Season 1, Episode 10:
Catch Her If You Can
Part 6 of 10
“I
love Paris,” mused Leo, gazing out the window of the taxi at an enormous
cathedral. “It’s so beautiful.”
Beside
him in the backseat, Jay hunched down, craning his neck to get a look. “That’s a pretty sweet tower,” he said,
admiring what he could see of the intricate, Gothic architecture. “As far as world cities go, though, I’d
rather be in London, myself. Most of the
times I’ve been there have been for missions; I never get to just go out and
explore like this…”
“This
was a good idea,” Leo agreed. “It’s fun
to just act like a tourist for once.”
The
two men had left Opal back at the hotel to work on the clue they’d found the
day before in peace and quiet – her idea, not theirs. “Go sightseeing or something,” she’d urged
them. “Styx gave me a lead on how to
decode this thing; I just need the time to do it, and I think better in silence. I’ll call you when I’ve got it figured out.”
Leo
had been hesitant, thinking he might be able to help with the translation, but
Jay, who knew nothing of what Opal and Vitruvian had been doing this whole
mission, had been more than happy to take a break from it. “C’mon, dude,” he’d coaxed Leo. “Let’s go out. It’ll be good to clear our heads.”
They
were on their way to the famous Louvre Museum, after discovering they shared an
appreciation for art and history. Jay
wore his shades and fedora; Leo held a worn leather portfolio of some sort in
his lap. He seemed like a pretty cool
guy, though of course Jay would have preferred the company of a woman. Wish u
were here, he texted Emerald. A few
minutes later, he got her reply.
Me too. I hate it when you’re gone.
Jay
smiled at that, absently humming a tune to her words. They would make a great song.
“What
are you singing?” asked Leo.
Crap, thought Jay, Carter’s rubbing off on me. “Nothin’.
Just something Em said.”
“Emerald
Ecstasy, eh?” Leo smiled
appreciatively. “You’re a lucky man,
Jay. You’re constantly surrounded by
beautiful woman… Do you love any of
them?”
Jay
smirked. “Quite frequently,
actually. You?”
Leo
seemed to consider the question. “I
haven’t met a woman with a heart like my own… until recently,” he added,
waggling his eyebrows.
“Would
that be Diamond?”
Leo
smirked. “It’s good that you watch me,
Jay, but I fear that you watch me too closely.”
In
that instant, Jay could understand why Nick loathed Leo. Something about that smirk bothered him,
too. “Did you sabotage the mission so
that you could catch the crook instead of Nick?” he asked abruptly.
Vitruvian’s
smirk twisted into a frown, his eyebrows furrowing together. He leaned back and folded his arms, glaring
at Jay. “Do you question my honor?”
“No,
I don’t question your honor. What does that
even mean?” snorted Jay. “It’s the
mission I care about. I know Nick’s got
some jealousy issues, but he’s one of our best agents. If he’s got a bad feeling about you, I want
to make sure it’s not justified.”
“I
didn’t sabotage the mission,” said Leo stiffly, his voice deathly calm. “I really thought the plane ticket to Germany
was a red herring, a lure meant to throw us off her trail. I would never do anything to hurt HimTak,
just to benefit myself. You have my
word.”
Jay
nodded. He had no choice but to take the
other agent’s word for it, for now.
“Thank you, Vitruvian.”
They
rode on in awkward silence. After a few
minutes, Leo said, “Jay?” Jay looked
over. Leo’s face was serious. “I am a young Double-0,” he said firmly, “but
I am a Double-0.”
So was Drums, thought Jay, and that didn’t stop him from trying to
bring us down. To Leo, all he said
was, “Then be a good Double-0, Vitruvian.”
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A
short while later, they were standing in line outside the colossal, glass
pyramid in the center of the Louvre’s main courtyard. Leo tucked his leather portfolio underneath
one arm and raised his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the bright,
morning sun, as he stared up at the pyramid.
“What
is this stupid thing you’re carrying around?” Jay asked suddenly, snatching the
portfolio out from under Leo’s arm. He’d
been curious about it since he’d noticed Leo with it in the taxi and wondered
why he was bringing it with him into the museum. He opened it up to see a pencil sketch of a
pair of hands. It was just a black and
white drawing, but the detail and shadowing were impeccable. Behind it was another drawing, this one of a
woman breastfeeding her infant. “So what
are you, an artist or something?”
