by Matt Lincoln
Once inside, I forced myself to slow down. My instincts were telling me to hurry up and find the suspect before he got away, but I knew that rushing in without taking the time to do a careful sweep and clear each area could get me killed. I drew my gun and held it in front of me as I carefully moved further into the house. The house was so quiet that I was beginning to think that the suspect must have gotten away when suddenly I heard the sound of footsteps behind me and turned just in time to avoid having a knife plunged directly into my back. Unfortunately, I hadn’t managed to dodge it entirely, and it sliced across my ribs instead, sending a sharp, burning burst of pain all the way across my torso.
I yelled, both in pain and in anger, that he’d somehow managed to get behind me despite my best efforts to sweep the house. I heard him laugh as he took advantage of my distracted state to bolt past me and out the door again. I shifted my gun, so that I was holding it more with the hand on my uninjured side and tried to ignore the pain as I ran after him, every step sending another jolt of pain through my ribs.
I heard the engine of a car ignite just as I made it through the backdoor and looked up to see the suspect behind the wheel of a beat-up blue sedan, smirking back at me as he looked in my direction.
“Oh, hell no, you don’t,” I grunted past the pain in my side, lifting my gun and shooting toward the wheels and engine of the car. The smirk slid off his face then, replaced with a look of pure fury as he instead reversed the car and repositioned it, so it was facing me.
Realizing what he was about to do, I lifted my gun and fired toward the windshield instead, just as he began accelerating. I saw his face contort with pain as one of my shots landed, striking him in his bicep. He swerved around me and through the yard, crushing bushes and weeds as he went, before turning back onto the street and speeding off.
“Damn,” I said to myself as he drove out of sight. I crouched down to sit on the grass, careful not to put too much pressure on my injured side. A few seconds later, I heard the sound of police sirens and huffed out a sarcastic laugh. “Great timing, guys.” Now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, the pain in my side seemed to amplify, and I suddenly felt a strong compulsion to close my eyes and take a nap. I shook my head in an attempt to ward off the exhaustion and instantly regretted it when the motion irritated the cut on my ribs.
Several police officers rounded the corner of the house then, with their guns drawn.
“Agent Hills, Military Borders Liaison Investigative Service,” I said, producing my identification before they could confuse me with the suspect and finish me off. “Suspect got me pretty good. Could one of you help me up?”
“Agent Hills, are you okay?” It was Junior, coming around the side of the house behind the police officers.
I bit down the urge to answer sarcastically and just nodded, motioning for him to help me up.
“Carmen’s okay. The police came and took over, so that’s pretty much settled. Here, we should really get you looked at by the paramedics,” he said, leading me toward the ambulance that sat parked in front of the house.
“She said that this house belongs to her elderly neighbor who’s away staying with her family right now, so whoever the suspect was must have broken in. Did you manage to get a description?” he asked, moving aside as we made it to the ambulance to give the paramedics room to work.
“Yeah, he had curly brown hair, about shoulder length. Around five-foot-ten, medium build. Wearing black pants and a black button-down,” I said, closing my eyes and trying to remember any more pertinent details. “Late twenties, maybe early thirties?”
“Do you think he was after Carmen or us?” he asked.
“Us, I think,” I answered after thinking about it for a few moments. “Carmen didn’t really have much to do with the cougar itself, right? I mean, she used it to kill Dean indirectly, but she didn’t actually know where it came from or who he got it from. The whole thing completely shocked her. That makes me think it was us he was trying to eliminate.”
“Then he must have followed us here from the original crime scene,” Junior said, taking a seat next to me on the edge of the ambulance. “We came here right away after our preliminary investigation of the scene, and no one knew we were even coming here besides who we told at MBLIS. So he must have been watching us since back then and followed us when he saw us leave. Whoever it was, they knew about the cat and didn’t want us finding out where it came from.”
We sat in silence then, each of us letting the gravity of the situation sink in. If someone was willing to try to kill us so we wouldn’t find out where the cougar had come from, that meant there was way more to this than we initially thought.
“Well, the good news is that it’s really not that bad,” the paramedic said, interrupting my line of thought. “It’s a pretty long wound, so it’s probably going to hurt for a while, but it’s not actually very deep. You’ll need a few stitches, but as long as you don’t do anything strenuous, you should be good to go.” It would be impossible to do my job without engaging in “strenuous” work, but I didn’t feel like getting lectured by a paramedic, so I just kept my mouth shut and nodded. He finished cleaning the wound then applied some gauze and bandages to hold it over until I could make it to the hospital to have stitches put in. He offered us a ride, but I declined, insisting we’d make the drive ourselves. I wasn’t about to add insult to injury by piling a massive bill for an ambulance ride on top of getting stabbed.
Junior insisted on driving us to the hospital despite the fact that by that point, whatever drug the paramedic had given me to dull the pain had kicked in, and I was feeling just fine.
“You don’t have stitches yet. The only thing holding you together right now is some gauze. If you drive, you could make your injury worse. Plus, I’m pretty sure you’re a little high right now off whatever they gave you, so no, you can’t drive,” he’d told me sternly.
