Sweet Dreams (30 page)

Government.'

Picking up the bookmark, he noticed a small earpiece attached to the back of the bookmark. Pulling it off, he placed it into his ear and heard the voice of a woman. Not Isis's voice but one much harder, maybe of a woman who had been with the organization a long time.

"Welcome to the Agency. This is top-secret and will only be played once,
pay close attention
."

Mark sat back in his seat and listened.

"The daughter of an important government official in Pakistan has been kidnapped. Her name is Alexis Moritiff. She was taken two weeks ago from her school and is being held in an abandoned office building just outside of Islamabad. Your mission is to extract her with any means necessary and bring her back to the point of origin. You will be instructed upon completion where to take her. You are to go to the shop on the corner of Twenty-Third and Forty-Second. There is a smoke shop there, and you will be given further instructions. You are to meet your contact at Eleven p.m. Good luck."

Mark took the earpiece out of his ear and placed it in his pocket. His excitement rose, he was supposed to go half way around the world to rescue a kidnapped girl?
How can I get
this girl out?
Easy, huh? He thought it might be a simple look and tail to get information, or something like that but no, they had put him in the heat of everything, and to boot, sent him to a war torn volatile place.

Leaving the bookstore, he got a taxi and told the driver to go to the nearest car dealership. He needed a car, and he wanted to make sure that this was all on the up-and-up before he flew across the world and entrusted his life to the so-called

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World Justice Agency.

________________________________________

ISIS WALKED INTO SOLOMON'S office after she was waved in; Solomon stood up and smiled as she entered. "Isis, I want you to keep an eye on Mark on this one. He might need some assistance, but stay back unless he gets in a jam."

"Sure thing, this is a big mission for the first one, don't you think?" Isis was concerned that it might be more then Mark was ready for and with the loss of his family still fresh in his mind, she thought it might be a good idea to work with him a little more first.

"I know, but I need to know if he can handle it. We are running out of time, and I need him to be fully operational as quickly as possible. He was the first, and we have never seen anyone respond as he did. I believe he will exceed our expectations."

"I'll keep him close." Isis left the room and opened her cell phone. "Hey, I need my gear ready by eleven, and get me a Taxi to Islamabad!"

________________________________________

KIRK MOANED AND ROLLED over, trying to get a few more minutes of sleep. His head pounded from lack of sleep and too much coffee the night before. Opening his eyes, he reached for the alarm clock radio that had gone off. The report on the morning news stopped him, with his hand frozen over the snooze button.

"In a shocking discovery this morning, a local CSI agent was found dead in his home, shot in the head. His wife was 274 AARON

also shot and killed. The NYPD and the FBI have not yet released a statement or any name, other than that it was one of them."

Kirk jumped up, ran into the next room, and flipped on the TV. "Geoff, get up, we have a problem!"

Geoff was just getting up when he saw the news report across the room on the TV where Kirk stood in his blue boxers. The hotel room was a one bedroom with a kitchenette and two king-sized beds, one in the main room, one in the bedroom, Kirk took the bedroom, and Geoff slept off the living room.

"Bugger!" Geoff pulled on a pair of cargo pants, wandered over to the couch and sat down.

"This is not good, man. First, we're being tailed by the Feds, and then the guy we interview is shot, and the creeps killed his wife too!" Kirk paced the room with both hands on his head, trying to think.

"Get your stuff. We're going down there!" Kirk shuffled back into his room and threw on some clothes, a pair of blue jeans, and a t-shirt that said Pink Floyd with a rainbow coming out of a prism on the front. When he was finished, Geoff was waiting with laptop and camera in hand. Grabbing his jacket, he put it on and glanced around one last time. Just as Kirk was about to open the door, he heard a knock.

"FBI--open up!" Someone shouted from the other side. Kirk cursed and took out his .45 and slowly opened up the door. "What do you want?" Kirk was annoyed with the untimely visit and was in a hurry. He thought about slamming the door and jumping out the window and taking his chances running but knew that would only make things worse.

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"We need to ask you a few questions," The suit had on a pair of dark sunglasses, and his partner looked like his twin. They stood with guns drawn as if they expected an army on the other side of the door instead of a sleepy reporter and an ugly Detroit cop.

"Come on in," Kirk holstered his weapon and opened the door wide to let the agents inside.

"We would like to see some identification, please." Geoff surprised Kirk when he spoke up. The two agents showed their badges and asked to see theirs. Kirk flashed his badge, and Geoff pulled out his press card and driver's license.

"We talked to your supervisor, and he informed us that you are on suspension. We also have two agents that informed us that you assaulted them and destroyed government property."

Kirk rolled his eyes and laughed in a guttural mocking tone that was laced with contempt. "Come on, guys, they were tailing me, and if you think that's assault, then you haven't ever been assaulted!"

"You are on thin ice, Detective. I suggest that you cooperate!"

"Fine, fine, but I have a few questions of my own."

The agents nodded, and the lead one pulled out a pad and a pen. "Okay, we have you two going into the house of one late Jefferson Jenkins last night at about Ten-Thirty."

"Yeah, he was a contact, we interviewed him about an investigation we are doing," Kirk thought hard and he had a bad feeling that things might get out of control if they followed the line of questions they seemed to be on.

"Investigation? You are on suspension! What could you 276 AARON

possibly have to talk about with a CSI agent, and what do you mean, "
was"
? You said he was you're contact how did you know so fast that he was killed?"

Geoff jumped in, holding up his hand trying to calm everyone down. "Hold on one minute, I'm doing a story about the prison poisoning last year for my magazine. Detective Weston was assisting me, and Mr. Jenkins was one of the agents that handled the case. We were just trying to find out if he knew or remembered anything about the case."

