Parker Magdalen
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Scott pulled out a notepad from his retrieved suitcase and began tearing off pages. I looked up to face the other agents, all FBI.
"I've talked with Maxine and Jana, and we have a partially solid plan for surviving whatever the hell this place is."
"I don't think that was on the list of problems."
"Correction- a partial plan for the citizens surviving whatever the hell this place is. They don't have our training or situation clarity, so we've got to help them along. It's obvious our groups will clash a bit, so now we are all operating within our groups but all for the same cause. First things first, we've been tasked with getting alibis from all the passenger. Cross-check with other passengers since we don't have any security cameras as witnesses, for once."
"And you're making sure we're getting a say in this? We are the only group that isn't full of covert operatives and foreign intelligence officers. It does give us more jurisdiction, depending on whose territory we're in, at least." The thing they don't tell you in the common spy flick is that CIA doesn't have the standard 'law enforcer' status, and both CIA and MI6, SIS, or whatever you want to call it can't actually do much legal spying since espionage is illegal. In the end, we have the most jurisdiction out of the three groups since an FBI shield is trusted and corroborated much easier than a little card saying 'insert agency name', and a picture with the eyes blurred out.
"Yeah, definitely. So, here's the passenger manifest that was supplied, each of you check off two names, and I'll take one. Be aware that these four," I said, tapping the four names that Carrie had underlined, "-are the aliases that were used by the people from Langley." Scott chuckled.
"This is going to be one hell of a story when we get back to the field office."
"No kidding." Muttered Mia. Denny elbowed her. The two of them were pretty new, only recently having left their spots at the counterintelligence branch to join criminal investigations. From what I knew, they'd attended Quantico together only two years before, and had spent all the time in between working as handlers rather than field agents. It wasn't uncommon for people to change branches, but the transition between being in control of what's behind the scenes to being the one acting on them was always a bit bumpy.
"Don't worry about it, Gonzales. The control tower would have pinged the planes GPS when the system started to fail. We should be expecting a ride home in the next day or two." I said, glancing up at the sky. A search and rescue helicopter wouldn't be much help if they didn't know we were here rather than at the bottom of the ocean.
"Right.
There had been two children on the flight- a thirteen year old girl and an eight year old boy.
Surprisingly, I hadn't noticed them at first. I suppose I had been too busy strategizing in my mind to take note of the two smaller bodies on the plane. But, when the two kids appeared at the fire, a woman holding the boy and the girl on her own off to the side, I caught sight of them immediately. The air had grown progressively colder as the hours past, and it now could have been forty degrees or less. The girl wasn't wearing a jacket, and her shoulders shook as she put her hands in front of the fire.
It was chilling how easily she blended in with the rest of the passengers, all with scared looks in their eyes but trying to put up strong fronts for the others. I quickly looked around, first spotting Mia. I stood up, and briskly walked towards her.
"Hey, Mia, do you have an extra jacket?"
"Sorry boss, but I don't think you're my size." She laughed.
"Pfft, no. I mean for that girl."
"God, poor thing. But no, I'm lucky I wore this sweater, I barely packed any extra, sorry."
"It's okay." I said quickly before standing up and looking for any other people who might have extra jackets. I had gone to Mia because she was small, and the girl would probably prefer a jacket somewhere near her size. The only other person who I could think of was Jana.
I made my way towards Jana, who was sitting criss-cross on the ground with her... friends? She looked up at me, her eyebrows raised as if to say 'what?'
"Jana, do you think you could spare a jacket?" I watched her eyes flicker around for a second, cold and calculating, before she answered.
"For the girl? Yeah, sure. Hold on," She got up in that quick, practiced way that you'd sometimes see with dancers, leaving me in the company of Carrie, Michael, and Chestine. Chestine looked up at me with a smirk.
"So, how you enjoying your stay at the island?" He said, drawing out the 'so'.
"Pretty good, pretty good. Though you know, I'm not a big fan of the bunking situation." I joked.
"Yeah, bit of a bummer. God, who says bummer anymore? Okay, I'm going to switch the topic. What branch do you work at the bureau?" He replied.
"Criminal Investigations."
"What's your case?"
"Pardon?"
"What's your current case. I can tell you guys weren't just heading back to Quantico for some rest and relaxation."
"I don't think I'm aloud to say that, sorry."
"Oh, come on, my clearance probably allows it. I'll probably know about it anyways, so you could just list me as a-" he started to ramble, but Jana interrupted him with a slap to the head.
"Chestine, you're doing that pushy thing again." She chided.
"You guys are like children." Muttered Michael.
"Extremely dangerous children, mind you. Vær stille." She responded, the last words in a foreign language. Maybe Swedish. "Come on," she said, starting towards the girl. As she walked, she rifled through the pockets, pulling out a mixed bottle of pills from one and a Swiss army knife from another. I watched as she shoved them into a pocket on the jacket she was wearing.
The girl looked up as we neared her. Despite the shivering, she looked at us with surprising confidence.
"Hey, could I interest you in a jacket?" Jana asked. The girl smiled.
"Yes, thanks." The girl had an accent, interestingly.
"So, how'd you end up here?" The girl hesitated for a moment as she shrugged on the jacket.
"I was going to meet friends. This was my first time flying alone."
"Cool, where are you from?"
"That obvious?"
"A bit, sorry."
"Bordeaux, France. Where, where are you from?"
"That's a secret."
"So, you are one of the... agents?"
"Agent secret, oui."
"Tu parle français?"
"Un peu." How funny. I knew that Mia had French fluency listed as a skill- the conversation would probably have been similar if it had been Mia with the jacket.
Jana smiled, genuinly, and so did the girl.
"Want to come meet meet my friends? They speak French... among others." She offered. The girl smiled and nodded. The girl stood up and they turned away. Jana quickly tossed a look to me.
"Catch you later, Magdalen."