Manipulator

[WP] "I can't believe it! You played us like a fiddle!" "Oh please. Fiddles are actually hard to play. I played you like the kazoos you are."

*****

"You played us like a fiddle!"

It was a desperate exclamation, torn from the lips of a man on the brink. The words echoed slightly around the confined spaces of the concrete parking garage, mingling with the faint sounds of nearby traffic.

"Oh please. Fiddles are actually hard to play. I played you like the kazoos you are."

The words oozed from the second speaker's mouth, each one a drop of arrogance and satisfaction. He was an older man, with patchy, graying hair. He was dressed in a suit with matching dark sunglasses, and an earpiece dangled from his left shoulder. Several other similarly-dressed men, each one sporting a military haircut, stood behind him. They were facing off against a group of three other men, all dressed casually.

"You idiots really think you could outrun me?" the man continued. "The FBI has countless resources at its command, and combine that with my towering intellect, you think a bunch of wannabe terrorists ever stood a chance?"

"Well," the original man said, scratching his head, "I'd more say that fiddles are hard to play well. An important distinction don't you think? I had fiddle lessons when I was six - ghastly experience, let me tell you. My grandmother paid for them though, so I had to stick it out for -"

"Enough," snapped the FBI agent, his face turning crimson. "You dare mock me? I know everything about you, Angus Smith. You'll be locked away for decades, and I'll throw away the key myself!"

"Yeahhhh," said Angus. He was dressed in a plain shirt and jeans. "About that...We really don't know what you're talking about. The terrorism stuff, I mean."

The FBI agent's face creased with a vicious grin. "Oh, playing that game, are we? We have you on record - you thought you were alone when you were conspiring to wage war on San Francisco. You were, for the price of three hundred thousand dollars, willing to attack your fellow citizens."

He paused dramatically, waiting for a response, but when none was forthcoming, he continued.

"You see," he said, his voice lowering to a triumphant whispering. "Your financer and leader, Leo Smith, was one of ours!"

There was an awkward pause. "Uh yeah," said Angus. "We know."

"What?"

"Well, it was kind of obvious," he continued. "Like, dude, that guy glowed from the stratosphere."

"Glowed?"

"Well, yeah," spoke up one of the other casually-dressed men. "Like, man, he had a military haircut, a Rolex, drove a tinted SUV, and kept answering the phone as 'Agent Carter' when he thought we were out of earshot."

"Yeah, that last one was kinda suspicious," admitted Angus. "Also the fact he was paying a group of seven guys 300k to attack a city. Like, who does that?"

There was a long silence.

"Well no matter," snapped the FBI agent. "You people are more stupid than I thought. You knew he was an FBI mole, and yet you still went ahead and purchased explosives and firearms with the money that we provided. It changes nothing!"

Angus chuckled. "Wait, you thought we actually did that?"

"What?" the other man replied. "What do you mean? I have it on good authority -"

"I mean, we told ol' Leo that we bought the stuff," said Angus. "But I mean, how stupid do you think we are? Besides, bulk orders of pressure cookers from Amazon would probably raise some flags, right?"

"You didn't buy the guns?" said the FBI agent, his face twitching slightly. "You're lying, you must be! Where's the money, then?"

"Oh, well while we told Leo, Carter, whatever his name is, that we were out 'preparing for war' or some shit, me and the boys went to Vegas for a week. Good times..."

The FBI agent snapped, reaching for his gun in a jerky motion.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," said Angus cheerfully. "Our boy Jessy's been recording this from behind that car, and I think murder might put a damper on your record."

The FBI agent whipped around and gave a sharp nod to one of his fellows. The man ran behind the car and emerged a few seconds later dragging a younger man with one meaty hand and clutching a cell phone with the other.

"Now, that's just rude...uh, what do I call you? Mr. FBI agent?" said Angus.

The man in question ignored him and took the phone in one hand. Sneering slightly, he drew his arm back and tossed it through an open gap and out of the parking garage entirely.

Angus watched it arc through the air before disappearing out of view. "I hope you're paying for that."

The FBI agent snarled. "Your little trick won't get you far. I'll have the device recovered later, and no one will ever know what happened here."

Angus blinked. "Dude, he was live-streaming it to our twitch channel."

There was a pause. "What's twitch?"

"Uhh, it's kinda hard to explain, but lemme see," Angus checked his phone quickly. "Yeah, our chat's blowing up right now, and I had our mods send the video to our legal team...so I'll see you in court, I guess?"

"What?" snapped the FBI agent. "How - what's going on? How did you manage to outsmart me? Are you a genius, or something? Is that it? Did I finally meet someone else with over 180 IQ?"

"Uhhh," said Angus awkwardly. "Yeah...that's it. I'm a genius. Let's go with that."

"I knew it," swore the FBI agent. "I knew someday I'd meet someone who could match my intellect. This isn't over. You might have won this round, but I will have the last laugh!"

With that pronouncement, the three suited men turned and walked away. A black SUV pulled up as they were leaving, and they got in.

"Hey, is that driver - HEY LEO, HOW'S IT GOING, MAN? PITY YOU MISSED VEGAS, EH?"

Sadly, there was no response, and the SUV pivoted and accelerated away with a screech of tires on concrete.

"Well, guess that's that," said Angus, turning to his two buddies. "Turns out he wasn't particularly musically talented, after all. Who would've thought?"

AN: The FBI is probably easily one of the most useless spy agencies on the planet, as they have been caught numerous times paying or convincing mentally unstable people to plan terror attacks, arresting them, and then proclaiming that they have "saved the day, oh and please increase our budget". One of the most hilarious examples was when they paid several men to attack a local city on horses armed with low-caliber rifles. Upon foiling their own plot, the FBI questioned the men who admitted the only reason they went along with it was that the undercover FBI agent offered them over a hundred thousand dollars to plan the 'attack'. Prior to these details being made public, the FBI were claiming they saved the city from an invasion.

Unfortunately, this strategy can also backfire spectacularly. One of the World Trade Center bombers had the foresight to record his conversations with the FBI agents, which reveal that the FBI was actually the one that supervised the construction of the bomb. Through incompetence or malice, the Bureau failed to arrest the terrorists they created prior to the bombing, and the terror plot succeeded.

Since 9/11, almost half of all terror plots 'stopped' by the FBI were also 'started' by the FBI.

*****

THE END.