Undercover
Part 1 - The Plan
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Part 1 – The Plan
Don
rocked Will’s body in his arms and moaned, “No no no no no.
but there was so much of it.
Blood-soaked hair stuck to Will’s forehead and cheeks, Don pushed it
aside but it snagged in one of Will’s diamond earrings.
in Don’s ears.
“Dammit,
Will,” Don growled, fear giving him a wild energy.
me right now.” The energy left him and
all that was left was the fear. “Will,
aein, please, babe, don’t leave me.” He
pulled Will closer, trying to lend him warmth, life.
Will Stevens propped his long legs on his office desk and
stared at the bulletin board. No matter
how long he stared at it, it stayed the same – blocked.
“So where are we, people?”
Will’s boss, Jan Sanchez, asked the room of assembled DEA agents.
Nowhere, Will
wanted to answer, but he let the others talk.
Six or seven months ago, a new designer drug had hit the streets, and it
hadn’t taken long to become popular enough to attract the DEA’s attention.
phenethylamine, and a particularly nasty one.
Its street name was Cloud Ten, and if you were lucky, it gave you a
sense of well-being, openness, and spectacular visual and auditory
hallucinations. If you were unlucky, it
gave you nausea, convulsions, and, ultimately, death.
multiple other deaths were at least partially attributable to it.
on the temporarily-banned-substance lists while the DEA collected evidence to
ban it permanently. Word had come down
from on high that Cloud Ten should be given the highest priority.
office was the one that was under greatest pressure to locate and neutralize
that source.
Unlike traditional drugs, these so-called research chemicals
were manufactured instead of grown, and made locally instead of smuggled
in.
manufacture. It could be made in
someone’s basement or a small warehouse.
And a month of intensive work by all the office had turned up barely a
whiff of who was responsible for it.
Will was getting dead sick of the club scene, but he’d kept his nose to
the ground and come up with the only extremely tenuous lead the DEA had – a couples
retreat in the Santa Monica Mountains that had come up in conversation an unusual
number of times.
Not having many other options, the DEA had sent two
undercover agents to Clear Creek Couples Retreat.
case of food poisoning. They’d sent in a
second couple, and they’d come home on crutches, victim of a hiking
accident. Agent Bonn had just suffered a
sprained knee, but Agent Martinez was in the hospital with several broken bones
and a severe concussion. Will didn’t
believe in coincidences, and neither did his boss.
goose chase.
The problem was what to do next.
long-time, skilled undercover agents. They’d thought perhaps surveillance gear
taken in by the first team had been discovered, so they’d sent the second team
in mostly naked – no gear or weapons.
The fact that they’d been detected had made everyone uneasy, but no one
was saying ‘security leak’ … not yet.
Sanchez’s current theory on why Bonn and Martinez had been
spotted was that they weren’t really a couple.
They were good friends and had taken every normal measure to convince
their hosts that they were a married couple trying to recapture that
‘spark.’ But perhaps they had been very
closely observed and somehow their lack of ‘coupleness’ had been noticed.
The LA office didn’t have any real couples on the team, but
Sanchez was reluctant to admit defeat and call in anyone else.
Will sighed and let his mind wander, sifting one more time
through a month’s worth of conversations to see if there were any other leads
he’d missed.
“Agent Stevens?”
Sanchez said, and Will realized she’d called his name more than
once. “You still with us?”
“Yes, Boss,” Will said, blinking.
upbringing insisted that he refer to his superior by a respectful title.
I’d missed.”
“Well, let us know if you come up with anything,” Sanchez
said wryly.
Will nodded then noticed that Sanchez was looking at him
speculatively. He raised his eyebrows
and waited.
“Don’t you have a boyfriend in the FBI?” she asked.
“Yes,” Will said with a frown.
“Well, how about you and him?”
A hot wave of alarm flashed through Will.
undercover trained.” Will wasn’t
actually certain of that, but he needed to nip this in the bud.
“That training hasn’t done our agents any good,” Sanchez
said reasonably. “And I’ve heard that
this Eppes can easily take care of himself.”
“Still—”
Sanchez continued over top of him. “We know the retreat
makes a big deal out of accepting same-sex couples, so no problem there.
agent for a few weeks.”
Will stared at her in horror.
personal life was one of his worst nightmares.
“I can’t,” he said at last. “I’d
be too worried about Don to do a good job.”
“You’re a better agent than that,” Sanchez chided, but Will
wasn’t too sure. Could he be someone
else with Don around? Could he do what
he needed to without wondering what Don would think?
“This is a really
bad idea,” Will protested but Sanchez was already picking up the phone.
“Not an idea, Stevens,” Sanchez said.