Here is my sixth entry for FFWC.
I used all three prompts from this one and one from the previous. And I included a quote from Threepio even though I just started watching Star Wars – hope I didn’t get it wrong, LOL – can you find it in the story? It’s, “Oh dear.” He says that a lot, LOL.
Here we go!
The Roakes Case
Agent Carter walked briskly across the hallway, still clutching the report in her tight hands. Her knuckles were white from clutching the files so hard with her fury. Her dark brown hair was pulled tightly into a ponytail and was flying behind her due to her fast pace. Her teeth were clenched and her piercing blue eyes were fixed on the office door ahead.
Her carriage was graceful, infuriated as she was, and her movements quick and deft. She knew who she was. Agent Brooke Carter, that’s who. A totally deaf secret agent who only worked alone. But being deaf didn’t daunt her, for she was no ordinary secret agent – she was skilled in lipreading and could still speak though unable to hear.
And no cracked case like this was going to pass under her nose unsolved.
“I’ll bring Roakes to justice if it’s the last thing I do,” She vowed as she shoved open her office door and plopped down hard onto her leather seat.
“Agent Carter,” her office assistant spoke up. Lipreading skills proved to be helpful to Agent Carter as she nodded to her assistant to continue.
“This is an especially tricky case. You really need backup for this one. Won’t you please let another agent assist you?”
“Silence, you uneducated peanut!” Agent Carter scolded. Her temper and impatience cost her many a case for the detective agency she worked for, but her fiery passion for justice drove her on all the same. “You know I only work alone. No amateur agent will get in my way today. This case is one for me, and I will solve it.”
“I stand corrected,” The assistant mumbled softly. Agent Carter sighed to herself – she hadn’t meant to be rude. She was just determined to solve this case on her own, and to do it right, without impatience.
And that’s why she took her time in questioning the co-pilot of the plane that crashed. It was a miracle that there were 52 survivors and only 33 injured from the crash. A few didn’t make it, Agent Carter learned, and that ignited her fiery passion for justice even more.
“You’re telling me that pilot Richard Roakes simply had a mad spell and just jumped out the window with a sign saying, ‘I was your pilot’? That’s completely insane. How could they even accept him to fly?” Agent Carter demanded of the co-pilot Boaz McHenze.
“Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly what he did. I tried to stop him, but he flew out faster than I could stop him. I was able to safely fly the plane for a few minutes, but what the pilot didn’t tell me was that HQ told us that there was a problem with the plane and we were to go off course and land in Santa Fe instead. I didn’t catch the memo, and so the plane began to lose power. As you know, it crashed just outside of Laredo.” Explained McHenze.
Agent Carter continued to ask him questions about the attitude of the pilot and how he acted right up to the time he jumped out the window.
“He wanted to die, right?” She questioned.
“He seemed like such a normal guy with no suicidal intentions at all. It completely took me by surprise that he jumped out the window.”
That left Agent Carter even more frustrated. What had driven Roakes to jump out of the plane like that?
For the next few days of interrogating passengers and examing the crash site, she couldn’t find her answer. She wanted to question Roakes himself, but of course, that was impossible, as they hadn’t found his body yet and presumed him to be dead.
But one day, Agent Carter received a message from her office assistant. One, simple, short message that would open up a whole new range of possibilities for her and help her solve the case.
That message which had only two words. That message shocked her to her core and left her in utter shock. “Oh dear,” she murmured. Flabbergasted, Agent Carter reread the message about Roakes over and over again.
He’s alive.