Carigrad, Nikolia
9th March, 2018, 14:10
Carigrad was unusually warm for this time of year, and the sun was reflecting off the ponds on the street that rain from the last night left. The people already got rid of their winter coats and many of them were already wearing thin jackets and skirts. The centre of the city was incredibly crowded, with cafes opening their street gardens for the first time in this year. Spring spirit finally arrived in the city, and the famous annual spring festival, the Carigrad Spring was just a week or two away. Few streets from the Aleksandar's Square, the Zero Mile of Nikolia, and the centre of Carigrad, was just one of many palaces in Carigrad. From outside, it just appeared like any other palace one could see in literally every other street of Carigrad. But this one wasn't just a palace of some wealthy nobility. This palace stored the headquarters of His Majesty's "eyes and ears", the Royal Intelligence Service. It wasn't specially guarded, no more than some embassies down the street; a tall iron fence, several armed Gendarmes patrolling around the palace, and a checkpoint at the gate that led to the courtyard.
One black LZS F6 was making its way through the streets of Carigrad to that particular palace. Nothing unusual, Carigrad had a lot of such cars, however, only a few of them had access to that courtyard. The vehicle arrived at the checkpoint and was briefly let in by the officers at the gate. As it stopped at its designated parking spot, the back doors opened, and a person emerged from the vehicle. It was a tall man, mid 40's, in a black suit that just couldn't be bought in stores in Queen Ana Boulevard. His blond hair and sharp jawline were his trademarks, but the guy wasn't known just as "that handsome guy", he was Aleksandar Radić, head of the Department of Foreign Intelligence, known simply as the 3rd Department, or RIS 3. As he got out of the car, he fixed his suit and his red tie, and proceeded to one of the entrances.
The interior of this 19th century palace showed that builders didn't spare a cent into making this palace as extravagant as possible; granite floor as smooth as glass, some paintings on the wall being older than the building itself, and marble decorations on the walls and the ceiling gave the royal feeling to this palace. All that fancy decoration hid a network of multi-million dollar worth of equipment some never seen by anyone outside this compound. While the upper floors served as administrative part of the Royal Intelligence Service, with offices and whatnot, the number of floors known only to high ranking employees lying under the ground were the place where all that "spy stuff" was being done. On one of the underground floors was core of the organisation, the Operative Center that looked more or less like a command center of some space agency; large screens covered one of the walls of the room, while in front of it were numerous of computer desks set up in rows of 5 on each side, with a passage to the central desk between the rows. Everyone had their own area of coverage: one agent was watching different news articles about Nikolia, the agent next to him was monitoring internet traffic between certain websites, and so on...
Aleksandar rushed through the main hall of the palace to the elevators, inserted the key and descended himself to whatever the floor Operative Center was on. As the elevator doors opened, it revealed a small hallway with screen doors decorated with RIS logo and with a card reader to the left of them. Aleksandar pulled out his black RIS ID, which allowed him passage to every room of the RIS, whereas other coloured ID's allowed passage only through specific doors. The reader promptly scanned the card and with an audio feedback let Aleksandar through the long and wide corridor with doors on both sides. Down the corridor were another screen doors with yet another card reader, behind them was Operative Center and that's where Aleksandar was going to.
As he entered, he proceeded to the central desk, meanwhile overlooking the rows of computers and what everyone was doing. By the central desk was a tall, slim brunette with a skirt so tight it was nearly vulgar and a matching unbuttoned jacket. She was holding a bunch of papers and was looking at the large central screen whilst talking with someone on the phone. As Aleksandar entered, the brunette, his assistant and head of the communications department of RIS 3 shifted her attention to the doors, seeing Aleksandar. As he approached, so did she to meet in the middle:
"Ah, Sara, long time no see" Joked Aleksandar, since they saw each other some two hours ago.
Sara, his long time assistant hang up the phone and stuffed it in the pocket of her jacket with a rush "Mr. Radić, at last! We need to go to the conference room, the technicians called. They have set up the connection and everyone is waiting there."
The two didn't even have the time to greet each other properly as Aleksandar was nearly dragged to the conference room by Sara.
As the two arrived, they took the central seat at the oval table, with several other people, mostly advisers, sitting on the sides. In front of the table was a large screen that was divided in several fields: one for each member of the conversation. The largest image on the screen was indeed showing Noah Vohen, Deputy Director of Operations of the Caprican Central Intelligence Agency. Several other familiar faces appeared on the screen under Noah's image, most notably representatives from Telora, Jakarta and others.
As the connection was established, everyone introduced and when Noah made an introduction to the topic of this video conference, his colleague, Daniel Zöllne proceeded with the briefing.
