the door. "Where'd you go?"
"Out. Not important." Eric grabbed his headset. "Anything happen while I was gone?"
"Nothing. Caitlin's still in bed." Vaughn watched Eric scramble around in the desk drawer until he triumphantly came up with the tape of the previous day's activity at SD-3. "Mind telling me what's going on?"
"Shh," Eric said, putting the tape in the player. He fast-forwarded to the conversation between Caitlin and Valdez, listening intently to the part where Valdez invited her to the docks. "Oh my God, I'm such an idiot," he muttered as he pressed the stop button.
"Weiss," Vaughn snapped. "Talk to me."
"Hasn't something about all this felt off to you? It's been almost too easy to get to this point." Almost, he conceded to himself, remembering the torture that Caitlin had endured.
"What are you getting at?" Vaughn asked.
"OK. I was sitting at this cafe and someone walked up to me, right out of the blue."
"Who?"
"Don't know. Doesn't matter," Eric said impatiently. "He looked at my notes and said, ‘Things aren't always as they seem.' Then he basically told me to be on guard for an attack, to surprise the enemy before they get the chance."
"Wait, wait," Vaughn said, holding up his hand. "This guy, this stranger, he knew about the plans?"
"Seemed like it."
"How? It's not exactly common knowledge."
"I don't know. Maybe he's affiliated with Valdez somehow. I have no idea. All I know is that he was warning me of..."
"A trap?"
Eric nodded. "Exactly."
Vaughn leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "A trap. Of course. We underestimated the man."
"We sure did. The evidence is right there on that tape, if you listen closely. He's been reeling us in since this first started, making us complacent in our apparent success." Eric slammed his palm against the wall. "How could I have missed it? I wanted so much to believe that we had outsmarted him. Now he's got us right where he wants us."
"It's not that hard to believe. You wanted to win this for Caitlin. You got blinded, we all did."
"Yeah. It's still idiotic."
"So, what do we do? You want to call it off?"
Eric thought about the implications of that. They could extract Caitlin somehow, chalk the op up to failure, and get out. No harm done. But then he remembered a kiss in the rain, Caitlin's confession, and his promise to her.
"No," Eric said adamantly. "Trap or not, we follow through. I'm not leaving her hanging, Mike. I promised her that we would destroy him. No matter the danger to me, I won't break that promise. I can't."
~*~*~
Later that day, Caitlin thanked the guard that had brought her meal. With a sigh, she began to eat, looking around her sparsely furnished room that was barely a step up from her previous cell. She thought back to her days as an officer-in-training, and the first thing she had learned about being a CIA agent. "You will need to deal with fast-moving, ambiguous, and unstructured situations that will test your resourcefulness to the utmost," she recited to herself. Taking a sip of her drink, she reflected, somewhat ironically, how true that had come to be. Being a double agent within a rival organization, an enemy of the United States, had definitely never been in her game plan until recently. But she was doing her best to roll with the punches, to not let the constant lies she was telling, the game she was playing, affect her in her heart and mind, where it mattered most. It helped to know that Eric and the CIA weren't far away if trouble came along.
Eric. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, trying not to think about the dream that had been so pleasant to start off, but had quickly turned into a representation of her worst, deepest fears.
She wasn't sure what had caused her to feel so depressed, but all day she had gone about her routine convinced that something somewhere was wrong. She couldn't pinpoint where the nagging feeling in her mind was coming from, but she knew it had started with her nightmare this morning. And as much as she knew that the dream was just that, a dream, she couldn't seem to shake the feeling that it was a foreshadowing of things to come.
She glanced up in surprise as a short knock was followed by a note slipped under her door. "What in the world?" she asked herself as she walked over to pick up the folded piece of paper. Her first thought was a note from Valdez, but he usually either sent someone to bring her to him, or he came to see her himself. Obviously it wasn't what she halfway hoped, a note from Eric. He had no way of getting into the SD-3 building undetected. "Opening it usually helps, Sinclair," she muttered, sitting back at her desk and unfolding the letter.
Ms. Sinclair,
There are things to be said. Please meet me at the newspaper stand in 20 minutes. It involves you and someone very close to you. Please come. You won't regret it, trust me.
A Friend
Caitlin weighed her options. She knew that a situation such as this would be risky at best, that was clear enough by the cryptic language the writer used. "Someone very close to you," she repeated softly. Her family? Eric?
She figured there was only one way to find out. Grabbing her jacket, she headed out the door and quickly walked down the hallway.
Minutes later, she slowed her pace as she neared the newsstand located a few blocks from SD-3. She looked around for anyone who stood out, seemed to be the person she was meeting. Not seeing anyone, she pretended to be interested in a few of the magazines on the rack. As she browsed through Time, she was shocked to hear Eric's voice just to her left. "What are you doing here, Sinclair?"
Her eyes widened in shock. "I could ask you the same question, Weiss." She dug the note out of her pocket and handed it to him. "I got this. Didn't you see it on the video?"
He shook his head. "I've been out of the room for a few hours," he said as he unfolded the paper I met someone this morning, he asked to meet me tonight at this newsstand...wait." His eyes narrowed. " ‘A Friend'. It's the same guy." Eric realized that the Hispanic man had set this up as an opportunity for Caitlin and Eric to talk about what needed to be done.
"Who?"
"The man I saw this morning. It's a long story, one that's better discussed elsewhere. You know where our hotel is?"
She nodded. They had told her the address in case she needed to escape SD-3 and get to the CIA team quickly.
"Take a few wrong roads if you can, try to throw of anyone who may be following you, just in case. When you get to the building, go around the back. There's an emergency exit that leads to a back staircase. I'll leave the door propped open for you." He looked at her intently. "You're getting sick of hearing this, I'm sure, but be careful." Caitlin watched him walk away, confused as to what had just happened, but it looked as if "her friend" was a no-show.
