Under Cover 'Love'

Chapter 3: The Plan

Emily walked into the café at 4:55pm, with five minutes to spare before she estimated his arrival, found a cozy table for two, located at the corner with a window view of the street. It was a fairly small café but well patronized, due to the delicious deserts and coffees they produced. She sat down and thought about the mission. Never had she been on a mission of this level before, she'd have to be on guard constantly, be observant and very thoughtful about her words. About three minutes later, the sound of the door chimes interrupted her thoughts. There stood Mr. Pierce, in a light blue t-shirt and slacks. Everything about him looked neat, from the soft combed back curls of his hair, to the dark shoes on his feet. He searched the café for her and she raised her hand in acknowledgement, waving him over.

Striding up to the table, his gait upright and confident, he took the seat directly across, greeting her, "Good evening Miss Kayden," providing her with the perfect view of oceanic blue eyes with the sunlight highlighting every curve and dip of his face. Her eyes traced the slight stubble lining his jaw all the way to his mouth, which was set in a smirk. She tore her eyes away and replied to him, "Good evening Mr. Pierce."At the same moment, a waitress came over, "Hi, my name is Candice and I'll be your server, may I take your orders please."

EMILY:

Nathan nodded at me to go first, "I'll have a cappuccino please" and Nathan followed up his order with an espresso. A drink representative of the man himself' I thought, dark and strong. Five minutes later the drinks were placed in front of us. Getting down to business, Nathan looked around then pulled out the files, which he held on both Emilio and Kristina Costa. Opening Kristina's files first, he explained, "Kristina Pedro Costa, 32 years, born and grew up in Mexico City, good education background, worked at a bakery before she moved to Chicago with Emilio 5 years ago. One sister, parents died 7 years ago. No reports or previous law infringements."

"Nothing?" I inquired, "no run ins with the law?" I would have thought she would have at least had petty crimes on her record, to have become mixed up with Emilio.

"Nope, nothing," he answered, "it seems from the records and my research he tries to keep her away from his dealings, but still we can't be 100% sure."

"Now onto Emilio," he said, his face turned grim, "Age 36, born and grew up in Puerto Vallarta, parents deceased, only child. He dropped out of school by 16, did a few small jobs here and there, worked in a garage, tools store, eventually just became "unemployed" altogether. Joined a gang by 18, started selling drugs and working for another mob boss for a few years. Sources say he was closest to the mob boss supposedly, moving up through the ranks. He had a falling out with the boss a few years later, not specified what the falling out was. However, the boss was found dead at his home not too long after. So then he ascended to the rank of mob boss or as they call him, Don."

"Don usually signifies a senior mob boss, but he has apparently earned the title although being such a young age, which should give you an idea of the type of man we're dealing with here. Now I say this only to show the seriousness of this mission and stress that under no means should you be alone with him." I nodded my understanding to him. "We're talking about drug trading, murder, human trafficking, kidnapping, you name it.. And we still have no solid evidence against him, not enough to put him away for a long time at least. He's very good at covering his tracks."

He paused and observed me carefully, as though waiting for me to back out and say I changed my mind, but hearing all this only made me strengthen my resolve to help put this man behind bars. I'm a fighter, sure I may be a bit nervous but it's my job to serve and protect, and I took it very seriously. I smirked at him, "So how we do catch this criminal?"

I saw a small sigh of relief, well the plan consists of us pairing up, he paused, as man and wife. My eyes shot up to his, "we're married?"

He nodded.

"Why?"

"He's a ruthless man, takes what he wants, we need to place some boundaries on him, it's more for protection, so he cannot touch you."

"I see."

"Plus it makes sense for us to spend our honeymoon in a romantic Mexican hotel in Puerto Vallarta and I can tell him that I convinced you to go there so that I can conduct our "business" on the side."

"The source of the drugs is Mexico, his home land, so we believe we can bring him down from there, in one place, not distributed like here in Chicago. The FBI is already in contact with the Federal Investigation Agency as well as the Federal Preventative Police, both of which have agreed to help us. We will also be in contact with Dean and some agents from the FBI here in Chicago. But there are a few others expected to be in Mexico, in our hotel as well as surrounding hotels."

"Ok, that makes sense...but wait..how long has he known about me?" I asked curiously, trying to piece together the puzzle in my head.

"Only recently."

I shook my head in surprise, "Won't he think it's strange that he barely heard anything about me and we're suddenly married?"

"Maybe, but I told him I keep you separate from our dealings, that's why I never mentioned you before, just like he does with Kristina."

"Still we'd need to be very convincing; a man like him doesn't get to his position without being observant," I stated, and he continued, "and Emilio would definitely want to meet you when we get there."

We both sat lost in our thoughts. I stared out the window, thinking of the picture I saw of Emilio, his cold eyes, short haircut, a long scar ran across his left cheek and his neck was decorated with black inked tattoos. He definitely fit the stereotype for drug dealers. What would it be like meeting someone like him? Would I freak out, would I despise him? Would he see through our façade?

"Well I guess that means we need to get to know each other better, and you'd have as little interaction with him as possible," he stated as though reading my thoughts.

We decided to spend more time together, trying to get to know each other better: likes, dislikes, favourite foods, favourite colours. We also had to fabricate a story about how we met and 'fell in love'. Every little detail counted, we had to be astute.

For the following three days, we met on evenings, settling on a comfortable routine, going over details of the mission, where the agents would be stationed and what we would keep with us, in terms of phones, trackers, microphones and of course any weapons. I didn't do much at work since my head was occupied with thoughts of the mission, replaying details over and over when I didn't get distracted by thoughts of the man I'd be spending all my time with for the next 10 days.