Aleksandar and Sara listened carefully whilst occasionally commenting the conference silently and writing the notes in their notebooks. It was unusual to them that such a large and sophisticated Caprican counterpart would ask for help to other intelligence agencies in the world but it was justified considering how great of a threat it was not only to Caprica, but potentially to other countries across Astyria. The specific issue with this being that the whereabouts of this dangerous man were unknown, even more so the whereabouts of this weapon he possessed. The whole thing about this Gabriel wasn't exactly unknown to RIS 3, as RIS 3 had agents in the arms black market in current and previous conflict zones around Astyria. And of course it had, considering that Nikolia was not a country without international criminals, specially those trying to earn their profit in illegal arms trade.
As the briefing came to the end, it was time to ask certain questions, and everyone else in the conference looked hesitant to even say something. Aleksandar had several things to say, so he fixed his posture, cleared his throat and broke the silence:
"Ladies, gentlemen, I believe we all know each other..." he said while shifting his look from one face to another on the large screen in front of him "but out of culture I would like to firstly introduce myself: I am Aleksandar Radić, Director of the Department of Foreign Intelligence or the Royal Intelligence Service, more known as RIS 3." he added.
"Mr. Vohen, my assistant Sara and myself were carefully listening to this briefing of your colleague, Mr. Zöllne, and followed suit the documents we were provided with.
First of all we would like to thank you and your organisation for contacting our, and many other Astyrian intelligence agencies asking for help. As one wise man once said, he who is not embarassed to ask for help is strong, because he knows his limits, and for that you deserve our respect. Now, to get on more serious issues..."
Aleksandar made a short pause while shifting his attention on the bunch of papers laying on front of him on the desk. He "scanned" the documents and with an aid of his index finger found the things he was looking for. Upon finding them, he took a breath, then continued:
"So, we previously reviewed the documents we received from you... Indeed a great threat is onto us considering how this person, Gabriel Sheer is dangerous, however, we are not completely unfamiliar with this individual" Aleksandar then pulled a paper from the pile in front of it, and with audible surprise continued "Mister Gabriel Sheer, Caprican born. As some of you might know, several Nikolian born individuals are high ranking arms dealers in Kamalbia and Insula Fera. We have been tightly monitoring them for at least a year now, and we can with utmost certainty say that one of them, known simply as Viktor, was in contact with Mr. Sheer. Based on our intelligence reports, the two met in a mountain resort in North Fyngaria in late February this year. The details of the meetup are unknown as it was not possible to obtain any further intel other than a footage of the two sitting in the lounge, both carrying briefcases. Day after the meetup Viktor was seen leaving the resort, while Gabriel was not seen. My question to everyone here is: do we know any active group that would be able to purchase such weapon, that is, what group would be the most probable customer of it? Further question is, do we have details on Cerberus, what kind of nerve agent it is, in what form is contained, how it manifests and so on. Thanks"
One black LZS F6 was making its way through the streets of Carigrad to that particular palace. Nothing unusual, Carigrad had a lot of such cars, however, only a few of them had access to that courtyard. The vehicle arrived at the checkpoint and was briefly let in by the officers at the gate. As it stopped at its designated parking spot, the back doors opened, and a person emerged from the vehicle. It was a tall man, mid 40's, in a black suit that just couldn't be bought in stores in Queen Ana Boulevard. His blond hair and sharp jawline were his trademarks, but the guy wasn't known just as "that handsome guy", he was Aleksandar Radić, head of the Department of Foreign Intelligence, known simply as the 3rd Department, or RIS 3. As he got out of the car, he fixed his suit and his red tie, and proceeded to one of the entrances.
The interior of this 19th century palace showed that builders didn't spare a cent into making this palace as extravagant as possible; granite floor as smooth as glass, some paintings on the wall being older than the building itself, and marble decorations on the walls and the ceiling gave the royal feeling to this palace. All that fancy decoration hid a network of multi-million dollar worth of equipment some never seen by anyone outside this compound. While the upper floors served as administrative part of the Royal Intelligence Service, with offices and whatnot, the number of floors known only to high ranking employees lying under the ground were the place where all that "spy stuff" was being done. On one of the underground floors was core of the organisation, the Operative Center that looked more or less like a command center of some space agency; large screens covered one of the walls of the room, while in front of it were numerous of computer desks set up in rows of 5 on each side, with a passage to the central desk between the rows. Everyone had their own area of coverage: one agent was watching different news articles about Nikolia, the agent next to him was monitoring internet traffic between certain websites, and so on...
