Ralphie Pearce V

Sam's Hotel room.

Sam sat in her hotel room, with Levi on the bed. His back leaning on the headboard as he looked at Pearce's case file, again. Agent Tillman and Sutton sat observing the two silently in the corner.

Levi turned the page, glancing at the two men in the corner. He found the two agents' watchful eyes irksome.

"If you want to make yourselves useful, why don't you leave us alone to work?" he spat.

Tillman gestured to the redhead sitting at the table, back facing them.

"We can't do that Mr. Jackson; Dr. Gray is dealing with sensitive evidence," said Tillman.

Sam was busy creating a copy of the original hard drive of Pearce's laptop to make sure not to alter anything on the original drive. Levi scoffed, arched his brows at them."By 'sensitive evidence' you mean the encrypted list of high-ranking officials involved in an international human trafficking ring?" he said.

The two CIA agents turned to him surprised, and they exchanged looks with each other, silently questioning if either of them shared such classified information to the two Consultants.

Levi snorted, amused at the two's exchange.

"We didn't come here blind, you know?" he said going back to reading.

The two-agent turned back to Sam, who was quietly typing codes on the keyboard. They found her skill impressive, but they reckon she wasn't any better than their best digital expert who wasn't able to retrieve the deleted data. They wondered silently why the British security service even asked them to allow the pathologist to handle such evidence when it wasn't her field of expertise.

Levi chuckled under his breath watching the two's expression while observing Sam. An expression that says that what she was doing was a waste of everybody's time. Sutton and Tillman turned to Levi, wondering what he found amusing.

Levi grinned at the two, "I've been considering the possibility that Sam is not from this world. It's highly possible with her level of intelligence and skills. I won't be surprised if she'll be able to not only retrieve an irretrievable data, something your best men weren't capable of. Plus bleedin' encrypt it." Levi states. His eyes bounced at the redhead, typing on the laptop. Completely focused on her task in hand.

Levi grinned and turned to the two, offering his hand. "50bucks she gets you that file" he whispered, so the redhead won't hear. Although with that level of focus he assumed she had tuned them out from the beginning.

Oh, how he loves making bets. He was a gambler after all. Sutton reached out and shook his hand confident he'll win. Easiest 50bucks he'd ever earned, he thought. Tillman simply shook his head, didn't want to be part of their childish game, and kept watching the redhead.

It was two hours later when they heard a groan from Sam, the only sound she made other than her constant typing on the keyboard since she started. She stretched her arms above her, while the laptop continued to process. She reached to her right, on the table for a bottle of water and drank it, watching the codes on the screen as she leaned back stretching her back and neck. The base of her neck was cramping badly, she noted.

From behind her, sitting on the edge of the bed Tillman spoke "Dead end?"

Sam swiveled on her chair to face him. "The data had been overwritten, it's impossible to retrieve it." Sam decided. Sutton flashes Levi a self-satisfied grin, he just won that bet if he wasn't mistaken.

"Although I was able to retrieve data from the laptop's security," she adds.

"Sorry what?" Sutton asks, perplexed. He got off the bed and moved towards her, he looked at the screen, coding commands still running.

"Well, this laptop has a fingerprint scanner yeah?" Sam starts earning a nod from Sutton.

Sam pointed to the camera at the center of the laptop, moved to touch the mouse, and pointed the mouse on a folder.

"It's the way Pearce had always accessed his laptop, but he had installed a program that would take pictures every time someone accessed it."

She clicked open the folder and popped up numerous photos of Pearce's face in front of the camera.

Sutton tensed and leaned closer to look at the screen. It really was Pearce.

"Why didn't our people discover this?" Sutton asked, confused. Something so simple, his people should have been capable of.

"Yeah, well this was not in the laptop," Sam explains gesturing to the folder, confusing everyone further. How was she able to access data that wasn't there? Did it emerge from thin air?

"The encrypted file, the security program had both been wiped out completely. Irretrievable."

Sutton grabbed the mouse, as Sam gave him the space to scroll over the photos.

"So how did you find all of these?" Sutton asked, still in disbelief.

Sam turned to Levi and smiled at him, "Because he was MI6, and Levi profiled him as 'a paranoid security freak,'" she says. Levi nodded pleased with himself and her, for quoting him perfectly.

Sutton moved back, satisfied with the photos. They looked genuine enough.

