all american • javier peña

Chapter 3 [REWRITE]

After finally getting settled in Medellin, it was time for Sloane to head to work. Once she arrived at the base, she carried her box of things to where her desk would be. The two DEA agents with desks perpendicular to her watched closely as she set the box down.

"The cavalry has arrived," the blonde one, Murphy remarked. Javi remained silent and returned to his work.

"I guess you could say that," she sighed, and started to put things in her drawers.

"What's it like being back in Colombia?"

The smugness in his voice drove her up the wall. He knew she had to play nice and that she didn't like it one bit. "Would be better if I weren't stuck with you two."

"Come on." He patted Javi on the back and he looked up from his work with a jolt. "We can't be that bad."

"You aren't doing a very good job of proving that, Murphy. Remember that you tried to arrest me during our last encounter."

"And you pistol whipped me. I'd say we're even."

"You just keep telling yourself that..." she finally set the last of her stuff on her desk. "I'm going to head out and go for a drive, I'll be back shortly."

"Why are you going for a drive?" Javi asked.

"To check things out." She stuffed her wallet with her credentials in the back pocket of her jeans. "I haven't been in the city in a while, so I need to get a lay of the land. Maybe I'll see something interesting."

"I'm coming with you," Javi said adamantly before getting up out of his chair. "I don't need you winding up in the wrong neighborhood and getting in a fight."

"What's so bad about a fight?" She smirked. "Who's to say I'm not looking for one?"

"That's exactly why I have to come with you."

"Listen, sweetie." She leaned over her desk so they were face to face. "I don't know why I have to keep telling you this, but I've held my own for a while. I don't need your protection."

"I'm not coming to protect you, I'm coming to keep you from doing something stupid."

She crossed her arms and walked away, lighting a cigarette on her way out. "Same difference."

"Where are you planning on going?"

"I don't know. All I do know is that I'm a lot more useful out there than I am at a desk."

"That's kinda part of the job, you know that right?"

"Part of your job," she corrected, the engine of her Ford Bronco roaring to life as she turned the key in the ignition. "My job typically consists of receiving an address and a basic briefing so I can go kick some poor fucker's door in. Right now, I don't have any orders, so I'm doing surveillance, gathering intelligence. Hence the name, Central Intelligence Agency."

"Shouldn't you be doing research for potential assets?"

"Javi baby, that's below my paygrade. I have people who do that for me now." She took a drag from her cigarette and blew a puff of smoke out the window. "Long story short, I do whatever the fuck I want. I've earned the right to make my own rules."

"You have to play by the rules here," he insisted, "it's the only way anything gets done."

She couldn't help but laugh. "Last I checked, Pablo Escobar just broke out of his own prison because you guys played by the rules. Sounds to me like you haven't gotten shit done."

"Him breaking out of prison means we get another shot at him."

"There's no 'we' in this, Javier." She began to weave her way through the neighborhoods. "If you keep on the way you have been, you'll never get anywhere near him. It'll be some spec ops guy or gal like myself that takes the kill shot, and we'll let the DEA take credit for the sake of secrecy and international diplomacy. If you actually want to be part of this manhunt, then you'll have to play dirty. I don't know why I have to keep explaining this to you, it's pretty fucken simple."