"Two: Or How to Kill a Friend"

June 15, 2008

Safehouse 1, Conference room
1845 hours

Paige sat quietly listening to Gray as he explained what his thoughts
were on the ingress.

"The meet is at the easternmost part of Coney Island Park in
Brooklyn. There are a few warehouses back there by the docks used for
storage of old rides and what not. It will take place at 2100 hours.
Paige, Declan, I want you to case it out about an hour prior. Keep an
eye out for the Target, watch Bella's ingress."

Paige nodded her head, and she assumed Declan did the same.

"Bella, once the Target arrives, you'll go in for the meet." Bella
nodded her head, but just barely, and if Paige didn't know any better
(and she might not) Bella seemed a little ticked off.

"Simon will stay 15 minutes out as to not draw attention to himself
so subdue the target whatever way necessary until he can get there
with the van. Any questions?"

"Use of force," Declan said more then asked.

"Minimal. We need the Target alive," Gray said.

"What if he doesn't come alone?" Declan asked.

"He'll come alone," Bella said flatly.

"And if he doesn't cooperate or decides to use Bella here as a
shield?" Declan turned to Gray.

"Shoot the hostage, tranq the Target," Paige said calmly.

Declan turned towards her and she calmly looked back at him. What?
Didn't he believe her?

Gray cleared his throat, "the Target is the ultimate goal. If you
don't ascertain the Target the mission is a failure. We don't
tolerate failure very well."

"I just wanted my parameters clear before bullets start to fly,"
Declan answered a little defensively.

"Are they clear now?" Gray asked.

Paige snuffed down a smile hearing that familiar 'I'm in charge'
threatening type of tone from Gray. It had worked on her at first but
she knew it wasn't the real 'I'm pissed off' tone. She had heard that
tone only once, and once was enough to know that that's when he
really meant business. Declan would learn that soon enough, but not
know, and so he just nodded his head at his superior.

"Good. You're all sequestered here until you leave. Simon will give
you layouts on the ride over tomorrow night. I'll be here if you have
any questions."

With that, the briefing was over. Not too bad, really, Paige thought.
She still wasn't comfortable with only two of them watching Bella but
she didn't have a say in things so she had to deal with it.

June 16, 2008
Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY
2100 hours

"We're on, Alpha 4," Paige said nodding to Declan and grabbing her
weapons. Declan grinned, an unusual response Paige thought, and
followed her out into the darkness leaving Bella and Simon behind.
They split up immediately and swept the parameters of the two
adjacent warehouses before sweeping the one where the meeting was to
take place. It was a moderate size warehouse and with the amount of
old rides and other amusement park type things in there it offered an
uncountable number of places to hide. Still, it was creepy and Paige
glanced warily at the faces of decade old clowns that once made kids
giggle in delight with their brightly painted faces, now, chipped and
faded into a ghastly shadow of its former self. Just the rides
themselves, layers of dust, abandoned, there was something remotely
sad about it. And creepy. Definitely creepy.

After carefully figuring out where everything was Paige decided on a
nice darkened shadow of boxes and abandoned ponies from a carousel,
and hunkered down blending into the black as if she were a part of
it. Declan, climbed out on to some rafters though he dared not stray
too far into the center. No telling if his weight would pull the old
wood down. He too, blended into the darkness and he would be the one
that would spot the Target as it came in. Paige called in Bella about
a half hour before the meet directing Bella to within twenty yards of
her. She would be able to see and hear everything that went on and be
ready in a second should the Target try anything. But Bella was
confident that the Target would not only come, but come alone. And a
little bit of the confidence was instilled in Paige. Perhaps this
meet wouldn't be so bad. Perhaps they'd all, including the newcomer,
would leave this warehouse intact...

_________________________________________

"Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation
away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be
fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes
only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost
it, have never known it again."
-- Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004, rest in peace, you will be missed.