The Retrieval Ch 03

Author's Note: All I can say is wow - thank y'all so much for all of the wonderful feedback, comments and votes on the first two chapters of this story. I'm really happy that everyone seems to have taken a liking to Jules and Leah...they have been so much fun to write about. I also appreciate your patience -- the writing process does take me a little bit of time to get it right...so with that said, here is the final part of The Retrieval. One quick word of caution - you should probably read 01 & 02 before reading Ch. 03 - things will definitely make more sense if you do. Also keep in mind that this story is a complete work of fiction and everything is from my imagination, so any mistakes or missteps are definitely on me.

And of course this story includes sexually explicit material and is intended for adults, so if you are not at least 18 years of age or are offended by sexual material - then this ain't the place for you...for the rest of you, thank you for reading, feel free to comment and give feedback, please remember to vote - and I really hope you enjoy!

****

Everything around her seemed to fade away as Leah gave Jules her full attention.

"What did you just say?"

"I said I love you," Jules repeated with a scared look in her eyes. "So please, just trust me right now, okay?"

"You do?" Leah was dumbfounded.

"I do," Jules nodded and then took a deep breath and leaned her head in closer. "Please, Leah...if you care for me even just the tiniest little bit, please...close your eyes."

"What?"

"Close your eyes...Tight. Please?"

"Why?"

****

She was somewhere. Where?

It felt far away...but she wanted to wake up...

Wake up...WAKE UP! But her eyes felt so very heavy.

She also wanted to move...but her limbs felt weighted down.

She was quite sure she had to be lying in thick mud...or quicksand maybe?

It felt heavy...so tired...maybe she would rest for a while.

But wait...she smelled vegetation.

Was she in the jungle?

Not just vegetation, but floral...yeah, definitely flowers.

There were other smells...and sounds.

There was no mistaking that pungent odor of antiseptic.

She heard sounds...and she could feel things.

A continuous tone like insects.

Cicadas? No, cicadas don't beep...do they?

No...they don't. And that sound is beeping...definitely a soft beeping.

Voices? Hmmm...not sure if those were real or in her head.

She concentrated. Sheets.

Kind of scratchy...but they felt cool on her skin.

There was also pressure...on her fingers.

It felt like...yeah...someone was holding her hand.

She really hoped it was Jules.

****

"

Jules

," Leah whined. "I'm not sick."

"I know," Jules agreed as she walked past on her way to bringing in two more bulging bags of groceries. She set them on the kitchen island and immediately about-faced back towards the front door.

"Then stop treating me like I'm made of glass," Leah grumped at the redhead's back as she disappeared out the front door.

Jules reappeared in the doorway with two more plastic bags in hand. She gave the two serious looking security guards stationed outside a polite smile and kicked the door shut behind her with her foot. She was about to make the final trek to unload the last of the groceries in the kitchen when she noticed Leah was sitting up on the couch with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. Jules blew a strand of auburn hair off of her forehead and set the bags down on the coffee table. She stood there with her hands on her hips for a moment before taking a seat next to the blonde amid the mountain of pillows and bunched up blankets.

"Leah?" Jules asked patiently. "Do we really have to have this conversation again?"

"I feel perfectly fine," Leah replied with exasperation.

"I know you do," Jules smiled and scooted closer. She ran her hand up and down Leah's back and her eyes shined with affection. "But remember what the doctor said? Forty-eight hours of complete bed rest."

Leah sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes before toppling over so that she was half-buried in the pillows and blankets. Her muffled voice replied, "Just to make sure...I know."

"It's only one more day," Jules encouraged her. "Twenty-four more hours and you've got your official doctor's release."

"It's actually eighteen hours and thirty seven minutes," the muffled voice corrected.

"Okay," Jules laughed softly. "I stand corrected. Now what can I make you for lunch?"

Leah suddenly sprang back up from the pillows and grabbed Jules pulling her into an embrace. She brought their faces close together and began lightly planting kisses all around the redhead's mouth as she replied, "I

(kiss)

...want

(kiss)

...you

(kiss)

...with

(kiss)

...extra

(kiss)

...sprinkles

(kiss)

."

