E.L.F. - White Leaves Read online

  Utter tranquility wrapped about her as her bare feet settled amidst moist grasses of the softest nature she’d ever felt. The air was cool and smelled of pollens and perfumes she couldn’t even begin to identify. The canopy far overhead screened away what should have been moonlight and blocked away the stars entirely. And yet, there was a light of some sort, emanating from beyond the nearest, view-obstructing trunk of a tree so great in girth it could have dwarfed the great sequoia or redwoods in the national forestry of California.

  She gaped in awe as fireflies and other, dragon-fly like, illumine bugs flew along their lazy individual paths.

  “Welcome to the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge.” Athaem spoke softly at her back.

  Slowly a smile slipped onto her youthful features.

  …This place was utterly magical…

  Chapter 7

  “That’s it, Connelly, I’ve heard enough. I’m relieving you of duty in the Murton and Norton investigation.” Agent Black informed, tone vehement in his insistence.

  “With all due respect, Mr. Black, I don’t believe you’re in line to authorize such a matter.” Connelly argued, dragging out this procession and angering Arthur.

  “All due respect duly noted, Agent, but such as it is, I believe you’ve lost sight of your core motives and the heart of this investigation.” Black replied flatly. “The fact that you can’t see the forest, or the trees is obvious, and more than reason enough to relieve you.”

  “That’s bullshit, Arthur, and you know it!” He denied.

  “Is it now?” Black answered, arching a brow of challenge and tones enough to rival Connelly’s insistence. “The way I see it, the death of Agent Fastez is cause and right enough on its own to relieve you.”

  “This is my investigation you’re talking about, not some game for you to come and join, and take over on a whim to impress your superiors!” Connelly was furious. He couldn’t believe this was happening. This worm was nothing more than a suit. He didn’t know what it was really like to be in the field doing real detective work.

  “Correction, Agent. This was your investigation.” Black hesitated. “Actually, scratch that. This was Agent Fastez’ operation, and had been so for more than a decade. You were made his partner for only the last two years.”

  “And so now it’s my operation.” Connelly staked his claim once again. It was perhaps the tenth time he’d done so, but Arthur Black didn’t seem to care much for his struggles. In fact, it only seemed to piss him off.

  “Not anymore.” Agent Black defended flatly. “The death of Agent Fastez was too close to home for you Connelly, but you will not see that. So, I’m sending you back to D.C.” His tone was utterly plain and disinterested as he sat behind his temporary desk in a glass office near the back of the Seattle P.D.’s headquarters, which sat amidst the vicinity of the odd collision of streets in the area around Westlake Avenue, 6th Ave., and Olive Way near the edge of the numerous blocks of skyscrapers at the heart of Seattle.

  He noticed several officers outside glancing in their direction. They could hear the argument. Or at least they could hear Connelly’s side of it, for Arthur kept his tones moderate as Ben stood, paced, and shouted his disapproval.

  “I already explained this to you, Black! You don’t have the authority to send me anywhere!” Connelly was shouting again.

  “And I don’t have to.” Agent Black flattened his sly gaze meaningfully behind his glasses, dropping Connelly’s jaw and arguments to the floor. Connelly simply halted in every track of thought and stride.

  “What the hell are you saying?” He eventually asked.

  “This relief doesn’t come from me.” Agent Black answered. “It comes from Deputy Director Michael Farsing himself.”

  Connelly went cold. He felt betrayed. Farsing wouldn’t do this sort of pulling if it wasn’t for a very good reason. It was Deputy Director Farsing that had sent him to aide Agent Fastez’s operations here in Washington State. In the two years he’d been with Fastez, Farsing had also commended him on their exploits. They’d collected more data and identified more freelance participants in E.L.F. activities than in all the preceding years of Fastez’ investigations combined. They’d had more success than Fastez could have ever hoped for. More arrests. More detainees. More answers from said interrogations and more attacks failed due to these answers than ever before. They were on the verge of discovering whether or not there truly was a core to E.L.F. and who the key players really were. Certainly not the famed Tre’ Arrow, and not likely Shannon Hunter either. But maybe she was in contact with the right people, given the matter of her dramatic, almost ghostly escape.

