Ch6
Bella and Blakely walked into their room as Luke pushed Emmanuel into his room.
“Bella! Will you please tell me what the heck is going on?! Why you were on top of that man holding a gun to his head?!”
“Blakely! Stop!” Bella shouted as she slammed the door.
“No! I won’t stop! Tell me what’s going on!”
“I can’t!”
“Why not!? Why can’t you?! Are you-…Are you in trouble or something?”
“No! I’m not in trouble!”
“Then what’s going on!?”
“Blakely! UGH!” There’s a knock on the door. Bella went to the door and opened it to see Luke.
“He’s tied up, I gave him a shot to put him under consciousness. He’ll wake up in time for the party.”
“Will someone please tell me what the heck is going on!?!” Blakely screamed at the top of her lungs.
Luke looked at Bella. “Bella, she’s already seen too much to let anything go, just tell her.”
“It’s too dangerous! No telling what will happen to her!”
“TELL ME!!!”
Bella and Luke looked at Blakely who was infuriated. Bella sighed and sat her down on the bed.
“Blakely…I’m not a travel agent…Neither is Luke…We both work as secret agents for the CIA.”
Blakely stared at her for a while before she went into a fit of laughter. “Oh gosh! How stupid and gullible do you think I am!? A secret agent?! Come on!”
Bella sighed. “Blakely, I’m not joking. This is serious, this is the reason why I didn’t want you coming on this trip with me because it’s dangerous.”
“You’re really a secret agent? Like a spy?”
“Yes.”
“So…you’ve killed people before?” Blakely couldn’t stand the thought of her little sister being capable of killing someone, couldn’t even fathom it.
Bella hesitated to answer. “Y-…Yes. I have killed people before. But, I don’t go around killing people willy-nilly. If someone is shooting at me, I’m going to shoot back. If a bullet hits, it hits. I’m not a serial killer, I’m protecting people.”
“Then what about today? Were you going to kill him?”
“No. No, it was a bluff. If I was going to shoot him, he would’ve been dead before you walked in. And that’s the truth.”
Blakely looked at Luke who was leaning against the bed post. She looked back at Bella. “So this vacation…it’s a mission?”
“Yeah, we’re trying to get an artifact back.” Luke said. Bella gave him a sharp look. “What?”
“We don’t tell her anything about this case! It’s top secret!”
“What can I do to help?” She asked.
“You do as I say when I say it. You can’t tell anyone that you know about us, not even mom and dad or Braden. If you do…just don’t.”
“What’ll happen if I do?”
“Bad things. That’s why I didn’t want you to come. Now, tonight, Luke and I are going undercover. I need you to stay here. Okay?”
“Alright.”
Bella looked at Luke then back at Blakely and let out a sigh. “I’m going to get in the shower, then I’ll go talk to Alhabi.”
“Okay. Blakely…do you need anything?” Bella left for the bathroom.
“Just some space.”
“Okay, well I’m in the room across the hall if you need me.” He smiled softly at her then went to his room.
After Bella dried her hair and put it in a ponytail she walked into Luke’s room to see Emmanuel waking up.
“So Mr. Alhabi, want to tell me why you kidnapped David Kennedy?” She grabbed a chair and sat it in front of him. He just stared at her. “…Mr. Alhabi, we can do this the easy way or the hard way…I’m not above torture you know.” Luke walked in with a bag of tools and handed it to her. “Now, I don’t like being tortured, and I don’t like being the torturer, but I do like information.” She said as she pulled out a small pair of pliers, bluffing. “Now I’m gonna ask you again…Why did you kidnap Kennedy?”
Emmanuel swallowed hard and loudly. “Because…because he knows more about the clock than I do…I needed his help.”
Bella put the pliers back in the bag. “You couldn’t have just asked him?”
“I did! But he told me to get lost! Said that the discovery was his to be made! Not mine!”
“Well, did you get the information you wanted?”
Emmanuel sighed. “No, not yet. He won’t break…we’ve done everything we know to him. He won’t tell us anything.”
Bella leaned forward, narrowing her eyes. “Where is the sun clock?”
“It’s going to be presented tonight at the fundraiser.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a sub plot to this?”
Emmanuel looked down. “…We told Kennedy…if he didn’t give me the answers I needed by the time of the party…we would kill him.”
“Who’s we?”
“…Me and my father.”
“Tell me about this clock.”
“It’s not a normal clock… the clock…it…” He couldn’t find his words to explain the power of the clock. It was outrageous. “All I know is that the clock will determine when the world will end. I don’t know how, but that’s what we want Kennedy for.”
“Tell me where Kennedy is.” She said sternly, but Emmanuel was quiet.
Bella stood up and started walking around. She knew she needed to find the clock as well as Kennedy and bring them home. There were only a few hours before the party, and if she took the clock first, Kennedy would be dead. But if she went for Kennedy, she wouldn’t make it to the party in time to retrieve the clock. She looked at Luke and took him to the bathroom.
“What are you thinking?” He asked as he sat on the bathroom sink.
“If we go for the clock first, they’ll kill Kennedy. If we go for Kennedy, we lose our shot on the clock…”
“We could split up. I go for Kennedy, you get the clock. You’re better at fundraisers anyway.”
“They wouldn’t keep Kennedy too far away from the clock though. If he was going to break, they’d want the clock to be around…We just need to find out where Kennedy is being held…”
“I suggest we go early, see if anything suspicious pops.”
“Okay. Leave at 7?”
“7. I’ll see if I can get anything else out of him.”
“Alright, let me know when he cracks.”
“Will do.”