10- For Points

10

For Points

For Points…

“It was the roommate,” Josephine said, only ten minutes into episode.  “He did it because he is secretly in love with the girlfriend.”

Leonard’s eyebrow arched at the prediction.  “It is still pretty early in the show to make that kind of statement.”

Jo smirked back at him across the couch, curled under her favorite blanket on a cold October night.  “For points.”

That meant she was serious.  For points had been a little game they had organically invented some time ago.  Basically, if you called ‘for points’, you were sure of the outcome of the show without a shadow of a doubt.  It was as if to say you were playing for points.  Although no formal point system had been invented to go along with it, Leo was positive Jo was ahead.  She was always ahead.  She just had that knack for understanding the mystery in front of her.

In addition to constantly battling for points that didn’t really exist, the game also kept them from ever really just enjoying the natural progression of the show.  In the rare cases where both failed to predict the ending, they both felt unsatisfied with the program.

“For points?” Leo questioned the action.  “You sure you want to do that?  The night is young.”

“You are just upset because you know I am right and you didn’t get to the answer first.”  She mocked him.

Leo put up his hands in surrender.  “Alright, champ.  Your loss.”

“I’m right.  You know it.”  She twisted the knife.

He knew she was.  “What ever happened to just watching T.V.?”

Jo smiled.  “It was boring.”

****

Jo climbed into the back of the ambulance after her husband was wheeled into it on a stretcher.  It was safe to say the vacation had not been what they expected.

Thankfully, the paramedics were in no hurry.  Leo was beat up but he was not fatal or critical in any area so, with some time and a little love, he would heal and be back to being the husband Jo had married.

A second later, the last two people she wanted to see climbed into the ambulance; the two D.H.S agents.

The man, Barkley was his name she thought, closed the doors behind them.

“Give us a break, will you?” Jo said, irritation heavy in her voice.  It was obvious she had been crying.  Her eyes were red and wet with tears but she had recovered control before getting into the ambulance. Leo didn’t need to see that.  Not now.

“It’s okay, babe.” Leo said weakly.  “They are just doing their jobs.”

“I’m truly sorry ma’am just a couple more questions.” Liz said, the regret in her voice was honest but Jo had had enough.

“Look,” Jo said, finally.  “You have this all wrong.  The guy in the lobby, who had the drive in the first place, he’s not your traitor.”

Eliza looked stunned and then Barkley chuckled.  “I don’t think so, Miss Dev-e-rocks.  We have it from a reliable source in the D.H.S itself that he was planning to sell secrets.”

Jo rolled her eyes.  “Let me ask you a question.  Since you’ve been after this guy, did you do any research on him?”

Barkley was getting frustrated.  “Of course we did, he was financially bankrupt and was looking for a payout.  It was his motivation.”

Jo nodded.  “Of course it was his motivation but not for being a traitor.  For blackmailing the traitor instead of turning him in.”

Eliza was interested.  “What you are saying?  You think Bill Lentz wasn’t the traitor?”

Jo nodded again.  “I got into that flash drive that has everyone so crazy.  You know what I found?  Video files.  What kind of state secret is in a video file?”

Eliza was many things, stupid was not one of them.  She started to understand what Jo was getting at. “The video files have the real traitor on them.”

Barkley turned to Adams.  “You’re not buying this, are you?”  He looked back at Jo and Leo.  “Okay, Nancy Drew.  I think you’ve watched too many television shows.  This is not CSI Miami.  We are trained federal agents.  We don’t need to hear some wild story from the imagination of… tourists.”

Liz put her hand up to Barkley signaling him to stop talking.  “Wait, I want to hear this theory.  We haven’t come up with anything substantial and at least this seems to make sense.”  She redirected her focus back to Joe and Leo.

Jo continued to talk directly to Eliza since she was the one listening.  “He collects evidence on the actual traitor but instead of coming forward, his financial problems become too much and he decides to blackmail him.  The traitor wants no part of that and pins it all on Lentz.”

Liz shook her head.  “But that would never work once we picked him up we would have the video files and it would clear his name and expose the traitor.”

“That’s where the Russians come in.”  Leo broke in, weakly.  “The traitor leaks it to the merc’s that Lentz has secrets on him, they kill him and take the only evidence that exists proving his innocence.  To you guys it looks like a sale gone wrong and the traitor walks.”

Jo turned to Leo and smiled, falling in love with him all over again.  He smiled back and said two words. “For points.”

Jo kissed him.  “For points.”

“For points?” Liz asked, confused.

Neither turned from each other’s gaze but both said in unison.  “You wouldn’t understand.”

There was a moment of prefect silence, a moment far away from the chaos that had been this vacation so far.

It did not last.

“So how do we find the traitor?” Liz asked finally.

Jo sighed, and they turned back towards Liz.  “Look, it’s easy.  Just find out who accused Bill Lentz in the first place and that is your man.”

Eliza Adams shook her head.  “Yeah, but that was Barkley.”

Another second of silence came but this one was different.  It was a calm before the storm as everyone realized the obvious truth.  Barkley Samuels was the traitor.

Barkley finally shook his head and chuckled.  “Fucking tourists.”

He drew his firearm and Adams reached for his hand catching his wrist but she was too late.  Barkley fired three shots up into her abdomen at close range.  Liz felt her strength fade but she held onto his hand as long as he could to try and give the Deverauxs as much of a shot at surviving as possible.

Leo had only a split second to react and with his free hand, he shoved his wife backwards and knocked lose the switch that held the stretcher wheels in place.  In the next second the bed lurched forward and slammed into Barkley and the doors popped open.  Both Leo and Barkley tumbled out of the back of the ambulance and crashed to the hard pavement.

Leonard hit hard and with the injuries he already had, it hurt twice as bad.  He waited for the shots to come as the sheriffs and emergency personnel drew and emptied their clips into the sinister traitor. Instead, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared in confusion at the heap of person and metal.

Then it dawned on Leo, no one outside the ambulance knew he was the traitor yet.

Jo screamed.  “Stop him!  Stop Barkley, he is the traitor!  He just shot agent Adams!”

It was too late.  Barkley, now with madness and desperation in his eyes, used the confusion to grab the back of Leo’s head by the hair and drag him to his feet, his service pistol pressed to the wounded man’s temple.

“Nobody move!” He screamed.

The mood changed and everybody froze.  A thick tension engulfed the area.

“Nobody follow!”  Barkley yelled and backed towards the docks, dragging Leonard with him.

TO BE CONTINUED….