  And now, Farsing was pulling the plug? Now?! Connelly couldn’t figure it, but slowly, he came to grips with the issues of his superiors.

  “Did he say why?” He finally asked of Agent Black, resigned to his duty. Arthur sighed, leaning forth to rest his elbows on the table.

  “The Director thinks as I’ve already said.” He paused. “The death of Agent Fastez has struck too close to home for you. The capture of Ms. Hunter would have saved you from being relieved of this operation, even with the disappearance of the swat members, whom I might add there is still no trace of.” He clasped his hands before him for a moment before lifting his thumbs as if shrugging his shoulders.

  “But, her recent escape has shown Director Farsing that you are no longer able to continue leading this investigation.”

  “And you are?” Connelly asked incredulously, but kept his voice low. “You were in just as much possession and contact with her as I was.”

  “And that’s exactly why I’m staying here to continue the E.L.F. operation, to find her, and her co-operatives to bring this to a reasonable resolution.” He trailed off. “You’re a liability here, Ben.”

  “But I saw someone help her escape, and you didn’t.” Connelly argued. “I could be the only one to identify her accomplices.” He knew it was a gamble, and not worth the argument if Director Farsing had already decreed his return to D.C. but he couldn’t leave without making absolutely certain Arthur Black knew who was right for this operation between the two of them, and who wasn’t.

  “Yes, about that.” Agent Black answered knowingly. “That is also part of the reason you’re being relieved, Agent.”

  “What?! Why?” Connelly couldn’t believe his ears.

  “Because you reported that you saw a kid in a black cloak or robe, holding a sword in her hospital room before the explosion that set her free.” Arthur answered plainly. “You do know how ridiculous that sounds, don’t you?”

  “I know what it sounds like, but I’m telling you that’s what I saw!” Once more his tones were rising to vehemence.

  “But people don’t go wandering around in cloaks in this day and age, Connelly! Neither do they carry swords! This is the new millennium. People carry guns.” He denied what the Agent had reported seeing.

  “But I saw it!” Connelly argued back.

  “Yes, well, I didn’t see any such boy. The Officer, Paul Duscher, on duty at her door hadn’t let anyone in or out aside from us, and he supervised the doctor’s and nurses’ visits while she slept. And he certainly didn’t see anything, either before the explosion, or at the moment in question.” Black answered back pointedly, lowering his brow.

  “Understand, Agent Connelly, no one is calling you a liar, and no one here thinks you’re crazy. Things like this just happen to some people when they lose a close partner like you lost Fastez.” He summed it up.

  “This is un-fuckin-believable.” Agent Connelly remarked under his breath, but Black ignored it outright.

  “Agent, Director Farsing wants you to return to D.C. to receive your full report and to issue you a vacation. You should relax, prepare your report, and take some time off. Lord knows I would if I could.” Black was done with the topic altogether.

  “Fine.” Connelly snapped bitterly, nodding his head several times. He set his hands squarely upon Arthur Black’s temporary desk, hunching his shoul
ders, then flung away a stack of papers and other loose objects. He wheeled away, throwing a chair to the floor with a clatter and scrape only to pause, letting nasal breaths of anger slow down as he worked to calm himself.

  “Fine.” He said, and with that, he moved to depart, but made it no further than taking the doorknob.

  “Oh, and Connelly.” Black spoke up once more, drawing the Agent’s gaze back over his shoulder. “I would refrain from telling the ‘kid in her room’ part of the story. I mean, for your own good, of course.” Connelly just glared back at him, understanding now why it would not be wise to reveal that to his superiors.

  “Right.” He answered back bitterly. “I wouldn’t want to look crazy now would I?” It was more statement than question, and he lowered his eyes, shaking his head.