When
Leo didn’t reply, Jay continued to flip through the sketches. “Dang, these are pretty good. They’re, uh… they’re very good,
actually. Dude, this is fuckin’
exquisite,” he said, stopping on a drawing of a mother’s hands caressing her
baby’s chest. He turned to the next one
and raised his eyebrows. “Well, well,
well,” he snickered, grinning down at a nude young woman sprawled out on her
side, smoking a cigarette. “And these
were drawn from life?”
Leo
grinned. “Well, that’s one of the good
things about Paris. Lots of girls
willing to take their clothes off.”
Jay
smirked, imagining what Nick would say if he knew his rival liked drawing
pictures of naked chicks. “Nice, dude,”
he said, passing the portfolio back to Leo.
As
they waited in the long line that snaked into the museum’s entrance, Leo turned
to a blank page in the back of his sketchpad and began to duplicate the
criss-crossing lines of the glass pyramid.
He was easily as talented as Nick and more sophisticated, too; Jay had
only seen Nick draw comic-style superheroes and funny cartoon doodles. Still, the two were so similar, it was no
wonder they couldn’t stand each other.
“Do
you like the pyramid?” asked a voice behind them.
Both
Jay and Leo turned to find a young woman with long, wavy, blonde hair, parted
in the center, studying Leo’s sketch over his shoulder through a pair of
oversized, red sunglasses that hid most of her face.
“Yes,
the pyramid is magnificent,” answered Leo, enunciating his words in response to
the woman’s thick accent.
She
smirked. “The French say it is a scar on
the face of Paris. But I think it is
beautiful. The late French president,
Mitterrand, had it commissioned. They
say he had a ‘Pharaoh complex,’ but really, he was just interested in ancient
Egyptian culture.”
“Who
isn’t?” said Jay, thinking of sphinxes and mummies.
“I
am.” The woman smiled dreamily. “I plan to travel to Egypt sometime
soon. I would love to hold in my hands a
piece of Egyptian history.”
“You
must be quite the world traveler,” said Leo, raising his brows.
“Yes,
I do get around,” the woman replied with an innocent smile, and Jay stifled a
snicker at the connotation.
“Where
are you from?”
“Denmark,”
she said, “and you?”
“We’re
from the United States.”
“Ahh,
Americans. We have borrowed so much from
you – from your culture, I mean. Here in
Europe, we love all things American.
Your Hollywood movies, your television shows, your music and books. I love your books most of all.”
“Yeah?” Leo smiled down at her. “What’s your favorite book?”
“My
favorite book? It is… secret.”
“Secret?”
asked Jay, thinking that was a strange answer.
“You won’t tell us your favorite book?”
The blonde laughed lightly. “No, no, I
said it wrong. I mean to say, it is a
secret even from me – I do not know! So
many books… how can I choose a favorite?
I love all books. I have quite a
collection.”
“You
do seem well-read,” said Leo, still smiling at her. Jay watched him flirt with her in amusement;
the guy seemed to have a thing for blondes.
Yet another similarity to 00Carter.
Finally,
the line started to move, and once inside the museum, Jay and Leo headed in one
direction, the blonde woman in another.
But they ran into her again in the Denon Wing, where the paintings of
the Renaissance were displayed. “I love
Da Vinci’s work,” she breathed, creeping up behind them again, as they stood
gazing at the Mona Lisa.
Jay
jumped, startled, but Leo turned smoothly.
“I was named after him,” he told her.
“Leonardo – that’s my first name.
The first time my mother felt me kick while she was pregnant with me was
when she was standing in front of a Da Vinci painting at a museum in
Venice. She took it as a sign.”
“Really?” She had put her red sunglasses up on top of
her head now, so they could see her smile spread slowly across her face, brightening
her blue eyes. “That is a touching
story. And Venice – what a beautiful
city.”
Leo
nodded. “I love Italy.”
“I
do, too. In fact, I am traveling there
next, once I leave France.”
“Yeah? Lucky you.”
