Internal Tensions (Attention Novans, FU and DL members)

[Zaheran]

OOC: My sincere apologies for the delay, and for the poor quality of this post.

Embassy gates

The guard took the IDs and studied them carefully. They appeared legitimate, and a quick call to the Ambassador's office confirmed that the visitors were expected.. Everything seemed to be in order. What business HCSK intelligence operatives had at the embassy at this hour he did not know, but neither was it his job to be curious about such things. He handed back the IDs with a salute.

"Welcome, sir, madam. The ambassador is expecting you. Please proceed to the garage, someone will be there to take you."

Once inside the garage, the Katonazagis would be greeted by another guard, and taken through the labyrinthine interior of the embassy to the conference room.

Conference room

"Not to my knowledge, no", the Ambassador said in answer to La Guerra's question. "But I will distribute this to all our field operatives and technical personnel. It should only a matter of time before we find a match. I will then make sure he is placed under a discreet surveillance. But what worries me is that we do not know the extent to which MNIA has been penetrated. Where there is one agent, there is bound to be more."

At that moment, a secretary entered and handed the Ambassador an envelope. He opened it quickly, a worried wrinkle on his forehead. It only deepened as he continued to read.

"My friends", he said at last, "there has been a worrying development. I just received a letter from Director Cheney of the MNIA. I presume your respective embassies have received something similar. It appears that MNIA has become aware of our little operation, and are requesting our presence at a meeting ten thirty tomorrow. I don't know if they are aware that we are having this meeting, but if not, I would suggest we keep it a secret. Since we don't know how deeply MNIA has been penetrated by the enemy, it would be careless to show our full hand."

Aircraft hangar
Baraolt, Monavia

The sight of the shredded metal piece held under the mechanic's arm immediately attracted the the interest of the two agents. It could not be a coincidence. They exchanged a quick glance. No words were needed. Jackpot. ”Steiner's” hand went to rest on his side holster, seemingly casually, but allowing him to draw the weapon on a moments notice. The pistols were the only weapons they carried. A pair of submachine guns were stored in a hidden compartment inside the van, disassembled, in case heavier firepower was needed. They had elected not to carry them, instead deciding to rely on deceit, but now he suddenly wished for a more reliable protection than the Beretta 92 resting at his side. If this turned out to be an ambush by Lewis' goons, he had no illusions regarding their chances. While his partner went forward to talk with the mechanic, his trained eyes scanned the surroundings, looking for any signs of a trap.

”Haynes”, meanwhile, was not bothered by the mechanic's hostility. He retrieved a packet of cigarettes from his coat pocket and casually lit one, before answering her question.

”What we are looking for, madame”, he said finally, taking a deep drag, ”is a plane. A plane that was commandeered by a dangerous terrorist, bent on spreading chaos and anarchy through this country. This is a repair shop. And that”, he pointed to the metal piece, ”I believe is a part of said plane.

He lent forward, his eyes suddenly cold as a winter lake.

”Ma'am, let me remind you that cooperating with terrorists is a serious crime. It is a crime that our agency does not look kindly on, and neither does your local police. So unless you want to spend the next twenty years in a particularly unpleasant prison, I suggest that you start answering our questions.”

He blew out a puff of smoke.

”First question: How did this plane end up in your possession? Question two: Where is the owner of the plane? If you know his current whereabouts, I suggest that you disclose it to me know. I might just be so kind to drop the charges of cooperation with terrorists.”

[The State of Monavia]

December 5, 2008

Barolt Airport

Carl’s men had tried in vain to make repairs while they had the jet hidden in an empty spare hangar, but they were unable to remove all ten of the bullets or clean up all of the blood inside the cabin. The pilot and copilot were very relieved to have landed without having to worry about taking fire from snipers on an airfield in their own country, though they remained shaken enough by their ordeal to remain silent for the time being. Why, they thought, would anybody wanted to target them, and more importantly, were they being dragged into something illegal?

Soon after landing, Carl called Volodin’s personal landline and informed him of what had happened to the plane. Volodin told Carl to have the plane kept at the airport and repaired in secret if possible, otherwise it was to be picked up by its owner and taken away for repairs elsewhere. Carl left with Lewis and four others after he had explained Volodin’s orders to the other CUE mercenaries that were still present.

Within twelve hours it became apparent that the airport did not have enough of the proper repair equipment and spare parts to make a secret repair possible, and it would only be a matter of time before someone would find the plane. It needed to be cleaned and repaired before whoever was after the mercenaries found it and tried to use it to find them. All hopes of leaving their pursuers with a dead end were now staked on whether a repair facility could do the job in time.

---

December 6, 2008

Aircraft hangar
Baraolt, Monavia
Northwestern Nova

The woman shrugged. “There are several planes being repaired here and I think I know which one you want to see. It’s been shot up and was brought here yesterday for repairs.” She turned around and motioned for the two men to follow her into the hangar. The three entered through a side door, the hinges of which would have creaked loudly had it not been for the mechanic’s diligent oiling of them. It was a convenient way to use up lubricants not needed for the aircraft.

“I know nothing about any terrorists, but there’s been some nasty stuff in the news lately. A house got blown up outside Chalcedon and a late night car chase happened Resnik a couple days ago. The papers are hysterical about all that.” She set the piece of sheet metal down on a steel table that sat near the plane.

The Zaheranians could now see what it was that they were after. The punctured nose cone sat on the floor beneath the front of the jet, a two engine corporate transport that had been furnished inside with finely upholstered seats and solid hardwood molding. The pale beige outer surface was marred in several places by grime and puncture marks made by the large caliber bullets were outlined by the absence of paint where it had been removed by the impacts which made them. The mechanic walked over to the left wing and pointed out where she had removed the metal sheet. “That’s where that piece you saw me holding had come from. I don’t know what type of gun was used but I had to dig some bullets, or what’s left of them, out of the holes to make my repairs. I’ll show you where I put them.”

While not entirely conciliatory in her demeanor, the mechanic’s gruffness which resulted from being disturbed from her work, had partially evaporated after the Zaheranians had made it clear that they were investigating terrorism. Now she would have to answer the two original questions that were posited to her.

“This aircraft was brought in yesterday evening by a man claiming to be its owner. I can retrieve the records so that you have the right information and are not misled by any mistakes I could be making in possibly giving you the wrong guy.”

---

8:30 A.M. Chalcedon Local Time (CLT)

Volodin’s cubicle
MNIA National Headquarters
Chalcedon, Monavia

Volodin had been troubled by the mess which Lewis had left behind at the cabin. He still had resources at his disposal, but now that the CUE’s enemies had decided to liberate themselves from all obligations to serve them, he was left with only the Council’s loyalists to rely on. Carl was dead, Robert was out of contact and likely in no position to be of service, assuming he had not yet received any instructions from the Order to quit his service to the CUE, and three of his men were now in the custody of persons unknown. He would have to rely on someone who possessed the skills needed for a cover-up involving the elimination of all traces of the deadly fight at the cabin and keep Lewis from being implicated. For this task he turned to the same mystery man who met with Hannibal outside Chalcedon—his master of forgery, disguises, and material support.

