16. Archer
ARCHER
The look on my face must have been priceless. I imagined it was a combination of shock, confusion, and anger at her for not bringing this up. Surely , I hadn’t heard her correctly.
“She’s your what ?” I asked again, just to be sure.
“Shhh,” she scolded me, and rightfully so, since I may have said that a little louder than necessary. “ She’s my handler,” she replied exasperatedly.
“Your…handler,” I repeated, though much quieter.
She sighed in frustration. “ Can we talk about this later? Like maybe after we make it out of here alive?”
I just nodded back at her. Not that I didn’t trust her, but I also realized there was a lot I didn’t know about her, so I needed to cover myself as well.
I pulled out my phone, trying to dim the light as best I could, and shot off a quick text to Wade , Vince , and Jack .
It was a quick set of codes so that I could be effective while not wasting too much time texting.
I slid my phone back into my pocket and waited for this supposed rescue.
It only took a few minutes, but multiple sirens could be heard.
Ace had been staring at her watch for the last few minutes, likely reading texts coming through.
“Police!” a voice yelled down the alley.
We listened as two police officers scanned the area, checked the nearby garage and gas station. Once we realized the area was clear and the men from earlier were gone, we moved out from behind the dumpsters.
Back here,” Ace yelled out to one of the nearby officers so that we didn’t startle them.
“Hands up!” he yelled and we complied, at least until she began to inform him who she was.
“Officer, my name is Anna , and it was my aunt Sara who reported this to the cops,” Ace said next to me.
I noted her use of “aunt” to describe Sara so we obviously were choosing to keep them in the dark about a few details.
We spent the next ten minutes explaining to the cops what had happened.
It didn’t escape me that she informed the cops that she had used a device to alert her aunt that a security friend of hers had given her, nothing about her working for the FBI .
Nor had she told them anything about how the guys after us had clearly known who we were and were searching for us specifically.
She sent looks my way a few times letting me know I was to play along. I understood that to a certain extent, since local cops and the alphabet soup agencies—like the FBI —didn’t always get along when it came to jurisdiction. But it also left me with even more questions than answers.
Thirty minutes later, we were finally cleared to go, leaving all our contact info with the police in case they had more questions.
Not taking any chances, I told the cops to have my vehicle towed to a body shop we worked with. I wanted it checked for bugs and anything else those guys may have done to it. Vince was down the street, waiting to take us home.
As I opened the rear driver’s side door to let us both in, I looked to Vince and thanked him before turning to Ace . “ Put your seat belt on and start talking.”
“I will, but not until we get back to your place. Sara is on her way and will meet us there. I know it’s late, but it would be smart to have Vince there as well. This has escalated, and we may need some more thinking heads.”
“You want me to call Jack and Wade ?” Vince asked from the driver’s seat.
I ran my hand over my face. I didn’t know what the right answer was here. She mentioned we needed more thinking heads, but it was also well past midnight.
“Nah. We can fill them in tomorrow morning.”
The drive back to my house was quiet but thick with tension.
We pulled up to see Sara’s car waiting in my driveway. Vince pulled the car into the garage, and when we exited, Sara came out from her car in her typical tracksuit. If I hadn’t just heard from Ace that she was something else entirely, I would never have suspected she was anything but the trainer.
“Let’s get inside,” I told everyone.
Percy barked and ran circles around Ace when we walked in the door. She cooed back to him and picked him up before carrying him to the living room.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Sara said, holding out her hand to Vince . “ I’m Sara Garrett , and you are?”
“I’m Vince . This one’s cousin,” he said, pointing at me. “ We also work together at Ranger Shield .”
She nodded, and we all made our way to sit down on various pieces of furniture before Sara spoke to Ace and me. “ What happened.” She said it less like a question and more like a directive.
I appreciated her desire to get right to it, but I needed to get a few things out of the way first.
“With all due respect, I was just informed you are apparently something other than a personal trainer,” I broke in as politely as I could, looking directly at her. “ I need a little bit more information about you being a handler.”
“A handler is an FBI agent responsible for managing confidential informants, such as myself,” Ace chimed in. “ They also?—”
“I know what a handler is,” I interrupted. “ I’m just having a hard time understanding why you would need one.”
She sighed, looked to Sara , and then spoke again. “ Because I’m a nonofficial cover operative—also known as a NOC . Basically , I’m anoperative without official ties to the government.”
“I know what a NOC is, but…” I started in, but Vince cut me off.
“I actually don’t, so I’ll take the explanation if someone is willing to give it.”
It was Sara who chimed in to answer his question.
“ They assumecovertroles in organizations that are often hard to get into.
They provide the FBI and sometimes the CIA or the Marshal Service with valuable and credible information about suspected criminal activities.
Handlers , like myself, cultivate relationships with informants, ensuring they understand the risks and benefits of cooperation.
We also focus on protecting the informant and ensuring the informant's safety.”
“Okay, now to the part about why you are a NOC ,” I said, since she had never mentioned this once in the time we knew each other.
Ace sighed, twisting her hands in her lap. I couldn’t tell if she was nervous, or just wasn’t sure what to say.
“Because my role as a news anchor can get me into places most people can’t—without looking weird,” she explained, her shoulders slumping as she exhaled.
“ For example, I’ve been the emcee for banquets with billionaires suspected of funding international crime rings.
