****************
"Hey, I'm getting something from the Administrator!" Sarah informed Caitlin. "Agent S. West to Administrator Taylor."
"Sarah, where are you? Are you all right?" The line had a lot of static.
"We were just about to leave the Hospital. Caitlin's a lot better. What's wrong?"
"Do you know where Xarissa and Rebecca are?"
"We think that they're in Provo, Utah. That's all we've got from them."
"Do you know where Agent Pang is?"
"No, the last time that we heard from her, she was rambling on about something about "us" and some sort of mission. She didn't tell us much more than that. She also told us that informer Enver Fakaj is dead, and we also know that he had a combination of some great importance. We don't know if he told the Chris Ghoad gang that combination. It's a possibility,"
Adm. Taylor was silent for a moment, then said,
"I'll organize a quick transportation back to Arizona for you. Go to the D.C. airport. You will find a woman there in a coffee shop, wearing a striped business suit, stirring a cup of hot chocolate. She will give you your tickets. The code word is, ’Terrible time to travel'. Go tomorrow at 0917. Be at the airport at 0957. Adm. Taylor out."
Sarah looked at Caitlin, then said, "I guess that we better start packing."
"Packing what?" Sarah and Caitlin chuckled.
****************
"Hey, do you have a phone that I can borrow?" Xarissa asked a random man on the street.
"Sure, here you go." He said, offering his phone.
"Thanks!" Xarissa dialed a number quickly. “The people here are so nice.” She heard the phone ring three times before a voice came through.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Taylor, this is Xarissa. Rebecca and I are fine; we just need to get back to Arizona. Could you help us? Our plane-"
"Yes, I know what happened. I'm sending Agent J. West to pick you up. Sarah and Caitlin are coming back in a normal plane. When all of you are back, I want to talk to you about Agent Pang and her mission. Adm. Taylor out."
"Bye."
Xarissa handed the phone back to the stranger, said thanks, and ran back to Rebecca.
"Jake's coming to pick us up. That's all I know."
"Ok."
****************
Laura waited for the footsteps to fade, then waited a bit longer just to be safe before kicking the door open. She ran to the front and in horror saw the kind man on the floor, a wound in his stomach. They must have shot him to get in. The woman was weeping over his body. Laura checked his pulse, ripped off part of her shirt, and pressed it to his stomach as she had done with Caitlin.
"What are you doing?"
"He's still alive. He needs to go see a doctor or something! I can't take bullets out."
"There's no doctors for kilometers around!"
"We need to get him into a bed, or a couch, something. A table with a blanket over it! Anything other than the floor!"
The woman quickly started to follow Laura's directions, and, with difficulty, placed the man on a table.
"Ok, do you have a-" Laura paused. She couldn't remember the word. She made a hand motion that she wanted something that could pinch something. The woman looked at Laura strangely and ran off. Laura kept pressing the wound with her cloth, which was now soaked with blood. The woman came back with what Laura wanted, and she continued giving her instructions.
"I need you to take both of your hands and pull the tissue apart just enough for me to get the bullet and pull it out." The woman looked terrified, but then obeyed.
Laura grimaced as she poked her finger into the man’s chest. She felt something hard and pulled her fingers back out, sticking the tweezers in after. They weren’t surgical forceps, but they would have to do. Finally she found the bullet and pulled it out. Luckily for her, it hadn’t buried very far. He must have been further away from the gang when they shot him. It was a miracle that the bullet didn’t break off into a few pieces, and she didn’t think it hit any vital organs because it wasn’t spewing as much blood.
“How do you know how to do this?” The lady asked frightened.
“My mom was an ER nurse. She taught me a lot of things because she wanted me to take medical college and get a doctorate degree,” Laura replied, thinking fast. Then she smiled awkwardly. “She always said it doesn’t hurt to learn things before you take the classes.”
“Is there much more that you can do?” the lady asked desperately.
“I don’t know. I could try stitching it up, but we’d need some kind of thin wire or surgical string and a needle.”
“Maybe we have that in the federal emergency kit he took home months ago. God knows we need that. Providence is looking down on us.”
“Okay, go get it,” Laura said sternly. As the lady left, she continued to hold her hands to the wound and sighed. This was not just a normal day in the Academy. This was life. And she was starting to dislike it more and more.
****************
"So you went through a lot, huh?" Jake asked Becky and Xarissa. They simply nodded. "Adm. Taylor became extremely worried when you were gone for a week. He doesn't normally assign missions that would take that long. I know that I shouldn't ask, but I want to know: are Sarah and Caitlin alright?" Rebecca looked at him with sympathy.
"Sarah's alright, but Caitlin got shot in her shoulder. She's a lot better now." Jake nodded and kept flying. They flew in silence for the rest of the way.