Following his usual procedure for concealing his calls, Volodin removed an extra landline telephone from the lowest drawer of his desk. After setting the device atop his desk and attaching one end of a cable to its base and the other to a wall socket, he was ready to make use of it—and use it he did. With a few rapid pressing motions, Volodin dialed the number that corresponded to his contact and waited for a response at the other end of the line.

The waiting period was briefer than expected. A harsh ringing noise, albeit not a loud one, resonated throughout a high-ceilinged room that happened to be an office within a business complex. Though it was an inviting room, with its soft colors, tinted windows, wooden crown molding, and soft carpeting, it also was musty with age, for it was part of a seventy-year-old office building that suffered from aging ventilation. An unusual consolation which offered a small measure of succor to its owners and occupants was its lack of drafts, so its warmth was physical as well as aesthetic. A steel desk, spray painted a dull light brown color in a matte finish, sat facing the two exterior windows which kept the space lit during the day. It too was showing its age—its false wood top, made from pressboard overlaid with a plastic veneer, was cracked in several places and chips had been broken off in accidents and because of rough handling in past years. Its paint was still in good shape, bearing only a few imperfections in the form of areas where it had been chipped or peeled off by the rigors of wear, especially on the drawers.

Seated at the desk was the office’s designated occupant, the man who served as Volodin’s contact. He was short and lanky compared to Volodin’s more commanding figure but still retained ample muscular mass about him by practicing a daily regimen of gymnasium attendance. The ringing of the old rotary dial telephone which sat on an end table adjacent to one of the walls roused him from his state of vacillation which accompanied the present lull in his work. Darting out of his seat, he snatched up the receiver and began speaking.

“Hello! Liebmann Publishing Com—”

“For the Council!” came a sharp voice from the other end. Volodin was impatient but at least he had enough background noise in his office to obscure the nature of his conversation.

“Brother Argus, I take it that Darius’ vacation in Baraolt is now over?”

“Yes. He’s safely out of there, but he left behind one hell of a mess at the party yesterday?”

“How does this concern me?”

“My position does not afford me the liberty of being able to coordinate a cleanup effort at this time. You will have to organize the effort to make sure than nobody knows how much of a mess Darius made. It would embarrass him quite a bit if his friends, or for that matter, his enemies, were to find out.”

“What is Darius doing now?” the other man inquired.

“He left Baraolt to retrieve our bargaining chip. He should be able to reach it later today.”

“Good. We need to be sure that the Order is exposed before they can expose us. We’ll simply have to find manpower somewhere else from now on.”

“I still want to know what motivated our two Bureau contacts to turn against us.”

“You’re not asking the right person. They know that we have the means to reveal them for what they are—absolute frauds and worse.”

“Yet their unsavory nature is what made them such ideal pawns. They had no qualms about doing dirty work, though they did not like to do it on behalf of people they did not want to serve.”

“Those hypocrites have trafficked human cargos around and yet they want to complain about involuntary servitude,” spat the publisher. “To hell with all of them!”

“Here, here! You know what you need to do.”

“As always, it is an honor to place myself at the service of the Council and its mission.”

“Thank you.” Volodin set down his receiver and began putting away his spare telephone in his desk, confident that the evidence at the cabin could finally be eliminated for good.

---

2:00 P.M. local time

Cabin located ninety kilometers outside Baraolt

Violence may have ruled the night at the cabin, but for all of the shooting and destruction and loss of life that took place there, the attention given to what was going on amounted to nothing. The cabin was too isolated to have been close enough for the noise to cause a serious disturbance, and the hour at which it took place was one during which most people were asleep or engaged in showering or watching late night television programming. The few bullets that struck windows ended up making clean holes instead of completely demolishing the panes of glass—the result of security laminates having been applied to them to prevent their breakage.

Robert was oblivious to what had happened to his partner. Carl, like him, had given the sword, or more accurately, they had forcibly administered hot lead to a pair of Bureau officers and assumed their identities. It was poetic justice that a deliverer of violence had suffered violence, but Robert was as benighted as anyone, save the CUE, as to what had happened.

Fresh snow had covered the ground outside the cabin, leaving a thin sheet of flakes atop the footprints which had once been sharply pressed into the underlying snow during the previous night. Tire tracks were also covered up by the thin snowfall, and a strange lump that lay at the foot of the front steps was covered by this dusty white coating. It was this scene, sterilized by nature’s mercy, that greeted three CUE operatives that had been dispatched from Baraolt to clean up the cabin.

The oldest operative, a fifty-one-year-old woman sporting curly brown hair which reached down to her shoulders, drove her team to the cabin in a black van which had been loaded with cleaning supplies and tools. A heavy plastic garbage can, some bags, and a folded tarpaulin filled much of the rear portion of its interior. The driver’s accomplices consisted of a younger, blonde-haired woman who had less tolerance for the cold than her compatriots and was bundled up tightly in a black coat. To the driver’s right sat an olive-skinned man who could not have been any older than forty, busily scratching itches that popped up between his deep brown locks of hair that hung loosely from his head.

The trio reached the cabin at two minutes after two o’clock that afternoon and immediately set themselves to work. One garbage bag was loaded into the plastic trash can and was filled within minutes with broken glass from inside. The group was careful to avoid touching any blood which had not yet congealed and dried out, lest their tools pick up any traces of the evidence they were about to remove. This process continued for nearly an hour, during which time the older woman pulled bullets out of any holes she could find with a set of pliers and picked up shell casings, taking care to put them into sandwich bags which she stowed inside her pockets for the time being.

When the broken glass and any other destroyed items had been removed, overturned and crooked furniture was put back into place and the removal of the bodies began. Five heavy canvas bags were removed from the back of the van and were carried inside. One by one the dead were placed inside the bags and loaded into the van. The male CUE operative pulled the icicle out of the corpse that was once Carl Durer, now a non-entity as far as the CUE was concerned. The tip of the icicle had melted inside Carl’s body while it was still warm, but otherwise it still protruded from it in a semi-upright position. Flinging it off the side of the hill on which the cabin was built, the man watched as the icicle slammed into some rocks located below and shattered into dozens of fragments.

