Miscalculations [Closed] - Printable Version
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RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - megs - 09-28-2016
Julianna ears pricked to attention as he put that bit of distance between them. Her tail swayed languidly behind her head; she leaned her cheek into his hand briefly as he pushed at the trail of tears spilling across her face. She sniffed, red rimmed eyes rolling upwards to look at him. Her bottom lip remained solidly between her teeth and she chewed at it nervously, even as he attempted a smile. “Are they going to give her back?” Jules asked, quietly. She wrapped her arms around her chest when he pulled away to check the phone. The staccato buzzing of the burner caused her hears to fall back to her head. Eyes that welled with tears dropped back to the floor, hiding them from her husband. She didn’t blame him for Anita’s abduction. They were both at fault. Both of them resided in positions of power, and they should have been hyper-vigilant of their children's safety.
Uncrossing her arms again, she pulled her sleeves over her hands and pressed them to her face. “What about Cain?” she said from behind her hands. “Did they say anything about taking Cain?” Julianna had called her middle child while she had waited in the kitchen, but the fact that he had not answered said nothing for his whereabouts. He had a terrible track record when it came to keeping in touch. She would talk to him about that when he was home.
If he came home. She tried not to think like that.
>And Anita?Katanya glanced down at the phone in her hand, before lifting her gaze back to the road. Pursing her lips she tried to decide how benevolent she was feeling. At a red light, she shifted around in her seat until she could see Anita in the terrible viewfinder of the burner camera. “Smile, Anita,” she said, smiling herself. A big grin spread across the child’s features and Katanya captured the snapshot.
Checking the image to make sure it was mostly Anita’s face, she screened the background for anything that might give away her location or intentions. Katanya sent the cheerful picture, with a message.
>Unharmed. For now.
Not soon after her Blackberry resounded in her back pocket. Tossing the burner into the passenger seat she traded it for the other phone. The Lieutenant General responding with the coordinates she had just sent, and the time she had given him early.
>Received. Team on standby.
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - saronym - 09-30-2016
Are they going to give her back? Owen left the question hanging in the air while he watched the reply messages come through including what he was looking for : a picture of Anita. He held the phone closer to his face studying the edges of the frame. It was no use just a dark looking seat of a car. Anita strapped in a smiling. No hints. No clues.
“Of course, love.” He lied with confidence. Owen didn’t know if they would or not. “Look.” He held the burner out screen facing Julianna. The screen focused just on the picture of Anita. He made no indication that he wanted her to take the phone, just look at the picture. He didn’t want her reading that last message. Unharmed. For now.
“Anita is just a tool to get what they want. They’ll keep her happy and I’ll give them want they want. It’s fairly standard procedure.” He put his free hand on the back of her neck and brought her to him so he could press a kiss to her forehead. “I know you’re scared, but you have to trust me.”
Pulling away from his wife again, Owen’s fingers moved rapidly over the keys of the burner.
> I expect another picture on the hour
“Cain? No.” He said as the text sent. Then he was on his Blackberry again. Owen sighed loudly, he would never get a moment off the phone, just like when he worked. He found Cain’s contact, it was saved as ‘Cain (son)’ as if he knew any other Cain’s.
> Where are you
“I don’t think they’d bother with him. Older kids are...more unwieldy. Harder to fool. More resourceful. If you will.” Owen’s tactical musings about the cons of abducting older children were said without any emotion. His mind was processing a million possibilities while he stared at the screen waiting for Cain to reply.
> downtown
Owen nodded when he got confirmation. “He’s fine.”
> your mother and I need you to come home now
> its an emergency
> check your rearview and call me if you think someone’s following you
This time Owen handed the phone over to Julianna so she could read the messages for herself. He checked his watch and then plopped back down into his office chair. Back on the laptop again, this time plugging in the coordinates he’d already memorized into the CAF mapping software. It was a topographical mapping program with layers and contour lines in black and white. Imagery that likely only someone trained in interpreting the program would be able to understand.
