At Your Mercy

4

Only once in my life have I seen this kind of a hurricane over a simple case of bringing someone in. The CIA had finally exploded with happiness at the chance of a payback over a human who had made them dance on his fingers for the past "two goddamn fucked up years" (their words not mine) and even though they don't exactly know why Carter is our subject of interest, they had surprisingly agreed to help without a single question. Frankly, I think they just needed to hear the words 'Carter' and 'capture' in the same sentence for a long time.

It wasn't exactly a location you would think of as a first image, but then we were always told to think ahead of the opponent and not like them. You'd think he would be hiding out underground in a dark warehouse, or maybe in a large stone-walled building, or maybe just living downtown in some crappy apartment that no one would care to look at. Carter was doing neither. The guy was living in a suburban area, rocking the white picket fence, which also happened to be exactly two blocks away from mine.

When Sloane had pulled Intel on his location, it was quite a bit of a nasty shock, nonetheless, first because all along he'd been so close and we'd lost our minds trying to find him and second, because he was so close and a guy who had single-handedly fooled the CIA- twice to add- wasn't exactly what I'd be happy to take on as the guy next door. Yes, I was a former CIA agent but a guy like Carter, you were never too sure when they were going to strike.

It also made me wonder how many times I'd passed by him before Marshall's murder, never giving him a second glance.

We had asked around before the CIA surrounded the house and it turned out the can-I-get-you-another-cream-pie-sweetie housewives with the five kids and a daily rerun of soap operas were quite happy with the "handsome man with quite the jawline" who had turned up about four months ago. Carter had quite charmed these people because according to them, he was a sweet little thing who was always up for helping around "you know the other day he fixed my sink without my having to ask at all" and was quite a hit with the kids buying them ice creams and stuff whenever he was around.

It is a perfect day, a day which only arrives about thrice an year with a completely cloudless blue sky and vivid blinding sunlight, the kind of day I would force myself to get out of that couch and go for a jog, the kind of day I would come back anyway with my shirt wet as fuck because of the kids in my neighborhood. The kind of day I would force myself to buy salad from the place at the end of the street instead of microwaving an instant meal.

If only Carter wasn't busy being such a pain in my arse (that's probably the millionth time I've referred to him as that).

The CIA currently surrounds Jason Carter's place of residence and all four of us are staring down the back door as hard as we can, waiting for the signal from the roof. It makes quite a change from being hauled up in the office all the time to wearing CIA uniforms, posed for action with guns in our hands. We didn't normally do this for every fugitive (not that Carter was being brought in as one exactly, but we had to let the CIA believe that until such time), but given the importance of this we thought it would be better if we handled the matter personally. I, for one, only trust the CIA about as far as my eyesight went, and I needed a pretty good view on this situation.

After a few moments of Patrick breathing down my neck, the officer appears on the rooftop and we move in, telling the surrounded officers to be ready for any kind of escape hustle and to not leave their assigned positions under any circumstances. I hear Patrick telling me to be careful and I allow myself a stiff nod before the darkness and the coolness of the house hits my face.

Patrick stays with me as I canvas the area of the lounge and Sloane and Eric move upstairs. It looks pretty clean for a guy to be living in it and on top of that, alone. Years of experience; I had only about figured out how messy guys could be if they didn't have a woman around to put sanity into them. Some could get downright disgusting.

I turn in a flash, as I hear the voice of a vase being knocked over and crashing to the ground. Erik's gruff voice soon follows: "HE'S HEADED DOWNSTAIRS!"

Without one look at each other, Patrick and I move as quickly as we can to the stairs, where I find no one, even after checking the closet under the stairs. I start to move back towards the lounge, when I hear a quiet ruffle of the curtains, so quiet that I couldn't have picked it up if me and Patrick weren't so dead silent ourselves. I turn around to see if Patrick heard something, and he's still canvassing the view from the window by the stairs, hoping to catch a view if Carter had escaped from there. As he stays put, I move once again into the lounge, my eyes searching for the curtains to find them exactly as they were before. I, then look at the window across from the curtains to find a dark form of a human being with one foot on the window ledge, as if trying to get out.

Smiling in triumph and in one swift move, I move towards it, and hold out my arm straight with the gun. Placing myself a few feet behind him, I load the gun and say:

"Put your hands up and turn around."

It takes a moment for him to register, after which I find myself looking at his raised hands as he slowly turns around to face me with a devilish look; eyes half open and other features in line to pounce any second. I tighten my hold on the gun and shout with all my might. "SLOANE. IN HERE."

All three of them come bustling at the same time: Sloane with handcuffs in her hands. She eyes the man with one hesitant look, then moves on to secure his hands. I keep my gun pointed at his head, my eyes never leaving his face, ready for an attack if it was about to come from him.

He seems to be thinking exactly the same thing as he replaces his former tense features with a look of lazy relaxation, and speaks, "You know, I don't like guns."

His voice is deep and gruff, and frankly not a surprise, because looking at his face, this is exactly the kind of sound you'd imagine coming from him. What surprises me is his frankness with the situation, I'd seen victims glaring, swearing, and maybe sometimes attacking, but never passing remarks like we were having a picnic on a sunny day.

Maybe this is how he works a web of lies around people: a pretty face and a mouth with magic.

I keep my cold demeanour. " Do I look like the type of person to care?"

"Considering you haven't shot me yet, yeah."

If I get confused by his words, I hide it. "You haven't given me a reason to."

He lets out a chuckle, and I find myself getting more confused. "Do I have to?"

I look at him for a mere 30 seconds before I turn to one of the officers covering the lounge and say in a firm voice, "Put him in the car."

I watch as Carter is whisked away by a hoard of 20 from the CIA, and fall into step beside Eric, who is watching with me. "Kid's got a smart mouth."

"Uh-huh" I reply absent mindedly, my mind on another thing entirely. "Why do you think he was so relaxed?"

"Beats me. He looked like you were an old friend he met at the bar. It's pretty baffling. And creepy."

We move towards the cars we came in, but not before I've had the talk with the head of CIA about how Carter will be staying with us for the next few months. I carefully avoid mentioning the talk of a future later than those six months, and with one suspicious look sent my way he agrees, after I also assure him that Carter is in for the punishment of a lifetime.

With the deadly task of briefing Carter for what he was to be up ahead, I get in the car after Patrick, a sigh escaping my lips. Closing the door, we head off towards the office, not trying to think about what we were about to get ourselves into.