by Mike Ryan
“Well that’s all I’ve got for you Alex. Just sit tight until the new agent arrives. In the meantime just continue checking your sources for a lead.”
“Yes ma’am.”
As soon as she disappeared from the screen Parker looked at Cole, hoping that meant they got Davis’ location. She raised her eyebrows in anticipation of the news. A few seconds later, Burnett reappeared on a different computer.
“I’m back on a safe computer,” Burnett reassured. “It looks like we’ve got him.”
Parker smiled and clenched both her hands into a fist, pumping them into the air. “So where is he?”
“In Brussels. The signal’s coming from The Hotel Metropole.”
“Great. If we can just check the guest list and whittle it down by seeing who just checked in we can get what room he’s in.”
“We’re already on it,” Burnett replied. “Unfortunately, there are several possibilities. We can’t narrow it down to just one. It looks like there are three options. Rooms 216, 322, or 308. The rest will be up to you.”
“We’re on it,” Cole said, appearing on screen.
“No. Wait,” Parker objected. “As much as I’d love Cole with me, I think I have to go alone.”
“That’s crazy talk.”
“Why do you assume that?” Burnett asked.
“Cause we don’t know that Davis is actually there yet. I think Cole needs to stay here and keep an eye on the Iranians. What if Heath’s gone by the time we get there? Then we get back here and the Iranians are gone too. Then we’ve got nothing and we’re back at square one. We can’t take that chance.”
“Sounds logical.”
“Plus Heath still thinks Cole’s dead. If he’s not there, we might still be able to use that to our advantage at some point.”
Cole sighed, knowing he was about to be outvoted. He knew it made sense, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He preferred the action rather than the stakeout.
“I agree,” Burnett reaffirmed. “Alex, be careful.”
“I will.”
Parker turned to her partner and could tell he was disappointed.
“I’m sorry. It’s just…”
Cole immediately put his hand up and cut her off before she had a chance to finish apologizing. He didn’t need one.
“It’s fine,” he told her. “As much as I hate to admit it, you’re right. This is the way it has to be. You just be careful out there. Make sure you have your hands-free on just in case.”
Parker nodded and grabbed her weapons, also putting the communicator in her ear. She gave her partner a slight smile and touched his arm before leaving. Cole looked at the floor and sighed, worried about what she might be walking into. He went back to his computer so he could monitor the Iranians via the bug he placed and also any surveillance feeds he could hack into that was near the area of the Hotel Metropole.
It took Parker just under thirty minutes to get from Antwerp to Brussels by train. Once she got to the hotel she put a silencing device on the barrel of her gun. She let Cole know that she’d arrived and took the stairs up to the second floor, stopping in front of room 216. She put her ear up to the door to see if she could hear anything but all she could hear was the sound of the TV. Since she wasn’t able to figure out if it was Davis by listening, the only other option was to knock. After a couple knocks, and elderly man opened the door. Parker assumed that he wasn’t involved but tried to take a look inside anyway, just in case.
“Oh. I’m sorry. My boyfriend’s already got a room at the hotel and I thought he said he was staying in room 216. I must’ve gotten the room wrong,” Parker pleasantly told him. “Would you mind if I used the phone to call him to get the right room? I seemed to have misplaced my cell.”
“I guess that’d be all right,” the man replied, opening the door further for her to enter.
Parker quickly glanced around, not seeing anything unusual. She picked up the phone and pretended to dial before having a fake conversation with her boyfriend. After a minute she hung up.
“I’m so embarrassed,” she said. “He’s in room 316. I’m such an idiot.”
“Oh, don’t feel so bad. Mistakes happen. Your boyfriend’s a lucky guy to have a girl as pretty as you.”
“You’re so sweet. Thank you so much,” she replied as she walked out the door.
She immediately let Cole know that 216 was out and she was on her way up to the third floor. She went to 308 and listened at the door, not hearing a peep. Then she went over to 322 and heard a couple of voices. It sounded like two men talking about a business deal they had going on. Parker couldn’t hear all of the conversation but it sounded like it was about some electronic equipment. She didn’t recognize either of the voices. Her instincts told her it was a legit deal. She turned around and went back to 308. She whispered to Cole that she thought it might be the room. She wasn’t hearing a sound. She stood there for a minute, intently trying to hear any type of movement in the room. Finally, she thought she heard something. It almost sounded like someone typing away on a keyboard. She knelt down and started picking the lock. She looked around to make sure nobody was coming. As soon as she got it, she gently turned the handle of the door. Parker removed her gun from her pants and held it down at her side. She quickly pushed the door open and jumped inside the room, quickly scanning for any combatants. A man was sitting at the desk to her right, laptop in front of him. He immediately jumped up and reached for a gun that was sitting next to it. Parker fired, hitting the man in the chest. He fell over, knocking the chair down on his way to the floor, lying face down. Parker glanced around the room for anyone else but it appeared they were alone. She closed the door behind her and went over to the fallen man. She knelt down beside him and rolled him over onto his back.