Additional measures remained to be taken. The bloody knife which a lifeless Carl had clutched as he was stabbed had come loose in his faltering grip as he had been kicked down the stairs. It lay in the snow only a foot away from him and was promptly washed with the dishes from the previous night’s dinner. Carl and his men had forgotten about washing them as they prepared to take Lewis with them. After being cleaned and dried so that it appeared no different from how it did before being used to kill one of Carl’s men, it ended up in a knife rack with the rest of the set to which it belonged. The younger woman took a hammer out of the back of the van and used it to enlarge the holes left in the walls by the bullets and dented a few pieces of furniture so as to make the official story which the three would give to the police, that of a burglary followed by vandalism, an appearance of credibility. The only task that remained was to clean up the blood, which took another hour to accomplish through the use of copious amounts of bleach and other chemicals.

By six o’clock that afternoon, the five dead men had been loaded into the van along with the bags of debris and the tools and cleaning supplies used by the team. The five bodies weighed close to 900 pounds by themselves, but over a hundred pounds of equipment and supplies, not to mention the passengers, burdened the van with a load of as much as 1,500 pounds. Although it sat low in the driveway and was overburdened by most standards of safety, it was still able to make the trip back to Baraolt, where it would be unloaded at a nondescript location.

After stopping to admire their work the three CUE operatives got into the van and drove away, leaving behind an empty cabin that no longer hinted at its recently bloody past.

[Zaheran]

Aircraft hangar
Baraolt, Monavia

The two agents followed the mechanic into hangar. And there it was, in all its battered glory. A corporate jet, punctured in several places with bullet holes. Their hearts were beating with excitement, but they tried their best to hide it. Finally, they were on the trail again.

”Steiner” exchanged a glance with his colleague and went to make a phone call. Within seconds, the embassy had been informed about their finding. The coordinating staff of the embassy, naturally, were as excited by their discovery as themselves. The other teams had so far come up cold. The information was quickly relayed to all the other operatives in Monavia, together with orders to regroup in Baraolt. Now that they had a hot trail on Lewis, it was time to act quickly.

Meanwhile, ”Haynes” nodded at the mechanic's offer. Now that she was cooperating, his demeanour had become more friendly. No sense in antagonising the locals unnecessarily.

”Kindly do so, ma'am. Any help you can give our agency would be greatly anticipated. The terrorist we are chasing is a very dangerous. He was behind both the events you mentioned. We have reason to believe he is planning an attack on Chalcedon, using chlorine gas. Were he to succeed, thousands of innocents could die. Elderly, women, children...this man does not care. He is willing to do anything to achieve his goals. So please, if you know anything, anything...please tell us. Any little tip could save lives.”

He leant closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

”One more thing, ma'am. If there are any other employees here, tell them we are inspectors from the government. If possible, I would also like you to keep them out of this hangar. I know you are loyal to your country, but others might not be. Communism has a way of attracting even the well-meaning, and this man has eyes and ears everywhere. Were he to know we're here, all our efforts to catch him could be ruined.”

[The State of Monavia]

Morning of December 6, 2008

Aircraft hangar
Baraolt, Monavia
Northwestern Nova

“I would not want to interfere with your investigation,” the mechanic said with a slight nod of her head. “I will give you the proprietary information on this jet, including the owner’s name and address.”

Walking away from the jet, she motioned for the two agents to follow her outside the repair building and took them inside the management and records offices. Stepping inside to avoid the cold, she held open the door for the two Zaheranian men and took them down a hallway to a room which held customer records. “We keep our records here in these file cabinets.” She tried opening one and found it jammed shut. After several attempts at wrenching it open, the crooked drawer finally came out.

“The track that the draw slides on is no longer working. I’ll have to get it fixed.” Moments later, she pulled a fresh file out of the drawer and took it with her to the front room of the building. Setting it down on a small table, she began to fill the men in on the contents of the paperwork.

“According to this record, the owner of the jet is Leibmann Publishing Company, specifically one Gustav H. Leibmann. I can’t give you the name of the woman who brought it in—she was a dark-skinned lady with curly brown hair, a bit tall, maybe five feet nine inches or around 1.8 meters at the most. I think she was a corporate officer or something, to be honest. She was wearing a designer coat that cost a lot and looked like it had just been bought. Now, if I could only remember the name she gave me…”

While the mechanic described the woman who had brought the jet in for the repairs, the manager of the repair shop walked inside the room. Seeing the two Zaheranians, who could have been anything from RBG investigators to businessmen consulting his mechanic about one of their planes, he decided not to say much. “What can I offer you gentlemen?” he asked.

---

7:44 A.M.

Bolton Hotel
Baraolt, Monavia

Winter weather had left a blanket of snow on every conceivable surface that was not enclosed inside a building or located under another surface. Rooftops, vehicles, lawns, trees, window sills, roads, telephone poles, and bus stops wore crowns of small white crystals that refracted the sunlight as a late dawn finally broke over the land. Pale sunlight, tinted white and sky blue by the rising of the sun, streamed through the windows of the hotel and flooded one room after another, starting with those on the east side and working its way down the side of the building. Those rooms located closest to the top of the building were the first ones to receive the light of the dawn, but no such light entered the fourth floor room which Senator Lewis occupied. Having arrived late at night, Lewis had been beset by fatigue, so he had neglected to pull open the curtains covering the windows in his room. The sun had been shut out.

Many a fitful dream tormented the escaped senator during the night. As could be expected, their content as envisioned by Lewis was replete with all sorts of scenarios, especially scenes of arguments and violence. He had awoken twice during the night, straightened out his bed until its sheets were able to cover it again, and tried groping for the rest which seemed to elude him from time to time. His newly-acquired insomnia was far more bothersome than Director Cheney’s occasional inability to sleep after busy days of receiving perturbing briefings about troublesome intelligence developments. He was again fitful in dreaming at seven-thirty, tumbling around in bed as he seemed to reenact the events of the previous night—well, maybe just his role in those events.

Squirming in and out of a waking state and a deep slumber, Lewis was in a state of flux that made it easy for an external stimulus to awaken him, even if it took a while. The alarm blared at eight, but Lewis, despite listening to it as his ears seemed to spring out of their state of rest, did not so much as remember a word of what was said on a radio which was built into the clock. He finally peeled his eyes open after noise had spent several minutes filling up the room. Irritated but finally awake, he begrudgingly turned towards the clock to find out what time it was. Solid red bars former angular numbers on the digital face of the clock, but Lewis saw nothing but blurred red blotches as he tried to focus his vision. After blinking a few times and rubbing his eyes he finally made out the numbers eight, one, and seven—eight-seventeen A.M.

Begrudgingly lifting his upper body into an upright position, Lewis pivoted in bed and swung his legs out from beneath the sheets and gingerly stood up. His chest ached from the incomplete healing of his ribs that had been injured weeks earlier and had been aggravated from both fighting and tossing during the night. Luckily for him, the dull throbbing that he had to put up with was not going to slow him down.