Owen knew the place. A construction project all but abandoned by the Covenant. A controversial one. They’d purchased the rights to the land in an entire canyon and side of the mountain. They shut the public out from their beloved hiking trails and begun building a new armory into the base of Cheyenne mountain. An unexpected amount of snowfall that winter had halted the project. It would remain unfinished at least until the ground thawed again. Why would they choose to meet there?
Glancing at his watch again, Owen's eyes rolled to the ceiling momentarily as he calculated travel time, “I have until twenty-two hundred. I’ll have to leave an hour earlier.” He was really more talking to himself than Julianna and his eyes were back scanning the location data on his screen.
Owen was beginning to wonder if it wasn't some disgruntled eco-terrorists who had Anita. Unwashed environmentalists who wanted to smoke pot and hike naked in the woods. That would be a comforting thought. Environmental idealists would be easy to deal with. Especially from a tactical standpoint. Untrained, undisciplined zealots he could handle. But the theory didn't quite fit the bill of using scramblers and GPS spoofers. It didn't fit with his instincts, either. He frowned as he leaned back in his chair, his fingers combing absently through his hair, his mind working again on who his adversaries might be.
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - megs - 09-30-2016
Her husband lied to her as easily as he ever had. Exactly what she wanted to hear coming out of his mouth unhindered by doubt. The act was just as easy, but getting Julianna to fall for it was harder. She had spent enough time listening to the sound of his voice, observing the way he talked to people. Sixteen years they had been together and she was no longer fooled, but her eyes dropped to the photo he held out for her all the same. New tears replaced the ones that he had wiped away. Her daughter, smiling and oblivious in the possession of some stranger who would do her harm if they didn’t get their way. Her tail was lifeless at her feet. She stepped into the space that had been between them, burying her face against his chest when his lips left her forehead. His touch and his words were meant to be comforting, and had Julianna been in a position to be comforted it would have worked. Instead, she had already settled into being panicked and upset. She sniffled, her response muffled against the fabric of his shirt. “What if they don’t give you back?”
Ears twitched as he juggled phones and she wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweater. The material was rough, bringing a mahogany redness to her already flushed skin. When Owen spoke of Cain and the logistics of older abductees he was mostly talking at her. Saying words for her benefit as his mind kept track of something else. Her breath hitched as he sent a text to Cain, and released in a relieved sigh as he handed the phone to her. Grateful for something to do with her shaking hands, even if it was something as aimless as rereading a few messages.
She couldn’t even bother to be miffed that Cain had not replied when she messaged him earlier.
Glancing down at the clock on the Blackberry before she set it back on his desk, she frowned. “That’s six hours from now,” she commented, words pushing past clenched teeth in a staccato pattern as she fought over sobs. Her dread was renewed. They’d have her daughter for another six hours. Julianna’s stricken expression revealed the wash of terrible thoughts and possibilities that awaited their child. She watched him push hands through his hair until her vision went slightly out of focus, muddled by tears and awful imagery.
The other phone buzzed where Owen had left it.
>You’re still not in a position to make demands.
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - saronym - 10-02-2016
Owen leaned back in his chair and locked his eyes on Julianna’s fixing her in a concentrated stare, “Julianna please.” His voice was firm indicating he was done indulging the flight of her worries. He’d done his best to comfort her and his patience was wearing thin. “You are going to make yourself sick if you keep on like this. You need to still your thoughts.” He injected a little bit of Lieutenant General pep talk for good measure.The burner was buzzing again, Owen sighed and opened the message. He couldn’t keep the anger from his face. He flipped the phone closed more forcefully than was necessary and set it down again. His mouth opened as if he had something else to say to his wife, but it snapped shut again and he snatched up the phone.
> You don’t seem to understand that provisos are part of these kinds of things
> one of us has to make demands
> and yet you don’t seem so interested in such
> only idle threats
> you can buy my continued cooperation by complying with a simple request for proof of my daughter’s good condition on the hour until we meet
His jaw worked back and forth grinding his teeth as his fingers flew over the keys sending the messages in rapid succession. He had become completely irked with this nebulous adversary. The messages were sent and Owen put the phone back down to gaze up at Julianna continually worrying at her face. He leaned forward and captured her hands pulling them away from her face, “Stop. You have to stop.”
