The Lost Angel

Chapter 5

I had decided that to pass the time I needed to stay busy. What better way to stay busy and be ready for evacuation, then to pack up my belongings. As I passed the kitchen and dining room, I noticed small black X’s on the doorframe. I had to hand it to him, Brooks was thorough. The game room and bedrooms had the same marking on them, he was fast too. I walked into the training room and he was just finishing up. I could see that the left back pocket of his jeans had a significant bulge. We had a serious infestation.

He must have deactivated them as he found them because as I approached, he smiled, “I found a lot but I want to check your rooms now.”

“Well follow me Mr. Terminator.” My attempt at humor rewarded me a laugh.

He was still chuckling when we headed up the stairs to the second-floor bedrooms. The one across the hall wasn’t being used and the key was still on the hook. We turned to the door on the left and I pulled out my key. After I unlocked the door, I pushed it open and let Brooks go in before me. He replaced the headsets on his ears and began to walk around the walls of my room. He ran what looked like a metal detector over the walls from top to bottom. Then followed the wall around the entire room then moved to the ceiling and then the floor. He found six bugs in my main room. There were two in the electronic equipment on the left wall, one under the chair outside my closet, one each on the underside of the tables by the bed, and one underneath the foot of the bed. Someone wanted to know everything I said and did in this room.

He deactivated each one that he found and placed them in his already too full back pocket. He moved to my closet next and when he entered it, he turned around and stared at me. All I could do was smile and shrug, there was nothing I could say to explain the amount of clothes in here. He just shook his head and returned to his work. There were two in here, both were under a shelf where my shoes were kept on the left and right sides. Last but not least the bathroom, again he was shocked at the enormous room. It only took him a moment to recover but again he shook his head and returned to work. The last of the bugs were under the sink counter, under one of the shelves that held the towels, and one in the intercom. I began to head to my closet to pack my things and I thought of something.

“Brooks, check the other rooms and meet me in the garage.”

“Alright, give me five minutes to check the room across the hall, the infirmary, and the control room. I’ll meet you there.”

He took off toward the other rooms and stopped at the door. I know he was thinking of commenting on my rooms, but instead he continued on his way. He knew he didn’t have the time to be a smartass and check the other rooms in five. After he was gone, I went into my closet and started to pack.

My vanity was fully stocked but I wouldn’t need all of it. One thing I always did when coming to a new place was to pack a bag in case, I had to leave in a hurry. I also left most of the other clothes and shoes in their containers or wrapping. It was easier to pack that way. I removed the travel bag I had packed when we got here and placed it on the table. My rolling luggage was by the door leading into the bathroom, I pulled the smallest one out and placed it on the chair in front of the vanity. I unzipped it and put the travel bag inside. Now time for the rest, I grabbed my music from the main room and stuffed the case full of music next to the travel bag. I didn’t have a lot of time but I could pack the other cases in no time.

It only took me three minutes to pack everything else. I was headed into the garage when Brooks came out of the infirmary to put away the detection tools. I waited for him to finish putting them away, before I motioned to the door.

“One minute Angel, I’m going to dispose of these stupid things.”

“That’s why I wanted to meet you in the garage. Let’s go everyone should be in here waiting on us. I told them to meet us when I was coming this way.”

He followed me through the door and went over to lean up against the Beamer. Brooks had gotten the Beamer because it was a part of his list of cars to own. He always bought them when we were on missions so he could test them out before he bought it for himself. We always picked our own vehicles once we got here and went to the lot to purchase them.

I knew the vehicles wouldn’t be bugged just as I knew the garage wouldn’t be. The cars and bikes were new or newer and the leak couldn’t know which ones we would pick. The garage was another room that I spent little to no time in, I knew how to work on a car but I never had to. Brooks probably checked everything anyway, he may be the “class clown” but when he had a job to do, he poured himself into it.

Sara was sitting on the hood of the beamer with her legs crossed playing with her hair. Jason, Jake and Lee were leaning against the black civic talking about what still needed to be done before nightfall. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me when I cleared my throat. “Brooks, would you empty your back pockets onto the workbench?”

“You got it.” He pushed off the Beamer and walked to the workbench. As we watched he emptied the contents of both back pockets, which were full, onto the bench. “We had a serious bug problem but don’t worry, you’re friendly Terminax guy took care of it.”

“You found all of those in here! How the hell did they get here?” Sara jumped off the hood and was walking straight to the bench. The rest of the guys were stuck in place staring at me with their mouths hanging open. At least Sara wasn’t speechless, “I mean how could someone bug the place with us still in it. I haven’t left the entire time we’ve been here. I know we haven’t had visitors either.”