I’ve been the keynote speaker at a business leadership conference, which was really an insider trading ring for stock movements.
I’ve also shown up at a judge’s office pretending to be there for an interview about a trial but was really there to gather evidence of him taking bribes. ”
“Holy shit,” Vince said, sounding very impressed. His words were the same ones I had been thinking too.
“I can go places that other people can’t under the ruse of working in TV news.
If a cop shows up to any of those situations, people clam up and hide.
Even with some reporters, people can be wary that they will report on what they tell them.
But I’ve learned to play the role of just a news girl .
” She emphasized those last two words with air quotes, not hiding her derision for how people labeled her sometimes.
“ Thinking I’m just a pretty face behind a news desk, people will talk more freely about a lot of things in front of me. ”
“We usually only meet once a month—but we’ve been adding more training sessions since you informed us about the death threats,” Sara noted. “ Now , do you have enough basic information? Can you fill me in on what happened tonight?”
No, I didn’t have enough information. I had about a thousand more questions, but in the interest of time, I would delay those so we could wrap this up.
I no longer worked in law enforcement, and while I had friends who still did, being in the system allowed you to have access to information.
Right now, I needed information about what happened, and Sara could likely get that a heck of a lot faster than I could.
We spent the next ten minutes filling her in on everything that had happened tonight. From the vehicle following us, to leaving the gas station and hiding behind the dumpsters, to Ace evading the cops’ questions.
I was told that because she was a NOC , it was easier for her to pretend to just be a regular civilian since her name isn’t on any official FBI paperwork and would likely just confuse the cops even more.
Law enforcement generally worked well together, but there were definitely times when jurisdiction became a cat fight and people got into a dick measuring contest over who had control—local PD , FBI , CIA , sheriff’s office, etc.
“He almost blew it for us,” Ace announced, nodding in my direction.
“No, I didn’t,” I countered, fully offended by that assessment.
Still looking at Sara but talking about me, she continued. “ I don’t know where he learned to whisper, but I’m guessing it was inside a helicopter filled with a dozen leaf blowers,” she noted as I rolled my eyes.
A light chuckle had me looking back over at Sara , who was staring at both of us as though we were highly entertaining.
“We need a plan,” Vince spoke up, a glimmer of a smile on his face, indicating he was enjoying this but also wanted to move things along. “ They’ve obviously found you. They also know where you work, if they followed you from RSS .”
I had a plan—it had been a plan I’d been thinking about for days now.
I had even mentioned it to Vince , but I also knew it was risky, and I didn’t want to put Ace in any more danger than she already was.
But that was when I thought there was still a chance we could stay under the radar and let them be caught by the authorities before they caught us. Now , that didn’t seem likely.
“I think you should do it,” Vince offered, looking at me. “ I’ll go with you if you want backup.”
“Do what?” Ace asked.
“He’s got a plan,” Vince told her. “ It’s one we’ve been working on and talking about for a few days, but we had hoped we wouldn’t need to use it. Tonight proves otherwise.”
“Okay, genius, then what’s your plan?” Ace looked to me as though she was angry I hadn’t shared the plan with her before this. Which was true, but it was because I knew she wouldn’t go for it.
“We gotta go back to where it all started,” I announced.
“What do you mean by ‘where it all started’?” Ace asked.
“Vegas,” Sara chimed in, picking up on where I was going with this.
“Feel like getting hitched again?” I asked Ace , seeing her eyes practically bulging out of her face.
“Absolutely not,” Ace argued, shaking her head emphatically.
“He’s right,” Sara interrupted, causing Ace to turn to her, appalled, as if she had betrayed her. “ Hear me out. It’s the best way to get their attention. And I’m guessing that was your plan?” she questioned, looking back to Vince and me.
Vince laid most of the plan out while I watched Ace’s face for any expression or reaction she may have. She may not be a full-fledged FBI agent, but she had definitely learned to keep a stoic face when she needed to.
Sara chimed in with questions from time to time, but otherwise listened as Vince and I gave her all the details. One person, however, was noticeably silent.
“You’re awfully quiet over there,” I remarked, noting Ace hadn’t said a word the last few minutes as Vince and I laid out our plans.
“No one plots a murder out loud,” Ace deadpanned to me.
“You plotting theirs or mine?” I asked.
“Both,” she responded with an evil grin.
Vince snorted and Sara coughed—likely to cover a small laugh—before she spoke again.
“ Alright , kiddos. Get some rest tonight. I’m going home to make some calls.
I’ll arrange to have all of us on a flight to Vegas tomorrow afternoon.
Make any arrangements you need to here, and I will take care of the rest.”
Ace started to interrupt her, but Sara cut her off. “ Don’t worry about your job. You’ve had a death in the family—some great-aunt something-or-other—which I already drew up paperwork for. This will give you immediate bereavement until I can come up with something else to buy you some more time.”
“I’ll inform Jack and Wade tomorrow morning so we can take care of everything on our end,” Vince said before turning to Sara . “ I’m assuming you being Anna’s handler is confidential?”
“Yes. That information does not leave this room,” she confirmed. “ As far as your friends are concerned, you can tell them about the general reason we’re going to Vegas , but nothing else. You and I are simply going with them to be witnesses for the nuptials.”
Vince nodded his head in silent acknowledgement.
“Get some rest,” Sara said. “ I’ll call you in the morning with your flight details…and a reservation for a wedding chapel.