~*~*~
"Ross, Where's Vaughn?" Weiss asked the agent on duty as he entered the hotel room.
Ross jerked a thumb to the bathroom. "Shower. Weiss, you really should see this, Sinclair got a note from someone."
"Way ahead of ya," Weiss said. "Hey, can you do me a favor?"
"What's that?" Ross asked.
"Go out. Catch a movie, something," Weiss said, tossing a twenty in Ross's direction.
Ross gave him a strange look, but he picked up the money and walked out the door.
Weiss waited until he was gone, and then banged on the door of the bathroom. "Mike, get out here!" He continued hitting his fist on the door until it was jerked open.
"What?" Vaughn said irritably, wrapping a towel around his tapered waist. His brown hair spiked in all directions, his green eyes flashing at the interruption.
"We've got company. Get dressed before..." Weiss paused at the knock on the door. "Too late." Was it too much to ask that the girl of his dreams NOT see his best friend in a towel?
He opened the door to see Caitlin on the other side. "Were you followed?"
She shook her head. "No. Valdez, for whatever reason, trusts me more than that."
Eric grimaced. "I wouldn't be so sure of that. Come on in."
She gave him a questioning look, but entered the room. She raised her eyebrows and flashed a cheeky grin at the man in the towel. "Hey, Vaughn."
"Hey, Caitlin," Vaughn drawled, knowing how much this situation must be killing Weiss, and unashamedly loving every minute of it.
"Caitlin, honey, can you do me a favor and just stare at a wall or something?"
Caitlin turned to Eric and winked. "Come on, and miss out on the chance to see a gorgeous, green-eyed Frenchman in a towel?"
"Sinclair..." he growled.
"Weiss, it's a joke," she said, wrapping her arms around his middle, her sparkling blue eyes staring into his perturbed brown ones.
He rolled his eyes. "Right. I knew that. Caitlin, we need to talk about something serious."
"In a minute," she said, going up on her tiptoes and lightly brushing his lips with hers. "OK?"
"Right. Sure. In a minute," Weiss replied, throwing logic out the window. He placed his hands on her face and leaned down to kiss her. He wasn't quite sure how he had lived his whole life without having this, having her, every second of every day. But he was sure that he didn't want to live the rest of it without it, without her.
"I think now would be a good time for me to get dressed," Vaughn said wryly. Weiss waved a hand at him, motioning for him to go away. Shaking his head, Vaughn grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt and walked back to the bathroom.
When he returned, Caitlin and Weiss were seated next to each other on the bed, holding hands and smiling at each other like fools. "You done, kids?" Vaughn asked as he sat down across from them.
"For the moment," Eric replied, tearing his gaze away from Caitlin.
"Alright, then you probably should fill Caitlin in."
Eric nodded. "Cait, we're pretty sure that Valdez knows everything."
She was stunned. "What? No way. He hasn't given any indication that he suspects."
"Yeah. Doesn't that seem odd to you though, that he's just so blindly trusting? He's been sucking us in, making us think that we're achieving some kind of victory."
Caitlin thought back to how Valdez had been treating her, the freedoms he had allowed her. "How do you know?"
Weiss told her about the man he had met that morning. "From the looks of things, it's the same man who sent you the note. I don't know why, but he's trying to help us."
"If that's the case, if he knows everything, what's our next move?" she asked.
"That's really up to you," Eric replied. "You're the one in the middle of all this. Say the word, and we're out of here. We don't have to go through with the op." He secretly hoped she would concede his point, agree to come home, get out of danger.
She shook her head. "No way, we vowed to do a job, so let's do it."
"Alright, I'm with you."
In her mind's eye, Caitlin saw Eric on the ground, his eyes closed, his heart still. She heard Valdez's voice threatening to destroy those she loved. "No."
"What?"
"Eric, I don't want you there. I need you to promise me to stay away."
He stood up off the bed, glaring down at her. "What are you talking about?" He couldn't protect her if he wasn't there. That wasn't an option.
"Caitlin," Vaughn said, "I understand that you're worried, but Weiss just can't not be there. He's the head officer."
"I know what Valdez is planning. If all this is true, if he's known from the beginning that I'm still CIA, he's not going to let me get off easy. He's going to try and teach me a lesson I'm not soon to forget. It'll be David all over again."
"What does David have to do with this?" Weiss asked impatiently.
"Everything! Valdez once took away the person I cared about most, he won't hesitate to do it again!" she shouted, rising and standing toe to toe with him. "And I'm sorry, but I'm not losing the man I love for this mission, no matter how important it is," she yelled, her face inches from his.
"I am the ranking officer here, Agent Sinclair, and this op will go as planned," he yelled back.
"Hey! HEY!" Vaughn interjected. "Both of you shut up." Caitlin and Eric turned identical glares on him. "Better. Now sit down, it's my turn to say something. Caitlin, you can't protect the people you care about from everything, no matter how much you want to. He WILL be involved with this op, whether you like it or not." She sat on the bed and crossed her arms defensively. "Now, if we're smart about this, we can still come out with the upper hand." He turned to Eric. "Eric, our ‘friend' recommended we use the element of surprise, right?"
Eric nodded. "Right."
"Valdez expects the CIA to show up. Let's give him something he doesn't expect." Vaughn went on to outline his plan, finishing with, "He won't know what hit him until it's too late, and we win." He glanced from Caitlin to Eric. "Questions?"
Something hit Eric at that moment, and he turned to the angry woman sitting next to him. "Just one. 'The man you love'?"
She glared at him. "Yeah. So if you don't wear a bulletproof vest, I'm going to be really pissed off."
Posted by Carrie on 11:52 AM