  “Well, you can’t blame them for taking your badge and gun, and retiring you if you do report such absurdity, Connelly. After all, it’s not like you’re on television or something.” Agent Black snorted lightly, a subtle hint at a joke at Ben’s expense, but Connelly wasn’t in a laughing mood. His brow was darker than Arthur Black’s name implied the Special Agent should be.

  Connelly walked out of that office thinking about what he was going to put in his report, or more accurately, about what it wouldn’t be wise to put in. He couldn’t get what he’d seen out of his head. He dwelled and thought on it even as he took his trench coat, brief case and a cup of coffee for which Seattle was ever-famed to the town car prepared and waiting outside to take him to the Sea-Tac airport roughly fifteen minutes south.

  After a brief stop to pack up his light suitcase from the nearby Westin Towers where he’d been lodged fairly comfortably for the past two years, having seemingly become a permanent resident, they were off.

  The plain clothes officer designated to deliver him said nothing, but judging by the looks he received in the rear view mirror as they jumped on I-5 southbound via the Spring Street on-ramp to leave the towering buildings behind, he was being told all he needed to know about what the officer was thinking. It was a look dozens of policeman had given as he’d departed the station.

  They all thought he was crazy, and even he was beginning to believe he was. After all, Special Agent Black was right. What kid, in his right mind, would enter a hospital and rescue a nineteen year old terrorist involved in thousands of dollars worth of damages, the disappearance of an entire swat team, and the death of a federal agent? What teen, for that matter, or even short, lightweight adult would dare such an attempt armed with a sword and dressed in an obvious, attention-getting, black, hooded robe while knowing well she was under the watchful eye of two federal agents and a small detail of Seattle P.D.?

  Agent Connelly sighed, leaning back, completely ignoring his coffee as he looked out through tinted windows over the shipping quarter of the waterfront at the south end. He studied the huge orange cranes and listened to the road noise as the car glided along over the raised length of I-5, constructed of segments with steel plates binding each to the next which created a slightly bouncy, click-et click-et, sounding ride. It was like riding a smooth boat on railroad tracks.

  He easily spilled his coffee and lightly burned his hand, grimaced and grew frustrated. Wincing and cursing lightly under his breath, Connelly rolled down his window in a hurry and flung the cup out in a fuss. The driver shot him a cross look in the mirror, but said nothing. He didn’t dare.

  Connelly didn’t look to the officer through the mirror, and didn’t care if it was littering. He was livid, and went back to trying to reason through the events of the past several days. Most peculiarly, the death of Agent Fastez, his partner for the most recent two years of his life, his partner for the last two years of Fastez’ own. It was an oddity he could not even begin to force himself to overlook. Who in their right mind uses a weapon as outdated as a bow, be it composite or not, or even a high-powered crossbow? Arrows were used for hunting and target practice, and in competitions like the Olympics, and not much more.

  Suddenly, Agent Connelly’s thoughts froze. People don’t use arrows for killing these days, he realized. All at once he thought he’d stumbled upon a chain of similarities. He also believed he had a suspect.

  First, though, he resolved to reason through other oddities. The figure he saw in the hospital room where Shannon Hunter had been detained and healing from the bullet he’d given her in exchange for trying to save him from being shot. It had, as he’d made a fool of himself for mentioning, been dressed in a cloak and held a sword. Agent Fastez had been shot by an archer. The eco-activists were called E.L.F., an abbreviated name taken intentionally to represent fairy tale creatures who had existed as proverbial guardians of nature and especially forests since the dawn of the stories themselves. Perhaps the person who shot Fastez, perhaps the entire organization of E.L.F., was intentionally trying to use ancient practices to accomplish their goals as well.

  He turned it around this way and that and lost such track of time he didn’t realize where he was until the officer spoke up.

  “Here you are.” He said, breaking Connelly’s mulling. The trip to the Sea-Tac airport was swift with him so lost in his thoughts. He didn’t even notice getting off I-5 via the 154B exit to take state route 518 straight into the airport grounds.