“I’m going to bleed out by the time we get there. You drive like a grandma,” I grumbled back. Junior drove like he was taking his driving test for the first time and consistently stayed at least five miles below the speed limit. We did eventually get to the hospital, though, at which point a friendly nurse wheeled me away while Junior pulled out his phone to update Wallace on everything that had gone down. He had completed the phone call by the time they finished my stitches, which surprisingly took far less time than I thought it would.
“What’d they say?” I asked Junior as I plopped down into a chair next to him in the lobby of the hospital.
“He sounded concerned about you getting hurt,” he replied. “He also said that Gardner was running an image search on a symbol she noticed on one of the pictures of the shipping container we sent her. That was the one the cat was in, remember?” Junior held his phone out to me to show me the image. I hadn’t noticed the symbol while we were at the apartment, but sure enough, it was there, clear as day.
“I wish we’d noticed it sooner. We might have been able to get a better picture,” I said, handing the phone back to him.
“Me too,” he answered. “Anyway, Wallace said he’d call us with an update as soon as he got the results from Agent Gardner.”
My phone chimed then as if it had heard Junior, and I pulled it out of my pocket, wincing as the movement caused me to compress my ribs. Wallace’s name illuminated across the screen.
“Hello?” I said as I answered the call, trying my best to keep the pain out of my voice.
“Agent Hills,” Wallace answered, “I’ve received intelligence from Agent Gardner that she’s been able to trace a mysterious symbol found on the cougar’s shipping crate to an industrial park on the outskirts of Las Vegas. A young man named Andy Gilford spray-painted the symbol onto the side of a warehouse and then uploaded an image of it onto his social media account. I need you and Agent Chapman to stake the area out tomorrow and gather any evidence you can that will allow us to obtain a warrant to search that warehouse.”
“We can just go right now,
” I informed him. “I’m finished getting my stitches, and the doctor said I was clear to go.” Wallace cut me off.
“No, you won’t,” he said firmly. “You’ve both done enough for your first day, and it’s already late. If you go now, there’s no telling how long you’d be out there, and you might not even find anything.”
I tried to argue. “But sir, I-”
“And there’s the matter of you getting injured, as well. No, it’s not up for negotiation, Agent Hills. I need my agents in top-performing condition at all times, and I won’t have you slipping up due to exhaustion or because you’re too stubborn to rest after receiving an injury. Go home and rest for the remainder of the day. That’s all.”
I was fuming and wanted to argue, but I could tell from his tone that arguing wouldn’t do me any good.
“Yes, sir,” I said, ending the call.
11
Junior
Hills insisted on driving back to the office, and although I still had my reservations about it, I conceded. The doctor had cleared him for duty, though he’d recommended that Hills take it easy for a while and not attempt to do anything too physically demanding for the next two weeks. I don’t think anyone in that room honestly believed he’d actually follow that recommendation, and since driving wasn’t exactly a physically demanding activity, I figured there was little harm in letting him. If nothing else, I hoped it would help him calm down after the phone call he’d just had with Wallace.
Truth be told, I was more than ready to go home after the day we’d had, but I kept my thoughts to myself as I glanced over at Hills, who was still fuming in his seat over not being permitted to continue the investigation immediately. I could understand his frustration, as it often felt as though we were wasting time sitting around waiting or resting when we could be out there actively catching the bad guys, but it was important to remember that we were only human. Running yourself ragged could cost you your life if you suddenly found yourself in a life-or-death situation with no energy to defend yourself.
Honestly, I wasn’t in the best mood, either. I’d felt extremely helpless hearing the sound of gunshots and not being able to help my partner. I didn’t regret what I’d done because I had been protecting a civilian. Sure, she was a murder suspect as well, but I wasn’t about to let her be gunned down. Then, in the end, Hills had gotten hurt after all. It was never a good feeling when one of your teammates got injured in the line of duty.
Not only that, but ultimately, the girlfriend had turned out to be a dead end. All we’d really discovered was how the victim had ended up mauled to death. We still didn’t know who’d brought the cat into the United States from overseas, and as an international crimes agency, that was our job. The local police would handle Carmen from here, so until we could do an investigation on what Agent Gardner had found regarding the mysterious symbol, we were effectively back to square one.
Still, I was fairly sure that any attempts to communicate any of these thoughts to Hills while he was in this churlish state would do more harm than good, so I decided to try a different approach.
“It’s still a little early, so do you want to go get a bite?” I asked. I thought maybe the prospect of food would be enough to improve his mood. “Director Wallace did say that we should go home. Eating probably would help with your injury and-”
“No.” Hills’s response was curt and had an edge of anger that I knew wasn’t really directed at me. Nevertheless, the force of it seemed to reverberate in the confined space of the car, and the resulting silence felt palpable.
I opened my mouth, ready to protest, but whatever I was about to say died on my tongue. When we’d first set out, I had been determined to find some common ground with Hills, but I was just so drained from the events of the day that I couldn’t summon the energy to try again. If Hills was so dead-set on being a jerk, then I wasn’t about to go out of my way to try to get along with him.