****************
Adm. Taylor paced back and forth, waiting for the girls to come back. He had sent Adm. Melchin to pick up the West girls, and Agent J. West should have brought the other agents back from Utah by now. Adm. Taylor had been restless for days, and the whole school was starting to feel his anxiety. Why was he worried? They were coming back. He kept pacing when finally there was a break in the dreaded silence.
"Adm. Taylor, all four agents are back."
Collecting himself quickly, the Administrator answered calmly, "Good, bring them in immediately!"
****************
Jace didn't like the thought that Niko had shot the man. It was obvious that the man knew nothing. It became too much when his wife saw his wound. Jace knew how that felt.
"Where do you think that the agent could have escaped to?" Niko asked. Niko, like Jace, was raised to be a terrorist, but he took it as if there was nothing else that he could do. Jace turned away, getting the strange feeling his earlier thoughts had been too loud. He didn't want to chase after the poor agent, but he didn't want to die either. He knew that a pool of blood on a cold stone floor would be his reward if he failed.
"She might have escaped by running to the marketplace."
"Ok, let's go search there."
****************
Rebecca smiled at the Chief Administrator as she walked into the debriefing room. “What’s up, Mr. Taylor? How’s it been, holding up the fort down here?”
The Adm. smiled back. “Great, now that you guys are back.” Then his smile faded. “What happened out there?”
“Oh, we had a few complications,” Rebecca answered. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.” Then she had a faraway look as she thought back to Laura. She wondered how she was holding up…wherever she was.
“Do you have any idea where Agent Pang is?” the chief asked.
“No, I was just about to ask you the same thing,” Rebecca said. Caitlin sighed and sat down.
The Adm. turned to her. “How’s that shoulder doing?”
Caitlin smiled softly. “Those HIA doctors did wonders with that new technology. I can hardly feel it, and it’s healing up nicely.”
“That’s good,” Adm. Taylor said, but the others could tell he had something else on his mind.
“What is it?” Xarissa finally asked.
“I know I really shouldn’t do this to you guys, but…” There was a long pause and the agents knew he has decided against finishing the sentence.
“What?” Sarah pressed him, tired of the suspense she’d been feeling all week.
The chief sighed. “I’ve locked position on Agent Pang…”
“What?” Rebecca almost yelled, unbelieving. “How did you--” She stopped as the Administrator waved the words away with a grim face and a short hand gesture.
“Each and every one of you has a chip in your shoulder,” he said slowly. “The CC decided it was mandatory for every agent to obtain this before their training. It’s a different, simpler technology that has such a different signature from everything else that all other trackers can’t pick it up. The chips are usually disabled, but for this we were forced to use Laura’s. We know that she is currently in Budva, Montenegro.”
“That’s crazy!” Rebecca shouted, rubbing the back of her neck. “You mean I have one of those, too?”
Caitlin gave her a warning look. Rebecca glanced at it only for a split second, then glared back at the Administrator. But she knew Caitlin was right. She needed to quiet down.
“We never knew how much it would help us until now,” Adm. Taylor continued. “I’m sorry you were misinformed. These chips are extremely hard to remove. I’m sorry, but if you disagree, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Rebecca knew she shouldn’t be mad. This could save her life someday. But she couldn’t help being angry. He’d put a tracker in her body without even telling her! She didn’t look into the Administrator’s eyes as she said, “When you told us we all had Heritage blood in us, I didn’t think you’d meant it this way. It’s not in my blood, it’s in my shoulder.”
“Rebecca--” the chief started.
“Why didn’t you tell me from the beginning?” Rebecca asked tensely. “Now I’m less apt to trust you.”
Adm. Taylor tried to reason with her. “We can’t let information like that get out into the world. Imagine if anyone ever found out we used that kind of technology. They could use the same signature and find anyone they wanted in the HIA.”
“You know I would have never told anyone that. You should have been able to trust me,” Rebecca said steely.
“Rebecca, we couldn’t take the chance--”
“No! Don’t you even try that on me!” Rebecca screamed. She remembered Caitlin’s silent command and continued in a rigid whisper, “I’m not some pawn. I’m not some card in your little game.”
“This is not a game. In life, you can hardly trust anyone, even your own. You never know when something could slip.” As soon as he’d said it, the Adm. knew he shouldn’t have.
Rebecca glared at him. “You’ve gotten so involved in your little game, you’ve become one of the cards. Be careful, because some day…you’ll find yourself in check mate,” she hissed.
The chief sighed.
Rebecca looked around the room at everyone else. It was fine if they were okay with being his pawns. It didn’t matter to her. Nobody understood how serious she was about this, but they were about to find out. “Fine. I’ll play this little game of yours. I’ll be the Joker; the one card that is always left out of the deck because nobody has any use for it. I quit.” She ripped off all her electronics and stormed out of the room. She could hear Caitlin calling out her name, but she kept walking. Tears streamed down her face as she left the Agency. The HIA wasn’t her only source. She had friends in other places. She would find the GCA, and then she would go where she’d planned to go all along:
To find Laura.
She was heading to Montenegro.