The Arena: The Awakening (1)

by James Robert Scott

  Laura sat back in the sofa. “Taylor, is it essential that you know that? Would it stop you being able to find them?”

  “No” he replied. “But if there is a common denominator that puts them all together, it’ll speed up the process for you”.

  Laura took a moment to have a think about what he had said. While she was doing this, Taylor took the piece of paper over to the oak desk at the other side of the room and started typing away. He typed away at a speed most secretaries would be proud of. This guy really knew his stuff. Out of the corner of her eye, Laura could see the screens he was working on, reflected on the mirror on the main wall in the room. He was flicking between so many different programs she knew that Fitz had put her in touch with the right person.

  Laura pondered on telling him the link between them all, while intermittently keeping an eye on what Taylor was doing. As she walked around the room, she started to note how clean it was and how everything was laid out. It wasn’t that it was odd, it was that it seemed like everything was there for a purpose. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it but she felt quite safe and secure in this room. As she walked towards the bay windows, her mind wandered to her previous missions and how easy it would be to take someone in this room out from across the Hudson. As she looked through the glass, she noticed that there was a very slight distortion in the pane. As she looked down to the edges, she could see a hallmark saying 'Civil Protection', engraved in the corner. It was actually armoured glass!

  Under her breath, she said “That would make it a little more difficult”.

  “What?” said Taylor.

  “Nothing” replied Laura, “I’m just admiring the view”. Hoping that would cover her unintentional gaff.

  Her consideration of whether to tell him or not was short lived and, as it turned out, quite unnecessary. A few minutes of typing later, Taylor looked over the top edge of his monitors and stared directly at Laura. Even though he was still wearing his glasses, the intensity in his face showed a degree of panic that made Laura think that something was seriously wrong.

  Taylor stood up from his desk and announced “You’re her, aren’t you? You’re Mia!”

  The tone of his voice was unlike the stare he gave Laura earlier. It was more of admiration than panic.

  “How do you know that?” Laura enquired.

  “I did some research for another friend of Fitz who was looking for you. I only had some basic information for him the last time he was here, but I carried on afterwards and found out all about you. I can’t believe you’re actually here!”

  “For someone who knows a lot about me Taylor, you don’t seem too bothered that I’m standing in your living room” said Laura.

  “I’m no threat to you Laura. Mia. Laura?” Taylor stumbled the names, unsure how she wanted to be addressed.

  “Laura’s fine, Taylor” setting him straight.

  Lowering his tone from excited to almost sheepish, Taylor explained, “All I can do is help you out and provide you with information you didn’t know Laura.”

  Before she could ask how, Taylor continued.

  “For example, this list you have here. Is this who you think ran the Arena?”

  Laura replied, “Yes, under the command of Dr Cooper. I took that list from the safe in his house.”

  “Well, I’ve got some more on that for you” explained an excited Taylor. His face was alive and he looked like he was about to just blurt everything out that he knew.

  “You’re missing a name from the list. Cooper controlled the Arena but he answered to someone further up the chain.”

  Taylor spun the computer monitor in front of him around so that Laura could see. On the screen was a picture of a woman with long dark brown hair. She looked as if she was in her very early 30’s.

  “She’s the one controlling everything.” Taylor looked like he was the cat that got the cream. He had a grin ear-to-ear as he felt good about himself when he could tell people things they didn’t know already.

  “Her name is Anita Hudson and she’s the director of Specialist and Covert Operations for the FBI. She’s one of these high flying kids that have flown through the ranks quickly due to their super intelligence and the way they network with other high ranking officials. The buck stops with her. She works out of an office in the Pentagon and she answers to no one apart from the Secretary of Defence, and even he’s not stupid enough to ask what projects she has on the go.”

  Laura sat back trying to take it all in.

  “What about my list?” she enquired.

  “These guys are all relevant to the operation. They used funding from each of their departments, NSA, CIA as well as the rest, to finance the Arena with the hope of having an assassin at their disposal should the project, you, work. You’re their dirty little secret.”

  “Can you find where the people on my list are and the details I need?” asked Laura.

  “Way ahead of you. Here.”

  Taylor passed Laura a bundle of papers that had printed off in the background while they were talking. As she looked through them, she could see that most of the names on the list lived in the DC area which was handy as she knew it very, very, well. There was one in the Morristown area, a Director R.T. Gascoigne, but she noticed but there was one stumbling block with his address. Where his address should be, there was a set of GPS co-ordinates.

  “What’s with this,” she said looking at Taylor.

  “Give me a minute,” he replied, burying his head into his monitors and keyboard. After a few minutes and what sounded like a thousand words being typed, he looked up above his monitor and asked “What happened to Dr Cooper, Laura?”

  With that statement, Laura saw an opportunity to test how comfortable Taylor was with her and also to see if he had any ethical issues with what she had done.