He needed her to stop for her sake as much as his. He couldn’t stand to watch her cry anymore. He couldn’t think straight. “When did you last eat? You need to eat something. I should eat something.”
Redirect and distract.
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - megs - 10-02-2016
“I can't,” she argued, hands lifting defensively as she squeezed her eyes shut as to not look at his piercing grey ones. She hated that tone, hated when he spoke to her that way. She didn't have a work mode. Was unable to shut down and focus on fixing the problem like Owen could, and she wasn't one of his underlings that he could order around. Jules was only a torrent emotions all at once. She projected everything she was feeling, unable to contain herself regardless of the situation. Until she eventually reached a point where she couldn't calmed, or comforted. “I can't think about anything but our daughter. About how she's in danger. That we didn't protect her.” Julianna pulled her hands away from his. She didn't want to be policed, wasn't aware that her behavior was affecting him. Her ears swiveled towards the back of her head and she ran her hands over them as she smoothed back her hair. “I-I don't know,” she replied, with a touch of impatience, couldn't think about eating instead of the situation at hand. “Breakfast, probably.” She moved away from him, and around his desk, tail darting back and forth behind her knees.
Katanya popped her gum. Anita giggled at something her toys were doing. The silver phone buzzed repeatedly and noisily in the passenger seat. She parked the Jeep in a secluded spot, pushing her sunglasses into her hair. Picking up the phone she read the chain of messages and smirked. She could tell the Lieutenant General was losing his cool. >Demands were made.
>For you to be at a certain place at a certain time
>You're trading yourself for your daughter. It's best that you follow our instructions
>Or the pictures won't be so pretty in the future
The Major General had a work mode. This was the advanced version. If she thought about anything else but her orders, anything else but the mission her facade would fall apart and the entire operation would end in disaster.
Owen stopped being her friend as soon and the SVR had decided they wanted him dead. Making things dead was her job. This was just another job.
She slid out of the car, opening the back door and smiling at Anita, who had already unbuckled her seatbelt to hop out of the car. “What are we gonna do next auntie Kat?” Anita asked cheerfully.
Katanya smiled. “Something fun.”
Just another job.
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - saronym - 10-03-2016
Owen snatched at the phone again desperate to read the messages. The pain in Julianna’s voice cut through him. He made a growling sound in the back of his throat under his breath in frustration at the messages. Or at Julianna. Or both. He typed out ‘fine’ and considered sending it but his mind caught up with Julianna’s previous commentary about not protecting Anita. Something like rage stirred inside. Owen slammed the burner back on his desk, shoving himself out of the chair gruffly, “I know I didn’t protect her Julianna. What do you want me to do about it, now?” She hadn’t blamed him directly but he didn’t acknowledge that Julianna had any blame at all. “I’m trying to fix this. Can’t you just let me fix it?” He wasn’t quite yelling at her but his voice boomed in the office in a tone inappropriate for the situation. He could feel the muscles in his shoulders tensing and his blood pressure rising again pounding in his ears.
Realizing his temper was getting out of control and that Julianna was the wrong target for his outburst, Owen waved his hands in the air to dissipate the tension. “I can’t -” he pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “I can’t deal with this right now.”
'This' being Julianna’s reaction, her inability to be comforted by him despite his best efforts, the reminders of his failures.
Owen moved to leave his office but his leg buckled under him when he stepped aggressively leading with the bad leg out of habit. He steadied himself on the desk and reached for his cane leaning nearby. If Owen wasn’t already on a downward spiral due to Anita’s capture, his physical failing in front of his wife didn’t help things.
With cane supporting him, Owen left the office passing by Julianna without looking at her. “I need to eat something. It’s going to be a long night.” He said quietly as he passed, his eyes trained ahead. “Cain will be home soon.” He pointed out as if to say, collect yourself in front of our son.
Owen moved into the kitchen and banged around only half-heartedly looking for something to eat. He was doing it out of habit not because he was hungry but because the body needed food. He’d learned years ago how to force himself to eat when he was scared because food was energy. It was nourishment in preparation for work. Owen was most himself when he worked.
