Tempting The Agent

Lana didn't particularly like venturing into the archives room, and she couldn't blame Levi for being less than enthusiastic. He was simply picking up on her discomfort. The section she found herself in was poorly lit. Burnt light bulbs were creating shadows in the aisle. She couldn't hear the noisy ventilation system, but she could feel the draft of warm air pushed out of the vents. Her eyes darted up.

"1945. Too early." She strolled down to January 1946. Pulling out the dusty box, she brushed off the lid before removing it. She searched the randomly sorted files for Hanley. Joe 'Trigger' Hanley was a wartime mob boss gunned down in Kentucky before the authorities could build a solid case against him. After inheriting his large fortune, his son dismantled the organisation, or so it was believed... until the arrest and conviction of Tom Hanley, his grandson, in the mid-eighties.

Jack remembered studying the Hanley affair while in Quantico. The fascination the case held had never faltered, and he'd welcomed the excuse to reopen the cold investigation. Not that he expected to solve it, but he hoped to find evidence that the organisation never died and to prevent Tom Hanley from being released on parole.Jack recalled that the shooting took place in either 1946 or ’47. He scanned the shelves for December ’47. He would start there, then work his way towards Lana. Two aisles down. "Are you bored, buddy?" He took a short break to stroke the dog behind the ears. "Did Lana send you away, or are you simply stretching your paws?"

April 1946. As soon as she opened the box, the name Hanley jumped out at her. The file was so thick, it was placed in a huge envelope. Lana pulled it out, carefully balancing the box on her raised knee. Piercing eyes peeked through the hole. The furry animal was gone. Only the human female remained. After taking one last look, the intruder dashed through the aisle, grazing her ankle. Lana screamed.

His search instantly forgotten, Jack rushed towards her. She was sitting on the floor, her stunned expression unreadable. A ripped envelope and a deformed box were lying near her feet. The deep worry lines that instantly creased his face at the sound of her screaming and tumbling slowly faded as he helped her up. She seemed fine, except maybe for her pride and her sore *ss she massaged.

 "What happened?" he asked while brushing behind her ear a lock of hair that had become loose during her fall.Her skin was soft under his thumb, and her perfume enticed him.

As she stared into his eyes, her breath caught in her throat. Was she imagining more than friendship? Should she dare to dream? "Lana? Are you hurt?" Forcing the haze off her mind, she shook her head. "I was. It was silly, really..." She took a step back, and reluctantly, he let her go.

"A mouse startled me and I dropped everything, but I found the Hanley case." Grateful the box or the envelope didn't scatter their contents all over the floor, she breathed in relief."A mouse?" His brows arched, and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I'm sure you scared the poor little guy er way more than it scared you.""For your information, Jack, it didn't scare me. It took me by surprise. There's a big difference."His smile widened. "If you say so."She eyed him suspiciously. "Oh NO... you WON'T tell anyone.""See, I'm not so sure about that." His eyes sparkled with mischief. "Unless you seal my lips," he suggested while closing the gap between them. 

"I'm sure I have duct tape in my desk," she quipped, leaving him laughing."Not exactly what I had in mind," he confessed to the back of her head, knowing she couldn't read him. Then he lent her a hand.

Once the box was neatly back in its original spot on the shelf, he led her to the nearest conference room, located off the oldest section of the archives. It wasn't spacious, the furniture was outmoded, but it possessed a secret charm that very few people knew about. It was a charm that Jack discovered a lone cold January night years ago while he logged overtime.