  “Dr Cooper?” she exclaimed. “Dr Cooper accidently got shot in the head after being caught lying to someone he shouldn’t”

  She could see Taylor's full face as he sat upright in his chair. You could see that his mind was racing, but after a few seconds he smiled and quietly said “So cool,” and returned to his monitors.

  “Those co-ordinates come back to a research centre in a place called Glencoe in Scotland. They’ve been posted on his record only yesterday, so I presume they’ve heard about Cooper.” “Wait, Wait!” proclaimed Taylor. “I’ve got another here relocated to London.”

  Laura muttered under her breath “That figures, running scared.” She handed the papers back to Taylor and he rifled through to the one he needed and scribbled down the details in the appropriate place.

  Laura was almost done with Taylor at this point but decided that she needed a couple of other things from him.

  “I’m going to need new passports, driving licences, all with false details, for me to carry on Taylor. Can you help with that?”

  “I can, but I can’t get you the physical documents. I can do all the technical bits on the official systems but I can’t create the documents in physical form. I don’t have the equipment. I do know someone who does though, but you’ll need to pay her when they’re done?”

  With a nod of her head, Taylor started typing again. She sat back and let him get on with it and after about thirty minutes or so, he was finished.

  “Anything else?” he enquired in almost a bragging tone.

  “Yes” replied Laura handing him a piece of paper with a long serial number and a list of smaller numbers and letters. “That’s the chassis number of my car, can you make it disappear on the DMV database using these number plates?”

  “Easy” he replied and tapped away once again. After about ten minutes he was done.

  The time came for Laura to move on for the day. As she stood up, she asked Taylor how much money she owed him for his time. He told her it was five thousand dollars. She asked how much would the documents from his friend cost, to which he replied “Probably about two thousand.”

  She reached into her purse and said to Taylor, “Thr
ee things Taylor. First, you deal with your friend for me and I’ll return and pick up those documents from you, as it’s best I don’t meet too many people at the moment. Second, that extra information you got for Fitz’s friend the other day, make sure he doesn’t get it until I say it’s OK, and third, I need a contact cell phone number for you, as I’ve a feeling I may need more information at some stage.”

  Taylor wanted to ask why, but before he could, Laura handed him fifty thousand dollars in brand new notes. He was stunned at seeing so much money in real life, but before he could say thank you, Laura was up and heading towards the door. Laura tried to shake Taylor's hand as she left but he recoiled his hands back out of the way.

  “Sorry” he said. “Issues.”

  He reached into his back trouser pocket and handed Laura a card with just a cell phone number on it. She knew he was in! Laura smiled and walked off down the corridor. She felt a real sense of achievement. She caught up with an old friend, and had potentially made a new one. It was time for a well-earned meal and a drink somewhere.

  Chapter 23

  Difficult Decision

  The meal and drink the night before had obviously been needed. Laura didn’t wake until nearly 9am. She felt refreshed and a little more comfortable in herself. She knew her steps over the last couple of days had been covered by Taylor and his computer magic, so she knew she wouldn’t need to be looking over her shoulder for the moment. She had ordered room service for breakfast and, after eating that and having an amazingly long shower, she sat on the sofa and started to look through the paperwork Taylor had given her. At the top of the pile was Cooper. She dismissed this and then ticked his name on her original list. The next file was on a Senior Investigating Officer Michael Scott. Little did she know that this name and file was going to cause eruptions in her plan and she was going to be forced to make a decision that she wouldn’t be happy about. As she read through, she could see that he was a highly decorated investigator with the FBI. He had commendations for all sorts of investigation as well as previous employment in special operations in the Pentagon.

  The next page was going to change everything for Laura. Listed on his profile was a home address in the Mountain Lakes area of Morris County. That was handy as it was only a short distance away from where Laura currently was. Under his employment location, it listed a covert field office in the Midtown Shopping Centre in Morristown. Laura couldn’t believe what she was reading. This was the Field Office that Hank worked from. Was Hank involved in all of this? After all, he had tracked her down. Did he know who she was all along and what she was doing? Surely not? These were questions Laura really needed the answers to.

  This changed her game plan completely as she wanted those answers from him. She couldn’t deal with him from a distance. This one needed to be dealt with at close quarters. Laura levelled her thoughts and had a look at both the Arena members that had fled the country. She knew that if she did take Scott out of the picture, the ramifications in the United States would be for them to hunt her down. At the moment, she didn’t need or want to be going about her business while looking over her shoulder all the time so perhaps a period of absence afterwards would work in her favour.

  She decided that it was a safe bet that Scott would be at work so, since it was now only 11am, it was a good time to check out his home address and the surrounding area. Laura had formulated a plan in her head that needed a few blanks filling in.

  It took only twenty minutes to reach the Mountain Lakes Area. As she pulled from the main Boulevard into the Mountain Lakes estate, Laura noticed that there was an unmarked cop car parked up at the side of the road. There was only one officer in it and he had a speed enforcement gun in his hand pointing in the opposite direction from where she came from. It didn’t faze her as she had nothing to be worried about, especially with her car. As she pulled in, the cop turned his head and looked directly at her as she drove past. Laura just smiled and carried on as normal and the cop didn’t appear to give her a second thought.

