6. Six
6
SIX
PETER DAVIS
CIA Headquarter, July 2022
“ L iam,” I spoke into the silent room, trying not to startle my best friend too much. His head shot up behind the computer monitor, his eyes tired behind the black glasses he was wearing. Liam Thomas was, at least according to himself, the best hacker in the world and had only joined the CIA a couple of months before. He and I clicked immediately after realizing that we’re both ice hockey fans and like to go to the gym to clear our minds. Ever since that day, we spend every day together and became friends.
Before he literally stood at the CIA’s front door, I felt very alone, hence the apartment in the city instead of staying at headquarters. It was really hard to find my spot within the quartet of Oliver, Nate, Lynn, and Marta. All four of them bundled together with different sorts of relationships. They were like the Fantastic Four and I was just existing in their shadows. Although I do think that I get along with Oliver pretty nicely, it was never something like a friendship. There was so much weight on his shoulders with Nate already that he didn’t have more space for caring for others. And I understand that. It did make me lonely, though.
When I stayed longer one night after the az-Zawahiri mission to write the report, I found Liam in the communal kitchen making himself a pre-workout meal.
It was the first time we had a conversation outside of work and it kind of started everything. From the first moment on, I appreciated Liam’s honest way of communicating. He would never bullshit you with anything, but he was always there to give you advice—wanted or not.
“What?” he asked, one hand driving through his messy hair that became a little too long throughout the last few weeks. He was rocking the bed hair look 24/7 now, no matter what method he tried to tame it.
“You won’t believe who is the new agent in the task force!”
Instead of answering, Liam typed quickly on his keyboard, the eyes back on the screen in front of him. A lot of people would be annoyed, but I knew how to take Liam. It was my fault to distract him from his work in the first place .
“Eliana Richards. Passed McGreen’s test with the highest score since it was invented,” he read out loud.
Of course, she had a higher score than me. Who is the little over-achiever now, Eliana?
“Even better than you ,” Liam added, his eyes now darting up to me while a little smirk creeped its way onto his face. I rolled my eyes at him, but he didn't deserve a verbal reaction, because I knew he was testing the waters.
“If you really are the best hacker in the world, dive into your little computer one more time and do a background check on her. Look where she’s coming from,” I answered, playing the game along with Liam. Although, my heart was racing and I just wanted to complain and watch him agree to me that this was an unbearable situation and we had to do something.
I watched him click furiously with his mouse, his eyes chasing over the screen as if they were a cat trying to catch a fly. His brows furrowed while his head shot to the side and he opened something else on the other monitor.
“No way,” he muttered and I sighed loudly.
“Took you longer than expected, pal.”
“You know each other since high school?”
“Jap,” I emphasized the p more than needed. Liam finally raised from the position behind his desk, stretching his upper body and cracking his vertebrae so loudly that it couldn’t be healthy.
“Was she your high school crush? The girl you asked for prom? Then you haven’t seen each other for years and now working together will spark the flame between you once again? Am I being witness to a second chance romance?”
“You’re reading way too many romance books…” I scowled at him, but he looked offended.
“Sorry that I have a hobby outside of work and gym.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Anyway. You came here to talk about Eliana. That means this is a big thing, isn’t it? You would have casually introduced me to her tomorrow if it wasn’t.”
“Good job, Sherlock.”
“Peter Davis, you’re never out of words. For fuck’s sake. If you want to talk to me about this, then open your fucking mouth and say what you want to say. Or get out of here and leave me fucking be.”
That’s why I loved Liam. He never backed off from direct communication.
“Okay, okay. Yes, this is a big thing. We’ve been rivals our entire lives and I’m very sure she hates me with every fiber of her heart.”
“Oh wow. How did you manage to earn her hatred? Did you break her heart?”
“Liam. One more time, not everything in life is about love. We’ve never been romantically engaged.”
“Romantically engaged. Wow, sounds like you’re having a contract.”
“Liam…”
“Sorry. So you two hate each other? Or hated? What’s the current status? ”
“Hate. Very much hate. As if no time has passed between the last day I saw her at the academy and today.”
“Hold on. Academy? Her CV says she graduated from the FBI Academy. Not CIAU.”
“True, but she was in the same class as me for her first year. She then switched over to the FBI one day.”
Liam raised his brow and I saw him making impossible movements with his upper body, just so he could read whatever was standing on his monitor. He reached down to his mouse to scroll a little, but his face didn’t relax.