Sometime after eight-thirty,¹ Lewis had cleaned himself up as best he could, shaving away his stubble with a razor and using a few other things that had been placed in his briefcase when he was taken out of the MNIA’s custody. Instead of nothing but papers, files, or pens, there was a box containing a razor, toothbrush, floss, nail trimmers, and a sewing kit that had been hidden inside behind a few files. A gun was lying at the bottom of the case on one side, its magazine completely empty after the previous night’s shootout. A second magazine, fully loaded, sat to the side. A side pocket in the briefcase contained the fake MNIA badge and identification card that Lewis used to pass himself off as “Agent Williams” and a pair of small loops held a letter opener in place. Handcuff keys and an empty case for his glasses rounded out the last of the briefcase’s contents.

Lewis straightened out the tangle of sheets that sat atop his bed and left his room for a late breakfast. Food had been demoted so far down his list of priorities that he did not bother to eat normally. His meal was simple and meager, disappearing after no more than a few minutes of eating. Though Lewis was fixated on reaching the bank that held the documents he could use as leverage to pry the MNIA and foreign intelligence operatives off his back, his hunger finally got the better of him and he filled up a plate with second helpings of everything—a whole egg, one slice of toast cut on a diagonal and spread with a thick layer of butter, two sausages, a slice of bacon, and a fried potato cake. Last of all he grabbed several small pieces of cheese and stuffed them, one by one, into his mouth.

Lewis checked out of the hotel shortly after nine o’clock² had been marked by a loud bell tolling down the road at a nearby university. He used his fake identification and name again, paying some cash and tipping the clerk the same amount he had left in the dining hall. The next phase of his escape was about to begin.

---

9:15 A.M.

Train station
Downtown Baraolt
Northwest Monavia

Lewis had walked back to the parking garage located adjacent to the Bolton Hotel and placed his briefcase on the seat next to him. He drove out of the building at a leisurely pace, having finally achieved some mastery over his eagerness to leave Baraolt. The hotel room was costly, eating up 250 thalers of his cash supply, but Volodin’s accomplice was well aware of how to keep Lewis equipped for the task. Lewis still had hundreds of thalers in cash stuffed into his wallet and could withdraw more from any ATM that honored the card he had been given. He would soon put some more money to use as he went about changing his appearance.

A short drive down the road from the hotel brought Lewis inside a clothing store where he paid cash for a new tie, a light gray overcoat, and a matching hat that snugly fit over his head. Slipping inside a fitting room to try on the latest acquisitions to his wardrobe, he rolled his old tie into a coil and stowed it inside his briefcase, taking care not to reveal any of its other contents. He was gone from the store within a half hour and pleased to be dressed more suitably for the weather, against which a simple business suit offered insufficient insulation.

Shortly before eleven o’clock that morning, Lewis reached a parking lot outside a station that served as a metropolitan hub for the country’s high-speed train network. He had no qualms about leaving the vehicle in a lot marked for long-term parking lasting up to ten days because he had no need for the car that he had taken from the cabin. The owner of Leibmann Publishing Company, who happened to be a CUE member of rank, supplied the car and the jet that now sat in a repair shop. No longer needing the car at the present time, Lewis left it in the lot and walked into the train station.

Snow had graced the sleek lines of the postmodern station with swags of white powder. Wind picked up particles of snow and blew them in fine wisps across the ground as more snow crystals, finer than sand, leisurely descended from the skies. Lewis, however, had no interest in the snow or the milky clouds that that it came from. He had to leave Baraolt before MNIA operatives or Carl’s goons from the Order could find him.

At 11:05, Lewis joined a queue line leading to a ticket counter which seemed out of place inside the modern station. While the building had been renovated only fifteen years before Lewis entered it, the station had been in operation for several decades. The ticket counter, some furnishings, kiosks, and other fixtures were original to the building and had been retained to cut costs and provide it with some warmth. Plain, postmodern constructions of glass and metal were not considered all the inviting in an area where winters were cold and summers were mildly warm at best.

With the other passengers who were ahead of him now gone, Lewis met the attention of a studious cashier with hawkish features and a short frame. In her usually raspy voice, the white-haired matriarch behind the counter inquired about the nature of the service she could provide him. “Sir, is there something you need?”

The obvious answer was yes, but Lewis was not going to be so simple. “Madam, I have need for a ticket to Irpin.”

“What sort of ticket?”

“First class on the next train bound there.”

The woman cocked her head towards Lewis, noting the frank, flamboyant immoderation with which he requested his ticket. “Sir, that train will be leaving in only fifteen minutes. You had better be there soon.”

“That I will.”

Laying the ticket on the counter, the woman produced a receipt and handed it to Lewis, who glanced at the sum it showed and folded it in half before placing it in his coat pocket. He pulled out a wallet and procured several large denomination bills which promptly ended up inside a register beneath the top surface of the counter. Once this was done, Lewis leaned forward enough to keep his whispering confined between himself and the cashier. “Madam, I am grateful for your assistance.” He pulled out his false MNIA identification and showed it to her only briefly, covering up the part that showed his alleged name.

“I have reason to believe that I am being followed and would prefer that you say nothing if anybody approaches you regarding my presence here. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir.”

“Thank you again for your help.” Lewis cracked a smile and walked away, his neutral-looking form melting away in the teeming throngs of people crisscrossing the floor of the main concourse and disappearing once again.

---

¹ Original text says "nine-thirty." This was a mistake on my part.
² Original text says "ten o'clock." This was another mistake that clashes with the continuity of the thread.

[Zaheran]

Repair shop
Baraolt, Monavia

”Haynes” had taken a small notepad from his coat pocket and was now taking notes as he listened to the mechanic's description. Their contact in the FUPF had been thoughtful enough to include a fountain pen with the organisation's logo on. A small detail, perhaps, but it was the details that distinguished a good cover story from a bad one. Many an agent had forgotten the small details- using the wrong table manners, saluting slightly differently, speaking in the wrong accent- and thereby revealed themselves, a lesson the instructors on the RND's training camp had been careful to imprint in their adepts.

His colleague, meanwhile, photographed the file with a miniature camera. He then took a small laptop from his suitcase and used an USB cable to transfer the files. The files were then encrypted and uploaded via a secure satellite connection, from where it would take long route over satellites and servers, before finally ending up on a computer in a nondescript house in Chalcedon. A local agent, who knew neither his real employers nor the key to decrypt the files, would then download the files on an USB stick and call a certain restaurant to order a certain menu. Half an hour later he would sit on a certain park bench, as he did everyday, and read a newspaper. As usual, he would ignore the news section and editorials, and read the sports section and comics. When he was finished, he would leave the paper on the bench and leave. Another man, a low-ranking official at the embassy, would arrive a few minutes later, sit on the bench and read the paper, as he often did. He would then leave, and fifteen minutes later the files would be in the embassy's computer system. It was a lengthy and complicated procedure, but almost foolproof. The men involved knew neither the content on the USB stick they carried nor the identity of one another, and their visits to the park were routine enough to not arouse suspicion. The manual element ensured that even the best computer whiz would have a hard time finding a connection to the embassy.