“You work for Heath Davis?” she asked.
The man didn’t reply except for a snicker. He closed his eyes and stopped breathing. Parker got up and searched the room just to make sure there was no one else. She let Cole know the situation.
“Well, he’s not here,” Parker dejectedly told him.
“Relax. Focus. If he’s working with Davis he obviously didn’t know you were coming. That means the plan worked. There should be something there that can lead us to him.”
“There’s a laptop.”
“Good. What about his phone?” Cole asked.
Parker looked but didn’t see one. She then looked at her victim and reached inside the pocket of his pants, finding his phone. She scrolled through his messages and got to a couple that were interesting.
“There’s no names used but a couple of these look like they could’ve been from Heath,” Parker stated.
“What about?”
“Just about meetings and times,” she said, continuing to read. “Wait a minute, this is interesting.”
“What you got?”
“If this is Heath he’s talking to, he’s supposed to meet him in an hour.”
“Are you sure?” Cole asked.
“Yeah. It says for him to meet him at an address and sit with the package.”
Parker looked away from the phone for a few moments, a confused look on her face. She couldn’t understand what package they were referring to. It couldn’t have been the government documents. He wouldn’t need someone to sit with them. She gave Cole the address of the meeting so he could google the location. He typed it in, quickly getting the coordinates.
“It’s a house,” Cole said.
“A house?”
“Looks like it’s a rental.”
“I guess that’s where I’m headed next.”
Parker then called Burnett to give her the rundown. She also wanted instructions on what to do with the person she’d just killed. Burnett told her there wasn’t time to get a team there to clean the room. Parker was instructed to grab the man’s laptop and phone and mess the room up to make it look like a robbery. She did as she was told and left the hotel. It was only about twenty minutes to get to the rental house. On
the way, Parker let herself dream about what she’d find. Davis would be there and they’d have a final confrontation with her putting a bullet into his head.
Parker sized up the house once she arrived. It looked like a three story house that had a garden terrace in front. There were steps to the front door on the side. Parker watched the house for a few minutes, not seeing signs of any activity. After an hour of no movement, she was starting to get a little antsy.
“I’m gonna go in,” she stated.
“Don’t do that. You don’t know what you could be walking into,” Cole replied.
“I can’t just sit here forever. That guy should’ve showed up ten minutes ago. For all we know, they assume something happened and abandoned whatever they were doing. I need to see what’s inside that house.”
Cole sighed, not liking the situation. He had a bad feeling about it. “Fine. Just be careful.”
Just as Parker was about to move, Cole interrupted her, stopping her dead in her tracks.
“Hey. One more thing,” Cole said.
“What?”
“If Davis is there, you end this. You got it?” he asked, making sure her head was in the right frame of mind.
“Yeah. I got it.”
“Don’t hesitate.”
“I won’t,” she reassured.
Parker used a few cars as cover to conceal her movements. After a couple minutes she found herself against the side of the house.
“How you gettin’ in?” Cole wondered.
“Easiest way possible. Right through the front door,” Parker responded.
“Now that definitely doesn’t sound like a good plan.”
Being the master that she was at picking locks, she had the door open in no time. She quietly slipped inside, quickly looking for a bad guy to shoot. Parker was a little surprised that nobody was there to greet her. She heard what sounded like the TV coming from the next room. She peeked in and saw two men sitting on the couch watching TV. She went further inside, the men oblivious to her movements until she stood right next to them beside the couch. Once they saw her they reached for the guns they had on them. Before they were able to pull them out, Parker put a bullet into each of them. With as close as they were to her, they each died instantly. She then scanned the room for anything that’d look like a package. She came up empty. She left the room and found the stairs, quickly and quietly ascending them. The first room she came across she saw a person sitting in a chair, tied up with a dark hood over their face. She walked in and was met with a right cross from someone, stunning her and making her stumble into the wall. Her attacker fired a shot at her just as she moved, the blast putting a hold in the wall. She fired her gun three times, hitting the man in the stomach. He started bleeding profusely and he dropped to his knees holding his midsection. Parker then heard the footsteps of another person coming.
“What the hell are you doing?” the man asked before he got to the room, annoyed at the commotion.
He looked at the fallen man, blood pouring out of his body. He looked to his right, horrified at seeing Parker there.
“Heath,” Parker said.
Davis quickly retreated from the room, drawing gunfire from Parker’s direction. Davis flew down the stairs, Parker hot on his trail. Davis returned some gunfire of his own as she followed him down the steps, slowing her up a little. She rushed down the steps and followed him through the hall and out the front door. She ran down the front steps and onto the grass where she seemed to have lost him. She heard an engine turn on from the garage. She ran over to it just as Davis drove past her. She slammed her gun down against her leg in frustration. He was right in front of her and she let him slip away.
“He was here,” Parker sighed. “I almost had him.”