“Well Sara, I agree with you on that. They would have had to be planted before we got here. I think someone at HQ is a rat and they knew someone on the outside that could get in and out without being noticed. Which brings up new questions, but I’ll get to that in a minute. I believe these were planted around the building to pick up what I was saying. Brooks, did you find any in the kitchen or garage?”

“No Angel. I didn’t find any in our bedrooms either. There were four in the dining room, four in the game room, ten in the training room, three in the infirmary, and twelve in the control room. Then of course the eleven in your room.”

“There were eleven in your room, s**t Angel.” Jake had broken out of his shock and was staring at me. I could smell his fear and sense the tension rolling off of him in waves. He was scared for me. He protected me like a big brother would his little sister, only thing is I didn’t need the protection.

“That’s why we think they were monitoring Angel and not us. All of the bugs were found in areas where she would be. Whoever did this knows our Angel pretty well and only had the bugs planted where she’d be. I think it’s either an operator or one of the handlers. It’s the only thing that makes sense. How else would someone know that she doesn’t go in our rooms and avoids the kitchen like a plaque? What I don’t understand is why would they not plant some in here? I checked the entire space and nothin’. I mean you know more than I do about fixing cars.” Brooks had some good question but I didn’t get to answer them. Lee spoke up before I could.

“Good point. It makes sense that it would be a handler or operator. They know everything about us. The operator gives us info for our missions and has access to all the files in any database. A handler would know because they check us out back at headquarters. They also let John know if we’re fit for duty. I think the person responsible for the bugs knows Angel very well. They would also know that since we joined her, she hasn’t been spending much time working on the cars or bikes we get. We’ve been doing that; she just gets to fix them if we can’t get to them. Which is almost never. I think the real question to ask is what do we do now? Whoever’s been listening knows our plan and will no doubt pass it on to our target. Angel?” Even better questions and I didn’t really know how to answer any of them.

I smiled at all of them and proceeded to walk over to the wood-burning stove that we never used. There was firewood stacked neatly about five feet from it. I had already decided to do one of two things to whatever surveillance equipment Brooks found. The first was to start a fire and burn it all. The second was to put everything in a bag and chuck it into the nearest river. I’ll leave it up to the crew, let them decide which would be the better choice.

“Well, first things first. We need to dispose of those. At this point I’ve thought of two options. One burn them in this thing or two put them in a bag and dump ‘em in the river. Which one do you guys think would be better? I want your opinion before we do either or figure out something else.”

Sara piped up, “they won’t burn completely but that’s probably the best way to dispose of them. If we decided to dump them than that would require someone to leave and go to the nearest lake or river. I say start the fire.” Sara liked to think out loud most of the time. It was a good and bad thing. Good because we always knew what was in her head and bad because so did anyone else within earshot. I’m going to have to try and break that little habit of hers.

“Burn them.” Lee always got right to the point.

“I say burn the suckers.”

“Brooks you can’t help but be a smartass can you. I agree we should burn them.” Jake and I almost always thought alike. We normally would finish each other’s sentences.

The only exception to this would be in our attractions. I thought he should be with someone who was laid back and relaxed. He was into the prom queen type, high maintenance. And he thought I should be with a down to earth country boy, but I liked someone who lived on the edge like me. I wanted someone who could keep up with me, be that male or female I didn’t care which. I was attracted to both and didn’t understand why people decided to be with just one gender. Since I joined the Agency, I hadn’t been able to find anyone that could keep up with me in anything that we did.

Jason was staring at the equipment on the bench and he looked almost sad. “Do we have to get rid of them? Can I have them and take them apart? I could use the pieces to fix some of our equipment and save the others for later. It would be easy enough for me to get them apart. If you give me about thirty minutes, I could have all of them apart.”

“Jason. I don’t think that’s a good idea. These might be booby-trapped and I don’t want you to open them up. Brooks deactivated them and they seem to be ok with that but I don’t know what would happen if you tore them apart. It’s better to be done with them. The safest thing for us would be to get rid of them. I wanted to toss them but Sara’s right, someone would have to leave to do it. I don’t feel comfortable having anyone leave until I know you’ll be safe. The only other logical thing to do is burn them, because the smoke and anything else will go out through the pipes. We need to start the fire and then close any vents to other areas of the building and have the smoke piped directly out.”

“Angel’s right. We don’t know what could happen.” Before Sara could finish what, she was saying one of the garage doors started to open.