“So she started at the CIA, switched over to the FBI, just to come back to the CIA once more? That’s weird.”
“Yeah, it really is. It never made sense to me, anyway. She loved the CIA, she wanted to become an agent ever since she was a teenager. I eavesdropped on her and her best friend talking about it multiple times. Out of nowhere, she just wasn’t in my classes anymore, and when I asked some other cadets a week later, they told me that she transferred to the FBI. No one knew the reason, though. It was very weird,” I explained.
I was very sure that it hadn’t anything to do with her grades, because they have been okay all through the first year. Not as good as mine, but very close. She had a few morning runs as punishment, but we all had, so that wasn’t a big deal. And she had even found a few friends, although I was sure that her best friend had always been Mihaela. It was a good idea to have someone close outside of the CIA world, because you get so lost in everything going on in the academy that you lose track of the outside world. It was always nice to have at least someone to ground you again.
“Do you want me to dig into her backstory to find the reasons for the multiple changes?”
A loaded question.
Of course I was curious to know everything about her, but invading her privacy? Liam was so good that I was sure he wouldn’t get caught—despite the fact that he had security level for this information anyway—so it was more of a moral question.
“Peter?”
“No,” I answered with a heavy heart. My moral compass wouldn’t allow it, even though my curiosity was strong.
“No?”
I shook my head to confirm my decision. Funny, because hadn’t I dared right into her face that I’d find the real reason for her switch only an hour ago? With Eliana Richards, it had always been the case that she let my blood boil as soon as I was around her. Bringing out my best and my worst. She was the only person in my life who had this effect on me, and the more I thought about it, the less I understood it.
Eliana Richard was something else.
“Did Oliver know?”
“That we hate each other?”
Liam nodded.
“Apparently not, because I’m very sure that he’d never let her join the team then. They’d denied way better agents than Eliana for the open position on the team. But I do wonder how they did not find the correlation in our pasts. Didn’t they let you sneak around?”
Liam was sitting behind his computer again, typing on the keyboard before he answered.
“Nope, I wasn’t involved. It’s HR’s job to do the background checks. Let me check real quick who from HR was involved in that hiring,” he mumbled in his fist that he had used to rest his chin on. How this guy was not dealing with permanent pain in his neck or back was a mystery to me. The positions he was in while working were just impossible for me to imagine sitting in even for half an hour.
“Gary. Of course. It’s always Gary.”
“Not a fan of Gary?”
“He’s the worst. I had my first encounter with him when we sent your team to rescue Dr. Summer’s sister. Gary complained that we couldn’t let Agent Sheppard go with them because he was officially on sick leave. I tell you, this guy loves rules more than his wife.”
“I didn’t even know.”
“Of course not. You had to focus on the rescue mission. This is stuff Marta and I deal with while you shove your guns into stranger’s faces.”
“We’re not…anyway. So the background check wasn’t too…detailed then?”
“Nope. Only basic CV check. Weird. Daniel would have never worked so sloppy.”
“And who’s Daniel again?” I groaned in annoyance. That was one of the things Liam still had to learn about communication; he always assumed that everyone had his level of knowledge about people, connections, systems, and anything else.
“Daniel is my favorite HR guy. He helped Marta get the paperwork for my contract done. One of the only guys in HR who knows that a gray zone does exist and not everything is black and white. Phenomenal guy. Highly recommend him whenever you have some struggles with HR.”
“Noted, thank you.”
“You think you can deal with her?”
“I have to. We’re grown-ups now. Plus, we decided for some sort of professional freedom. None of us wants to lose this job and we have to work together, or Oliver will fire us quicker than we can finish our staring contests.”
“Staring contests?”
“Long story.”
“One day, you have to tell me. In the meantime, relax. You’re not in high school or the Academy anymore. Both of you worked your fair years as agents and you’ve both seen stupid shit. I’m sure it’s all gonna be okay between the two of you.”
“I hope so. Because I really don’t want history to repeat.”
“You’re a charming guy, Peter. Fucking use it.”
Wow. That deserved a big eye roll.
“Yes, because charming had always worked so amazingly on Eliana Richards.”
“Then just do whatever is needed to not upset her, for fuck’s sake. I believe in you. ”
I gave him another eyeroll and decided to leave his office. Did the conversation with him help to ease my racing heart? Not the slightest, but it was still a good talk.
Eliana and I had professional freedom, so whatever was coming, it couldn’t be that bad, right?