“He got away?” Cole asked.
“Yeah. I seemed to have taken out the rest of his team though. At least three of them anyway.”
“You hurt at all?”
“Nothing a bag of ice won’t cure,” she replied. “I think I found out what the package is though.”
“Did you open it?”
“It’s not a box or an envelope. It’s a person.”
“Who?”
“I dunno. I’ll go back in and check.”
Parker re-entered the house and went up the steps, back into the room where the hostage was. She started talking to him to ease his fears and let him know he was safe now.
“I’m not with the people who took you,” she calmly stated. “I’m one of the good guys. You’re gonna be OK now. I’ll take your hood off then untie you.”
She told him what she was doing step by step so he wouldn’t be alarmed or frightened. Parker put her hand on top of the man’s hood and slowly pulled it off. After she pulled it off she held it over top of his head, frozen in her movements. Her mouth fell slightly open and she was unable to move as the man struggled to see in the light, batting his eyes to adjust.
“Ryan?” she asked, stunned and breathing heavily.
Turner’s vision started returning and saw Parker’s beautiful face staring right at him. He smiled at her, happy to see her, though it most likely would’ve been his reaction to anybody considering he was quite sure he was going to die there. Parker got her wits together and put her hands on his face, still not believing it was actually him. She ran her fingers over his lips as he kissed them. She put a hand on each side of his face and passionately kissed him.
“You know, this is actually one of my fantasies,” he joked. “Though in my fantasy you’re actually the one that’s tied up in the chair and I’m…do you think you could untie me now?”
Parker laughed. “I’m sorry. I’m just…so…happy,” she said, kissing him again. “I don’t understand. I mean…what…you were in…,” she said, so many emotions running through her that she couldn’t emit a coherent sentence.
Once Turner was free he stood up and the two of them embraced, kissing for the next couple of minutes. Parker finally was able to catch her breath and asked him what had happened.
“I thought you were dead,” she explained. “I saw you blow up in a car.”
“I don’t know who the poor guy was but he put someone else in that car to make it seem like it was me. He gave him my watch, my pants….he even took my shoes. These ones are a little tight,” Turner replied, looking down at his feet.
“What’s happening Parker?” Cole asked her to no reply.
“I’m so glad you’re OK. I was so devastated. Without you in my life I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do,” Parker told him.
“Parker?” Cole repeated.
“I know about Cole and the choices Heath made you make,” Turner somberly stated.
“Cole’s fine. He’s with me.”
“What? He’s OK?”
“Yeah. He escaped just before the bomb exploded,” Parker said.
“Wow. Cause Heath thinks he’s dead.”
Parker nodded. “I know. We’re trying to use that to our advantage.”
“Parker?” Cole asked again, annoyed she wasn’t answering.
“I know where Heath’s heading. He’s got some deal lined up at some docks. I think with Iran or Iraq. Somewhere Middle Eastern.”
“I know. It’s tomorrow night at The Port of Antwerp. We already got the intel.”
“Oh. So why uhh…why bust in here then?”
“Cause it’s the largest port in the world. We have no idea where he’ll be.”
“Oh. Well I do. Dock number six,” Turner nonchalantly stated.
“What? How do you know that?”
“Well my hood was on and my head was down, I think they thought I was still out cause they drugged me something awful! Anyway, I heard the one guy say something about dock number six. So I’m pretty sure that’s where they’re going.”
Parker smiled. “You’re amazing,” she told him, planting another kiss on his lips.
“All in a day’s work for a CIA agent.”
“Parrrrker?” Cole asked again.
S
he finally heard her name being called and snapped out of it.
“Cole. Sorry,” she said.
“That’s OK. I usually don’t have a problem with feeling like I’m being ignored and invisible,” he remarked.
“Sorry. I was…busy.”
“Yeah, yeah. So’d you find out who the package is?”
“Uhhh…yeah. Yeah, I did.”
“Well do you mind sharing that information with me?” Cole sarcastically asked.
“Well…umm…it’s…”
“Is there something wrong with you?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
“You sound kinda cheerful considering Davis just slipped away from us again,” he noted.
“It’s Ryan,” Parker blurted out.
“What?”
“The package. It’s Ryan.”
“Ryan who?”
“Uhh…Ryan. My Ryan,” she said.
“Your Ryan? Your Ryan as in Turner?” Cole asked, not believing what he was hearing.
“Yeah. He’s alive!”
“How’s that possible?”
“It wasn’t him in the car,” Parker replied.
“I kind of figured that out by now.”
“I’ll let him explain it all to you when we get back.”
Parker led Turner out of the house and they made their way back to the hotel. Parker called Burnett to tell her the latest developments and tell her Turner was alive. They took the train back to the hotel, arriving forty five minutes later. Cole had news for them by the time they got there. Judging by the look on his face, Parker gathered that it wasn’t good.
“What’s up?” Parker asked.
