On The Rocks by Sable Jordan

machine ran
smoothly.
    Until it didn’t.
    Which brought them to her next point.
    “Right. So, Abrahan, Sanzio, and Sabine.
Information dealers, with a jewelry store as a possible front to
launder money…?” She pondered that a moment, flicked her wrist
toward the photo. “The most important person in this equation is
the one individual not shown here. Their source.”
    Rachel advanced the slide, and a single word
in thick bold letters replaced the three people in the rectangle.
Then she turned toward her team. Lennox stared at the screen with
little interest, just as he’d done throughout the meeting. Ditto
for Kizzie. Apparently, neither recognized the name, or the immense
threat they were dealing with.
    But Bill did.
    His eyes rounded, the blue balls alert in
the bright white sea surrounding them. “Are you sure?”
    Ah, so those superior contacts at the CIA
hadn’t divulged this bit of Intel…
    That gave her a little thrill. Felt good to
be a step ahead for the first time today. She yanked off the
sunglasses and tossed them on the table.
    “Absolutely certain. The crypto team pulled
this from the coded pictures sent to Sanzio’s cell phone.”
    “Someone want to clue me in on what the
fuck’s a Metis?” Lennox said.
    “It’s Greek. Means ‘combining wisdom and
cunning’,” Rachel responded.
    “And that’s exactly what we’re dealing
with,” Bill jumped in. “But this Metis isn’t a what, it’s a
who.”
    “Vegetable, animal, mineral…” Lennox
shrugged, “I don’t really care. Get to the point.”
    “Metis is rumored to be the most dangerous
mole ever to infiltrate the CIA.” The room fell silent a brief
moment. She could actually do this. Get them in and out of the
lion’s den before the kitty even realized they were there. The
nervous energy seeped from her blood, replaced by an eagerness to
get things moving.
    Hands on the table, Rachel leaned into her
arms and stared Lennox down. “And you and Agent Baldwin are going
to help us catch him.”
    Chuckling sounded beside her and Rachel
twisted her head.
    “No, Agent Hayford,” Kizzie said, “I’m
not.”

 
    “I’M SORRY?”
    KIZZIE rolled back her chair and spun away
from the round table. Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere here could
have at it. This knight didn’t need no stinkin’ grail quest. “I’m
out.”
    Rachel scrunched up her nose like English
wasn’t her fifth language let alone her first. But Kizzie was
speaking the Queen’s own. If Rachel wasn’t fluent, that was her
problem.
    “I don’t… understand…”
    “Out,” she repeated firmly. The safety of
her Beretta engaged, she slid the handgun into the holster at her
back. “As in, ‘thank you for considering me for the position, but I
respectfully decline’. Or, for those short on time, ‘deuces’.”
    At the couch, she threaded her arms through
the straps of her rucksack and slammed Xander’s cap back in place.
To Rachel, “Good luck with all this.” To Lennox, she said nothing.
And to Bill, “Call me when—”
    “Sit down, Baldwin,” Bill said softly.
    Not happening. If she sat she’d get talked
into going, and she wasn’t up for being convinced. Turning the
mission down was hard enough, but the last few days taught her that
sometimes she had to put herself before the job or she'd live to
regret it.
    Still, she respected her handler too much to
just walk off like a rude teenager.
    “Look, I know I never pass on an op, Bill,
but I’m passing on this one. Find someone else to plant a tracer in
Abrahan, or whatever it is you need done. They do it right, they
can tag the woman, too. And then you’ll have access to the entire
Galletti clan.”
    “We don’t need him tagged, per se. We
need his phone. Maybe his computer.”
    “Great! Have him arrested and extradited.
The phone gets confiscated, we save taxpayers some money, and we
keep Kizzie from having to spend another second in Tate's presence.
That’s what I call the trifecta of win-win