“Special Agent Yvette Evans,” a raspy male’s voice croaked behind her the moment she set foot inside the federal building. Familiarity ripped through her as she adjusted her weight to her left foot and analyzed the tone directed towards her. It was smug as always, rich and inundated the small hallway they stood within. The man knew how to make his presence known that was certain.
Running a hand across her neck she strained the muscles in her shoulder and coached them to relax before turning to greet the owner of those words. “Just the person we were looking for.”
“Well if it isn’t my good pal Special Agent Parker Jensen. Wow what’s it been? Six? Seven years?”
“Three.”
“Damn…just not long enough.” She took one step towards him, her features darkening as she looked him over. He was dressed in a black suit and tie; typical “G-man” attire that any average citizen on the street assumed they all wore. His shoes were polished and shining like the lips of a two-dollar hooker fresh on the streets for her long night of faceless Johns. The crease in his pants was flawless and he stood with a look of confidence that beguiled and infuriated her at the same time. Perhaps not just his attitude; it could have been the man himself and what he stood for. He was the thing every cop dreaded and hated; an agent that investigated his own. He had no sense of brotherhood or camaraderie everything was black and white with him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“You outed yourself Babe. Did you really think no one was looking for whatever rat hole you were lying in waiting to see you poke your head out? And now that you have…”
“Now that I have you what? Get the honor of interrogating me? Handcuffing me and taking me upstairs to be flogged and branded? Why don’t I save you the trouble now and tell you how much of a waste of time that will be? I have nothing to say.”
He inched forward, his jaw tightening as he prepared himself for the game. He knew she wouldn’t be easy to crack; it’s why he requested to be placed on her case. It would be a pleasure indeed to watch the great Agent Evans break under his scrutiny. What a wonderful notch in his belt. “Why don’t you save your breath? Where we’re going, you’re gonna need it! Cuff her,” he nodded towards the man that was at his side another typical federal boy who was obviously waiting first in line for his standard black suit and mirrored sunglasses. Sunglasses didn’t he know he was inside a building?
She sighed as the cuffs tightened around her wrist. A smug grin perched on Parker’s face as he saw the sneer she threw towards him; he loved every minute of this. “Are these really necessary to go upstairs?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on the full experience.”
“Vette?” Victor and Dustin entered the hallway on their way up to the unit room. Shock and anger mixed in their emotions as they took in the scene. Immediately they both started towards her preparing to go to war if they had to.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Parker cautioned reaching for his inner coat pocket. He pulled out a folded white piece of paper and tossed it towards Dustin. “She’s coming with us. Step aside before you join her for obstruction.”
“It’s ok Vic. Just let Scott know I’ll be back in…four hours?” she smirked at Parker. “We’ll have lunch and I’ll tell him all about my brief run-in with Agent Jensen.”
“Yeah, don’t hold your breath.” Parker snatched her by the arm and dragged her towards the elevator.
For two hours Yvette sat in a cold, dark room in the building’s upstairs interrogation unit. The only light that was available came from the brutally bright spotlight Parker left perched in the back right corner of the small box. He was trying to break her, trying to get her to fear his next set of events that supposedly would lead to her crying and admitting her guilt over crimes she hadn’t committed.
It wouldn’t work; in fact she was smiling internally at his weak efforts to intimidate and scare her. None of these bullying tactics worked when she was held in Cameroon. They failed to extract the information from her in the time she spent in Kazakhstan. And if the Russians couldn’t break her there was no way Parker and his feeble methods would part her lips either.
She ran a warming hand over her arms; someone had turned up the A.C. Good one, she thought and looked up at the single camera that remained focused on her from its spot in the ceiling. What’s next? Lady Gaga filtered through a loud speaker? She strummed her fingers along the metal table and sighed. If they believed boring her to death was going to work they were sorely mistaken. Sitting and waiting came with the job of surveillance and she was good at that.
Stakeouts had become a stroke of art for her and one thing was always sure with them, patience was key. You never knew when your suspect would pop up and until then all you could do was sit and wait. Hell it’s why some agents packed on a few pounds. Nothing passed the time faster than a quick, cheap meal while on a hunt.
The door creaked open and Yvette didn’t move as two men stepped inside the room, Parker, accompanied by a new face. She looked them over briefly before leaning back in her chair with a grin. “There he is! The man of the hour!” she teased and glanced in Parker’s direction. “I’m so glad you came back. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.”
Parker crossed his arms into his chest and eyed her just as hastily. That familiar smirk passed over his lips before he leaned in closer to her. “You missed me Babe? Aww how touching. But don’t worry I’m far from done with you Yve. We get to spend lots of time together.”
She threw her hand over her heart and smiled sarcastically. Peering into his eyes she saw a sparkle that she’d seen a million times before. It was one that she taught and trained him to hide, or so she thought. It was his tell and try as he might he was incapable of disguising his true intentions from her. “Well that’s always good to hear. What is it that I can help you with Parker?”
