| "Red Cardinal" | |||
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New York City, Lower Manhattan Safehouse 1 2005 hours Gray nodded to Simon who brought up the images they would need for the briefing on the screen behind him. He was under a lot of pressure to get this mission completed, and completed successfully. When Joshua had first come to himself and Rebecca requesting the help of the Alpha and Beta teams, his request had been answered with uncomfortable silence. But Joshua was not one to take silence for an answer and promptly launched himself into a canned presentation. If nothing else, it had offered Gray and Rebecca a chance to recover from his initial request. The last statement from Joshua had closed the deal that Gray instinctively knew would be done anyway: Oversight still paid their salaries. Just like that Joshua had wrested control of the covert organization back into Oversight's court. But the prize was tempting in itself and the SIA would make its mark if they were to succeed. The dangling carrots were just a little too succulent to even consider an alternative and the SIA had once again shook Oversight's unseen hand. "Over the past year, allegedly unrelated shipments of lab equipment, animals, and chemicals have gone missing and unaccounted for. Intel was received earlier in the week pointing to a warehouse 25 kilometers north of Toronto that is housing a makeshift laboratory. We believe the lab is experimenting on biological or chemical weapons, to either replicate those in existence or create new ones. "Sources have confirmed the group behind this to be a well known and well funded organization known as Red Cell. We believe that Salvatore D'dario, a financially independent businessman from Italy, and recently appointed leader of this group, is also there. We can not confirm this since D'dario dropped out of public scrutiny two and half years ago amongst allegations of terrorist connections and his whereabouts have been sketchy and difficult to track. According to some of our sources, D'dario has been reorganizing Red Cell and this particular operation may have been his own pet project. Therefore, there is a good chance he will be there. "Your objective is to recover intel from the Warehouse, destroy it, and if D'dario is there, bring him back alive. There will be no excuses entertained for any harm that comes to him. This is an Absolute Directive, one that must be carried out and if not will be punishable under every law in the books...and some that aren't. He waited to gauge their reactions. As he suspected the former Section operatives barely blinked an eye and for all intents and purposes...looked bored. The others, especially the former civilians exchanged curious glances around the room, and he could clearly read the question on their faces: what was that supposed to mean? "Joshua," he said easily taking a seat near Rebecca as it was Joshua's turn to explain tactical. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ God, I love this shit. He had run a thousand briefings before in his day but each one never failed to fascinate him with their uniqueness. This one was no exception. His only doubts came from having only worked with two of the Agents sitting before him...and that had turned out to be a disaster. He pushed those thoughts from his mind as he studied those that sat around the table and started the tactical briefing. He nodded briefly to them before gesturing to Simon to load up the satellite photos retrieved earlier that day. "As you can see, the Warehouse is a bit off the beaten path and in a heavily wooded area. We'll be choppering in and out and since the weather doesn't seem to be cooperating, might I suggest a dramamine or two. "Sat pics show a simple perimeter that doesn't seem to be patrolled in any orderly fashion, but with no one on the ground it's hard to say. The Warehouse itself is a one level facility that does have patrol on a regular basis. We don't know what's on the inside but we pulled some thermals and believe the labs are built against the west side of the structure. We've estimated roughly two dozen men, but again, without anyone actually there it's hard to say. "The Ground Team, consisting of myself, Baz, and Paige will get into the facility first and try to establish a thermal net for tactical surveillance. The Air Team will be called in once the intel is worked. We have several scenarios in place depending on what we find inside and they are all loaded on palms. I suggest you learn them inside and out and be prepared to execute any of them without fail. "Once everyone is in and hostiles secured, any hardware, computer files, whatever, will be copied and brought back. Timothy, Jordan, you two will be handling this." He watched as both of them hesitated a moment before nodding their acknowledgement. "Anything and everything you can get - we want." "The rest of us will be setting explosives around the lab. We don't want to take down the whole warehouse, just the labs. This doesn't need to be a huge incident all over the media. We want to contain 'the unfortunate accident' to Toronto if we can. You will shoot to kill, except of course it's the Red Cardinal." He watched as the questions rose on some of their faces. Baz, shaking his bizarre red and orange colored head spoke up. "What's the Red Cardinal?" "It's not a what, it's a who, and it's the title given to the leader of Red Cell," Safara answered him flatly. You would know best, wouldn't you Saf? He smirked at her as her eyes shifted off Baz and back on to him. He did not waiver his gaze, "Some of you have had the unfortunate pleasure of working against this group before, some more...intimately...than others. But let me make this perfectly clear...you better check your baggage at the door because if you fuck up...you can be damn sure you'll be answering to me." He paused letting the comment sink in as he continued his hardened glare on Safara. She didn't even blink, just continued to stare at him passively, and he had to admit, besides this little stand off being amusing, he was actually proud of her. