Take Me Back to Eden Ch. 02

Tiriana's hands returned to her temples as continued to try and relieve some of the mounting pressure there. Her brain felt like it was being jumped on by a hundred baby dragons as she continued to worry about a seemingly endless number of problems. There was so much to do and not enough time to do it. If she was honest with herself, she shouldn't have even come to the stash site to begin with. There were so many other things that she could have been doing, should have been doing, that were arguably as important as this one operation. But she couldn't shake the gut feeling that she needed to be here.

Suddenly there was a loud knock on the door and before she could even stand and give the challenge call, the door practically burst in as a large man in a blue suit and an earpiece walked in. Behind him came Sarah, dressed in her typical black pencil skirt, white top with frilly sleeves and tortoiseshell sunglasses, her long, blond hair flowing down her back.

Stopping in the center of the living room, she removed the glasses and set her hands on her hips, looking towards the kitchen and asked, "Well, where are we at on this thing? It's been two weeks and nobody has received any kind of update."

Tiriana stood, straightening out her dress as she crossed her arms and replied, "Agent Kodai is with him right now. We've turned up the heat as much as we can on him so, if I'm being honest, this is our last throw of the dice, to use a human phrase."

Sarah took a deep breath and sat down on one of the empty couches as her security detail closed the door and took up casual positions around the room. "So you're telling me that after all this, we don't have any actionable information?"

"No, that is not what I am saying," the elf replied a bit heatedly, "until the interrogation is done and until we go through the contents of the encrypted data, we still have the chance to make something of this lead."

Sarah raised her eyebrows and sighed, her mouth transforming into a thine line and said, "Well, unfortunately for both of us, we no longer have that chance. I'm here to officially inform you on behalf of the DOJ that this part of the investigation is over," she said with an apologetic look. "Obviously it's not my call. The director wants to see results and, in his mind, two weeks should have been more than enough."

"So your government is jus-" she stopped as the Kodai's yelling reached them from the basement. "Your government is just going to let it end here, even after all the time we spent getting this lead, they're just going to let it go?"

The young woman shrugged her shoulders. "There's nothing I can do. Believe me, I tried to fight to give you more time, but at the end of the day it's out of my hands."

Tiriana gritted her teeth and let her head fall back, her hands clenched into fists as she looked at the ceiling, struggling not to vent her frustrations. Though elves lived long lives, she was still a young adult by her peoples standards, just over one hundred years old, and had not yet gained her races fabled mastery over her emotions.

The elf took a deep breath and was about to convey her extreme displeasure when her phone rang again. She reached down, saw that it was Dawson, and growled underneath her breath as she answered.

"Dawson, now it really not a goo-"

"BOSS WE HAVE THE WRONG PERSON!"

Her blood ran cold and her face blanched. She swallowed, her throat tight, her hands began to shake. "Dawson, what are you talking about?" Sarah noticed her change in body language and rose quickly, walking into the kitchen, motioning Tiriana to put the call on speaker.

The analyst spoke quickly, panic in his voice "We cracked the encryption and opened up the secure files. The messages are real, but the sms data has been altered. The texts didn't come from Michaels phone, the geotag data has them coming from somewhere in Los Angeles, likely a burner phone since we can't locate the actual sim card. The data was digitally altered on mass to look like it came from his phone"

Tiriana and Sarah both looked at each other, their faces a picture of shock and disbelief, but Sarah was the first to shake her head in confusion. "But who could have altered the data and why would the-"

Dawson spoke up again, dejection in his voice, "The agent who uploaded the data has missed his last four check-in windows. Per SOP someone was sent to his residence, it's been cleared out, and so has his bank account, which we checked. It had a two-million-dollar deposit one week ago."

"Which means..." Sarah started

"Someone paid off one of our agents," Tiriana finished, her voice quiet and subdued.

The analyst sighed audibly over the phone, "Initial prediction is that the agent was getting too close to an actual high value target and rather than kill him, they paid him to frame someone else. It just happened to be Michael, they needed a target that looked suspiciously clean and chose him knowing we would go after him. We've also found a breach in a storage servers. We don't yet know for sure but our assumption is that the agent did a smash and grab of whatever secure files he could get his hands on."