“Hmm let’s start with something easy.” He leaned over and clicked the button on the mini recorder sitting in front of her. “State your legal name for the record please.”
“You know my name Parker. You used it when you came in the room.”
He flipped the recording off quickly and leaned over the table. “Are we going to be difficult or are you going to play ball? Because I’m sure you don’t want me in your face all day long. I can keep this easy for you or make it even harder Babe, what’s it going to be?” She sighed but his expression remained the same. “Are you ready now?” With a nod he turned the recorder on once more and repeated the question.
“Yvette Evans,” she smirked and watched him pace back and forth in front of her.
“Why did you kill Deputy Director Jacob Newell?”
“What? No cart full of goodies? Tweezers, pliers, bamboo shoots to stab under my fingernails, saw, razors, nothing? Gee you kidnap a girl from her job, stuff her in a box under bright interrogation lights and don’t even have the decency to bring a few toys? Well at least I can say your taste in partners is improving, thanks for the eye candy. Who’s your friend?” She laughed. “Is it time for the good cop/bad cop shtick? I was wondering when you were going to revert to the old handbook on this one Parker. Thank you for not disappointing.”
“Answer the question Vette.”
“Jacob…Jacob…gee the name sounds familiar but I can’t say I can place it just yet. I know! Why don’t you fill me in on the details and I’ll tell you what I remember.”
“This is all funny to you huh? A man lost his life at your hands and it’s just all one big joke.”
“No Parker you’re the joke. This case you’re trying to build is the joke. The fact that you’re trying to intimidate me with circumstantial evidence at best is the joke. I didn’t kill Newell so I’m not going to be able to tell you something that I don’t know. I mean come on…what’s with the amateur hour?”
“Circumstantial? We have your fired service weapon left near the body, your bloody bootprints leading away from the scene, spent cartridges with your fingerprints on them in Newell’s blood! There’s a witness willing to testify that he saw you leaving the scene after hearing a heated discussion between you and the victim! Besides that you ran Yvette! That only added on to the already guilty nature of your actions! We have you dead to rights and you’re gonna burn for this! So I gotta ask you Evans, who’s laughing now?”
She leaned back and folded her arms into her lap. “My! What a perfectly gift wrapped present someone’s left under your tree you must have been a REALLY good boy this year. To think, all of that evidence against one of the Agency’s best spies. Wow…you’d have to be an idiot to fall for it. But I suppose I should be flattered. Someone definitely has gone through a lot of trouble to implicate me. I can only wonder what I’ve done to piss them off so much.”
“Maybe they spent five minutes around you!” Parker snapped.
“Ouch! Rawr! THERE’S MY PARKER! I knew the Bureau couldn’t have killed your wit and sense of humor altogether! It would have been a shame to lose such rapport! Your wardrobe could still use some imagination though. Tell me, exactly how many black suits do you own? Do you have one for every day of the week or do you wear the same one but you know change the shirt to make it look different?”
Parker smirked and watched her closely. It was too early in the game to lose it though she was definitely trying to make him lose his cool. He brushed an invisible piece of lint from his shoulder and looked towards the man leaning against the wall. Yvette’s gaze followed and she noticed his intense gaze was locked on her as it seemed to have been since entering. “So does your partner ever speak? Or is he only here to watch the show? It’s kinda kinky.”
Parker cleared his throat and shifted the weight on his feet. Yvette knew this play, one agent was there as the weak link, the one to draw her confidence and make her trip up and spill the beans. That role seemed to be played by Parker. He was the one asking the questions and letting her do all the talking. The other agent would swoop in when Parker “got in over his head” and needed a breather. He would work on her “conscience” and “sense of duty” and try to reason with her humanity. Indeed the game was on and Yve was ready to play. “Back to the question Yvette, why did you kill Jacob Newell?”
“Ok so let’s say, speaking hypothetically of course, that I wanted to kill Newell. What motive would I have had to do such? I left the Agency on good terms. I had no open cases or grievances with the man. He wasn’t even an utterance for conversation when I did work there. So why after a year of relocating to the FBI would I hunt him down and kill him?”
“From what I can tell he removed a few high profile cases from you and your team. Cut you off in the middle of an investigation that you’d been running for a while. Now in our line of work we both know how much it sucks to have someone come in and take away your hard work without so much as a pat on the back for a job well done. If it happened to me once I might be a little annoyed. Twice it’ll have me questioning if that particular agent was after me for something. I might start an investigation of my own and discover that he was in fact looking into me and figure out how to get even. We found a paper trail you so cleverly tried to hide. Threatening emails concerning the removal of evidence from your possession as well as public threats to and I quote ‘kill him’. That seems motive enough to me, speaking hypothetically of course.”
