I'm still screaming as John wakes me from the dream, crying in agony.
"Mary, it's okay, baby, it's just a dream, I have you." He has me grasped tightly in his arms and tries to soothe me. Once I've calmed down some John asks me to go see the psychiatrist at the office.
"Mary, It's only because I'm worried about you, maybe it will help. This dream is coming back more and more often and it's getting harder to wake you up from it. I've been shaking you for a solid 5 minutes calling your name."
"It's just a dream, John, a horrible nightmare, talking to the damn head doctor is not going to help, all this one wants to do is sedate everyone with pills or try and steal my husband. If I want to close a wound after surgery I don't use a band aid day after day till the wound closes. She can not and will not be able to help me. She would rather me go insane then help anyways."
I get defensive because I really don't like this psychiatrist, she is a two faced c*nt. That is the nicest way of saying it too.
She tried to talk John into divorcing me saying things like he'd be unhappy and regretful in the end. She said that he 'was repressing his desire for a normal family life with children due to a desire to love someone who would never age'. Well that didn't work on John but because of his recent missions he was still required to talk to her. She was very adamant about talking to me too, and when I finally did see her and listened to her, she merely tried to make me feel guilty about keeping John from loving a 'better woman with who he could actually have a life with.'
Really?
I stopped her right there and put her in her damn place. I told her my marriage with my husband was consensual and in all aspects were discussed at great length and detail before we fully committed. The only issue with our marriage was.... her, trying to be a home wrecking whore when she was nothing better than a jealous, thirsty c*nt who needed to just do her job.
I warned her too. If she tried it again I'd have her medical license revoked and have her disbarred from every medical profession known to man kind, this was after she recovered from the facial reconstructive surgery she'd need once I was done with her.
Yeah.... I was just a little mad. Also HR came and talked to me but ended up reprimanding her. However, I would not apologize to her as I meant every single word.
"Okay, fine, sorry, I forget she still works there. You don't have to talk to her, just talk to someone about it, Sin.... Please.? Now let's try and get some more sleep, we have a flight to Panama we have to get to in 5 hours." He motions for me to lay down with him and we get the extra hour of sleep before we have to head to the airport.
...
"UGH..... I really hate this place." I whine to John as the plane starts to land.
"I know, hopefully we don't have too many issues and can get home quickly." He smiles at me knowing I have had too many sad and bad memories of this area to be able to appreciate it's beauty.
We're here for a meeting with the INL office to discuss ways of trying to keep the agents out there alive with out exposing anyone. We're of course setting the office up, but they don't know that. Only my team and the council member who backed me during the meeting knows. The rest of the council believes we are trying to solve this issue without any conflict. My team is staying home except for Hawthorne and Rivera who are on the plane as well with us.
Rivera leans his head up in between our seats whispering,"You guys are too damn obvious as a married couple. You realize this right?"
"Yes, that's why you're going to be going in to the office with me, Rivera. Hawthorne and Lacroix get to be near by." I wink at him through the gap.
"Shit, man.... fuck that asshole. Seriously Hawthorne couldn't go with you?" Rivera leans back cursing the meeting to come. The meeting that includes the officer who has earned the title of Officer Culo del Mundo (asshole of the world). We considered calling him Guy Le Douche but that would be an insult to the T.V. personality we would have stolen it from.
"No, it would be better if I have a male present, he doesn't seem to like women, or at least me." I snicker at how I pissed him off last time.
"Man..... you owe me." Rivera mutters leaning back.
"Me or John?" I ask.
"Both." He says frankly and with a little animosity.
We grab our carry on luggage and head out through our special check point with customs. We know that this alerts INL to how many of us have arrived and that is fine by us. Looks better when it's just a couple of people showing up instead of a completely assembled team. We head out and hire a van to take us to a hotel to check into. Once done we rent a car from the hotel and head to the INL office.
We pull up and low and behold, there's Officer Culo Del Mundo with two of his men with him.
"You know I think he may have missed me after all." I say before we park and get out. John has to look down and cough quickly to avoid the laughing.
"Agent Sin, we meet again." Venom and malice laced his simple greeting as he stared at me with his chubby, beady eyed, pockmarked face twisted up in loathing.
I smile warmly in return, "Officer Ortiz, you didn't have to trouble yourself and come out to greet us. We appreciate the warm welcome, though, shall we go inside and discuss business?"
I can see a muscle start to twitch rapidly by his eye and he merely grunts and gestures us towards the door. We are all ushered into the meeting room, but we go with the flow not knowing what's going on.
Once inside we sit down in the meeting room. It's my team, then Officer Ortiz with the two men who were outside and 4 other officers who seemed to be at or above Ortiz in rank.
"Alright, Agent Sin, I'm Officer Herrera. I'd like to address the matter at hand and reason for your visit. Now we've gone over everything that we have needed to and some of the paperwork that was forwarded to you we actually received in the same manner that it was sent. I heard there were some discrepancies about the issue that led to you losing a member of your team. We do apologize for the loss you must be feeling, but the agents that are sent out to collect information initially know of the dangers of these operations."
*Why do these idiots keep reminding me this? ugh.*
"We've had an increase in our own informants missing and dead, so there definitely has been a recent surge of these operations killing off anyone that they think may be leaking information and we noticed the rise in security for everywhere lately. So with this in mind, what is it that you suppose we try and do so both of our teams can work together peacefully from this point on?" Officer Herrera got straight to the point.
We discussed different strategies, maybe lending men back and forth between the different agencies to give each one of our offices the extra hand that may be required. The more scrutinized meeting places, better communication strategies, different sections of their office to meet up with the informants and many others.
