Chapter 491: The Kidnapping Plan

As they left the "Easy Tiger" restaurant, Matt made sure to grab a pack of Munich beer, showing just how much he liked it. Jack took him back to his suite at the Four Seasons in Dallas, where Matt wasted no time lighting up a cigar and puffing away eagerly.

"You FBI guys seem to have a generous budget," Matt joked as he looked around the suite, clearly aware of how much it cost to stay there.

"I didn't use agency money. I've got some of my own business ventures," Jack shrugged, pulling out a dish and putting some pecans on it as a snack to go with the beer.

"Is it the label factory in Georgia?" Matt asked, hiding his expression behind a cloud of smoke. His right index finger twitched slightly as it rested on his knee. He appeared relaxed, but Jack's keen senses detected the tension in his waist and hips.

"Is this how the CIA always operates? Investigating an ordinary FBI agent for no reason?" Jack didn't react as Matt might have expected—no sudden outburst, no grabbing him by the collar like some hot-headed rookie. Instead, Jack calmly lit his own cigar, his hands steady.

"Uh..." Matt was surprised. He realized it had been a long time since he'd experienced this—losing control of a conversation from the very beginning.

"Are you really not even 25?" Matt sighed, a feeling shared by many who had encountered Jack before. It was like an older wave being overtaken by a younger, stronger one.

If we're counting real age, you should be calling me big brother, Jack thought, a barely noticeable smirk playing at the corner of his lips. Unless you want me to show up like Thanos. He had never dealt with the real CIA in his past life, but he knew enough from American TV shows to understand their usual demeanor.

Aside from a few well-developed protagonists, most CIA agents portrayed in TV shows weren't exactly upstanding characters. In Jack's view, those few good ones always seemed to end up with broken families or worse.

"I can see why Reeser brought you up in front of me twice," Matt said.

"I'm not interested in joining the CIA," Jack cut him off before he could continue. Even though this world's Ceris wasn't connected to his homeland in his previous life, he couldn't imagine working against it.

Jack was a patriot, but not for this Federation—his heart still belonged to the Republic from his previous life.

Matt's attempt to recruit Jack wasn't surprising. After all, he'd had only brief interactions with Reeser, and their first encounter had been more adversarial than anything. Though Reeser had tried to recruit him, Jack knew that at best, Reeser found him "interesting"—far from someone to be "admired."

Matt's background check on Jack was likely genuine, but Jack had zero interest in joining. If it weren't for the circumstances forcing him to deal with these people, he'd stay as far away from the CIA as possible. His tolerance level only extended to someone like Frank, the retired R.E.D. operative—at least Red was a comedy, and Jack had his connection to old man Hunter to rely on, ensuring he wouldn't get backstabbed.

To Jack's surprise, Matt was more straightforward than expected. Instead of spouting some cliché like, "We'll see about that," he smoothly shifted the conversation to the upcoming operation.

The CIA never lacked skilled operatives, and while Matt had checked into Jack's background, he had only done so through unofficial channels. After all, Jack was now a senior agent with the BAU, meaning a certain level of confidentiality was involved.

At most, Matt could access semi-public information: Jack's business ventures, his good relationship with the IRS, his famous "Starbucks Warrior" case, and, of course, rumors that Jack liked to flirt with female FBI agents and was juggling multiple relationships. There were even whispers about his involvement with Jane Banner, under Matt's nose.

So, while Matt found Jack intriguing, it was nothing more than mild curiosity. Being directly rejected didn't bother him much, and he quickly moved on.

Since the Kroger supermarket bombing, Jack had been leisurely writing CEO novels and working on business proposals in his Four Seasons suite. Meanwhile, Matt hadn't stopped working for a moment.

First, he flew to Yemen, where he extracted information from a captured Somali pirate about a smuggling route that stretched from the Middle East through the Gulf of Aden, into Mexico, and eventually the U.S.

Next, he flew to Washington, D.C., to meet with the Secretary of Defense.

Though the BAU's investigation had been temporarily halted due to pressure from higher-ups, Rossi's team had been focusing on the four men who blew themselves up in the supermarket. As for the man who had blown himself up at the border, sending Walker to the hospital, it was confirmed that the Reyes cartel had smuggled him in.

This opened the door for some in the CIA to push their agenda of propping up the Medellín cartel to unify the criminal underworld. Through Matt, this proposal reached the Secretary of Defense.

The two sides quickly came to an agreement. The joint task force received full authorization from the Department of Defense, along with a hefty budget, leading to the earlier meeting with CWS.

"So, what's the plan?" Jack asked after listening to Matt's explanation. He flicked the ash from his cigar and clinked beer bottles with him.

The biggest takeaway from Jack and Alessandro's infiltration of the Alarcon mansion wasn't the money—it was the intel that Ian Doyle was currently working for Carlos Reyes.

Now, even the higher-ups were preparing to take down the Reyes cartel. This was like a gift falling into Jack's lap. Once the operation was over, he could finally retire from this mess.

"We're going to stir up infighting between the Reyes cartel and their rivals, the Matamoros cartel," Matt said, returning to his usual laid-back, scruffy demeanor. He lounged lazily on the sofa, cracking nuts and letting the crumbs and ash fall carelessly onto the floor.

It wasn't his house, after all. The hotel staff would be cursing him later, but Jack simply frowned, continuing the conversation. "More details?"

"We kidnap a prince, and the king will go to war," Matt said.

"How original," Jack replied with a touch of sarcasm. "Just like you do in the Middle East? You really think it'll work?"

Whether Matt took it as a compliment or just didn't care, he shrugged. "It always works, doesn't it?"

It sure does—until someday, when the feuding factions in the Middle East, with the help of some unknown force, sit down and compare notes. That's when they'll expose everything the CIA has been up to.

[Check out my Patreon for +200 additional chapters in all my fanfics! Only $5 per novel or $15 for all!!] [www.p@treon.com/Mutter]

[+50 Power Stones = +1 Extra Chapter]

[+5 Reviews = +1 Extra Chapter]