“Lucky
me,” repeated the blonde, her smile turning more seductive.
Leo
seemed to be eating it up. “Business or
pleasure?” he asked, just as flirtatiously.
“Oh,
a little of both…”
Jay
was starting to get sick of the silky way they were talking to each other, so
he wandered ahead to the next painting, the Danish woman’s voice fading into
the background. Wondering how Opal was
doing back at the hotel, he pulled out his phone and called the room.
The
phone rang and rang, but finally, Opal answered with a hesitant, “Hello?”
“It’s
Jay,” he said quickly. “Just checkin’
in. Any progress with the clue?”
“Getting
there. The code was easy to crack this
time – the idea Styx gave me was right;
it was Dancing Men, a substitution cipher from an old Sherlock Holmes
story, ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men.’
Another book reference – big surprise.
Unfortunately, the translation will be a lot harder.”
“What
language this time?” Jay wondered.
“My
best guess is Mandinka – it’s an African language, spoken mainly in The
Gambia.”
“African? We’re headed to Africa next?” asked Jay,
picturing himself running around a dry savanna that looked like something out
of The Lion King, with prides of
hungry lions hunting zebra and gazelle, and half-naked tribal men chasing the
lions with spears.
“It
looks that way. But until I’m able to
translate the text to know where in Africa, we aren’t going anywhere. It’s not going to be easy; it’s an obscure
language, and I don’t have any background knowledge in it.”
“Maybe
ol’ Vitruvian can help, world language expert that he is,” Jay said, somewhat
sarcastically, glancing over his shoulder at Leo, who was laughing along with
the Danish woman.
Opal
sighed. “I hope so. It seems like we’re falling farther and
farther behind in tracking these clues.
I hope the other team’s having better luck in Germany.”
“Me
too,” said Jay, wishing he’d listened to Nick instead of Leo and let his team
go there in the first place. They might
have been able to head the thief off, if not for the detour to Paris. “Otherwise, Carter’s never gonna let this
go.”
± ± ±
Nick
paced his hotel room, still fighting the rage that filled him. He had ranted during the entire flight to
Germany. He knew Diamond and Styx were
both a bit beyond sick of hearing it. But
still. If everyone had just listened to
him, they would have captured this thief by now, and Opal would be free to go
home, and Brian would be out of trouble. He flopped down on his bed. The day’s investigations had come to no avail.
No clear shots of the crook in question,
no prints, nothing to help them on their mission.
Nick
sighed. Why had Jay trusted the new 009
over him? Why did everyone fall for the
act Lame-onardo Di-Crapio put on for all of them? He felt like he was the only one who could see
him for what he was: a wannabe 00Carter,
trying to wreck the mission so that he would catch the villain instead of Nick.
And so far, it seemed to be working. He felt a bit hurt, to be honest. Nick had thought he’d proven himself enough
times for his instincts to be trusted at this point, and now he could see that
wasn’t the case.
He
grabbed Opal’s phone, scrolling through the numbers. A small grin appeared. Perhaps calling the FBI would be a good
pick-me-up. He called the number,
leaning back, snickering in anticipation.
“A-”
“TOMMY
BOY!” Nick yelled, cutting him off immediately.
“It’s
Carter! Trace the call!” someone could
be heard yelling in the background.
“Hey,
have you watched that movie, Agent Tom? I
love that movie. Tommy Boy. That’s your new nickname!”
“You
made a big mistake contacting me this time, Carter.”
Nick
laughed, getting comfortable against the fluffy pillows. If nothing else, Lancy was really good about
booking ritzy hotel rooms. A lot of the
times, the accommodations on missions were better than the dorms in HimTak’s
headquarters. “Why? I want you to find me. That’s why Opal and I decided to use her phone
again. Hers is traceable.”
“Oh
yeah? And why do you want me to find
you?”
“I
already told you, gumshoe, I gotta lead you to the real enemy. ‘Cause you don’t know your enemy…” He paused, grinning. “You want me to sing for you again? Hey, did the trace go through yet?”
“We
got him! They’re in Munich!”
“Hank!
Shut it!” Agent Tom barked, causing Nick
to laugh even more.
“Okay,
now you know where I am. So, catch me if
you can!”
± ± ±