"That is definitely on the menu," Jules grinned, but then reluctantly extricated herself from Leah's arms and stood up to elude the blonde's reach. "In eighteen hours and thirty seven minutes."

"Arrgghhh!" Leah dramatically growled and flopped back over into her little pillow and blanket lair. After a pause, her muffled voice announced, "I hate modern medicine."

Jules shook her head with a grin and grabbed the remaining bags of groceries from the coffee table. As she headed towards the kitchen the muffled voice called out after her with the correction.

"And it's now eighteen hours and thirty one minutes!"

****

It was getting late.

Well...late was a matter of perspective. For most people it was early evening, but it was already thirty minutes past the Congressman's usual dinner time. The Congressman and his driver had been sitting and waiting for twice that long. The old man liked his routine and hated being kept waiting. His irritation grew as they continued to watch the man dressed in sweats slowly amble down the sidewalk like he was in no particular hurry. The politician sighed as the man kept letting the dog run its leash out to sniff this and sniff that along the way.

The man walking the small dog was an employee of the Department of Homeland Security...that was the only thing the Senator knew about him and that was intentional. On the flipside, the only thing the DHS employee knew was that the man he had agreed to meet worked for the government. Of course that was all he would ever know as well. Operational security was paramount when handling The Council's business. It made perfect sense that if a resource literally didn't know another person's identity then he couldn't be compromised or forced to reveal that identity.

"Go ahead, Carl," the Congressman instructed from the back seat of the black Lincoln Town Car. His driver Carl had removed the license plates from the Town Car a few minutes earlier when they first spotted the man in the blue sweats walking the dog off in the distance as he faded in and out of the streetlights.

Carl flashed the headlights twice and the man stopped walking. Carl put the Lincoln in gear, pulled forward and passed the man going in the opposite direction. Carl slowed and pulled the big vehicle into a U-turn and then expertly eased the Town Car up alongside him. The man and his Pomeranian just stood and watched. The driver reached over to the front passenger door and opened it.

"Get in," Carl instructed.

The man hesitated. He squinted to try and see inside the vehicle. Then he stood up tall and turned his head and cautiously looked up to the end of the street. Then he did the same in the opposite direction. Carl let out a very small sigh at the pretense of tradecraft. Finally satisfied, the man reached down and grabbed the dog and climbed into the front seat.

Carl put a hand on the man's arm as he started to turn. "Face forward."

The man complied and sat looking out the windshield. The blacked out divider glass that separated the back seat from the front slid half-way down. The man nervously kept staring straight ahead, but couldn't help but see a shadowy silhouette in the dim reflection of the windshield.

"Talk," Carl prompted the man.

The dog yapped once and the man cleared his throat. "Um, I think there was the...uh...um, I believe -"

The burly driver slapped a thick, heavy envelope down on the man's thigh, but kept his hand on it. The dog lowered its head and began licking the driver's knuckles.

"Right," the man nodded and cleared his throat again. "So...um, the uh, the thing that your representative called me about earlier? That situation has changed...it's, uh, it's gotten a little complicated."

Carl looked up into the rearview mirror and the Congressman nodded. Carl turned his head towards the man. "Explain."

"Right," the man nodded and the little dog started yapping again. The man reached into the pocket of his sweatpants and took out a treat and fed it to the dog. He glanced at the envelope resting on his thigh. "The person that was inquired about has been moved...to an, um, off-site facility. I don't know where it is."

Once again Carl checked the rearview mirror and then asked the man, "How many of these off-site facilities exist?"

The man shrugged. "Dozens."

Carl did another check of the mirror and nodded. He buzzed the divider glass up and then reached across the man and pulled the handle so the passenger door opened. The man just sat there holding the dog and looked at the open door and then looked up at Carl.

"That's it?"

"That's it," Carl said flatly and took his hand off of the envelope.

"Okay," the man nodded and then quicker than he had probably moved in quite a few years, grabbed the envelope and exited the vehicle. Once he was back on the sidewalk he set the dog down and turned back around to face the Town Car, but it was already pulling away from the curb.

****

"Hank," Jules smiled as she stood up from the table. Leah had pitifully moped around at being left alone as Jules was getting ready. Jules was sympathetic, but she finally got Leah to understand that this dinner with her former boss was important to her. The curvy redhead greeted Hank Atwood with a big hug.