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jesus Christ - what the hell was this? Rebecca stared at Joshua through narrowed eyes. Like she wasn't under enough pressure she had to worry about him harassing her Agents. Should have just said no, she thought to herself. Course, then she'd be out of a job, replaced like a broken hair clip. Speaking of which, she wondered if this mission would be over in time for her hair appointment tomorrow. She looked down at her nails for a moment. Should get a manicure as well. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oh boy, Gray thought as his eyes flicked nervously between the two. Hot Head vs the Ice Queen. These were the two strongest personalities in the room and they were now engaged in a silent battle of the wills. Why had they said yes? Why did he think that these two would NOT eventually kill each other? He was about to speak when the situation apparently diffused itself as quickly as it had surfaced. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Joshua nodded his head slightly to Safara, his approval, then retrieved the box of palms by Gray. He noted the worried and still pissed off at the same time expression on Gray's face and offered a smug 'just having a little fun' grin. He handed the box over to Simon, who was closest to him and gestured him to send it around the table. "These are your palms, you've got sat pics, intel, mission scenarios, and your call signatures. Memorize it. Gray and Simon will be on field tactical, all activities will be coordinated through them. We'll be heading out..." he checked his watch, "at about 2400 hours. That gives you about one and half hours to geared up. Gray will show you where everything is." He nodded the ending of the briefing as the Agents started to get up. "Saf, Paige, Eric," he gestured to the three of them to stay. As much as he hated it, he had to have a talk with these three. They, after all, had had a difficult time with Red Cell and he had to make sure there was no lingering effects. "For your next briefing," Rebecca said as she passed behind him to leave, "try a little more tact and a lot less asshole." He grinned at her, "I'll take that under consideration." "You do that," she smirked back sarcastically before leaving. "I hope what I saw stays in this room," Gray said to him in a hushed voice. "Don't you have some Agents to gear up?" Joshua replied lacing his tone with his favorite 'don't fuck with me' face. Gray swallowed and nodded before following the rest out. The three Agents he called out were lingering over, watching him carefully, but for all intents and purposes, still looking thoroughly bored. "Sit down," he said waiting for them to move before sitting with them. "I'm going to get straight to the point. You three, quite frankly, worry me a little with Red Cell being the target. I know everything that happened on the Cali mission in full detail. I don't care what you think about it, though I do care how you feel about it. If any of you feel for any reason that seeing these guys again is gonna trigger something...cause you to hesitate, anything, tell me now. This is not the Section, we aren't in the business of setting up Agents for failure. We can take you out of play and put you on tactical." He watched them each carefully though none of them said anything, let alone offer any hint as to what they were thinking. "You guys know Red Cell better than anyone else. You know how they move and how they operate. It's vital to this mission's success that you guys are the ones in the field. I know you guys will be fine, but you understand...I had to ask." They all nodded their heads softly. "Alright, then go get your gear." They all stood up as he gestured for Saf to him. He waited until Eric and Paige left the room and they were alone. He smiled at her, studying her for a moment as she waited, a little tense for him to say something. "You've always been the backbone on your missions with Section. You've proved yourself as the backbone for Alpha, but you need to step it up for everyone. You've got a steady hand and handle anomalies better than anyone I've seen in awhile. Do me a favor...keep an eye on Gray and Simon..." "You don't think they're capable?" "No," he shook his head, "it has nothing to do with them being capable. They are more than capable handling tactical, but their field experience is severely limited. Severely limited. We don't know completely what we're going up against and quite honestly it makes me nervous because you know as well as I do what can go wrong out there. I'd just feel a whole helluva lot better knowing you were keeping an eye on things, watching our backs in case something goes wrong." Saf considered him for some time before she spoke. "I'd keep an eye on things anyway, my teammates count on that." Joshua nodded, "then I'd like to count on that, too." Not missing a beat, Safara countered, "you're with my team aren't you?" He watched her, caught a little off guard by the tone in her comment. That, and she had said WITH my team, not ON my team. "Yeah," he said carefully. She shrugged, "then you have your answer." She walked out then leaving him standing alone in the room. He sat down and propped his feet up on the table and sighed heavily. "Touche," he said quietly. Return |
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