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - megs - 10-03-2016
Julianna visibly startled when the phone met the desk; a jerk of her shoulders, a twitch of her ears. She flinched as his voice filled the space around them, her tail curling tightly against the line of her spine; her eyes fell away from him, and her ears pinned back. He wasn’t angry with her, just angry and she had been the victim of his outpourings of frustration in the past. Crossing her arms she seemed to be doing her best to make herself smaller, unobtrusive. Owen’s waving hands only dissolved the situation in his mind. Jules didn’t say anything, it had been his decision to shoulder the blame. They were both at fault. This could have been caused by one of her enemies just as easily as it were one of his. Ears popped to attention, eyes widened and she almost crossed the room to assist him when his leg gave out. She stopped short, just her heels clicking on the tile. In this mood, it would only further annoy him if she attempted to help, he’d righted himself regardless, already moving past her and out of the room.
Alone in her husband’s office, she took some time to compose herself. She swiped at any remaining tear tracks with the back of her hand, and willed the rest of them to stop falling with a few deep breaths. She clawed fingers through her hair, setting it back to rights, before neatly rolling the sleeves of her sweater to her elbows, adjusting the rest of the fabric to fall appropriately.
Clearing her throat, she followed the sounds of her husband causing a commotion in the kitchen. Stepping up behind him, she smoothed a hand across his shoulder blades before letting it fall to the small of his back. “Go sit down,” she suggested, with more authority than such a soft voice should rightly carry. “I will make you something.”
“Kid’s ‘sleep.”Katanya lifted her head from the burner to glance at one of her associates. She had been waiting for a response from Owen, had been having fun toying with him, but apparently he did not want to play her game anymore. “Is the kid asleep or did you drug the kid?” she asked, phone snapping closed as she crossed one leg over the other.
“‘S’it matter?” her company slurred like a boxer that had been hit in the head too many times. Perhaps, at one point he could have been.
Katanya pursed her lips, a pink bubble of gum blowing up between them as she stared down her company. “I guess not,” she said, when it finally popped. She cracked the candy against her front teeth, a noise that seemed to suggest that she was still displeased. Tossing the phone on the desk, she watched it slide, stopping just at the edge. Turning in her chair she waved the henchman away. “Go take a picture of sleeping beauty and send it to her father.”
Five hours to go.
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - saronym - 10-05-2016
Owen was glad for the time Julianna took to collect herself. He needed to do the same. She was quiet in the other room. He opened the refrigerator, clinked glass bottles around, and slammed it closed again. She wiped tears from her cheeks and he raked fingers through his hair huffing to himself. She straightened her clothes and he banged around the cabinet doors as the outlet for his anger. They each had their ways of collecting themselves.Finally, he fell silent and still. With a hand spread flat on the kitchen counter and head bowed, Owen stared at the granite while he internally berated himself for the way he’d reacted to Julianna and for letting his guard down with Anita. Quiet on the outside, loud on the inside.
His shoulders which had pulled together and pinned up in tension relaxed and fell to a resting state when she touched him. He turned to her still leaning on his cane - today of all days his leg would ache from past injuries. Now she was comforting him.
He nodded that he would comply and let her make him something to eat. His hand brushed her cheek, it was still flushed from her crying. “I shouldn’t have -” he faltered, “made you feel like your reaction was excessive. Mine was. I’m on edge. I’m worried about Anita. I’m sorry.” A younger version of Owen would have been shocked to hear the words staggering out of his mouth. An acknowledgement of wrongdoing. An expression of feelings. An apology. Steak tartare couldn’t be rarer than these expressions out of Owen.
Cain pulled into the driveway announced long before his entrance to the house by his blaring car radio. The sound was killed and he pushed his way noisily inside, dropping his backpack at the door. He found his parents in the kitchen with very serious expressions looking at one another. He remembered his father’s strange texts. Family emergency. His ears flattened to his head, tail dropped down to the floor.
“What’s going on?”
He looked to Julianna to explain things to the boy. He didn't trust himself to make things sound scarier than they were. Julianna had a way of delivering bad news gently.