“Wow so you have a pretty open and shut case Parker. Why exactly am I sitting in interrogation and not UNDER the prison in Leavenworth or Marion?”
“Because Yvette like you said it’s way too clean,” he leaned close enough to her ear ensuring his whispers were heard by no other. “I know you didn’t do this, you’re better than that. You’ve obviously made enemies that would very much like to see you burn and with so much against you, you’re going to. Tell us who you’re working for and maybe we can try and help.” He pulled away with a frustrated grimace on his face. “If you don’t want to see that prison I suggest you cooperate with the rest of our investigation,” he growled.
“Cooperate? I thought that was what I’ve been doing,” she sighed and glanced up at the clock behind his head. “I tell you what I’ll give you three minutes more. After that I’m afraid I must get going. So,” she smiled and placed her hands on the table stacking one neatly on top of the other. “What else is it you’re after?”
“Got a hot date? You might as well get cozy; you’re not going anyway.” Parker straightened his tie, looked over his shoulder towards his partner and lifted his leg to prop his foot in the chair. “Tell me about Alexander Harrison.”
“What about Alexander Harrison?”
She placed her legs on the table and leaned as far back in the chair as she could. Watching the men as they desperately looked towards her anticipating her next words and a smile crossed her face. They were sure they’d get what they were after not realizing they made a fatal mistake. Informing the target of your investigation that the case was a sure loss was the best way to end all cooperation.
If she had nothing to lose, if she was facing jail time for this supposedly “open and shut case” what was the motivation for her to spill her guts about anything? They had nothing to offer her and Yvette of course believed in quid pro quo. “He mysteriously disappeared from his home nearly two months ago. Just poof; gone without a trace. Tell me about that.”
“Well he was always into magic. Maybe he perfected his act and took it on the road.”
“Enough Yvette! Aren’t you bored yet?”
She shrugged her shoulders and leaned over onto her arms. Her fingertips again strummed the top of the table as she peered at the man holding up the wall. Since entering he stood stoic and lifeless like a statue watching the two interact; what purpose was he serving?
“Bored? I thought this has been rather entertaining actually. I mean what the hell Parker? Have they changed what it takes to pull a successful interrogation? Since when do you not offer a rendition play? You know scare up some of my old ghosts, make me believe you’re gonna hand me over to some rogue agency so I can be at the hands of more brutal information extraction methods; like the Turks for instance. You know they have this thing about total body pain. They will start at your feet and work upwards inflicting unspeakable…”
“We know you wanted him dead, we know you threatened him, we know that on the night of his disappearance you were seen entering his premises. Now enough with the games Yvette tell me, WHAT DID YOU DO WITH HARRISON?”
She looked at the clock once more, his three minutes was up. Lazily her gaze moved back towards him as she wet her lips with her tongue. “Looks like Agent Knight will have to fend for himself.” Parker sighed and threw his hands up as though he was giving up. “I’d hoped you cared more about him than this but…I guess I should have known better. You’ve always been about yourself.”
Yvette’s gaze lingered on Parker’s every move. Slowly she released a breath as she trained herself to stay in control of her emotions. It was becoming obvious that Parker wanted to hit below the belt. That was a tactic left up to the desperate when normal extraction methods failed. She was beating him at his own game and now he was playing dirty. “You’d better start cooperating or else I’m afraid I simply won’t be able to help your partner in crime and lover. He’ll go down for this, all of it! Whether he knows it or not he helped you clean up this mess and get away from the authorities. He is guilty by association; an accomplice after the fact and it’s all thanks to you.”
Yvette grinned sadistically; she wouldn’t let him suck her into that. It was much too easy to defeat that ploy and she knew exactly the right cards to play. “Brett knew what he was getting himself into. He’s a grown man; he can take care of himself which any federal agent should be able to do, Harrison included. I am not Harrison’s watcher nor do I care what that man does in his off time. And if I went after him no one would have seen me or lived to tell about it. Which reminds me, how’s your Mom? Still living in Boca with her cat…Buttons is it? She still enjoys those trips to the Farmer’s Market on Town Center circle? And I bet those visits to Coral Springs to see her twin sister are still…weekly?”
“You fucking…” Parker slammed his hand on the table and a look of rage filled his eyes as he started around the table towards her. “Let’s get one thing straight, you even THINK about going near her I’ll make it my personal mission to make your life a living hell!”
Yvette grinned and leaned more into his shoulder, tauntingly her eyes locked on his without an ounce of fear showing within them. “Interesting proposal but let me clue you in on the facts Parker, I am already there.”
He angrily shoved away from the table much to Yvette’s amusement. She was successfully getting under his skin. Fuck with Brett, I dare you, she thought as she watched him lose control. There would be no breaking her and he was starting to see that. Seeing his partner in a bit over his head the other agent moved forward, placed a hand on Parker’s shoulder and whispered something that had him excuse himself from the room.