Our requests were not overly ambitious, demanding or inconceivable. They were reasonable and what we would do with any country as it was outlined in the international laws. For countries that are allied, they can approach each other with reasonable requests and are discussed and agreed upon so that they can work together more effectively.
From the corner of my eye though, I can see Ortiz 'Culo del mundo' is trying to remain calm and not say anything in front of his bosses there. A few of the requests, like different sections of the office are to meet with the informants, you could see his hand clutching his pen like he was ready to break it but didn't.
Hawthorne excused herself and asked to be shown the way to restroom, to continue with out her present. One of Ortiz's men showed her out and came right back in the room after pointing her down the hall.
While the meeting was going on Hawthorne went to the bathroom, sliding bugs in all kinds of spots along the way and even in the bathroom.
'Because you never know.'
We had already bugged the meeting room table and chairs we sat on and I bet they didn't even see the slide of hands that was going on. Between paperwork and signatures, then discussions that went over the same points but needed more clarification on the matters. All this while the halls, bathroom and meeting room were bugged to not miss a thing and catch something.
Hawthorne came back looking refreshed and we concluded our meeting,coming to an agreement. Before we left the meeting room, Ortiz said something to Herrera who gave him a disappointed look.
"Agent Sin could you please follow me and Ortiz to my office to discuss one more thing?"
"Of course Officer Herrera. Please lead the way." I say nodding.
My team follows me closely but once at the office door Herrera ask them to stand outside the door.
I nod to them and they do so, as me and Officer Asshole join his boss.
"Si, Si, now where to begin .... Sin I have documents here that you have to be given because they are regarding you." Herrera began, but was cut off by Ortiz.
"Your office may allow insubordination from you, but our offices do not." Ortiz gives me a triumphant look.
"Officer Ortiz, thank you, but I can handle this. Now Agent Sin, I regret to inform you that from tomorrow forward you are banned from stepping onto the soil of Panama until the year 2040 due to discrepancies of behavior and insubordination with our officers. Here are your copies of the paperwork and now I'm suggesting you go check out of your hotel and get the next flight out, or you can and will be placed in jail for violating your travel ban to this country if you're still here tomorrow. I'm sorry, I had to be the one to do this. I hope you will have a nice flight back home, Agent Sin."
I hold the paperwork in my hands reading over it, quickly. Little do they know, I am actually thrilled to have these papers in my hand. I'll gladly keep my ass out of Panama. Plus, I gave me a chance and I bugged his office too. I know my team have bugged everything they can as well.
"Everything is in order then." I hold my hand out to Officer Herrera and shake his hand and I have to add one more thing.
"By the way, it's not just Agent it's Officer Sin, Special Activities Division Head Officer Sin, SAC(Special Agent in Charge) of the Intelligence Branch of the FBI, advisor to deputy secretary at ONSI (Office of National Security Intelligence) and Deputy advisor with SOD(Special Operations Division)."
"Just thought you'd like to know for future reference. It was a pleasure to meet you, Officer Herrera." His face goes blank as that sinks in. I out rank him and his entire office with my lowest level of rank.
"Officer Ortiz, the pleasure, as always, is all mine. I'll be letting you all get back to work then."
I get up to leave after dropping that little bomb on them. Who was being insubordinate now? I could pull rank if I wanted to between our two agencies but, 'pick and choose your battles'.
Ortiz stands up huffing at me, rage and barely caged mania evident in his demeanor, looking as if he's ready to lunge at me any second.
Herrera stands up from behind his desk ready to act if his officer can't control his anger.
"Yes, Officer Ortiz?" I ask as I'm walking out the door but stopped with it ajar for all to hear in the hall.
"I better not catch you under my jurisdiction, OFFICER SIN, I'm not this nice to the criminals under my authority." He practically snarls and maniacally grins at me, thinking he's intimidating me.
"Oh, is that a promise officer Ortiz?" I say as derisive as possible while feigning naive interest.
"See, I knew you liked me! Oh and no worries, honestly this just gave me a much needed vacation from here." I made sure my tone was as sugary as possible as I continued my pretentious behavior.
"I thought I was going to have to buy property, I've been around here so much lately. Now, I SHOULD thank you for the saving me the headache of house shopping." I sigh dramatically, "Oh well." Smiling haughtily, I wave bye and shut the door.
I motion for my team to get up and leave as I start my mental countdown.
5....4....3...2.....1....
"THAT FUCKING BITCH!" We hear a loud crack and bang. It sounds like he broke the office chair. Oh yeah, I got under that thick skin. HA.
John stops a second hearing the eruption of foul names and threats about me from Ortiz. I quickly grab him and shake my head no, its not worth it. Let him rage, I do not care. I can hear Officer Herrera yelling at him now, so it's definitely time to leave. I've caused enough damage in here today.
Once outside in the van we head back to the hotel. Once done there and our stuff is with us at the airport the rest of the team looks at the paperwork I was given. It gives us something to think about as we wait for our flight home to start boarding.
"Can they do this legally considering your position and job?" Hawthorne asks as shes never heard of something like this happening.
"Oh yes they can. Not that I really give two hoots of a blow horn. Officer Culo Del Mundo can stick it in a cactus and sit on a bench of devils thorn and honey locusts for all I care. This is only a temporary ban anyways. It's only till 2040 so whatever. It's a vacation from the Darien Gap, I should be thanking them." I laugh about it for now. I'll worry about it once I'm back home. I just hope I'm able to get something worth the trip from these guys.
"Oh by the way, Sin, while I went to the bathroom, I was able to get culo del mundos office and hallway since it was on the way." She grinned. "I got a few others for good measure asking for the bathroom along the way."
"Oh Hawthorne, that's my girl."
We fist bump and hear the attendants calling our flight out for boarding. Time to get the hell out of Panama.