Aleksandar rushed through the main hall of the palace to the elevators, inserted the key and descended himself to whatever the floor Operative Center was on. As the elevator doors opened, it revealed a small hallway with screen doors decorated with RIS logo and with a card reader to the left of them. Aleksandar pulled out his black RIS ID, which allowed him passage to every room of the RIS, whereas other coloured ID's allowed passage only through specific doors. The reader promptly scanned the card and with an audio feedback let Aleksandar through the long and wide corridor with doors on both sides. Down the corridor were another screen doors with yet another card reader, behind them was Operative Center and that's where Aleksandar was going to.
As he entered, he proceeded to the central desk, meanwhile overlooking the rows of computers and what everyone was doing. By the central desk was a tall, slim brunette with a skirt so tight it was nearly vulgar and a matching unbuttoned jacket. She was holding a bunch of papers and was looking at the large central screen whilst talking with someone on the phone. As Aleksandar entered, the brunette, his assistant and head of the communications department of RIS 3 shifted her attention to the doors, seeing Aleksandar. As he approached, so did she to meet in the middle:
"Ah, Sara, long time no see" Joked Aleksandar, since they saw each other some two hours ago.
Sara, his long time assistant hang up the phone and stuffed it in the pocket of her jacket with a rush "Mr. Radić, at last! We need to go to the conference room, the technicians called. They have set up the connection and everyone is waiting there."
The two didn't even have the time to greet each other properly as Aleksandar was nearly dragged to the conference room by Sara.
As the two arrived, they took the central seat at the oval table, with several other people, mostly advisers, sitting on the sides. In front of the table was a large screen that was divided in several fields: one for each member of the conversation. The largest image on the screen was indeed showing Noah Vohen, Deputy Director of Operations of the Caprican Central Intelligence Agency. Several other familiar faces appeared on the screen under Noah's image, most notably representatives from Telora, Jakarta and others.
As the connection was established, everyone introduced and when Noah made an introduction to the topic of this video conference, his colleague, Daniel Zöllne proceeded with the briefing.
Aleksandar and Sara listened carefully whilst occasionally commenting the conference silently and writing the notes in their notebooks. It was unusual to them that such a large and sophisticated Caprican counterpart would ask for help to other intelligence agencies in the world but it was justified considering how great of a threat it was not only to Caprica, but potentially to other countries across Astyria. The specific issue with this being that the whereabouts of this dangerous man were unknown, even more so the whereabouts of this weapon he possessed. The whole thing about this Gabriel wasn't exactly unknown to RIS 3, as RIS 3 had agents in the arms black market in current and previous conflict zones around Astyria. And of course it had, considering that Nikolia was not a country without international criminals, specially those trying to earn their profit in illegal arms trade.
As the briefing came to the end, it was time to ask certain questions, and everyone else in the conference looked hesitant to even say something. Aleksandar had several things to say, so he fixed his posture, cleared his throat and broke the silence:
"Ladies, gentlemen, I believe we all know each other..." he said while shifting his look from one face to another on the large screen in front of him "but out of culture I would like to firstly introduce myself: I am Aleksandar Radić, Director of the Department of Foreign Intelligence or the Royal Intelligence Service, more known as RIS 3." he added.
"Mr. Vohen, my assistant Sara and myself were carefully listening to this briefing of your colleague, Mr. Zöllne, and followed suit the documents we were provided with.
First of all we would like to thank you and your organisation for contacting our, and many other Astyrian intelligence agencies asking for help. As one wise man once said, he who is not embarassed to ask for help is strong, because he knows his limits, and for that you deserve our respect. Now, to get on more serious issues..."
Aleksandar made a short pause while shifting his attention on the bunch of papers laying on front of him on the desk. He "scanned" the documents and with an aid of his index finger found the things he was looking for. Upon finding them, he took a breath, then continued:
"So, we previously reviewed the documents we received from you... Indeed a great threat is onto us considering how this person, Gabriel Sheer is dangerous, however, we are not completely unfamiliar with this individual" Aleksandar then pulled a paper from the pile in front of it, and with audible surprise continued "Mister Gabriel Sheer, Caprican born. As some of you might know, several Nikolian born individuals are high ranking arms dealers in Kamalbia and Insula Fera. We have been tightly monitoring them for at least a year now, and we can with utmost certainty say that one of them, known simply as Viktor, was in contact with Mr. Sheer. Based on our intelligence reports, the two met in a mountain resort in North Fyngaria in late February this year. The details of the meetup are unknown as it was not possible to obtain any further intel other than a footage of the two sitting in the lounge, both carrying briefcases. Day after the meetup Viktor was seen leaving the resort, while Gabriel was not seen. My question to everyone here is: do we know any active group that would be able to purchase such weapon, that is, what group would be the most probable customer of it? Further question is, do we have details on Cerberus, what kind of nerve agent it is, in what form is contained, how it manifests and so on. Thanks"
