| "In the Mirror" | |||
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In the Mirror SH1 20.05hrs Paige sat on her left and Jordan on her right hand side with Baz the far side of her and the Beta Team took the other side of the round table. A quiet had come over them, though she noticed that some of the civilian recruits were looking puzzled, but it was a scene from the past, a section briefing; or at least that was the take on it that she had taken when she saw Joshua join Gray and Rebecca for the briefing. At Gray's mention of Red Cell, she had become alert. 'Now why were the SIA taking on Red Cell, one of Section's greatest foes? Why weren't Section involved?' The lab set up, made sense, Red Cell had always tried to experiment with drugs, the Lab in Glasgow near the university when Mohen had unwittingly brought the virus back to Section. Luckily for her and Paige they had been out on a surveillance mission and once warned by Birkoff they couldn't return to Section, they relocated to Glasgow and helped cover Michael and Nikita resolve the problem. The name D'dario wasn't known to her, but then again the last Cardinal, Standfuss, she knew was probably dead now. Once exposed, they no longer held any value to their own side, she was still musing on this fact, wondering whether to check out reports of Standfuss's demise when Joshua's voice interrupted her meandering mind. She stared at a point on the wall behind the group in front of them, listening with only part of her mind, the rest of it wondering why Joshua was sending them out to do Section's dirty work. When Baz interrupted, she thought she saw a flash of irritation cross Joshua's face, to stave off a sarcastic retort from him, she turned to Baz and broke in. "It's not a what, it's a who, and it's the title given to the leader of Red Cell," her voice she kept deliberately flat. These guys wouldn't know, they aren't Section Joshua, cut them a bit of slack. Involuntarily her gaze returned to the front, and onto the imposing figure. She saw the smirk on his face, and thought to herself, `Why the fuck can't you just keep quiet and stop bringing attention to yourself' His eyes seemed to bore into her as he kept looking at her even though he was speaking to the room. "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." She continued to look at him evenly, though under the table her hands hand curled up into tight fists, You think that scares me? Am I supposed to be intimidated by the threat? It took all her will power to return his gaze as though he had just said something normal, rather than threatening. She concentrated on a point on his forehead, just above the bridge of his nose, and allowed herself to relax slightly. The silence seemed to go on forever, but it was only a few moments. Finally he nodded, she flexed her hands, feeling the tension draining out of her. You might be strong, but not invincible. She allowed herself to give a ghost of a smile, as he turned away from her towards Gray. She had thought that would be the end of it, but no, he called her Paige and Eric to one side. She had already stood, expecting to be dismissed like the others, and had to retake her seat under his steady gaze as he spoke to Gray and Rebecca. She didn't get all of what he had said, but she saw Gray flinch and made a mental note to find out why. "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 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." `I am so glad you don't care', she thought bitterly, `it just goes to prove my point. You are a bastard.' She kept a steady gaze on him, aware that he was watching closely, and making sure there was nothing for him to find. The mission was nothing different, just that once more she was working for the one organization that she had wanted to be free of. `Will I ever be free Joshua? Or is this my real-life, a paid hunting dog for Section?' "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." `Yes you had to ask Joshua, but you didn't care what we thought. We are just tools of the trade to you despite your fancy words.' "Alright, then go get your gear." 20.35hrs She stood up like the others, but he was faster, his hand motioned to her to take her seat again. Why? He didn't speak until after the door had closed behind Eric and Paige, who had left without a backward glance. She thrust her hands under the table once more and clenched her fists, unable to relax in his presence. "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 favour...keep an eye on Gray and Simon..." OK, so now you pay compliments, mind if I don't believe you? Instead she muttered, "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." `Make you feel better, now why would you say that? Are you expecting trouble? Or are you testing me? I mean you being nervous doesn't ring true, even though Gray and Simon are lightweight in the field, if you had said you would feel better knowing they were protected, I might have believed it.' She considered her choices long and hard before she replied. "I'd keep an eye on things anyway, my teammates count on that." He nodded, "then I'd like to count on that, too." `You are a little quick off the mark Joshua, but not so fast', and countered, "You're with my team aren't you?" She was pleased with her reply, and knew she had struck home when didn't answer her straight away, but analyzed her answer before replying. "Yeah," he said carefully. She shrugged, her satisfaction in outwitting him hidden, "then you have your answer." 20.42hrs She turned away, walking towards the door, a smile on her face now that he couldn't see it, and left him to his thoughts. If she was on the Air group, with Beta Team, she needed to discuss tactics with Eric, she would be able to do that, she was sure. It would just take control, and she knew how to do that. As she exited the room, she debated on going through to the lounge, and decided instead to go down to systems. She wanted to run a filter on Standfuss, she didn't know why she felt it was important, but now was as good as anytime and it gave her a chance to think about why she had been singled out by Joshua. It took her no more than 10 mins to run some intel searches, and find news report of Standfuss's death. Apparently he had been driving back to his home from a business meeting in April, when a rock fall had taken his car over the side of the mountains and he and his passenger had been killed instantly. Though according to the reports, they had to do identification by dental records. `Which might have been falsified, if they wanted to hide him behind another alias.' She didn't put anything beyond Red Cell's capability, they had been known to be devious in the past, so why not this. What better way to hide something, than to put it in the open. 20.55hrs She made her way back up to the lounge, the doors to weapons was open and she could see Eric, sorting out equipment for the mission, she would speak to him, but not right this minute, she wanted to put it off indefinitely, but that was impossible. As she stood in the doorway, Paige caught her eye. She headed over in her direction, Paige had been talking to Baz, "hey Saf, what did he want?" she gestured back towards the briefing room. "Just to make sure that I keep an eye out for Simon and Gray." She smiled, "Not that I wouldn't have done that anyway, but I kinda got the feeling he felt he needed to ask." Paige looked hard at her, "He looked at you during his briefing, I wondered if it were to do with that." "No, like I said, he wanted me to watch out for my team," She replied, "Paige if you will excuse me, I need to talk to Eric, I need to go over ingress details before we leave." She walked away, a bounce in her steps, no matter how carefully chosen her words had been, she had made herself quite clear. Joshua was definitely not part of Alpha unit, only accompanying it, and deserving of no special treatment whatsoever. Eric was sorting out equipment, she approached him openly, "I'd like to go over the ingress details with you, if you have a moment." Her voice was neutral, deliberately so. This was business, and they were expected to work together no matter what their past was. Return |
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