Sam looked up at him on her chair

"So, I thought that he would have a backup plan to his back up plan. Hence, I hacked into all his known accounts, records. From his online banking, online shopping, porn subscription, interesting stuff by the way. Borderline masochistic." she said, looking at Levi who enjoys profiling people based on their porn preferences.

"I checked all his retrievable browser history data and found a security software website. Of which he installed months after arriving here in America 2years ago." Sam says.

The group absorbed what she said, all that sleuthing she'd done in a mere 2 hours. Who the fuck was she? Sutton thought.

"I had to go through a bunch of useless stuff but finally found the alternate email he used to access a Dropbox account linked to the security program on his laptop where the photos were automatically sent. All of these were only possible because of his porn subscription" Sam said, massaging her tired eyes.

Tillman and Sutton were both dumbfounded, it all sounded so complex. But they got the general gist: It was hard but she made it look easy.

Levi grinned at Sutton as if saying the bet isn't over yet.

"Why didn't you tell us from the beginning?" Sutton asked, grabbing his phone to update his superiors on their development. Maybe they can do more after obtaining such a lead.

"I'm not finished yet," Sam says, making Sutton pause from pressing the call button.

"I've got a face," Sam says, and Tillman got off the bed and hovered over her other side like Sutton was. Both looking at the screen where she pulled up an image of Pearce's last moments, that she enhanced minutes before.

On the photo was Pearce, who stood behind him was a partial profile of a Caucasian man in his late 30's the too early '40s and he had a gun pointed at Pearce's head. Tillman turned to Levi still on the bed with a look of awe. The man in the photo was exactly as Levi profiled.

"I'm currently searching for a match on the database," Sam said as she let the program run its course.

"That would take days, and are you even searching the right database?" Sutton questioned, his tone made Levi grin, eagerly waiting for Sam's reaction.

Sam blinked twice, turned slowly to her left, looked up at the man standing beside her. And glared at him, green eyes locked with his, her jaw clenched. She tilted her head,

"If you ever use that tone on me again, I'll smack you, Agent Sutton" she warned.

Levi on the bed crawled closer to the edge and said, "Do it." His tone mischievous, almost like a demon whispering on her shoulder.

Tillman turned to look at the psychologist, the anticipation on his face he found disturbing but at the same time, he found his actions resembling a 10year old child.

Sutton swallowed, as he stared back at the redhead's intimidating glare. "My apologies."

Sam slowly tore her eyes away from Sutton,

"I'm using Levi's profile to narrow down the search. So, please inform your people to do a more extensive search on their databases. I would hack it but you're here." Sam says, sending the photo of the suspect to both Tillman and Sutton's mobile phone. The last part of her statement caused the two men to exchange a look of disbelief. Wondering if she was really capable of it based on her confident tone.

Sam vacates her seat and grabs a coke in the refrigerator. She turns to the three silently asking if they wanted anything, "Water." Levi says, then readied himself to catch the bottle in his hands. Sutton and Tillman simply shook their heads.

Sutton excused himself to make that call to his boss, while Sam drank that coke like it was the best thing in the world.

Sam looked at the view outside her window. She wants to go home soon, sleep had been evading her since they came. "I'm tired," Sam said to herself.

"Mr. Jackson, I'm curious about when you said Pearce didn't die from the gunshot wound. How did you figure that out by simply looking at the vehicle and the forensic photos of the scene?" Tillman asked it had been bothering him since yesterday.

Levi grinned widely at Tillman, finally, he was taking him seriously.

Levi gave Tillman his full attention, broadened his shoulders proudly, and pointed his chin up.

"The angle, Agent. The angle where he was shot in the photo and the hole on the car window, the only way for its angle to connect is if the shooter was a leprechaun. And I'm Irish." he explains.

Tillman narrowed his eyes at him, still skeptical. "And you knew he was left-handed?" he asked.

Levi snorted, amused at people's ignorance. "By the trajectory and angle of the shot. I'd explain it further but I don't think you'll understand the Physics," he states, tone demeaning. Tillman narrowed his eyes at him, annoyed, on a regular basis the person who would talk to him like that would be moaning in pain on the ground. But he was an asset.

So, Tillman turned to Sam who was watching them, amused with their exchange.

"The math gets complicated, trust me," Sam says, trying to reassure him he wasn't a common idiot based on the psychologist's tone.