Taken

Zoey (Chapter 15)

Oh hell no was I staying behind while they were looking for my family.

I walked around for a little while, scoping out the territory.  There were a ton of agents scattered all over the place, and only about three exits that I could see, and, to get in and out of them, you needed some sort of pass.

Crap.

            "Excuse me," a female voice said from behind me.  Double crap.

I turned around and tried to act as calm as possible.  I didn't think I was supposed to be walking around the agency unsupervised, and I didn't want to think about the consequences for getting caught.

            "Yes?"  I responded as politely and innocently as I could.

            "Are you Zoey Allen?" 

            "Yes," I said after thinking about it for a minute or two.  The new last name was going to take some getting used to.

            "Good," the woman said as she pulled something out of her pocket.  "Here's your badge that authorizes you to be in here and that will get you into certain places of the building.  This is your I.D. card that must be present at all times. Do you understand?"

            "Yes, thank you," I said as I grabbed the "badge" that was really just a card with my picture on it that I pinned onto my shirt.  The clearance badge had a little barcode on the bottom, and I wondered where all I was allowed to go.

            "Um, miss...?"  I looked up from the cards, but the woman was no longer there.  She had walked off without saying anything.  How rude.  Guess I was just going to have to see where I was allowed on my own.

            I found my way back to my room that was labeled "Visitor's Room" and quickly shut my door.  I had noticed that there were two guards standing across from the room, watching it closely.  They would complicate my escape plans by a little.

            There was a laptop in the room and I headed straight for it.  I'd figured it was being monitored, like who was using it and what websites they were going to, but I had to try to find ways around it.  If anyone could outsmart the C.I.A., it would be me.

Okay, but really, I had no freaking idea where to even start.

When I sat down I looked at my stab wound.  It was really red, but it didn't hurt.  The stiches hopefully would dissolve soon, and I would be back to normal physically at least.

I looked at the barcode on the card and turned on the computer.  As I waited for it to boot up I flipped the card over to the other side.  I hadn't really paid much attention to the card since I had gotten it, but now that I was looking, I noticed something immediately.  My name wasn't on the card.  It didn't even have a visitor's sticker on it or anything.  It said Alicia Sentara.  I recalled the name tag on the woman who had given me the cards: Alicia Sentara; senior agent.

Had she meant to give me this card, or was it and accident?  I took it out of its cover and a folded note fell out with it.  It simply said: "Your father would want me to do this."

She knew my dad.  She was helping me.  Maybe that's why she left so fast; she didn't want to get caught helping me.

I got butterflies as I put the barcode in as the password and Alicia's name as the username.

Welcome Agent Sentara!  The computer read.  It worked!  She had given me her own log in; something that I was sure was against regulations.  Hopefully we didn't get caught.

I logged into what I figured was the C.I.A. homepage, but it wasn't the World Fact Book that people would get if they typed it into Google, it was the real thing.  I put the Troops last name in the search bar and their schedule popped up.  They had bought tickets to Saudi Arabia and they were leaving the next morning at six.

Now, I'm not a politically correct person and I hardly ever dwell into politics, or the news for that matter; but when I do, there always seems to be something bad going down in the Middle East. I felt my stomach drop to my feet. What kind of case could they have been working over there?

I looked for what airline they were traveling and called the number to book a ticket.  Was I scared to go, yes, but that wasn't going to stop me from being in on this. I almost felt like it would be wrong for me to not go.

I just had to figure out the rest of my escape plan.