Just as Steiner shut down the computer, having done his part, the manager entered. Steiner moved his hand to his holster and glanced at his partner, who told him to relax with a discreet gesture. Haynes stood up and turned to face the manager. His face had regained its hard, authoritarian expression. He remained silent for a moment while his cold, steel grey eyes studied the manager intensively, in a calculated move designed to make the man uncomfortable and establish a psychological advantage. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat and coolly arrogant.

”Chief Inspector Richard Haynes, FUPF Investigations. My colleague and I are investigating a terrorist case. The man we are chasing has used your facilities. Your employee here has chosen to assist us in our investigation. I advise you to do the same. Sit down, please.”

His tone made it clear that it was not a suggestion.

”Now, I have been told that the plane in question – I believe you know what I'm referring to- was brought in here yesterday by a woman. Dark skin, brown hair, tall. She wore a fur coat, designer, expensive. As the manager, you must have dealt with her. I want her name, and everything else you know.”

Outskirts of Baraolt, Monavia

Team Three was the first group to respond to Two's call. The pair of agents, for the moment known as Detective Williamson and Sergeant Poltov, had been just an hour away when the order to regroup had arrived. Several other teams were closing in, but it would be most of a day before all were gathered.

The first order of priority was to find out if Lewis still was present in Baraolt. Since the Senator would have to sleep somewhere, their orders were to ask around the hotels in the city to see if anyone had seen him. They had stopped before entering the city to change into their FUPF uniforms. Together with the always-useful phrase ”terrorist investigation” the uniforms had a way of opening most doors. Honest citizens usually did not want to risk suspicion of terrorist sympathies, and even less did those who actually had something to hide. And in the notoriously conservative Monavia, the word ”Communist” made most people shudder.

The first three stops – at a hotel, a shabby motel and a bed-and-breakfast place - yielded nothing. A few minutes after nine they finally pulled up outside the Bolton. ”Poltov” remained in the vehicle while ”Williamson” walked into the reception. He flashed his badge to the receptionist and placed a photo of Lewis on the counter.

”Good morning. We are searching for this man in relation to a terrorist investigation. Have you seen him?”

Embassy of Zaheran
Chalcedon, Monavia
A few hours later

Silence reigned in the embassy basement, broken only by the clatter of fingers against keyboards and short exchanges of information. Now that the previously so bored technicians finally had a solid lead, they were working quickly and efficiently. Information flashed by on the monitors as search programs gathered everything available on Leibmann Publishing Company. Via a network of proxy servers attacks were launch to gain access to police, government and corporate databases. Government-employed hackers back in Zaheran were doing the same, routing their infiltration attempts via servers in several countries to avoid tracing.

[The State of Monavia]

OOC: I realized that Lewis could not have checked out of the Bolton Hotel after ten because that would have more than fifty minutes after your two agents showed up. I had written that last post late at night and as a result I did not realize that I have made that continuity mistake.

---

Morning of December 6, 2008
8:05 A.M.

Management building
Aircraft repair shop
Baraolt, Monavia
Northwestern Nova

The mechanic was fooled by the appearances of the two agents as they worked. They had official FUPF materials and stationery; one set up a laptop with a quickness that was uncommon in an amateur or imitator, lending him the appearances of an expert. The miniature camera, however, was the most convincing item they had put to use in front of her.

When the manager walked in, he was not sure how to react to the sight of an open file that contained customer information being shown to strangers, but he decided to remain civil about the whole thing and assume that there was a legitimate reason for their presence. When “Haynes” replied, the poor manager was dumbstruck. What the Devil do they mean by terrorists using my facility? He stepped back towards a seat and simply mumbled, “As you wish.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the mechanic. “I remember! The woman who brought in the plane introduced herself as ‘Lucy.’”

“Do you mean ‘Lucille?’” asked the manager. “That should be the name of the woman who brought in the plane yesterday afternoon.”

A quick search through the file soon revealed that one Lucille Parker had indeed signed the paperwork for the plane, but because she signed on behalf of Gustav Leibmann, his name was the one all over the ownership information at the beginning of the file. Although her signature was one of the most illegible that the manager had ever seen, a bold, clear L followed by three other clear letters, a squiggle that looked like a pair of lowercase L’s, and a clear P was all it took to confirm that this scrawled signature matched the name on the documents.

Although Team Two’s luck was mounting in their favor, it soon petered out as subsequent searches took place. They would reveal that the name “Lucille Parker” was an alias.

---

8:23 A.M.

Kovach’s Inn
Baraolt, Monavia

Team Three pulled up at a motel within minutes of being summoned by Team Two. It had not been more than a minute after that when “Detective Williamson” stepped through the wood-framed doors of the motel and found himself walking into a chilly lobby with plain, white-painted walls and a single chair rail of worn out wooden molding stretching around three of the walls. The fourth wall, into which had been set a hardwood clerk’s counter, battered from decades of use, was pierced by a door to either side. The clerk at the desk saw the Zaheranian approach and stiffened up in her seat.

The initial conversation was short, in part because there were few pleasantries to offer. “Williamson” was told by the young clerk that she had seen nobody who looked like the man in the photograph during her shift, which began promptly at six o’clock that morning. “If a man checked in during the previous night, he would have been checked in by the other clerk,” she told him.

After excusing herself to summon the night clerk, she walked over to a back office and made a call. After about a minute of explaining to the night clerk that he needed to come to the motel quickly to resolve an issue, she walked back over to the detective. “Detective Williamson, I’m sorry that I could not be of any help yet. The night clerk should be here once he changes and drives over.”

Less than a half hour later a young, lanky man hurried through the doors of the motel. Walking up to the counter, he set down his heavy coat, which the day clerk took inside and hanged on a coat rack. Pushing aside a mess of blonde locks that made up his hair, he made an admirable, albeit very poor attempt at improving his appearance, which had deteriorated during the night. A gust of wind in the parking lot had only exacerbated his problem.

The agent serving as a detective did not take long to question the night clerk, who looked at the photograph of Senator Lewis after the nature of the investigation, or at least the version of it that was being distributed for public consumption, had been explained to him. After informing the agent that he has seen nobody who looked like the man in the picture, he said goodbye and asked for his coat. Despite the cold weather and his state of wakefulness, the night clerk had no trouble falling asleep after he returned home, on account of the fact that he had only obtained some two hours of it since his shift had ended.

---

9:08 A.M.

Bolton Hotel
Baraolt, Monavia

At eight minutes after nine, Team Three finally arrived at the front of the Bolton Hotel. The bed and breakfast inn was not a successful gamble, though it took but a few minutes for the pair to arrive and leave. The desk clerk was quick to inform “Detective Williamson” that the inn closed for check-ins and checkouts after ten o’clock every night and remained closed until four in the morning.