The burner had been forgotten in the office for a moment during his earlier heated exchange. Owen realized this and moved past Cain, "I'll be right back," headed to his office to retrieve the burner and his Blackberry to check for new messages.
A picture of Anita sleeping. Again no background clues. The picture weighed heavily on him. The picture conveyed a vulnerability he hadn't been ready to see.
>video or call next time
>to confirm that she's still breathing
He was getting bold, seeing how far he could push the limits. Owen returned to the kitchen with phones and some files from his office in tow. He planned to share the photo with Julianna when he dismissed Cain.
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - megs - 10-08-2016
After her moment of composure, Julianna was more comforted by his small gestures. His hand against her cheek was warm and familiar and she leaned into it. “It’s okay,” she murmured, pulling her face away and taking his hand in her own. She brushed a soft kiss across his knuckles before releasing him. “I’m sorry, too. I know that you’re doing everything you can.” Further condolences were put on hold as Cain presented himself in the kitchen. She moved away from Owen to descend upon the child, whom she wrapped in a hug. He was mostly unwilling to acquiesce, but she didn’t allow him to pull away. She kissed his forehead. “Someone has taken Anita,” she explained, voice soft. Cain was old enough that she didn’t have to dumb things down for him, and there was only so much she could do to sugarcoat the information. “Your father is working on getting her back. I’d like for you to stay home until this is resolved, okay?” For the most part Cain had entirely too much freedom. Since getting his car he came and went as he pleased as long as he kept his grades in order and adhered to his curfew.
“Do you have homework?” she asked him, as she pulled away moving to the fridge to prepare something to eat like she’d promised. “Are you hungry?” She was back to overbearing mother mode in the presence of her middle child. Pulling ingredients out of the fridge for sandwiches because she didn’t trust her trembling hands to do anything more complicated, she tried to keep her mind from focusing on all those terrible ideations.
“Wantsa video or call next time.” The henchmen, Gregor was his name, maybe, Katanya never bothered to remember, dropped the phone and it clattered noisily on the metal desk. “Good for him.” The end of her sentence was punctuated with a crack of gum. She picked up the phone and back-read to see how closely her instructions were followed. “How demanding,” she mumbled to herself, thumbs pressing keys in rapid succession as she typed out her response.
>See you in four hours
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - saronym - 10-09-2016
Cain initially tried to fend his mother off but he ceded to her affections and stiffly endured the hug and kiss. Eyes widened and ears dropped when his mother announced that his little sister had been kidnapped. “Oh.” He listened to her requirements that he stay home without protest. “Okay.” He felt a lump in his throat. He didn’t want to hear or say anymore lest he become upset in front of his mother and embarrass himself. Though they had their sibling spats, and though he pretended otherwise, Cain adored Anita. “No I’m not hungry.” He shook his head and backed away. “I’ll just go do my homework, I guess.” He didn’t want to stick around in case he lost control of his emotions. With head down, Cain retreated to his room. He wasn’t looking where he was going and nearly ran into his father who stuck his arm out to stop the boy.
“Give me your phone.” Owen instructed palm out.
Cain’s tail twitched, “But I-” He had started texting a girl at school recently and planned to lay in bed exchanging messages with her until one of them fell asleep or was forced to interact with their family. He had zero plans to attend to homework.
“Now.” Owen didn’t have the patience to entertain Cain’s stubbornness and his demand was clear on that.
Cain gave up the phone without further protest and sidestepped to get out of his father’s way. The contest of wills and confiscation of his precious cell phone had pushed the unsettled teen over the edge. Cain took the stairs by twos until he reached the top. He made sure his displeasure was known throughout the house by vigorously slamming his bedroom door. This was followed up by another muted bang from behind the closed door. The temper he’d gotten from his father was on full exhibition.
Unfazed, Owen moved back into the kitchen and sat down at the breakfast nook in the corner of the room under the windows which displayed their backyard still dead from winter. He set down his files, the burner, and Cain’s cell. He inspected the outside of his son’s phone first. He held the device close to his face while his fingers traced the seams for anything suspicious. He picked at a scratch which turned out to just be a scratch. The back was removed and Owen took out the battery, turning it over and over. He removed the SIM card. Nothing seemed amiss. It was hard enough to separate the 16 year old from his phone, much less get it away from him long enough to plant any kind of bug or tracking device. “Anita was the weakest link.” Owen concluded to himself.