I pulled out my phone instead and began looking up places to eat on my own. I had spoken honestly when I said that I hadn’t really had a chance to explore Las Vegas yet. I’d only been here a few days and had spent the majority of that time organizing my apartment and switching all of my banking and mail information.
“Ah, damn,” I heard Hills say beside me, just as I was trying to decide whether I felt more like chicken or seafood. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been such a jerk, okay? Don’t look so much like a kicked puppy.” I found myself equal parts touched that he was taking the time to apologize and offended that he was comparing me to a puppy, but I decided to take what I could get.
“It’s fine,” I replied with a shrug. “I get how you feel. There are people suffering and crimes happening right now, and it feels like every second you’re sitting here instead of out there doing something to stop it is just another second wasted. But you won’t be any good to anyone if you keel over from hunger or exhaustion.” I spoke seriously, glad he was talking to me civilly but still determined to knock some sense into him.
Hills just snorted a weak laugh. “That’s exactly what Wallace said.”
“Yeah, well, there must be some reason he’s the director, right?” I said, glad that Hills no longer seemed to be sulking.
We pulled into a fast-food restaurant and ordered through the drive-through. Neither of us was particularly interested in eating inside, and we decided that parking the car and eating in the parking lot would be quieter and more comfortable, anyway. The restaurant’s menu consisted mostly of greasy burgers and frozen custard, and although usually, I would try to stay away from those kinds of foods, I didn’t want to argue with Hills’s choice now that he finally seemed to be in a better mood. Plus, after the ridiculous day we’d had, frozen custard sounded amazing.
“Well, I guess we figured out the details of how the victim died,” I said to Hills after eating in silence for a few minutes. “It’s kind of a shame it turned out to be a dead-end, though, since we still don’t know who’s bringing the animals over here.” My thoughts from earlier had returned to the forefront of my mind, and I wanted to know if Hills had similar thoughts on the matter.
“We know they’re originating in Greece, that’s something,” Hills replied. “And we have the symbol that Gardner found. That’ll help to narrow it down too.” He was right. Even if we had hit a dead end with the girlfriend, we still had a lot more to go on now than we did this morning.
“You said you were a cop in Arizona, right?” Hills suddenly asked.
“Yes?” I responded with uncertainty, a little confused by the abrupt change in topic.
“Why’d you decide to move to Vegas?” he continued.
That was certainly a long story, and not one that I was sure I wanted to share with Hills yet. Although I supposed a condensed version would suffice. This was a pretty small office after all, and with so few agents, it was likely we’d have to work together pretty frequently. It would be good to share a little about myself with my partner.
“I grew up in Arizona. My father was a cop, although not a very good one,” I said, laughing dryly. It wasn’t very funny, but I’d learned a long time ago that using humor was one of the best ways to stave off negative feelings. “He was a good man. I remember when he first joined the academy. He was so proud of himself and so excited about having the chance to help people… Anyway, the job just got to him, I guess. Sometimes I think he was too good of a man, too gentle. The only way to deal with the horrors of what he saw every day was to become as hard and angry and mean as the criminals he dealt with. I decided I wanted to succeed where he failed. I would become someone who could make a difference in the world for people in need… Anyway, a few months ago, my supervisor told me about a specialized international investigation branch that was being established in Las Vegas. To be honest, I think he was just trying to get rid of me. He’d argued against letting me join in the first place, saying I was supposedly too young, even though I was already twenty-three. I was actually really interested, though. My whole life, I’d l
ived in the same place. Even the federal agency where I worked in Phoenix was only about thirty minutes from where I was born. I really liked the idea of being able to move to a completely new place and being able to start over, so I applied at MBLIS that same night.”
I felt a little embarrassed and wondered if I sounded childish to Hills. He just looked at me pensively for a second, though, before simply shrugging and saying, “Well, their loss. What kind of supervisor actively pushes away their agents?”
He crumpled up his trash, tossed it into the paper bag the food had come in, and then started the car and began to back out of the parking spot without another word. I couldn’t help but smile to myself a little as he did. It felt unexpectedly nice to have someone recognize my worth and stand up for me for once, even if it was months after the fact.
Once we made it back at the office, Hills slipped back into his sour mood, despite the headway we’d made earlier. It seemed just being in proximity to Wallace’s office had reawakened his irritation, so he barely paused to give a quick goodbye to the other agents sitting in the break room before he was rushing out toward the elevators.
Despite our rather rocky start, I found that I liked Hills. He seemed like a nice guy who was just really bad at dealing with people and reacted instinctively by throwing up shields of aggression and indifference. In a way, I could relate. The only difference between us was that I had years of experience that allowed me to keep calm and control my emotions while interacting with others. The truth was that I got just as frustrated and angry as Hills did, but I’d learned that both suspects and victims tended to cooperate with you more when you were sympathetic and gentle than when you were intimidating or authoritative.