Executive Orders

CH 17 | Episode 05: Just Desserts

Everything was over in twenty minutes, but it was the longest twenty minutes that Olivia would remember for a very long time afterward.

While she demanded out loud who was there, Olivia shifted her grip on her briefcase, the training Huck had insisted on for all of them using ordinary objects for defense flowed through her.

Her body remembered what she'd been taught and her body forced itself to looseness, searching for and finding a balance for her feet despite her four inch heels.

"I hear that you've been asking a lot of questions today." A man's voice answered from somewhere behind her. "Some people might find that interesting."

"Some people might call that just me doing my job." Olivia forced herself to ignore her rising nervousness.

"Some people might say the same about me. Wanna play?"

Instead of answering, Olivia began to back away slowly, one step at a time. As Huck had taught her, she paused between each step, tuning her ears to the silence. And then she heard it - footsteps trying to be as silent as possible, coming up on her right side.

Surprise and the unexpected counts for a lot; Huck's voice echoed in her mind, one of many lessons he'd insisted on. In the here and now, that translated into the need for immediate action. It meant that Olivia wasn't going to wait for whoever it was stalking her to get any closer.

Instead, she'd bring the fight to them.

A shadowy figure appeared from where they'd crouched down behind a car. Olivia didn't give herself a chance to think - she literally launched herself towards him. At the same time, she brought her briefcase up, using the full arc of her swing to throw all of her strength behind it. An acid rush of satisfaction filled her as she felt it slammed across his cheekbone with a solid crack.

She didn't wait for a reaction; Olivia went with her body's spin and at the same time she dropped low. Tightening her grip on the briefcase's handle, her free hand grabbed one corner, ramming the opposite corner at her would-be attacker, hitting him in his shin. She only had this one chance to slow down the counter-attack she knew would be coming.

Her heart hammered in her chest, shock whipping through her as the still shadowy figure stumbled backwards, away from her. Amazingly, he turned and ran.

There was a sudden explosion of sound, followed by the sounds of a scuffle and a few shouts of pain. A second voice followed the first and Olivia was grateful that she recognized who it was.

A few seconds later, Jake Ballard came into sight; he was holding a smaller man in front of him, one arm twisted behind him.

His eyes flashed to Olivia's. "What the hell is going on here? Do you know who this guy is?"

"I don't know - and no..." Olivia said, answering both questions in one breath.

Before either of them could say anything more, there was the sound of footsteps hurrying towards them. Then Harrison was there; his eyes going first from Olivia's face to Jake's and then to the man that Jake was holding on to.

"What the hell is going on, Martinez?" he said.

Harrison turned to Olivia and explained; he knew the man - his name was Marcus Martinez, a reporter for the DC Daily Binge, a low level gossip magazine.

"I ought to knock your teeth out." Jake hadn't let up his painful grip. Instead he demanded an explanation, and after another painful twist to his arm, the reporter was quick to give it - Martinez explained, grimacing with pain. He often paid the security guards in the private parking garages around town - not with money, since if anything came to light, no one wanted to admit taking a bribe. But a delivery of high-end coffee and pastries... "Well, everybody's gotta eat, right?"

"So this meeting was accidental? Is that what I'm supposed to believe?" Olivia wasn't sure that if she did.

Martinez tried to claim his First Amendment rights, but Harrison reminded him that trespassing on federal property was definitely not covered. "Try again, man."

"I can get you all the answers that you need." Jake said to Olivia. He twisted his hold on the reporter a little harder and Martinez winced in response.

Olivia shook her head. "Let him go Jake."

He didn't look happy about it, but Jake did as she asked.

She turned back to Martinez. "I'm only going to ask you once - did you or did you not target me?"

For a moment, he looked like he wanted to defy all of them, but didn't quite dare. "There was a buzz that some of the president's people were going to be up on the Hill making visits, making lists and you know - looking to see who's naughty or nice - so yeah, I was doing my job. But no, I wasn't looking for you in particular - never thought I'd get that lucky."

Olivia put aside her anger and set her mind to thinking instead. She took a moment to study him carefully, judging him by the swift inflow of minutiae, his stance, his gaze, his physical reaction under stress, stripping away his thin veneer of bravado and weighing it all against her own needs.

She knew that she could press him to find out what else he knew - Jake was an all too willing tool right at hand for the job - but her gut was back in play and it was telling her that the reporter was telling the truth, and that made her ask herself if such pressure was necessary in this instance. If it wasn't... if she pressed too hard, Martinez might decide that maybe there was a story here after all and she had to consider what impact his actions after that might have on OPA's current focus, as well as her own.

"Give me your business card."She said to him. He started to protest, but then seeing the look on her face, he shut up and did as he was told. She took out her cell phone and took a picture of him with the card prominent in the foreground.

"This is proof of what just went down. If I see you again where you have no business being, it goes to the proper authorities and they'll be asking questions of you and whatever accomplices you've brought to the party - I'm guessing that your friends wouldn't be too happy about that, would they?"

"Accomplices? I don't have any -" Martinez's complaints shut off suddenly as her threat hit home. "Yeah, I get it."

"Good." Olivia gave him a tight smile. "In return for your future - discretion - if anything pertinent comes to mind, maybe I'll contact you and you'll get a little compensation for your time today."

She watched the wheels in his mind begin to turn, but she didn't want him weighing the pros and cons of the situation just then; Olivia just wanted him gone. "Goodbye, Mr. Martinez."

After one last nervous look at Jake, the reporter took the out she'd offered and got himself gone.

Olivia glanced at Harrison and saw the approval in his eyes; he knew what she'd done and why. She'd turned a problem into a possible asset.

Jake on the other hand, did not. Instead, he started in on her as soon as Martinez was out of sight, demanding an explanation, but his voice quickly regulated itself to simple background noise as her mind moved past the here and now, slotting the present circumstances into her plans both formed and those yet to be formed.

"Open your eyes, Olivia!" She heard him, but between one blink of the eye and the next, it was Jake's voice she heard, harsh and demanding - and then it wasn't.

The voice in her head went deeper, harsher and all too familiar...