Why someone installed a gas fireplace in that conference room was a mystery Jack had never tried to unravel for fear the place would become public knowledge and too popular. Lana was sitting on the floor, her sleeves rolled up, surrounded by papers. Her concentration was focused on two sheets in her hands. Lowering his guards, he openly gazed at her. The flames licking the false log cast red and orange highlights in her hair. Her nose was twitching as her eyes darted back and forth. When she frowned, he unconsciously frowned with her. He touched her bare forearm, feeling the warmth of her skin under his fingers, and he imagined his hand roaming freely over her body. She lifted her head and for an instant she forgot about Hanley and Kentucky. She had never seen his eyes so dark or felt the attraction between them so intensely. His grin grew wider as he repeated his question once more, switching to signing when it remained unanswered. "The... the..." She diverted her attention from the lethal weapons piercing through her heart to her knees, where the sheet rested forgotten. "Have... have you ever noticed the last names of Hanley's associates?" "Which Hanley? Joe Trigger or Tom?" The heat of his gaze lingered on her skin. "That's just it, Jack. More than half of them share the same last names under both administrations." "Really?" As she handed him the sheets, she moved closer to him. She would give Jack a taste of his own medicine and play his game. Her shoulder rubbed against his chest when she pointed with a pen the similarities between the names. "Could be pure coincidence, Lana. It doesn't necessarily imply family ties." "Or it could be loyalty transcending generations, which would explain why the organisation survived." He took a second look at the list. "It's worth looking into, and if I recall well, those two, Kent and Hanson, have been on the DEA top 10 list lately." "Do you think Tom might still be running the business from prison after twenty years?" Jack seriously considered the possibility. "I've seen weirder arrangements." "Does Tom have a son?" "Not sure, but I'll get Tara to branch off those family trees, and I'll pass the information to Carver at the DEA." "What about your pile, Jack? Did you find anything interesting in it?" Her hand brushed his thigh as she reached for a picture. A small jolt shook Jack's body, a jolt that she noticed. "Interesting, yes. Relevant, no." Her proximity and the intimate atmosphere kindled his primeval desire. "This is a picture of the crime scene. Joe Trigger was gunned down in a popular park at sunset. A dozen or so innocent people were also caught in the crossfire." "That's awful." She was still no closer to understanding random violence than she was when she joined the bureau. "Were there any casualties... aside from Joe?"

"Five bystanders died, and two remained unidentified to this day: an elderly man walking his dog and a young woman." She stared at the black and white picture with yellowed corners. "Who was responsible for the massacre?" People in the photo were either sitting or lying on the ground, dying or already dead. "The authorities suspected a rival gang, but no arrests were ever made." Jack reached for two smaller brown envelopes. A note was written on each of them. He read aloud the note on the first one. "White male, late fifties, April 24, 1946." He then unsealed it. It contained the picture of the bald gentleman, the picture of the poodle, a pocket watch with the initials G. P. engraved at the back, a worn-out brown leather wallet with two dollars and forty-five cents in it, and a pair of spectacles. "These were all the belongings of the man walking his dog." Lana studied the clues he'd left behind. "And they were not able to identify him?" Jack shook his head. "Resources were scarce, and technology at its infancy. I doubt they even fingerprinted him. There would have been no databases to compare the findings." "What about the young woman?" Lana pointed at the second envelope marked: "White female, early twenties, April 24, 1946."

Jack emptied the contents. The picture fell face down, the place and date of her death handwritten on the back. Along with the photo came a strand of blond hair, a simple gold ring, a key, and sixty-seven cents. Lana reversed the picture, and they both gasped. She stared... at herself.

"This is impossible," Lana repeated for the tenth time, visibly shaken. Not that the picture changed just because she willed it to change. Her hair was pulled up in a bun with loose strands cupping her face. It was a style she’d never adopted, but still the resemblance was undeniable. If this was a joke, knowing he would be looking into the Hanley case, it was cruel, Jack thought as he stared at the picture. Two unrelated strangers separated by more than half a century just couldn't share such an uncanny resemblance, could they? He took the lock of blond hair and placed it against Lana's. The shade was practically identical. "It's not mine, Jack," she said, seemingly reading his mind. "Why would they cut some of her hair?"

"For identification. Too bad they didn't know at that time you needed the follicle for DNA testing."

"If they had, it would be plain scary," she observed, lightening the mood. "I don't think it's a hoax, Jack. The picture looks too real."

"It als