He arranged the pieces of Cain’s phone in a neat formation on the table next to him and moved to his next task. He opened a thick file containing briefings on suspected active hostile operatives in the area. Without giving each packet much thought, Owen separated them into ‘likely’ and ‘unlikely’ piles. He’d learned that his initial gut feeling was usually accurate or a sound starting point. Over-thinking led him to be paralyzed with possibility.
When he’d completed the quick sort, Owen took a break from it to clear his mind of the names swirling in his mind. He flipped open the burner and held it out for Julianna. “Look.” He hoped the picture would be a comfort that the child was, at least, as of yet, unharmed.
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - megs - 10-10-2016
Julianna watched Cain leave the kitchen, and she knew he was upset. She knew it was better to let him process the information as he would, rather than force him into something he didn’t want to do. Which was the case for everything when it came to her middle child. He was obviously upset, she knew how much he cared about Anita. Alone in the kitchen she finished with the sandwich and was putting everything back in the fridge when she heard the muted sounds of Owen and Cain talking in the hall. A few moments later her ears fell to the sound of his door slamming and she turned to see Owen returning to the kitchen. “What did you…” she paused in her questioning, noticing the matte black finish of Cain’s cellphone in his hand. “Oh.” She set the sandwich down and sat across from him in the nook. Watching Jingles romp around in the backyard, the only sound was Owen inspecting the phone. When he spoke she looked at him. Ears fell, but she didn’t reply. He wasn’t talking to her, necessarily. Ruffling papers filled the silence she initiated.
“Look.”
She almost didn’t. She continued very pointedly staring out the window, unsure of whether she could stomach another image of their daughter in her captor’s care. Knowing that wasn’t fair to Anita, she turned her head and narrowed her eyes at the image. She took the phone from him this time, ignoring any protests otherwise. He’d been adamant to only let her see the pictures, but she wanted to know what else was happening.
Scrolling through the back and forth left a twisted knot in her stomach. She closed the burner and pushed it back across the table. “They’re just toying with us.”
“You gonna send another picture?”Katanya had her gun in pieces on the desk. It was sort of a nervous habit. Dissembling and reassembling her weapon until it was time for the mission to begin. She relied to much on the handgun to have something go wrong. She inspected and cleaned each individual part with great care. Polishing and oiling until it seemed brand new. It was far from it, she’d had this particular handgun for years.
She decided tonight would be the last time she would ever use it.
“No,” she replied when the weapon was put together. She tested the weight in her hand, adjusted her grip and sighted down the barrel. It wasn’t loaded, but the man she was aiming at still looked uncomfortable on the other end of it. “He’ll be here.” She pulled the trigger and the slide snapped forward with a faint click. “Agent Hart would die for his family.”
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - saronym - 10-13-2016
Owen mumbled a distracted thank you when the sandwich was set before him. He finished his inspection of Cain’s phone before taking a bite. A frustrated sound erupted from Owen’s throat when the burner was confiscated from his hand. But he didn’t move to stop her. Julianna seemed composed enough to handle the entirety of the encounter. He stared at her across the table chewing on a bite of the sandwich and nodded. The food tasted like ash in his mouth. He swallowed before speaking. “I know. It’s just kind of how this thing goes.” Owen explained catching the burner as it slid across the table to him. He tucked it away into his pocket lest she snatch at it if a new message came in. Owen was determined to protect her as much as he could from even the emotional burden of their situation.
“Don’t let it get to you..” He set the sandwich down on the plate and dusted his fingers on his pants. “Because that’s the point. To fuck with your head. Well my head. And also our heads. Together.” He muttered somewhat incoherently as his attention turned again to the files.
