‘You’ve all read the briefing notes. To state the obvious, we could be either hip deep in a gold mine of I
ntel to act upon or we could be setting ourselves up to fall into a carefully constructed TRIDENT trap
that could very well achieve what we hoped to accomplish against them, namely their destruction.
I don’t know either way, hence this meeting, Claire said to her assembled IT team of David Jacob’s,
Athala Ottaku and Gurdip Chandra. These were the ones she trusted most, until things could be sorted
out internally as to who was on who’s side given what Roz had told her and these three were above
reproach.
‘Actually, there is a third option,’ Gurdip said.
Claire looked at him, her face saying to continue. ‘Some of the Intel is valid, just enough to keep us on the path and pursuing all options. The trick with that is to give us enough rope to hang ourselves, metaphorically speaking, with us realising it.
‘Win the battles, lose the war,’ Claire said.
‘We would need time to really deep dive into all the data and even then, honestly, maybe the best certainty we can offer is, sixty percent on valid targets and that would be with more data, outside of what we have. With what we have, maybe,’ Athala added as she looked at her colleagues. ‘Less than thirty percent certainty. I mean it all looks like great Intel, maybe it is, but.’
‘You all seem in agreement,’ Claire said, then looked at David.
‘Oh, I totally agree,’ he said, snapping to attention. ‘Sorry, my mind was just on something else, related of course.’
Care to share with the group,’ Claire asked in a playful way.
‘I think we need to consider a sub component of all of this, the agents the Intel points to. We would of course be going after them, but a couple of things come to mind. Why would TRIDENT do this, unless they want us to act as the assassin for them. What if they tried it and word leaked, you’d have every agent looking over their shoulder, hardly a good work environment. You pin it on us, easily enough done and it creates a more cohesive group and in fact a stronger one. They’ve already tried this with The Poison Geisha and The Silkworms, but failed spectacularly or did it. They got rid of independent minded partners, gained monetarily from it and in the process left a breadcrumb trail for us to find. Our success or seemed to be success was maybe part of a larger plan of making us too confident, so much so we’d go charging about and perhaps have the tables turned on us.’
Claire flopped back in her chair, closed her eyes and thought through what see had just heard.
‘Oh dear, you’ve given her a headache,’ Athala mused.
Claire smiled for a second then Gurdip added another factor.
‘Most of this data is fluid, meaning it does not have a drop dead date to be useful. Too much of it in fact to be statistically insignificant, meaning it’s highly skewed to one side and that is statistically significant in that it starts to lead into the improbable, far into it.’
‘Meaning they want us to act quickly as would be expected,’ Claire said, coming forward in the chair and back to a proper seated position.
‘Fools rush in comes to mind,’ David said.
‘I hate to do this, but I need to add another factor,’ Athala said, as she watched Claire mock flopping back in her chair. ‘The TRIDENT agents themselves, being sold out like that. I mean the ones we can establish solid data for. What do you think would be their reaction? Perhaps we have a chance for another Miss Krutzler or a Miss Hale.’
Claire smiled at that.
‘Alright you know what to do with the data you have. Use whatever resources you need to get the data you don’t have. But, and I cannot stress this enough! Do not tell anyone else about what you are doing, You report to me, Alice and Cindy only. We do not know how deep this goes and I don’t want you to come into any danger. Meet off site, at nights, weekends, secure channels, sub space, fluidic space, use all that computer stuff I know nothing about. Get a message to me when you want to meet and we will find a place, but above all, be careful. Understood,’ Claire instructed and they all nodded.
^^^
‘Normally I would congratulate you on a successful mission, so congratulations Roz. Now perhaps you can explain to me that stunt you pulled? I am of course referring to the kiss you gave Eric in front of all his male peers.
‘He’s a good agent, young, but good, he just needs to establish his place within the pack of those guys. From what he told me about things that were and frankly still are said, I thought it would help,’ Roz answered.
‘You’re supposed to ignore that nonsense, you know that. Guys like to talk with both their heads, usually not at the same time, it's what gives us the advantage. It’s there to be used when required on missions, not to put others in their place.’
Roz said nothing, she just looked at Cindy, the expression on her face was non readable, the mark of an excellent spy, Cindy took her queue from that.
‘Personally I’m thrilled you have someone in your life. Honestly I expected it ever to occur. You have a reputation, earned or otherwise implied of being unreachable, it appears that’s not true any longer. There’s nothing against it happening, you know that, look at me, I fell in love and married an agent from the other side, at the time, in fact it may make you a better agent and just to be clear I have no plans to shunt you into a couples team. Having said that when it does occur again I want you two as my number one team. Now back to that kiss of yours, as it turns out, it may have been the best thing that happened, not of course for you getting caught, but precisely because of your escape and deduction, you may have saved many agents' lives.’
Roz knew this was not the end of the talk, she was being told this for a reason and she had a feeling she knew why, seconds later Cindy confirmed it.
‘Where this leads to I can’t say yet, but it could take us down paths close to home. I will need you and Eric to prune branches if necessary. How do you feel about that?’
‘I have no issue, but Eric, I can’t speak for him,’ she answered.
‘I want you to ask you, either answer is fine and please don’t let it affect your feelings for him. But, if his answer is yes, you need to teach him everything you know. No one knows how deadly a woman can be as you do,’ Cindy explained then added. ‘I did the same for Quinn, I didn’t want to lose him.’
^^^
I’m open to ideas about the next parts of the story.
If you have an agent you want to feature in a
coming chapter, either one I’ve got or one that
you want created send it along with a picture
of her or the name of one of the current agents.
The same goes for locations, story lines and of
course perils. What perils would you like to see, what
means of disposing of an enemy agent would you like?
All of that is open and more if you want. Just post
your comments here or if you want you can
Email me confidentially at
Thanks, I look forward to reading your
Suggestions.
Cheers, Steve
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