The lobby at the Bolton was rapidly filling with guests checking into their rooms and asking questions at the desk. The checkout desk had not been as busy as the others, but if Lewis was present and staying at the hotel, he may not have checked out yet. The check-in desk was the logical place for Williamson to have started, and it did not help matters much when some obnoxious tourists started making a scene because their two small children had gotten into a fight in the lobby.

It was ten minutes past nine when Williamson got to the receptionist’s desk. After scrutinizing the image of Lewis for a minute, the receptionist said that she could not remember anybody who looked like the man in the photo and directed Williamson to the checkout desk, at which point the clerk stationed there took a while to examine the photograph closely. Lewis had not been clearly photographed by the MNIA after his arrest, having dispensed with the formalities and decided concentrate on holding him for a few hours until he could be interrogated and formally dealt with according to normal procedures. The picture of Lewis was an older one from before his beating and hospital stay. He had grown thinner while on the run the cut of his suit was in an older style that was different from what he was used to wearing. Somehow the man in the photograph and the man that the clerk had checked out were similar enough to be the same but somehow looked too different to be sure.

When the clerk expressed some concern over the chance that his information could end up being misleading, he asked that Williamson stay at the desk while he spoke with the security office personnel, specifically the surveillance camera operators. The clerk, a newly-minted employee who was still honing the skill of remembering the faces of all the customers that passed by his station as a clerk normally would, soon had a security officer show up to take Detective Williamson into the security office’s surveillance room to review the surveillance footage for himself and make a definitive determination.

It took about ten minutes for the relevant footage to be compiled and brought into the booth. In the meantime, the security officers had contacted the night clerk that was duty. Williamson would soon meet a more experienced employee who would turn out to be a more reliable witness. By the time the night clerk had arrived at quarter to ten, Lewis was already shopping for a new wardrobe and making good on his escape.

---

11:09 A.M.

Train station
Downtown Baraolt
Northwest Monavia

Lewis slipped through crowds towards the platform indicated on his ticket. The train to Irpin was a half minute later than expected, but by the time it had pulled into Platform Four, Lewis was waiting by the side of the tracks to get in. Admiring both the sleekness of the train’s construction and the sterile modernity of the terminal, the senator waited for the doors to open so that a means of egress for the passengers on board would be created and Lewis could get onto the train.

Lewis was free—well, almost free. The Zaheranians were tightening their noose around the city, and as teams began to approach places where Lewis could exit and the local police were possibly being enlisted to monitor road traffic, he had better keep moving. For all he knew, the Royal Bureau of the Gendarmerie would be after him if it was not already watching, although the MNIA was probably trying to keep this whole affair quiet. A rogue politician was not something which the Monavian public would appreciate in this instance, and at the present time, Lewis was one of them.

The train left Baraolt at 11:19, bearing the senator out of the city. Although Irpin was approximately 400 kilometers away, the train would be there in less than two hours. As Lewis was en route to Irpin, surrounded by strangers and quickly putting distance between him and the cabin, he was finally feeling the blessing of relief.

[Zaheran]

Repair shop
Baraolt, Monavia

Lucille Parker. Gustav Leibmann. ”Haynes” allowed himself a thin smile as he wrote down the names in his notebook. Two names perhaps did not seem like much, but it was their first lead on Lewis' mysterious associates. Of course they could not know if the names were legitimate or just aliases, but that would be rather simple for the technicians back at the embassy to find out. And even if they were, tracing the aliases could give them valuable information. In addition, they now had the woman's signature. Names were easy to change, but it was harder to change the way one wrote one's signature. Assuming some document she had signed had been stored electronically somewhere, not unlikely in these days, a simple trace program could find the similarities.

It was a pity they did not have a picture. That would would have simplified things enormously. But on the other hand- he suddenly got an idea- perhaps they had. Yes, the aircraft at the repair shop were quite vulnerable. Was it not possible, or even likely, that they had surveillance cameras? It was worth a shot. He turned to the manager again.

”Do you, by any chance, have surveillance cameras here? Or do you know any other places nearby that have?”

____________________________

During the conversation ”Steiner” had quietly slipped out from the room. While his colleague interrogated the mechanic and the manager, he had another task to complete. In a suitcase in the back of the van he had a suitcase filled with equipment for collecting forensic evidence. He took it and returned to the aircraft hangar, carefully closing the door behind him. He climbed inside the plane. In the light of a flashlight he looked around. It looked like the aftermath of a failed hostage rescue. Bullets had torn through several seats. Damaged electronics hung from the roof. He did his best to avoid touching them. It was best to not take any risks, there could still be electricity in them. A puddle of blood had formed on the floor. He knelt down to study it. It was dry and almost black. With a scalpel he scraped off a few flakes and put them in a glass vial he took from the suitcase. He had no equipment to do an analysis, that would have to wait until he returned to the embassy. He continued through the cabin, the small cone of light flickering through the scenes of carnage before him. A hair on a nearby seat went into a plastic bag.

Starting at the front of the plane and working backwards, he began a systematic search for fingerprints. A fine powder was sprayed over fingerprint-friendly surfaces, such as handrests and tables. Under the cold blue light of an UV flashlight, individual fingerprints could then be identified and photographed. Slowly, methodically, he worked his way through the plane. Together with the DNA traces, the fingerprints could help identify the others who had been with Lewis on the plane. Later, contacts in the FUPF would pull a few strings to get access to the Monavian criminal databases to run a comparison. And then, hopefully, they could begin to identify their enemy.

Bolton hotel
Baraolt, Monavia

”Detective Williamson” studied the security footage closely. Anticipation was growing inside him. The clerk had expressed doubt on whether he had recognised the man on the photo or not, but someone similar to Lewis had stayed at the hotel. Appearances could change. Images flickered past on the screen, and suddenly he saw something. He asked the security officer to back the footage slowly, and there it was again. He asked for the image in question to be frozen and enlarged. A face stared back at him from the screen. Lewis. He breathed out slowly. There were differences, of course. The man on the screen was thinner than on the older photo, and wore different clothes. But the similarities were too striking for it to be a coincidence. The more he stared at the frozen frame, the more his conviction grew. He told the security officer to make a printout.

When the night clerk arrived Williamson placed the two photos on the table, side by side. He leaned back in his chair and pointed at the table.

”Do you recognise this man?”

Embassy basement
Chalcedon, Monavia

”What have you found?”

The technicians almost jumped. The RSD Colonel had entered the room without a sound, and for more than two hours they had worked in almost complete silence. The senior of them, the man called Meyer, was the first to regain his composure.

”Nothing juicy yet, sir”, he said without taking his his eyes from the screen. ”Seems pretty legit so far. If it's a front for some terrorist organisation, they've done pretty well covering it up. Nothing shady. Run by a Gustav Leibmann. Hmm, let's see...list of employees, stock reports, board members...I've compiled a summary for you. One moment.”

