Those Hollow Lies

The Last Night

08/03/09 – Afternoon.

After I had gotten over the shock of what Roz had done in Bethany’s presence, we had returned to The Underground Quarter to prepare ourselves for the next attack and to make plans for how to save Joe. The information given to us during the short time at Anfield had proven invaluable, but now we needed to make sure that everything was in place before we made our next move. I didn’t want to see Roz get herself killed again and she wanted to make sure that our all-out assault proved beneficial to the mission and didn’t get swept under the rug or lead to more unnecessary casualties. It was going to be a big mission and hopefully a final surge of power and then all that would be left would be the tying up of loose ends; something Roz assured me she had pretty much taken care of. There was a dark glint in her eye whenever I mentioned it and I wondered what wicked tricks she planned on playing to restore the order to a government without. I knew better than to ask for the specific details and I understood that it would probably be one of those things Roz took care of on her own.

I was in the training room just fitting in a general workout when Roz came in wearing a serious expression and her usual black attire.

“I think we have a problem.” Her voice was quiet enough so as not to catch the attention of the other agents and she pressed the stop button on the treadmill.

Only once I had slowed down and come to a stop did she gesture over her shoulder in the direction of her bedroom. Whatever this problem was, it was clearly something that she didn’t want anyone else to hear about. I snatched up my towel from the bench and followed her straight to the dark bedroom, closing and locking the door behind me.

“What’s the matter?” I raised my water bottle to my mouth and gulped down some much needed mouthfuls of the icy water.

“I think we’ve sprung a leak.”

“You mean a mole? Is there anyone that stupid working here?” Wiping the beads of sweat from my neck I watched as she chewed her lip in thought.

“I think it’s one of the agents I sent to work with the presidential team. One of the reports I received this morning had a hidden code in the message. Connors was trying to tell me that there was a breach in our security, but he doesn’t know who it is or what they might have told.” Roz looked more concerned than angry, and I could see the concentration in her eyes as she tried to work out the best course of action for everyone to take.

“How much does that team know?”

“Luckily, not too much. I deliberately kept them out of the loop on most of the information just in case their position was compromised. I know our agents are trained to withstand torture without revealing anything, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“And you don’t trust them.” I didn’t need her to respond to it. It was already painfully obvious that Roz barely trusted anyone who we worked with even if she had hand selected them herself. It was in her nature, and I knew that if she could she would take everything on herself rather than delegate the tasks to other agents in the compound. “So what are we going to do?”

“We are going to do nothing. I, however, am going to travel to DC and see if I can figure this out and take him out before anything too important is handed over to Bethany.” Roz ran her hand through her dark hair, nodding as she formulated a plan she was happy with.

“Wait, you’re not going on your own.” I’d be damned if I was going to leave her to storm into a building and into an army of armed guards.

“I have no choice-“

“You have me!”

“I need you to stay here and run the operation from The Quarter. Joe is due to be released from the hospital in the next few days and I cannot afford to let that go wrong. You’re the only one I trust to keep an eye on him and everything that is happening here while I’m gone.” It was a lot of responsibility that she was handing over and, on a more personal level, a lot more of how she really felt.