Agent (CENTURIES series: Book #3)

15

I had never been in such a rush to get home. Of course traffic was against me so I had to run most of the way. It took me about twenty minutes before I walked through the door of my apartment, sweat dripping off my body.

"You've been keeping secrets from me!" I shouted at Bob who swam around in his little bowl, not going inside his sea castle. "You're on his side? Is this because of the football thing? I thought you were my friend, Bob."

Angrily, I slipped my hand into his bowl and pulled up his castle. Now on closer inspection, I could see something in there. Something plastic. A sandwich bag?

I pulled it out. It was wet, but only on the outside, because on the inside...

"Fuck," I breathed and opened the bag, letting the little black USB dump into the palm of my hand. It had been here all along.

'I left it with someone whom I am certain will keep it safe and sound.'

"Sonofafish!" I turned to Bob and glared at him. "You're in a lot of trouble, young man."

Bob swam down to his rocks, poked his nose against them, probably wondering where his sea castle went.

"You're grounded," I told him, sitting down on my couch next to him, studying the USB. "So very grounded..."

So what now? I had the USB. I should bring it back into the CIA, but... Zac's warning rang in my head.

'There could be a mole inside the CIA.'

Damn it. What was I supposed to do? I'd never thought beyond retrieving the USB, because well... I had trusted the CIA up until now to handle that end of the case, but if there was a mole there, a spy, like Zac said...

Of course the mole could be Zac. The cleverest way of taking the scent off yourself was by rubbing it on someone else. Zac was smart enough to pull that off, but he was also my friend. And I trusted him. More than I trusted Bob right now.

But all that could wait for now. I had one other big question in my head; Why did Vince finally give it to me? If he gave it up to me barely a week after telling me how that would never happen, could that mean...

"No," I said to myself, clutching the USB. "He is not dead. He's not. He's too stubborn to die."

That was a quality we shared. If he had unfinished business, he wouldn't die. And this USB... this was his business and it was very unfinished.

And so are you, that voice in my head said. He left it with you and not someone else. He trusts you.

"Damn it," I whispered and looked at the USB. Something had to be way off if he trusted me right now. Maybe he got ambushed. Or maybe he knew he would, that's why he had left it here with me and then told me via that surveillance camera. It was perfect, really; Nobody would think that 'BOB' would stand for the pet name of a CIA agent's goldfish.

And that right there was why I trusted Bob.

"Okay, you've been grounded for long enough now," I said, carefully slipping his little sea castle back where it belonged. "I'm not saying you're forgiven for helping him, I just understand that you had no other choice. He was in danger and he needed to hide it somewhere safe. And as safety goes, you're a little golden Pentagon with gills."

Bob happily swam into his sea castle for first time in weeks, then swam out on the other side, only to repeat the whole thing.