Tiriana's hand went to her mouth as she tried to take a deep breath, the revelation shocking her to her core.

Then suddenly the shouting from downstairs became much louder, Kodai's yelling cutting through her revere as she realization hit her.

There was an innocent man downstairs and he was about to die.

She jolted forwards and screamed "PHRIX WITH ME NOW!" as she all but threw herself down the stairs, Sarah following right on her heels. She fumbled with the door knob before just managing to get a grip on it and threw it open, rushing into the room.

Kodai and two of his other team members, she couldn't tell which, were crouched over the unmoving body of the human, holding him in place as Kodai yelled his questions. She ran towards him shouting "Stop, stop, stop, stop. Check!" The canid whirled in the direction of the commotion, and immediately stopped what he was doing upon hearing the hard stop command.

"What in the name of the ancients is-" he asked questioningly as he rose from his position.

"Phrix, check on him!" she directed before turning to answer the canid. "We...we got..." she breathed heavily, trying to calm down, hands clawing through the top of her head.

"Not breathing!" Phrix called out as she grabbed Michaels wrist. "No pulse, starting compressions," she said and placed her hands together and began pushing on the human's chest, keeping count out loud. "Someone grab my medical bag now!"

Kodai dropped the jug of water and placed his hands on the elf's arms, leading them both out of the way as the rest of his team exploded into motion. "Chief, talk to me. What happened up there?"

"The analysts," she groaned, "they cracked the encryption. It was a setup. One of our own. We have the wrong guy."

She couldn't physically see it through his fur, but the look on his face told her that he was having the same reaction that she'd had. A couple of the other team members slid to a halt, pulling off their hoods to reveal their shocked faces.

"One, two, three, four-...bag now!" Phrix shouted again. It slid up against her leg as someone tossed it to her. The lights had been thrown on as they had come down the stairs, bathing the entire basement is piercing white light.

A few seconds later they all heard the sound of retching, frantic breathing, and a lot of coughing as the lizard shouted, "He's alive!" and began the process of administering first aid. "Hey, hey, that's it. Look at me dear. Can you look at this little light for me?" For several seconds they all stood frozen, watching Michael, now unbound, struggle to focus on the light, before nodding his head.

"Okay that good. Why don't you go ahead and lay down for me alright, we're going to get you some help," Phrix said as she slowly guided him to lay back flat on the ground. "We need to casevac him quickly or he's gonna be in trouble!" Sarah walked over and crouched down beside him, placing her hand on the side of his face and watched as he promptly passed out.

"Shit, he's going into shock, we need to get him out of here now!" the lizard shouted again, looking towards Tiriana and Kodai. The elf nodded, getting a hold of herself as she ran up the stairs to grab her phone. She came back down quickly, giving their location as well as the order for the casualty evacuation to the TPA emergency response team.

As they waited for help to arrive Phrix, with the assistance of one of the other team members, worked to stabilize Michael. They did what they could to dry him off before taking an emergency blanket and covering him with it. Phrix gathered his legs and placed them on her shoulders to keep them elevated. She knew that he had an exhaustive list of painful injuries that she was risking making worse, but it was the call she felt she needed to make.

After twenty unbearable, agonizing minutes, they all felt and heard the rhythmic pulse of the helicopter rotary flying over the house. Working as a team, using a bedsheet, they managed to carry Michael up the stairs and get him into the rescue stretcher. Phrix was also quickly hoisted up so that she could accompany the medical team to hospital.

Once the chopper had departed, Tiriana, Sarah, and the remainder of the team went back into the house and sat in shocked silence in the living room. Several long moments passed before anyone moved or said anything. Kodai, seeing that someone needed to take charge, set the rest of his team members to the task of cleaning up the stash house. As they did, Tiriana slowly explained in more detail what Dawson and the other analysts had uncovered.

The reactions from the team were equal parts disbelief, horror, disgust, betrayal and more than a little fear. As they slowly cleaned up their gear and restored the house to it's previous state, they all looked on at Sarah, the only person who had not yet spoken.

"What happens now," Tiriana asked.

Sarah sighed and slouched back into the couch. "Now I call my boss. And we see what he says.

For a moment, silence ruled again.

"Well. Shit."