  He decided that his idea about E.L.F. wasn’t all that great of a revelation as he exited the vehicle -leastways not by itself. Crazy people did some crazy things sometimes. But, it might later be able to reveal some sort of method to their madness, an organization or tactical string of moves that no one would see coming because of their outdated system. He had to admit it was at least possible. Thus, he turned to his second and more powerful idea.

  The fact of an archer. The shot had come from a fair distance according to ballistics estimations. And it had been made into the dark where the light of the fires and explosions hadn’t reached during Shannon’s apprehension. What’s more, the shooter wasn’t aiming intentionally at Fastez. Shannon Hunter’s behavior in that moment was startling at this moment. She had to have seen the archer, and moved to save him by throwing him down -a surprisingly strong young lady for all her little figure. Connelly had to admit it. She’d thrown him down with ease, even while being shot. She was either a skilled grappler, or he wasn’t a properly trained federal agent. He hesitated at that fact for a moment before moving on.

  The shooter. Anyone who made such a shot had to be a good shot. No, they had to be a damned good shot, and the fact of it triggered a memory. Last year, at the Olympics, an American had taken the gold in single’s archery. Christopher Crowe Stevens. He’d shot bulls-eyes at every distance. And was now scheduled to light the asrena’s torch by flaming arrow at the next Olympics -provided nothing happened to him. He would of course be competing in the next Olympics if his eyesight held up. At 65, Stevens was now the oldest competitor the Olympics had reportedly ever seen. He was certainly the eldest to ever with a medal, let alone the Gold. He had a gift. But more importantly, he lived in Washington State.

  ‘Oh shit!’ Connelly almost cursed aloud. He almost hopped back in the car and ordered the officer to turn around, but held himself in check. He was dismissed from the E.L.F. operation. He couldn’t continue his investigation without authorization from Deputy Director Farsing, at least, not while on duty or while anyone else knew about it.

  He hesitated. What was he supposed to do, stay silent and do nothing, fly to D.C. and let Christopher Stevens go unquestioned? Of course not. He was too involved, and he owed it to Fastez.

  “Do you know if the terminals have wi-fi?” He asked instead, back through his still open passenger door. “I’d like to check my email before I get stuck riding the plane for hours on end.” It was a well concealed lie. The FBI trained well. The officer glanced back to him, but was careful not to let eye contact linger. He wouldn’t want to reveal what he thought of the agent, would he?

  “Yeah.” He answered, but that was all he said.

  “Thanks.” Ben said, snagged his lug
gage, briefcase and trench, and was immediately confronted by two policemen who would escorst him onto the plane. They were there for two reasons. To ensure that he wouldn’t have to pass through security and be mistaken for some random man with a gun under his coat, and to ensure he actually got on the plane as ordered. Everything had been prearranged no doubt by Deputy Director Farsing working in correlation with Special Agent Black, and so he was to be boarded, seated, and waiting to take flight. But, he pulled up, stopping the officers short.

  “Hold on.” He said. “I need to check my email before I get on.” The officers looked at him dubiously, but he offered his little rolling suitcase to one. “Go ahead and put that on the plane for me, I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “Excuse me, Agent Connelly, but our instructions were to ensure you got on the plane.” The unencumbered one said.

  “Fine, then ensure I get on the plane after I check my mail.” He said dismissively. “I’m going to sit down, right there,” He pointed to a seat at the end of a row in the waiting area. “And I’m going to check my mail. The plane doesn’t finish boarding for like, 20 minutes anyway.” Luck was with him. The officer just rolled his eyes.

  “Alright,” He eventually nodded to his partner, sending him ahead with the little suitcase. “I’m going to get some coffee at the barista over there.” The officer gestured to a little Starbucks a short distance away. “You want one?” He offered. Connelly smiled internally, glanced to the barista, then back to the officer’s nametag.

  “No,” He answered tactically. “Thank you, officer Keenes, but no. I’ve had enough coffee in the past two years for five of me.” He joked about Seattlites and their affinity for coffee. Officer Keenes chuckled, appreciating the jest.

  “Alright then, I’ll be back in a moment.”