Chapter 1

Sunday September 20, 2001; 7:45 AM
Federal Building; Downtown Pittsburgh

            “Okay Ms Bryce, we’ll ask you one more time, and please answer the question this time.  What is your relationship with Mr. Mahr?”  Laila could tell that these men were getting frustrated with her avoiding their questions.  Nervously she started toying with her long dark hair, she was afraid to tell them what she knew about Ahmed. Her face was unnaturally pale, leaving the freckles that were scattered across her nose to stand out more than they usually did making her appear even more girlish.  Her green eyes stared out at the two men, Garcia and Lewis, with a haunted look hidden deep beneath the hostility that she glared at them with. Laila wasn’t sure how she could get out of this situation without everything being ruined, although at the same time she realized that the situation couldn’t get much worse at this point. That is unless she refused to give them any information. All the same in her mind a voice kept telling her that she had promised to keep Ahmed’s secret, and to tell no one.  The thought of telling someone the truth, even a part of the truth was making her sick. She also knew that in all honestly they knew as much as she did about Ahmed, if not more.  Yet she had promised months ago that she would never tell any one what she knew about him.  Laila couldn’t get a grip on her rapidly flowing thoughts, they kept going from one thought to the next. Part of her felt that if she did not tell these men what they wanted to know that her family would be hurt, or Ahmed would be hurt, at the same time, another part of her felt that if she told them the same things could happen just as easily.  She began to fidget in her chair as a feeling of trapped claustrophobia came crashing down on her.

            To these men, Laila got the feeling that she was just a kid, a stupid girl who seemed to have got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet, at the same time she couldn’t help but to wonder if also she was not really a girl to them, but a woman who was capable of deceit and things that were worse. Laila had just finished college, and was twenty-one years old.   She knew that some of the choices she had made would never be understood by others, she also knew that others would try to understand and say that they did, but in actuality they would never really understand everything.

            Laila knew when things didn’t feel right.  She also felt that if her life was in danger she would know it.  In this case, she couldn’t help but feel that her life was in danger, and she wasn’t afraid of fighting before she died if it came to that.  Laila knew that these men could and would make her disappear if that was what was required of them, and that they would do it without asking questions. She realized that they would not hesitate to ruin her life, to destroy Ahmed, or her family. And yet she was unsure of what the right thing to do was.  She had left the city to live at home for a few months before going on to graduate school, and when she left, she had left behind the man she loved, the person these men were questioning her about.  He had been the first man that she actually loved, but still when it came time to go she had found no way to stay. It had almost killed her to have to say goodbye on the day she left, but she had no choice at the time. When she had originally met Ahmed, she had known that there was something special about him, something different that she couldn’t quite figure out.  It almost scared Laila, even now, how quickly she had fallen in love with him, and trusted him completely.  Even after she had found out what his secrets were months later, and exactly what it was that he was hiding, she couldn’t shake her love and trust for Ahmed. 

               “I don’t know, maybe you should ask him.  After that you can tell me, because he’s not really good at explaining or sharing things, especially when it comes to emotions…”  She was trying to hide her fear behind sarcasm and she only hoped that her voice didn’t shake.  She had been here in this room for six hours with these men.  When she and Ahmed had been woken in his apartment that morning, there had been six men, as soon as they reached the office downtown, four of the men had simply disappeared leaving her with these two men, Garcia and Lewis. From the start she knew she could not trust either of them, and she now she found herself beginning to hate the both of them.

               Laila had come back to the city for the weekend to see Ahmed and some other friends, and had spent the night before at Ahmed’s apartment.  In the early hours of the morning they had been woken by men standing over them with guns, dragging them from bed.  Laila and Ahmed each knew who the men were and what was happening.  They had been dreading this moment for months.  Each had known that eventually this moment would come.  The men had only allowed Laila to put on a pair of shorts and a short-sleeved shirt; Ahmed had only been permitted to put on a pair of jeans as they were drug from the apartment.  From there they had been placed in separate cars and driven downtown, the last Laila had seen of Ahmed was him being pulled from the car he had been riding in. Now, hours later Laila still couldn’t believe that any of this was real.  She had believed Ahmed on the night he told her the truth that some day, something like this could happen, but it still felt like something out of a movie, or a bad dream.  Laila had spent the months she was with Ahmed looking in the shadows for these men, looking for the danger that he had always warned her was there, waiting for their time to strike.  Now, that she was here, and this was happening, she still couldn’t shake the numb, dreamlike feeling that had taken over her body and mind when they were awoken that morning.