  As Laura drove around the area, it didn’t take too long for her to get a good feel for the place. It was quiet, with plenty of rest areas next to the lakes for people to stop and soak up the views. It was very picturesque. She pulled over into a small picnic area overlooking one of the lakes. There was a sign saying 'Wildwood' but from what she could see, there was nothing wild about it. It was beautiful.

  She sat on one of the picnic benches and took a look at a map that Taylor had printed out in her information bundle. From where she was sitting, she could actually see Scott’s house at the other side of the lake. She looked around and worked out that if she was going to deal with him long range, this would be the perfect location. She had been there for quite a few minutes now and no one had come past her, either on foot or by car. Her mind momentarily wandered off track as she sat there. She wondered what it would be like to actually live here with this type of scenery and recreational facilities on your doorstep. Reality came back in a flash though when she thought about how much the taxes would be as she remembered that New Jersey was quite ruthless in its taxation.

  Using a small pair of binoculars she had taken from her case at the hotel, she looked at Scott’s house. From what she could see, it was at least a four bedroom house and had extensive remodelling all around. She estimated that it had at least a two car garage attached. As she looked over it as much as she could, she identified an alarm attached to the house. There was a small control box mounted to the exterior wall high up along the roofline. On discovering that, she re-formatted her entry plan to the premises. She wouldn’t go in until he was actually home as she needed that alarm turned off so as not to cause any undue attention.

  She jumped back into her car and drove around the lake towards his house. As she did, she could see that there was a school close to the address. It didn’t bother her too much as she would be going in at night when kids wouldn’t be around. As she drew alongside the premises, she slowed to a snail’s pace. As she looked over the front of the house it was just as she imagined. The house was built from white timber and there was a series of steps leading to the front door. That caused Laura to believe it had a rather large basement underneath. It did in fact have a two car garage attached. She could see that there was a sensor attached to the top of each door so they were probably electronically operated. The front garden was heavily covered in shrubbery and trees. There were no security lights visible on the outside of the house so, if she wanted, she could hide in the front garden without being seen. All she needed now was to actually find what time Scott came home and work out her timings to have a word in his ear.

  It was still early in the day and with time to spare she headed out of the area. She left by a different route and exited onto the Boulevard from the other end of the estate. As she pulled onto the Boulevard and headed towards Morristown, she once again drove past the cop car which was still parked where she last saw it. She drove past him at the posted speed limit and he didn’t even acknowledge her. It looked like Taylor’s DMV hack had been worth the money. She needed gas for her car so it wasn’t long before she pulled into a service station to fill up. As she waited for the attendant to fill the tank, she went into the store to get a cup of coffee and pay. She noticed that attached to the building was a telephone kiosk. She knew that Taylor worked quickly in what he was doing so she decided to call him to see if her documents were ready. As it happens, they weren’t, but they would be by 4pm that day.

  Laura wanted somewhere to relax that wasn’t too far away from Taylors address so, once she had paid for her fuel and got her coffee, she headed towards the city. She had typed in scenic spot into the GPS in her car and it recommended Liberty State Park just outside Jersey City, on the shore. Within about thirty minutes, she was walking along the block paved boardwalk soaking in the sunshine and the views of Manhattan once again.

  She found a quiet bench seat to have a short rest and took in what was in front of her. Standing in the majestic vie
w was the Statue of Liberty in all its glory. There was a clear blue sky above and the sun’s reflection was bouncing off the gold leaf on the torch. It was quite an impressive sight. There were a few people around, some families with children flying kites, people cycling and jogging along the boardwalk. This was the life that Laura wanted. Relaxing, peaceful and normal.

  The hours passed quicker than Laura would have liked and it was time to go to Taylor’s house and pick up her things. She did have time to think about her next move after dealing with Scott. She knew that there would be uproar within the Arena once she had dealt with him and she knew she would need to lay low for a while to let the heat dissipate. She was going to need Taylor's help again.

  It didn’t take long to get there from the park. She parked her car away from the address and walked the couple of block to the apartments. When she knocked on the door, she found it funny that he opened it in exactly the same way as before. The only difference this time was that he was wearing different coloured glasses. They were iridium green instead of orange.

  As she walked inside, she commented “Nice glasses.”

  His reply was “Well, it’s Tuesday,” and he followed her into the living room.

  That comment made Laura think that he might actually have a pair for each day of the week. She smiled thinking about it.

  Taylor handed her a small leather pouch. She opened it and in there were two passports, two new driving licences and a bank card.

  “I didn’t ask for this Taylor,” Laura said while holding it in her hand.

  “Yeah, that’s a little bonus from me. I figured that you’re going to need to pay for some things on a card, rather than cash, at some stage, so I’ve set you up with an account that you can use. You can walk into any bank and make a deposit which will activate the account. It’s completely untraceable.”