He dropped an opened manila folder on the table in front of Yvette and fell into the chair opposite hers. “What’s this?” she asked looking down at the letters, pictures and mission notes on various cases.
“Oh come on Agent Evans. You can’t tell me you don’t recognize your own handiwork! Explosions, murders, kidnappings and torture all compliments of the woman across the table from me. The only thing I want to know is the name of your handler on this particular mission here,” he smiled politely and pointed to a shot containing a Mexican national. “We know it was you; there was no other way for anyone to get a handle on his whereabouts, enter without being seen, get out just as easily; takes a well trained ROGUE agent to even consider going after him.”
Yvette glanced at the photo recognizing the man Anthony Luciano ever so kindly “asked” her to hit for him. Her mind immediately replayed the course of events that led her to his front door. The man looked genuinely shocked seeing her in his office holding him at gunpoint. He was well guarded and the fact struck her as odd at the time considering he was on home turf without threat of rivals. But what interests did the Bureau have in the man? Surely they cared not for the proprietor of a major drug cartel? “I’m sorry I wasn’t listening. Who are you again?”
“You have no idea who he was do you? He was deep undercover Evans.” He paused and took in her look; though it hadn’t changed he caught her attention and peered deep into her eyes. “Yeah, that’s right. You killed a federal agent, one hot on the ass of a large drug cartel’s main source of manufacturing and exportation. We believe he was murdered as a result of what he’d uncovered but we don’t know who exactly wanted him dead or the facts of his discovery. Help us out here Evans and maybe I’ll put in a good word for you when your other case comes to trial.”
She sucked on her teeth and dropped her back against the chair casually folding her arms again she turned her gaze from him and waited him out. He pulled open another folder and began reading the highlights of the profile her profile. “Expertise: qualified in every mode of transportation – land, air, sea. Proficiency: hand-to-hand combat, extraction, interrogation, deep cover. Ordinances edged and impact weapons, small arms and automatic weapons authority. Procurement: resourceful, explosives: diffusion, precision detonation…basically you’re a walking murder machine. It would be such a shame to let those talents go to waste.” He waited again to see if that would draw any type of reaction before sighing at her. “Fine have it your way. I’ll be sure to grab a front row seat to your execution.”
“Great! I won’t see you there! Are we done now? I promised I’d have lunch with my Dad, I’d hate to be late.”
“Oh? Maybe he can share your last meal then. Sit tight Doll, you’re not going anywhere,” Agent Hendrix replied.
“Yes she is and I must say I don’t approve of you holding her in here for the last three hours. She promised me a lunch,” Scott barked entering the room.
“Mr. Director Sir, we have direct orders…” Scott tossed the agent a look that immediately stopped his ramble. There was nothing he would be able to say that would refute the Director’s orders.
“I didn’t authorize this! Go check with Jensen, Agent Evans has been cleared of these charges. And next time Hendrix you’d better double check the case reports before hauling in an innocent person.”
“Yes sir.” He dropped his gaze to the floor and exited the room leaving Scott and Yvette to their privacy.
She pulled up from the table and stretched before wrapping her arms around him and pulling him into a big hug. “You know sometimes it doesn’t hurt to be the daughter of the Director.” He laughed and kissed her forehead before escorting her towards his office.
“You’ve been cleared of Newell’s murder Yvette. I’ve had a team on that ever since you were accused and they’ve uncovered a string of corroborating evidence that places the guilt on someone working for Harrison. We’ve since been working to uncover the mastermind as well.” He spoke loud and clear for the roaming men and women in the hallway watching the two.
Once the door closed to his office he slumped behind his desk and looked at her. “Ethan has really done his homework Yvette. There are countless expendable agents on this just to ensure you get damaged by it. I don’t know what he’s hoping to gain from you receiving jail time but I want you to know, I’ve taken measures to keep that from happening.”
“Let me guess, the first clue was the bloody fingerprint on the spent cartridge? How did they think that got there without being planted? How sloppy do they think I am? Honestly I should be relieved but I’m really rather insulted.” She sulked in her chair and drew a smile from Scott’s lips.
“I’m sure you’ll get over it. True you are a fine agent but this should show you that the bigger you are the harder you fall.”
“Yeah.” She pulled up and paced his office thinking over the file on the drug cartel. A light went off in her head as she recalled her conversation with him just before he died. He said she had no idea who he was but an undercover agent? Was it possible Luciano knew and decided to make her hit him because he was too close to his business? Or was he in the dark as well? One thing was certain; she was going to find out.
“Pop, that case involving the dead UC in Mexico.”
“Let me guess, you want to run the investigation?”
“No. I’m already on it.”
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