With a Pull of a Trigger

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The elevator doors opened, and Gil and Isaac stepped outside. Isaac walked down a black-tiled corridor, Gil walking slightly behind him.

“As time passed by, more and more agents turned their backs on us—on this organization—and we’ve learned to let them go.”

Gil knew otherwise. The Alliance did not just let their agents go. They killed them one by one, when they least expected it.

Isaac and Gil reached the furthest door in the corridor and Isaac opened the metallic door. Gil looked inside and found nothing, only a small bed that made his back hurt just by looking at it.

Isaac stepped inside, looking at all four walls of the small room. “What do you think, Gil?”

Gil stepped inside and looked at the small bed, the small toilet at the far corner, and a small metallic desk on the wall near the door with a matching steel chair. He turned around and looked at the small window with vertical bars. “What is this for?”

Isaac quietly stepped out. “You see, an agent has betrayed us, and we cannot merely let him go. He is important to this institution, and so, we’ve chosen to pick another means of…ah, reasserting his loyalty to this organization.”

Gil turned around. His heart thudded painfully in his chest as he saw Isaac’s hand on the doorhandle, running towards it only to hit the metallic door.

Gil felt his palms start to sweat and his head felt dizzy. He was caught, and they both knew it. “Let me go, Isaac! I haven’t done anything!”

Gil stood in front of the door and saw a small portion of the door with vertical bars. The sheet of metal outside the vertical bars disappeared to the left, and Gil found himself face to face with Isaac.

“You see, Gil,” said Isaac, his tone of voice conversational, “you’re one of the most intelligent and sensible agents we’ve had for a long while. You’re also one of the nosiest agents we’ve had, not to mention one of the stupidest if you’ve allowed yourself to be caught red-handed. Enjoy your stay, agent Baxendale.”

The metallic sheet slid into place again, and Gil found himself standing in the middle of a metal-walled room, all alone in the tense silence.

Washington D.C., United States of America

The airport was busy, humming with excitement only tourists had. Businessmen in suits walked in long strides, busy chatting away on their phones, their black briefcases clutched in one hand. The sun streamed in through the overhead glass panes, and Reini found herself standing in the middle of it all, in the middle of excited tourists and busy businessmen mixing together like oil and water.

It was, to be simple, overwhelming.

As a child, Reini had always loved airports. Her mom and dad were sometimes invited to conventions in other countries, and her mom had always brought her to them, not wanting to leave her precious child to some babysitter. Airports were, to an eight year-old Reini, gateways to other exotic places she hadn’t explored yet. It was the equivalent of a wardrobe to Narnia.

As years went by, though, Reini had started to look at airports in a more realistic manner. To an adult Reini, airports were no longer gateways to magical places. They had become nothing more than glorified bus stops.

Airports were unavoidable in her job; being sent to other countries for various missions on a weekly basis made Reini accustomed to the various security measures of various airports. On high-profile cases, they made her take one of the CIA jets, but on any other case, airports were a must.