               “Oh come on Laila, all we’re trying to do here is help you, but you have to help us too.  You could be in a lot of trouble here honey.”  The older of the two men, who was probably in his late thirties said to her.  His gray eyes clashed with her green ones. Neither of them was willing to back down. The hardness in his gray eyes and their alertness was a sharp contrast to the rest of him.   His clothes were rumpled and messy, his graying brown hair which had seemingly been growing slightly from a buzz cut, was standing at odd angles.  Even his body language betrayed how tired he was in Laila’s opinion. Since she had been brought in she had been trying to put a personality to each of these men, to figure out who they were, and what type of person they were.  Each of the men though so far had done too good of a job at hiding their emotions, and keeping their faces blank.  She was becoming more frustrated with each minute that passed. Laila was not happy with the situation she was in, she was cold, tired, she was also terrified and at this point she honestly believed that she would kill for a cigarette. From the point when these men, and the others, had drug her from the safety of Ahmed’s arms that morning, the guns had not been put away. 

            “Screw you.  We both know that I haven’t done anything wrong.  You can’t keep me here any longer unless you’re going to charge me with something.  It’s called the right to due process, or maybe you slept through that lesson in class. If you’re going to charge me with something, I have two things to say, the first is read me my Miranda Rights or any charges are going to be dropped anyway, and the second thing is I want my damn lawyer, right now.  I’m sick of playing your games.  You’re using excessive force, I mean what’s with the guns?  Exactly what weapon do I have that I’m a threat?  I’ll have your badge asshole!”  Even as she was saying this, Laila knew that most likely none of it was true, that these men didn’t have to do anything she had said. Still, as she was talking, her voice had gradually grown louder as she talked until she reached the end where she was almost yelling.  She was still scared but she was also getting angry, this had been going on for hours, now they were each switching tactics.  They had begun by being patronizing, and she had played the timid country girl, but now each side was getting mad and taking to threats. Without saying anything really they had laid it on the table that they knew enough that they could create problems for her, and they were saying in a sense that they would use them, she couldn’t back down just now.

            “Of course you haven’t done anything really wrong Laila, we know that.  But you know that what you’re saying isn’t quite right either.  You know who we are, and we don’t have to do a damn thing that you’ve just said.  We are the CIA, we answer to no one. There are no rules for us Laila, but then again, you should know that from what Ahmed has told you.”  This man hadn’t yet spoken so Laila listened to him calmly; he was young perhaps a few years older than she herself was with short blond hair and soft brown eyes.  She remained silent; finally, the reality of what was happening was starting to set in.  She seriously could be in trouble here and she knew it, yet she was trapped.  If she broke down and told them what she knew, she would be incriminating herself and Ahmed. In her mind, she also knew that she would be breaking the promise she had made to Ahmed. But, there wasn’t much that Laila could do but to tell them what they wanted, or try to make some story up on the spot.   If she tried to remain silent, it was now understood, that would only make it worse, and they would take that as an admission of guilt.  ‘But guilty of what?!’  She knew that neither she, nor Ahmed had really done anything wrong by being together. It was true that Ahmed had done things in the line of his job that most people would view as wrong or evil, to those people Ahmed and his actions would never be right, or good in any aspect of his life, because to these people his job would always define who he was as a person. They did not understand that what Ahmed was doing for his job was in a sense protecting them.  But these two men probably knew that, and they had to understand that.  They had to understand.  No matter how many times Ahmed and Laila had talked about this, and what could happen to them in the future, Laila had never quite understood what exactly it was that these men were afraid of. 

            Laila put her elbows on the table and rested her face in her open palms, hiding behind her hands and hair.  She could feel the two agents in the room watching her, as it seemed that she, the girl who had been fierce in her loyalty to the man she loved, was slowly seeming to break after over three hours of questioning.  Her slender shoulders shook, yet she was silent in her pain, her silky dark hair and delicate hands hid her face.  After a few minutes the silence was broken by the sound of her laughter.  “You know, you guys are real assholes.  If you think that I’m going to break this easily, you’re crazy, I will never tell anything.  I never have, and I never will, so just forget it okay? I mean do you not realize that I’ve held this inside for so long, I haven’t even told my family any of this? What makes you think I’m going to tell you?”  Laila smiled at first the younger one and then the older one defiantly, waiting to see what their next move would be.

            The younger agent, who she had come to find out was named Alek Lewis, the blond put his hands palm down on the table and leaned in toward Laila, his brown eyes were black and flashing in their anger.  “You listen to me you snotty little brat, we have questions, the people who run this agency, they have questions.  One way or the other, no matter what it takes we are going to get the answers we need.  I swear to God, if I have to keep you here in this room for days, I will.  We can do that you know, see there is one thing you need to realize really fast Laila, the minute you fell in love with Mahr, you lost your right to privacy when it came to us.”  The older man roughly grabbed the younger one by the arm, jerking him back away from the table.  Laila had gone white and the smile disappeared from her face, all she kept thinking was that this couldn’t be happening, not now, not to her.   “Damn it Lewis!  Shut the hell up, you’re not helping anything and you know it!”  Laila shook her head, pushing back from the table, trying to bring herself farther away from the two men as she seemed it was certain that the two were about to come to blows and she didn’t want to be within striking distance.  The older guy glanced at her and seemed to notice her discomfort and fear and spoke up, trying to calm her “I’m sorry about that Laila.  I can assure you, no matter how hard I or the agency tries, we can’t get it through this fool’s head that sometimes fear and meanness isn’t the best way to go.”  She straightened in her seat, and lifted her chin defiantly, her eyes hard and cold.  The guy noticed and sighed, “Look, I’m sorry but we do need to talk to you about Ahmed. I know that this is the last thing you probably want to talk about to people you don’t know, and that you don’t think you can trust us, but really, you can trust me Laila, I’m not out to hurt you.”