Owen flipped through his ‘likely’ pile and felt a pang of fear. He went again through the ‘unlikely’ pile and a deep frown slowly set in his face. Nothing fit. He couldn’t figure out who could have conned Anita. He kept imagining the scenario in his head. She went willingly. Trustingly. She was treated to ice cream with no fear. Greeted him as if nothing in the world were wrong. Grinning from a back seat like she was having fun. Napping unsuspecting. Unless they had knocked her out. But really, how did they do it? Why were they so intent on keeping her unafraid anyways? What was their motivation for that? Once they had Anita they could terrify her as much as they wanted. It’s what he would have done in the reverse, as sick as that was. Make sure the target knew they meant business.
He sighed in frustration and scratched at his scalp. “I just - I don’t see it.” He admitted finally looking up at his wife across the table again. Scooping all of the files together again he stashed them in the retractable file folder, Owen shrugged and picked up his sandwich again, “I guess I’m going in blind.”
He flashed a brief sarcastic smile as he pulled off a piece of bread and popped it into his mouth, “Just like the good old days.” In reference to the time when he was a young officer assigned the shittiest and most dangerous assignments, which at that time in his life had always been a thrill and a challenge for him. Owen had entangled his life, for better or worse, with a woman and children and didn’t have room to risk as much anymore.
“Aren’t you going to eat something, love?” His voice had a touch of concern and he pushed the plate with his half eaten sandwich towards her. “Here.”
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - megs - 10-15-2016
Julianna leaned her head back against the wall and continued to look out the window. She didn’t take any joy in it. Usually she was able to find some small contentment in watching Jingles trying to catch blossoms that the wind knocked off of the giant pink dogwood tree that shaded the backyard. Not letting it get to her was easier said than done. She was confused and hurt and angry and she didn’t know what to do with any of those emotions. They had settled in her like the eye of a hurricane. An angry sort of calm that was just brimming with destruction on the other side. She appeared to have run out of reactions. Staring out the window, but not really looking. Arms crossed loosely over her chest, ears perked high on her head. Whoever the culprit was had taken her daughter because they wanted her husband. There were so many other ways to get to him, why did they choose this one.
“What if it’s someone we know?” she asked, out of the blue. Because the facts were there: Anita had gone willingly and insofar her captors seemed unwilling to hurt her, given Owen’s continued compliance. Another hour was close to passing, and she hoped for another photo. “Anita isn’t shy, but she knows better than to just leave with someone.” They had gone through all the motions of dealing with strangers with both Cain and Anita, especially with the line of work their father was in, especially with the title she held. “And no one at the school noticed anything suspicious.”
Shaking her head, she uncrossed her arms to push the sandwich back to him. “You need to eat,” she reminded him. “I’ll get something else. Later.” Truthfully, she just couldn’t bring herself to eat, the idea of forcing something down made her a bit nauseous.
Only two hours until Owen left to meet Katanya and with every minute her terror grew. "Are you finished with Cain's phone?" she asked. Returning it might earn her some brownie points with the sullen teenager.
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - saronym - 10-23-2016
Owen followed the line of Julianna’s sight out the window and to the yard where the dog was galloping around in the wind. Reaching easily across the small breakfast nook table, he touched her hand, coaxing fingers to lace with his. With his thumb on the face of the main diamond in the setting of her engagement ring, he twisted the jewelry back and forth on her finger. Without dismissing her suggestion entirely, he shook his head. “But who close enough to her, Jules?” He asked hoping it would prompt her to cycle through their friends list as he already had. “We keep a tight social circle for a reason.” This was a fact. They’d had the same friends they had 5 years, 8 years, even 15 years ago.
Despite now having a wife and a family, it had always been a rare thing for Owen to let anyone new into his life. This hadn’t changed. If anything, it had become more rigid with time and new liabilities.
“Anyone Anita would get in a car with has already been eliminated as a suspect as far as I’m concerned.” He pursed his lips names cycling through his head of the adults that Anita was familiar enough to consider an ‘adult friend’ so to speak. Holland. Kent. Renton. Sairus. Kama. Darcy. Aphrodite. Amelia. Katanya. Victoria. Darcias. None of the names gave him pause. Most of them were downright ludicrous.
“If someone that close to us took her, we will have even more problems to deal with down the line. We’d have to move, for one. The kids would need to change schools. Maybe we should move anyway. I don’t know why I let us stay here this long.” Nevermind that it had become the place they fell in love; that it was their children’s childhood home; that it was the one place since his own childhood house that he felt comfortable calling ‘home.’