The agent in charge looked at Kirk, and then back to Geoff. "I see, so you wouldn't have any idea who could have shot him and his wife last night?"

"I have an idea..." Kirk muttered under his breath.

"You got something to say there, Detective?" The one in charge asked with a
go-ahead and try it
, tone in his voice.

"Yeah, I do! Why were we being tailed, and what business is it of yours who we go talk to?" Kirk stepped forward in a challenging stance toward agent in charge who had almost no distinguishing features and was average in every way down to his brown hair and his boring black tie.

"We have reason to believe that you are involved in an ongoing investigation. Every time we turn around, you and your sidekick are there. We've been going over your records and your file, and if you really want to know, you're a suspect!" A red flush crept up in the agent's neck and started to rise to his ears making Kirk smile with satisfaction.

"Suspect to what? You've got nothing on me!" Kirk yelled and paced the room like a caged animal. He envisioned pulling his .45 and shooting the pompous agent right between the eyes as his own anger rose and his neck started to get hot.

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"For starters, you kill a key witness to the case a year ago; then you disappear for a year, only to come back and just about blow our case out of the water with your questioning!"

The second agent did not say a word but hung back watching the situation evolve and waited to strike if things got out of hand.

"I was kidnapped and held for a year!" Kirk was furious!

"But I bet my crabby old boss didn't tell you that now did he?

I lived in a cell the size of your bathroom and saw things you wouldn't believe if I told you!"

The room went silent. The two agents looked at each other without saying a word.

"I was investigating the prison case when I think I got too close to whatever the heck is going on here!" Kirk slammed his fist down on the counter. "Then I get out, only finding that the case was closed and I've got the Feds behind me at every corner. You think I wanted to kill my only witness. He shot at me first and gave me no choice."

The agent in charge wrote on his notepad and took off his dark glasses. Looking at Kirk, he motioned for him to sit down. "I didn't know you had been taken, we assumed that you fled. Now, why didn't you report it?"

"I told my captain, and he approved me to look into it on my own, as long as he couldn't be tied to what I was doing."

"I see, well, if you will come with us, I would like to get you up to speed on what we've got going on here."

The two men walked to the door and went over to the elevator, and then they ushered Kirk and Geoff to a waiting car. It was the same model of sedan the last two FBI agents were driving but they were nowhere in site. The ride to the FBI 278 AARON

building was quiet, and Kirk went over and over in his mind everything he could remember about the evidence. He knew there was a mole in the FBI somewhere, and he had to be careful. These two men could be one of them or working for them, for all he knew.

Once they had parked and checked in, they were cleared, and the agent in charge led them to a small room with a table in the middle of it. He sat down in a metal chair and Kirk sat in the one across from the table sighing and rubbing his head. The second agent took Geoff and Kirk was sure they had him in another room very similar to this one.
Divide and conquer
, Kirk thought.

"Okay, this is one hundred percent top secret. What I'm about to tell you will not leave this room." He waited to get an answer from Kirk.

"I understand." The agent's eyes softened and he placed a large file on the table that was practically bursting at the seams filled with photos and papers.

"I'm placing you under my command. You will now be working with the FBI as a liaison. I cleared it with your supervisor and he gave me his sympathy." Kirk grinned.

"To begin with, we never shut the David's Island case down. We just renamed it 'Operation Justice'. As you know, this was no accident, but what you may not know is that a group calling themselves the World Justice Agency is behind this and many other crimes that are in that file."

"World Justice Agency! That's what that symbol means!

I found their mark everywhere. They're the ones who kidnapped me." Kirk began to flip through the file that the agent had slid to him.

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"What we know is this: They are highly-funded and very organized. We suspect that they have infiltrated every branch of the government and police force. They consider themselves the judge and jury as they see fit over wrongs that our justice system missed or will not deal with. In other words, they take the law in their own hands."

Kirk looked at photos of men and women at drop points and having coffee in local shops. The file was filled with unsolved cases involving rapists killed and corrupt politicians hung out to dry by leaking news of a scandal to the media. The cases went back some twenty years.

"As you can see, if they are not stopped, they will change the face of our justice system forever. We have an elite task force that has been on this for the last ten years. We believe that their leader is a multibillionaire and very well connected, the only problem is, they're invisible."

"What are you talking about? You have photos and cases with them near the scene of the crime!" Kirk looked up at the FBI agent as he held up photos and case files.

"Yeah, but every suspect and every person we have interviewed has an airtight alibi, some of them impossible to refute, credit card receipts and witnesses that place them somewhere else and not one matching fingerprint. It is perfect, but that's the problem, it's too perfect!" Kirk could sense the frustration in the agent's voice and knew then that this was personal to him; he could trust this man and he didn't even know his name.

Kirk looked at the overwhelming evidence that he had uncovered involving the prison he was right all along! "One thing that still confuses me, why they let me go. One day they 280 AARON

just up and let me go--who does that?"

"You see, that is one thing they believe, is not to kill anyone that they consider innocent. They will try to detour you from finding out who they are but will never kill an innocent!

They believe in justice, not killing for revenge."

"Just like how the guards were left alive and only the guilty were punished." Kirk leaned back in his seat and sighed. "Well, the million dollar question is--why stop them?

They're doing good and making sure that they don't hurt any innocent people. What's the big deal?"

"I know how you feel. Every one of us wants to see the bad guys get their day of judgment, but I believe in our legal system. If we let this go, then all over the country vigilantes will spring up, groups will begin to take the law into their own hands, and the country will tear itself apart. We must stop them before the public finds out that this is going on."

"So you have been covering it up to look like accidents to keep the public in the dark?"