            “If you think I’m staying here for very much longer, you’re out of your damn mind.”  She sighed and looked wistfully at her pack of cigarettes, wondering what they would do if she lit one up.  Calmly she looked up, her green eyes flashed with anger as they met the hard angry eyes of Lewis.  They didn’t break eye contact, the anger and hatred that was directed at the other was so strong that Laila could almost feel it attacking her.  “Laila, as much of an asshole as Lewis is, he’s right, if it takes us days in this room, we’re going to get some answers from you.  We can keep you here, and if you don’t at least try to help us out here, we’re going to be forced to do whatever it takes. Please don’t let it come to that Laila, I don’t want to have to keep you here. I don’t want to scare you anymore than you already have been. Please try to work with us here.”

            Laila sighed, “Don’t you idiots get it?  This is not something I don’t want to talk about, this is something I promised I would never talk about.  I haven’t broken that promise, and I’m not about to for some young prick, and some over the hill hack who does a shitty job at being the good cop in the good cop, bad cop routine.  So go ahead, do whatever it takes.”  She didn’t raise an eyebrow as the older guy started to laugh, she simply studied him, and his face was drawn and tired, despite the smile that played on his mouth.  “Oh God Laila, do you realize just how bad of an attitude you have?  Yeah, Lewis is a prick, but all I’m trying to do is help you, and get to the bottom of this so we can all get on with our lives.  Do you think I’m enjoying this, having some snotty little brat telling me I’m a shitty actor? Well trust me, this isn’t what I thought I would be doing when I joined the CIA.”   She shot him a dirty look, “Get on with our lives?  Is that a joke sir?  Because the way I see it, after today, after this I will never go back to my life, at least not the life I knew.  Everything I knew, everything I trusted and believed in is gone.”  Garcia paused, simply staring at her in confusion, she sighed in frustration “You idiot! I will now never simply walk down the street with out looking over my shoulder, I will never go to sleep at night with him, or alone and not have the fear of being drug from the bed by you.  And how do I know that I’m going to walk out of this room and that if I do, that you guys will simply let us go on with our lives?  Everything I know is being torn from me.”

            Garcia sighed and shook his head, “No, Laila it’s not like that…we are not trying to destroy you or your life, we simply need to know…” A smile played on Laila’s lips as she glanced defiantly at the no smoking sign and pulled out a cigarette.  “Okay, fine, so it’s not what I thought it was, that’s good. So what is it you want to know sir?  Oh yeah, about Ahmed…what about him?  You want to know that he’s the best that I’ve ever had?  That he make me feel like I’m exploding and I’m going to die?”  Laila watched with a smirk as the two agents went red in the face, she stifled a laugh as she tried to calmly light her cigarette.  She was frustrated to notice how badly her hands were shaking as she tried to light it, finally she had to steady the cigarette with one hand while using the other to work the lighter. She didn’t have a chance to determine whether it was embarrassment or anger that made these men so quiet and crimson, because just as she finished saying that the only door to the room flew open and Ahmed came in.

            Laila could tell that Ahmed was furious simply by looking at him, but there was something more than anger hiding there in Ahmed.  His dark eyes that were usually so warm and loving were almost red in their fury and his naturally sensuous mouth was set in a harsh tight line.  Still, she could sense that there was tension in his body, the same as there was in her own.  This tension was the thing that betrayed their fear.  “What the fuck are you trying to do?  Have you totally lost it, or are you just trying to get yourself killed Lai?  Explain it, because I would really like to know.”  Ahmed’s voice shook as he quietly spoke.  Laila simply returned his dark and determined stare with one of her own, she knew that he wasn’t really mad at her, as much as he was frustrated with the situation they were in. He turned his back to her with a shake of his head and began to address the two men, she watched in curiosity, not sure what he was going to say to them.  “Let me talk to her alone for a few minutes.  You’re not gonna get anywhere with her like this.  Garcia, Lewis…is that okay?”  Lewis glared at Ahmed a moment as if debating what to say and began to answer “The hell…” but before he could finish his answer Garcia simply nodded at Ahmed and began shoving his partner to the door.  Without a word the two men closed the door behind them.

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Slipping Further Away – Chapter 2