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Ben's POV

"Oh my god," Erica gasped. I screamed at the top of my lungs but it only came out as a whimper because I had covered my mouth with my hand and I lost my voice in fear.

Erica and I burst into the hallway and and our guns at the men, but no one was there. They had fled. We turned our attention to Alexander Hale. he was on the floor gasping for breath. There was a bullet shot in his chest. Erica quickly called 911 while I knelt down next to Alexander.

"You won't die," I whispered. "Help is coming."

He pointed to his pocket just before passing out. I emptied his pockets and hid the contents in a safe place somewhere. Erica ran over to her father.

I placed a hand on her lap and a single tear rolled down her cheek. She stared at her dad as the paramedics hoisted Alexander onto a stretcher and took him to the hospital. She clung onto me, tears rolling down her cheeks.

I hugged Erica and calmed her down, reassuring her that Alexander would be okay. She wiped her tears.

I let her to where I hid the contents of Alexander's pockets. There was his phone, wallet, a piece of paper and three USB drives. "What's on the paper?" Erica asked. The Erica who had been crying a moment before had suddenly grown serious. I opened it up, but it was empty. It had nothing on it. Erica and I frowned.

"This makes no sense," I said, shaking my head in confusion.

"Yeah, but this does," she said, plugging the first USB drive into Alexander's phone.

"Alexander wanted us to see these," I said as she opened it up. All it had were numbers, numbers and more numbers. They were all jumbled up with no spaces in between and they made no sense. Erica scrolled all the way to the bottom, then sighed, rolled her eyes and put the drive in her pocket.

Then she took the second one. All it had were names. I tried to commit their names to memory, but all I could memorize was 'Bob Harrington' and 'Jeff Rodriguez'. There were license plates as well, which I quickly memorized. Just as I committed them to memory, though, there was a failure and the USB shut down. Erica turned on the fireplace and threw the paper in there, where it burned to ashes. The USB drive also flew in there. She plugged in the last USB drive and crossed her fingers.

Error. Password Required.

"We need a password?" I gasped in confusion. Erica sighed.

"Only dad knows the password. We need to get to the hospital, and fast. I also have no idea what this all relates to." With that, Erica leapt to her feet and tossed me the USB drives. She grabbed her father's phone and wallet before tossing me the house keys and the car keys. as we headed out, Erica took the key jammed in the front door and pocketed it.

"So, what do we know so far?" Erica asked me as I turned right and headed for the hospital.

I shrugged. "We know that someone forced Alexander into opening the door. he knows something about some evil organization named RATT. The people threatening him were RATT members themselves. Alexander wanted us to see these."

Erica studied my answer carefully. Then she spoke up. "Did you memorize anything on the flash drives?"

I nodded. "On the second one, there were license plates and two names that I memorized. Bob Harrington and Jeff Rodriguez."

"I memorized Theodore Brooke and Amanda Lee," she added. "What do we know about these people?"

I shook my head, then turned another left. "No idea," then thought to add, "why am I driving?"

"The truth is," Erica said, "I didn't really go out much so I don't know the city well."

Through the corner of my eyes I could see regret in her eyes. She seemed somewhat disappointed in herself.

"Alexander won't die," I reassured her. "You haven't failed."

"I have." Erica sounded distant. "I have failed myself as a spy. If only I had gone in a second before-"

I cut her off. "Then he would have shot you instead."

She looked at me. I entered the hospital, then found a parking spot. We got down and made our way to the entrance.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," she finally said. "Maybe I did the right thing."

"You did." I laced my fingers through hers and we held hands the whole way there. The lady at the reception directed us to the right room and we headed there.

I pushed open the door and Erica ran to her father's bedside. "Daddy?"

Alexander smiled. "Hi, Erica."

"I was so scared," she whispered. "What about those flash drives? What were they about?"

"They hold all the information about RATT," Alexander replied. He sat up and continued. "One of them needs a password, I remember."

I nodded. "Do you know what the password is?"

"Sadly, no," Alexander replied. "I stole these from the men a couple of weeks ago. RATT's existence was confirmed only a month ago. They are another evil criminal consortium, only they are about five times worse than SPYDER. They tried to blow up the whole country of China, but luckily their plans foiled thanks to Mossad, the Israeli national intelligence agency. But now it's in our hands."

Erica and I shared worried looks. If RATT was five times worse than SPYDER, then we had to act five times smarter and quicker, not to mention that they would always be five steps ahead of us. The license plates would reveal their location, and the names were probably the leaders.

"Dad, where should we begin?" Erica asked.

Alexander though for a second, then spoke. "It's time you bring the team back."

Have a wonderful day!