Special Agent | ✓

Forty-One

Sarraf crossed her arms above her chest, felt annoyance bubble. It seemed, to her, that Kent had already been going around gathering this information, even before Kimmel had officially assigned her to the case.

Kimmel said to not let any bruised pride get in the way of this. You know how to do your job — just pretend she isn't here.

"The guys in tech gave you all this?"

However annoyed Sarraf was at Kent's involvement in her mission, she couldn't quash the surprise at hearing the people in Chief Vahid's department so willingly helped a Special Agent with a kill order on an employee in Intelligence. The hierarchy of the Agency usually stacked the agents against the analysts, and the Department of Technology belonged to the latter.

As such, Sarraf found it hard to believe Kent easily could've dug up the information on her own. Sure, she could've theorized it, but she sounded sure enough of her standing that she'd nearly monologued the entire thing.

"I have a guy," Kent replied, rather cryptically.

"You have a guy," Sarraf repeated drily.

"He owes me." Kent smiled, reached for a bottle of mineral water she'd stuffed into one of the pockets by her chair, " — so he occasionally does little tasks for me."

"Convenient."

Kent nodded at Sarraf's response, a slight smirk crossing her face before she sipped at her water. With that, Imani turned back to the airplane's window. It'd take roughly four hours before they touched down in Prague, and if all went well they'd be able to get into a car and scout the first locations within an hour of touching down.

Until then, there was little Sarraf could do, except endure Kent's company.

*

Chief Adina Tibble had already known that Quinn was hiding out in Prague. She was more than aware of her protégé's connections within Hypatia, and she'd heard all about Katya Ivanov during Quinn's time in her department.

Now, however, she wasn't the only one who knew that. At least, that was what Director Kimmel had told her when she'd been summoned to Irene's office around the same time that Sarraf's flight had left for Prague.

"Chief Tibble. Have a seat," Kimmel had said, gesturing to the armchairs in front of her desk. Today, Kimmel wore a grey pleated dress and a number of gem-adorned pieces of jewelry which added the touch of luxury everyone was accustomed to Kimmel having.

"I'm assuming you've called me here in regards to Analyst O'Reilly's case." Tibble replied, never one to skirt around the issue at hand. The two women both knew where the other stood, and denying that was both useless and foolish.

"You'd be correct. Sarraf received intel that Quinn is in Prague, and departed together with Kent on the Agency jet around half an hour ago."

"Special Agent Kent?" Tibble echoed. She felt a cold chill spread along her spine, an arctic realization which slowly dawned on her as she replayed Tibble's words in her head.

Kimmel nodded, "That was the other piece of news I wished to inform you about, as you opposed this during the meeting."

"I am still opposed to it." Adina leaned back in her chair, drummed her dark-blue nails along the armrest as she stared Kimmel down.

Showing the first sign of displeasure, Kimmel's lips flattened at Adina's curt response.

"You disagree with my course of action?"

"With all due respect, Director Kimmel, you did go back on your word during the meeting. Not picking Kent to go along on this mission ensured that little to no emotional motivation tainted its results."