“You all need a security detail.” He was off track, obsessing over the ways he should have protected them. Owen shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose forcing himself to stop contingency planning and ruminating.
His fingers trailed across hers as he pulled his hand away. He snapped the pieces of Cain’s phone back together and pushed it towards her, having a mind for what her plans were.
“It’s clean.”
RE: Miscalculations [Closed] - megs - 10-26-2016
“You sending another picture?”Katanya allowed the voice of the speaker to pull her out of her thoughts and she looked down at her watch. Another hour had indeed passed, she hadn’t really been paying attention. Too busy overthinking and backtracking to give it any care. Her boots slid off the desk and met the floor audibly and she leaned forward to pull the phone from her back pocket. She pushed it towards the lackey wordlessly, under the impression that he would take care of it.
It was almost time for her to meet Agent Hart at the rendezvous point, regardless.
As she was double-checking her gear and weaponry in the makeshift armory of their mountainous hideout the sound of screaming drew her attention. Dropping whatever she had been holding Katanya raced towards the noise. She knew where it was coming from. Anita’s holding cell; she was the only capable of producing such a heart-wrenching sound.
The soldier she had sent to do the job was leaving the room as Katanya skidded to a halt in front of it. “What happened?” she asked. She was livid, it showed on her face. “What did you do.”
“Just a couple of fingers,” he replied as if that explained everything, and given the situation it really did. “He wanted a video,” the man continued, pointing to the phone. “Thought I’d make it interesting.”
Katanya drew her gun and smashed the butt of it into the man’s face. He stumbled against the door, clutching his face and groaning. Other Russian soldiers under her command had started filing in from other areas of the compound, having heard the screaming.
“What did I say?” Katanya screamed down at him as blood poured from his mouth. When he didn’t answer she screamed louder. “What did I say!”
“Not to hurt the child,” he slurred over blood and his own incompetence. “I just thought-”
Katanya centered her pistol on his forehead and pulled the trigger without a second thought. Blood and gore splattered across the wall behind him before he could even register what she was doing. The shot rang in her ears in the resulting silence. Wiping blood from her face with the sleeve of her sweater she turned to address the crowd.
“None of you are here to think,” she said darkly, waving her gun emphatically at the lot of them. “You are here to do exactly as I say. No more and definitely no less.” Katanya could still hear Anita sobbing on the other side of the door, the sound had been exacerbated by gunfire. “If another one of you even so much looks at that girl, I will kill you.” Holstering her gun she moved towards the crowd and they parted so she didn’t have to push past them.
“Clean up this mess,” she ordered over her shoulder.
Julianna allowed Owen to manipulate her hand, watching the way his thumb fiddled with her rings. As he expected she also sorted through their list of friends and family. It was intentionally short, and none of them stuck out to her either. “You’re right. I have no idea. It was...just a thought.” Her ears fell as he spoke about moving, she propped her other arm on the table and dropped her forehead onto it. She didn’t need to verbalize that she didn’t like the idea. They had built so much here, and she hated the concept of having to tear that all apart. She looked at him from over her arm when he mentioned security. She didn’t contradict him, even though she wanted too. He had his own ways of dealing with the situation. They would decide what to do when they had their daughter back.
Sitting upright as he took his hand from hers. She looked down at her watch, seamlessly slipping into assistant mode even after all the years. “You have to go soon.” She wished it was as easy as his past missions, but this time there was no briefing, no itinerary. No paperwork, just constant unknowns and fear.
Taking the phone from him, she got up from the table just as the burner started to buzz.
Julianna knocked on Cain’s door gently before pushing it open. As expected him she found him brooding on his bed, looking positively lifeless without the possession of his phone. “Look what I rescued for you,” she said in a mostly sing-song tone as she approached the bed, holding out the phone like it was some sort of prize. She dropped down onto his bed with him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and pulling him against her, ignorant of any whining or objections. She balanced her chin on top of his head in the space between his ears. “Are you okay?” she asked, gently.