"I know it hasn't been that long," Atwood smiled back as he returned the hug, "but it's really good to see you, Jules."

They stepped apart and Hank politely held Jules's chair for her as she sat down.

"It's really good to see you too," Jules couldn't help but continue smiling. She had really missed Hank. "Thanks again for making time for me...I know you've been busy - but oh, wait, are you hungry? Should we get an appetizer? Or do you want to go ahead and order?"

"Slow down," Hank grinned and put a hand over hers. "I'm not in any hurry this evening and yes, I'm famished."

Jules turned in her seat and motioned for the waitress. Hank proceeded to order a steak medium-rare, a batch of their fresh cut fries and a cup of coffee. Jules nodded for a refill of her own coffee and decided to give up on the small salad she'd been picking at for the last fifteen minutes. The waitress brought Hank's coffee and took her plate away. Jules sat and studied Hank Atwood as he added cream and sugar to his mug. He looked tired.

She knew that Hank been working almost non-stop ever since the shootout and the takedown on the third floor of the DHS Headquarters building. In the direct aftermath of what happened that afternoon, Jules had been fortunate since she was still technically employed by Homeland. Hank was able to keep her semi-informed of the progress of the investigation. That didn't last long once the investigators tried to identify the perpetrators by their fingerprints.

As soon as those prints were entered into the system all kinds of internal warnings triggered alerts to both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense. Jules had actually been in Hank's office when men in suits from both the DOD and the Agency had showed up. Shortly after that meeting, everything to do with the failed operation to prevent Leah Hartsall from testifying before Congress was immediately classified top secret and Jules had been cut out of the loop.

"Everything nice and quiet on the home front I hope?"

"It is," Jules nodded with a grin. "I'm kind of getting used to nice and quiet."

"How's the security company working out?" Atwood had personally selected the private security firm to provide around the clock protection for both Jules and Leah. Homeland was also footing the bill.

"They've been really great." Jules nodded. She never mentioned it to Leah, but she was very thankful Hank had hired them. After everything they had been through, having armed guards around made her feel much safer.

"That's good to hear," Hank smiled and took a sip of coffee. "Have you made any decisions yet?"

"No, not yet," Jules shrugged. She was on a paid leave of absence from DHS. It had been less than a week, but she was still dreading the thought of making decisions about her career right now.

"Take your time," Hank advised and then finally asked, "How's Leah feeling?"

"Much better," Jules smiled.

Leah had ended up in the hospital for three days. The ER doctors inspected the gunshot wound to her side and found only tissue damage. No internal organs or major blood vessels were hit. A few sutures and it would heal as good as new in no time. The bump on her head from where she had fallen had initially been a bigger concern, but again it turned out to be only a minor concussion. They ran several tests that showed no epidural hemorrhaging or skull fractures.

The real problem was her injuries being complicated by the fact she had been minimally exposed to the high-energy discharge of the non-lethal Retinal Disruptors. The Disruptors had been deployed on the entire third floor of Homeland's HQ building during the takedown and had virtually ended the confrontation with no further loss of life. The blinding pulses of purple light that had been emitted from the emergency lighting units had rendered everyone exposed to it completely stunned and unconscious for several hours.

The doctors had explained to Jules that Leah's body had basically gone into a self-induced comatose-like state. They refused to actually call it a "coma" because they didn't believe her condition fit the medical definition of a coma. They had explained that as best as they could tell her body had withdrawn from consciousness in order to heal itself. Their best guess was that her injuries combined with the brief exposure to the intense directed-energy radiation pulses had overloaded her senses. Her brain had basically determined that it needed to shut down and reboot. So it did...which is why she had gone into what the doctor's wouldn't call a coma but referred to it as "an abnormal state of unconsciousness" for almost 48 hours.

"I'm really glad to hear that," Atwood smiled. His smile grew a little embarrassed. "And you two are...still?"

"Yes Hank, we're still together." Jules nodded with a grin. "She's doing really well, almost back to normal. The doctors have had her on strict bed rest, so she's driving me crazy."

"I can imagine," Atwood chuckled. "Tell her to make sure she follows the doctors' orders. She needs to think big picture and long term and all that."