He clicked the print button. A printer in the corner of the room whirred to life and started to spit out papers. The Colonel went over to collect the file. He glanced through it and nodded.

”You're right. Seems like a perfectly legitimate business. But on the other hand, the jet was written on the company, so we know that someone there is working with Lewis. Whoever they are, they're clever. We should watch this Leibmann type. Perhaps he could turn up some clues. Any suggestions?”

”Wiretapping?”, the younger technician suggested. The Colonel looked at Meyer, who shrugged.

”Sure, why not. It's worth a shot.”

”Can you do it?”

”I'm not just a computer nerd, you know”, Meyer responded with a slight smile. ”Sure, we can do it. At least his landline phone. His mobile, that another story. Unless I can get a hold of it physically, that would require the cooperation of the phone company. I rather doubt they would just let us walk in and start recording calls.”

”Computer?”

”Yeah, sure. I could trace his IP address quite easily. Then, depending on how sloppy he is with his computer security, it's possible I could get a keylogger or something in. But again, the best would be physical access.”

”I'll see if I can give you a solution to that. Meanwhile, set up the tap on his telephone line. Who knows, we might get something interesting.”

Residency of Gustav Liebmann
Chalcedon, Monavia

It was nearly two in the morning when a white, unmarked van pulled up outside Gustav Liebmann's home. They were dressed in utility overalls similar to those worn by the local phone company. In the dark, no one would notice the difference. While Meyer kept watch, his younger, more physically fit companion scaled the telephone pole to reach the line. With a pocket knife he cut away the isolation, exposing the wires. A small recording device was installed, together with a transmitter. The device was voice-activated. Every time a call would be made to or from the telephone in the house, the bug would activate and record the conversation. In a parking lot a block away, a radio receiver would pick up the signals from the transmitter and record them, for later retrieval by an embassy employee.

His work done, the technician climbed down. There was still no movement on the street. The whole operation had taken a quarter of an hour. After looking around a final time to make sure they had not forgotten anything, the two men got back in the van and drove home to get some well-deserved sleep.

[The State of Monavia]

Morning of December 6, 2008
8:09 A.M.

Management building
Aircraft repair shop
Baraolt, Monavia
Northwestern Nova

A number of surveillance cameras happened to be positioned around the repair shop. One even overlooked the desk inside the lobby of the management building. The mechanic was only too eager to help in light of what was happening.

“There are some cameras located on the outside of the hangar and at places where thieves could break in,” she said. With a rapid gesture towards the manager, she indicated that he would be the one helping them with the viewing of footage.

It took only two minutes for the manager to obtain the surveillance footage generated by the camera inside the lobby and a few other ones. Placing the discs inside a DVD player, the manager allowed the agent using the alias of Haynes to view it privately without his interference. The time markers and other data displayed on the images were clear and precise, as well as the color contrast, but the resolution was poorer than expected. Although the camera lens was cleaned regularly to prevent the buildup of dust, some dust was present on it and it had seen years of use. Part of the planned repairs and upgrades intended to be made at Comet were improvements in security systems, but these improvements were not scheduled to take place until April of 2009. The particular manager handling the Zaheranian agents was so impatient about collecting on accounts receivable that had previously advocated putting an end to offering services above a certain price on credit unless more stringent credit terms were applied. The fact that the amount of money collected in the past few months was insufficient to have met both overhead costs and the new security system would only intensify this disagreement in the immediate future.

Luck favored the Fegosian teams as they traced Senator Lewis to Resnik and then ran out briefly after Carl Durer and Robert Andros facilitated his escape. Robert had slipped through their clutches with a clever ruse, which only further complicated matters. The MNIA was cooperative in its efforts to coordinate the search for the missing senator and those who accompanied him, but the material losses suffered by the Fegosian teams, coupled with the incapacitation of some of their personnel, were major setbacks to their efforts. The Mokans had lost an embassy helicopter in the process of chasing down people who they suspected to be working for Lewis and their Headhunter had found little to nothing thus far.

The only luck that either side had thereafter was the capture and interrogation of some prisoners. The rest of the men they had sought had escaped on the corporate jet owner by Leibmann or were killed in the truck chase in Resnik, the remnants of which included a downed helicopter and severe damage to the façades of nearby buildings. Worse yet, the Mokans had managed to take over the warehouse belonging to Kedrov Manufacturing Limited, but the guards were alerted and caused much inconvenience for them in the process. As if to make matters worse for them, the Fegosians arrived an hour and a half later and ended up zapping Mokan agents disguised as the warehouse’s normal guards!

The Fegosian and Mokan efforts had suffered much in the last twenty-four hours, yet they were slowly gaining steak as they met with the Katonazagi and Zaheranian units to coordinate their plans. The MNIA was also trying to hold a joint meeting with all involved parties in order to offer more of its resources and ask some questions. The lion’s share of leads and good luck was now being netted by the Zaheranians, who had successfully traced Lewis to Baraolt, but with no knowledge of the cabin and the fate of the five members of the Order there, they would be unable to collect any evidence that Lewis was involved in further violence. At least the semi-grainy footage was still clear enough for the agents to make out the face of Lucille Parker—but she had covered her hair so that its color could not be identified, and the light reflecting off of her glasses made it impossible to determine the color of her eyes. She could have been anyone.

The other Zaheranian agent did not find the evidence on board the plane wanting in terms of quantity. To the contrary, there was a glut of evidence to collect, as opposed to the paucity of evidence that had confronted them earlier. The agent using the alias of Steiner had found many fingerprints, but a large portion of them belonged to individuals with no criminal records or security clearance requirements that resulted in their collection and storage elsewhere. Unbeknownst to anyone searching for Lewis, fingerprints belonging to him did exist in storage—in General Director Cheney’s private file on Lewis. The Fegosians who visited Cheney’s office a few days earlier had viewed parts of the file, but they had not seen the fingerprints that Cheney had collected through clandestine means. There was something in Cheney’s past, and Lewis’ for that matter, which made the former suspicious of the latter.

---

9:42 A.M.

Surveillance booth
Bolton Hotel
Baraolt, Monavia

“Detective Williamson” had finally found proof that Lewis was in Baraolt around nine-thirty. The process of enlarging the image from the footage did not take long, nor did the process of sharpening it. By nine-forty that morning, Detective Williamson was holding a high-resolution photograph of Senator Lewis in his hands.

The night clerk soon provided Williamson with an affirmative answer to his query. “Yes, he was here. He came in around midnight with a bit of an exhausted look on his face and a closed disposition. He didn’t look like he was interested in talking about anything other than getting a room.” The clerk spent the next several minutes explaining how Lewis had arrived and identified himself.