"I'll be sure to tell her you said that," Jules laughed too.

They stopped talking for a moment as the server brought Hank's food and Jules decided she would have a cup of soup. She figured she would need something to distract her while Hank ate. The waitress wrote it down and refilled their coffee cups. Atwood picked up the bottle of steak sauce and dashed it liberally across the slab of meat on his plate. He repeated the same process with the bottle of ketchup for his fries. Jules wrinkled her nose.

"What?" Atwood asked with a sigh.

"I thought you had high blood pressure?" Jules asked.

"Yeah, well...you only live once," Atwood grumbled as he sawed at the steak. He paused to spear both a piece of steak and a fry on his fork. With a wink to Jules he stuffed the large bite into his mouth. He relished the mouthful and then proceeded to take another steak / fry combo bite which he obviously enjoyed as much as the first one. He swallowed, took a sip of coffee and then turned his full attention back to Jules.

"So what did you want to ask me about?"

"What do you mean?" Jules's eyes widened. Had she been that obvious?

"It's fine, Jules," Atwood took another bite of food and followed it up with a slurp of coffee. "I get it. You have skin in the game."

"Hank, I really did want to see you and catch up," Jules offered meekly. Once again, they fell silent as the waitress dropped off Jules's cup of broccoli and cheddar soup and refilled their coffee cups again.

"I know. I did too. Doesn't mean there wasn't more to it, but let's go ahead with the formalities. I'm doing fine. A bit tired, but still hanging in there," Atwood nodded politely after the waitress was gone. He gestured with a fry on his fork that it was now Jules's turn.

"Okay...I'm good." Jules played along. "More rested than I have been in a long time...and I guess you could say I'm hanging in there, too."

"That's great," Hank smiled and ate another piece of steak. He swallowed and then said simply, "And?"

Her smile faded just a little as she looked down into her soup to try and find the right questions to ask. She finally looked up. "Hank...I just...what am I getting myself into?"

Hank wiped his mouth on his napkin. "You mean with Leah?"

Jules nodded.

"And I'm assuming you mean more specifically her past?"

Jules nodded again.

"Hmmm....that's complicated." Atwood nodded as he wiped his mouth again. "I seem to remember somebody called her a trained killer not too long ago."

"Hank," Jules sighed. "I know what I said back before I knew her. That stupid file painted a pretty stark picture, but no details. I want to know the truth about what she really did...used to do."

Hank Atwood rotated his coffee cup on the table a few times and then looked up. "How much do you really want to know, Jules?"

"Well, uh," Jules placed her arms on the table and mimicked Hank by playing with her cup. "I mean, how am I supposed to answer that?"

"Honestly."

"Okay, I guess I want to know everything...or...at least I think I do."

"Tell you what," Hank sat back in his chair and studied his former employee for a few moments. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know as long as you answer one question first."

"Okay," Jules agreed cautiously.

"Why aren't you asking Leah?"

"Well," Jules sighed. "It's sort of like you said...complicated."

Atwood chuckled.

"I will eventually, Hank." Jules continued. "I really will...but I think it's going to take her some time to open up about...the things she used to do."

"That's understandable," Atwood allowed, knowing everything that he did about Leah's past.

"Besides," Jules shrugged. "I wanted to ask you because...I know you'll be objective, Hank."

"That I will," Atwood agreed and sat forward. "Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you the broad strokes and what I think is relevant and if you want to know more after that...you can ask."

"That's fair," Jules nodded.

"Alright...you knew she used to work for the Central Intelligence Agency, right?" Atwood began and paused to take a sip of coffee.

"Yeah, I think I did know that," Jules's brow furrowed. "Didn't the file you gave me for the assignment mention something about it?"

"It did," Atwood confirmed, "but what it didn't mention was that she was part of their Special Activities Division. Do you know what that is?"

Jules shook her head. "Not really."

"On paper the SAD is comprised of two groups - the Special Operations Group and the Political Action Group. The SOG operatives are mostly recruited from within our military and are basically considered the most secretive special operations force the U.S. has...covert heavy hitters. The PAG handles all of the political influence, psychological operations, economic warfare and all the technology and cyber-warfare stuff."