“He came in and said that he needed a room for the night and then withdrew some cash from the ATM in the lobby. I don’t know how much he took out or anything like that—I wasn’t watching him at that point. Next, he went over to a pay phone and began making some sort of call. It lasted a short while and I could barely make out what he was saying but he did not look all that happy about it. After he finished his call he made another and was again agitated at a few moments.” With fast, blunt frankness, the night clerk added, “I sure as hell don’t know what he was talking about, and I wasn’t about to interrupt him to find out.”

It was about 9:55 when the night clerk had finished relating his story to “Detective Williamson.” Lewis had driven out of the parking garage through the rear entrance around the time that the two Zaheranian agents arrived and then bought his new overcoat, tie, and hat while Williamson was inside the hotel. Now that Lewis had changed his appearance again, tracking him through the city would be a little more difficult—if only he could have been found.

The night clerk had offered to send Williamson up to the room he had booked for Lewis, but was unsure if room service had arrived yet. A search for fingerprints would result in the same dead end that it would when Lewis’ fingerprints were found on board the jet at the repair shop. When Williamson and Poltov finally drove away from the Bolton Hotel, they still had no clues as to where Lewis might be fleeing or by what means he was making his escape.

---

11:56 A.M.

Baraolt-Irpin train line
Northwest Monavia

Safely on board the train bound for Irpin, Senator Lewis settled in and waited for a waiter to come by offering lunch menus and beverages. Lewis ordered a large sandwich, accompanied by a side of fried okra, and after finishing both he ordered a can of beer. Finally satiated, he considered napping but decided to remain on his guard as long as he was around crowds. His appearance was somewhat recognizable to people who paid attention to the trial of Senator Bates back in Chalcedon, so there was some risk that he might be indentified and receive unwanted attention.

[Alfegos]

Internal Tensions

(Apologies as ever for delays to Fegosian Union roleplays. As you all may or may not be aware, I have the triple commitment of being a student of Medicine, an officer cadet in the Territorial Army, and a volunteer paramedic. As such, whilst I had a nice break recently, I have now been dropped back in to a world of pain in terms of work. I see my posting rate is now the same as the other members of the FU at least, so we can try continuation, if not for my sanity then for the sanity of you. I'll try get up to speed, and at some point write a post stating just exactly what has happened in Alfegos. In terms of this roleplay, whilst Alfegos is at the modern time immersed in a massive national split, this roleplay is set before this occured - and as such liberties can be taken. Enjoy this post.)

---------------

December 5th 2008
Afternoon - Resnik Warehouse

The van rolled into the compound, quickly turning a corner and following a fence line. The aeromarine drove with handgun stuffed into a belt loop - he had found the shotgun, and liked it. A lovely piece of military engineering, designed for the sort of urban combat here - dogs, doors, and those hiding behind them. Once out of sight of the gate, he stopped the vehicle, turning off the engine, before checking the weapon was loaded. Four shells, in addition to the one in the chamber, racked and ready to go. The TASERNET would be useful, albeit a one-shot relief for its target.

"Right, Konev. Show me around your base of operations here, and once we're done you're free to go. If you want to take up our offer of a new life, then do by all means turn up at the embassy at 1800 hours tomorrow, and someone will escort you to the airport with your documentation. If not, well... it's up to you.

In the meantime, the same rules still apply."

He leapt out of the van, and almost immediately was face to face with an unfamiliar man. He swore mentally, shotgun partially aimed, as he recognised the mexican standoff. He waited for the other to speak, noting the two similar shotguns aimed at each other. A fine mess would ensue if diplomacy did not work out.

---

December 6th 2008
0900 hours, Chalcedon International Airport

"Isn't she beautiful?" Delta team looked over the form of the I-class airship, noting its status - brand new, MNIA purchase from Alfegos Aeronautics via the Fei'khi Specialist Clinet division. One of five the MNIA had purchased, under the main umbrella of Monavian military purchasing, with a courtesy gesture allowing these customisations at a discount. Whilst it was a standard pattern A1M7 setup, the most recent, the MNIA had taken liberty to install various other items. Whilst the mesolite carrying clamp was empty, the two surveillance pods were very visible, as was the fold-up floor mounting point for a door gun. Alongside that, the colour scheme was muted, tones specifically designed for local skies to allow it to blend in with easy. Hidden inside streamlined pods would be the classified electronic surveillence and warfare devices the MNIA had installed as plug-ins at a later date, compatible with the high-speed onboard computer. Within, the onboard amenities had been somewhat upgraded for MNIA use, making it a more comfortable and workable environment. The best of the best. The seal of the MNIA was printed discretely on the gondola side, alongside the craft's registration number, again tasteful alongside upgraded engines straight from Ev'kho Heavy Industry's prototyping laboratories.

The crew were busy on the pre-flight checks - three crew members, in addition to the planned five passengers the Fegosians were sending. Crates of supplies were loaded and secured in the rear of the gondola, and the two crawler vehicles providing both a helium top-up and full diesel loading had left. Only one such monster of an armoured towing vehicle stood ready to work, a towing vehicle ready to drag the craft to the launch part of the aerodrome. Yet in the interim, as they made preparations, they would have to wait for the two Alpha team operatives to return from the MNIA meeting, releiving the Bravo team on standby. And nobody at the present time knew where the aeromarine was, save either working or resting. In the meantime, they worked with the crew in preparing the vessel for flight.

---

December 6th 2008
1030am MNIA HQ

The two Fegosian agents sat waiting outside the MNIA head's office, a heavy wad of papers in one's hand. The operation had been falling to pieces, and for now they had had a lot of serious reorganising. There was the one officer, their commander, back in Alfegos, who was trying to pull together what had seemed to be an unco-ordinated effort, now requesting regular radio reports - and feedback of both MNIA, Zaherani and Mokan movements in the area. So far, as men were kept in country to recover in hospital, a process that would take a week at least, they would be depleted. And yet, with the technical team, they had the advantage. One of the technical officers would be coming to provide some SIGINT capability, using the systems aboard the loaned MNIA airship, of which he had received the codes with the diplomatic parcel that evening.
"So, confirm this - we will be staying in city with the remaining Charlie team agent, who'll be working as a liason officer, whilst our Alpha team provides liasons and appropriate surveillance of the MNIA - Bates is now off the cards?"
"Confirmed. Delta and Bravo team will be taking airship, with one of the SIGINT technicians, to set up an investigative operation in Baroalt?"
"Agreed. They should take a transit time of about 28 hours constant flight, requiring no refuelling - depending of course on the terrain."
"And the aeromarine?"
"When we find him, once he's up to speed and rested, supporting operations in Monavia/Resnik area. We need to consolidate all potential leads, particularly the ones back here - if anything is going to kick off, it will be in the capital."

They nodded, finishing their summary talk as they were shown into the Director's office.