"You can either admit that your chances of continued survival have hit rock bottom and seek to increase them by telling me something I'd like to know - or we shoot each other, and whoever drops first loses."
She adjusts the aim on her weapon again.
"I suppose you know how many people your bomb will kill. Let me phrase it this way - if you don't coorporate, I'll see to it that you have the pleasure of feeling their combined pain before reaching the salvation of death."
"I suppose you know how many people your bomb will kill. Let me phrase it this way - if you don't coorporate, I'll see to it that you have the pleasure of feeling their combined pain before reaching the salvation of death."
"Conservative estimates are 2.4 million, plus or minus 400,000...taking into account wind velocity and bomb yield. But I think the real question is how much you value the lives of your Agents in Scotland..."
Catesby slowly reaches into her combat-rig, pulling out a cellphone and dials,
Back to Scotland...
The chirping of a mobile phone is heard eminating from the bait truck's cab area.
"How could I ever torture a couple million people out of you? I must admit it gets my creative juices flowing. Now, Ms. Catesby, maybe a factor you should consider is that it has ceased to be about these people. Maybe it never was. Maybe it's been about you all along..."
Catesby recoils slightly with an air of contempt at Jess' accusation.
"It was always about me! Those bastards at the Ministry of Defence didn't give a shite about my parents. My father didn't even get a proper military buriel..."
She continues to hold one hand on her phone and the other with pistol pointed at Jess. It rings incessantly as (up in Scotland) Carla finds its receiver underneath the truck's tattered benchseat. Its LCD screen is a bit pixelated but still functional.
"Hello?"
Catesby answers as her face meets Carla's on the other end.
"I have your boss here. I think you should know that your lives are dependant entirely upon her actions."
There is an awkward silence in (no doubt) response to Carla's address.
"...the trucks served their purpose well. They provided the necessary diversions for delivery of the device. I commend you on your performance. I don't know what I would have done without out you..."
Catesby stops in mid-sentence, walking over and kneeling next to her dead cohort, now bleeding-out in the hangar. She puts the phone down allowing its camera a good view of the dead man's head as she unmasks him.
The face of Agent Ian Hobart is revealed, albeit in a much worse state than previously seen. Catesby picks up the phone and resumes her former stance.
"...and you as well. I believe his justification was if he couldn't be on the winning team, he'd at least settle for a tie. That and a promise that he'd been spending the remainder of his life with me. I guess the last part was true, but his failing was that he was all too trusting and a bit prone to suggestion. It's amazing what a Gaelic accent and pair of store-bought boobs will get you."
Brian begins taking careful aim at the Scot, fully prepared to simply end her life in a spectacularly abrupt manner if she feels inclined towards an overt threat.
"Ummn... so what else do you want to tell me? That I'm royally fucked?"
Carla takes out her cell phone and holds it behind and a little above Catesby's. She begins keying in a text message to Jess to "shoot teh bitch" ready to be sent depending on the answer she gives.
Quote: from Threadbare on 1:47 pm on Jan. 8, 2004
"Ummn... so what else do you want to tell me? That I'm royally fucked?"
Catesby is bit amused at Carla's complete lack of professionalism.
"You Agency-types are all the same! Of course you're royally fooked...why else would I be telling you if you weren't? I didn't fly all the way out here for a social call. I'm a scientist and if there's anything I can't stand more is untidy bits of work left about. Mr. Spook (glancing over to Ian's dead body) was first on the list and running a close second was your lot and Ms. Whoever-the-hell-she-is (Jess) over there! And in (glancing at her watch) fifteen minutes, this little Op will be complete and Erskine Barracks will be the quietest place in all of Southern England."
"Oh, please, Diane. You have the means to get dear Ian to defect when you flash him your tits, but you can't make him tell you my name? That's pretty damn sad. Besides, of what use would my name be to you? Seeing how we're all going to die in the foreseeable future..."
She pauses for a second.
"And please skip the 'I'm ready to die for my cause' routine, because it's boring as hell and most decidedly not true in most cases. I've seen a lot of people die for their cause, and believe me, they never look very happy."
"And please skip the 'I'm ready to die for my cause' routine, because it's boring as hell and most decidedly not true in most cases. I've seen a lot of people die for their cause, and believe me, they never look very happy."
"Fair enough. Shall we go with Plan B....us just killing eachother?"
Catesby punches in a number on the phone's keypad then drops it, the LCD image on Carla's end going static for a moment as the two ladies break into the catfight of the century.
On the roadside in Scotland, a smoldering/acrid smell begins wafting from the salad bar that is the cargo area of the truck.
Carla takes a moment to chill out, pulls her back in a ponytail then calls HQ. A few perilous moments later, she is put in direct contact with Dr. Stanley Goodspeed, foremost expert on bioterrorism.
"Hello, this is Agent Goodspeed, appraise me of the current situation, principles, etc..."
Carla does while on the other end of the phone frantic typing is heard.
"Ok, Agent Falconet...wait, that's stupid. Your first name's Carla, right? Small world...my wife's name's Carla...great name. Anyway, my name's Stanley and we're going to get through this. Alright? First off, isolate anyone who is within 50 meters of your current position. Secondly, this may sound stupid, but I want you to walk as close as you can to the vapors. Most of these sorts of things have a terrible odor-biproduct when a reaction occurs. It's nothing that you have to worry about right now. Hold on."
More typing is heard on Goodspeed's end as he comes back on the line.
"Ok, Carla. I've been doing a little homework on the good Dr Catesby. She was working on a nerve toxin called Black Sunshine 23...must have been a Rob Zombie fan, although I prefer his earlier work to his new stuff. At any rate, the incubation period is 1-2 hours after inhalation...so that's the good news. The bad news is that your brain tissue will hemmorage and...oh...well, you don't want to know the rest. Now, I want you to look for the delivery device, it's probably something organic and fairly large."
Jess' squeezes off two quick bursts as she realizes that she could end this whole thing here and now. The bullets punch hard into Catesby, her body armor doing its part to reduce some (but not all) of the deadly force.
Catesby clutches her chest in response to the family of 4.7mm slugs now residing there. She lashes back with her own rapid-fire fusilade on Jess, her shots punching holes in the concrete behind Jess, a few finding homes in the agent's arm and leg.
Artis pulls the driver out of the truck and tries to start it, figuring if he can't defuse whatever is going on back there he can move it away from as many people as possible...
Keys still in the ignition, Artis attempts to turn-over the engine. The electric started clicks and whines trying to activate the truck's big diesel engine to little avail.
Come on...come on...
Apparently the header it took into the embankment seriously compromised the truck's locomation. Artis, feeling the gravity of the situation, decides to go old-school on the beastly transport.
"Work, damn you!"
*Smack* *kick* *slam*
He works over the truck's steering column and clutch with the finesse only a wheelman can give, the diesel engine sputtering and wheezing with an eventual thick puff of black smoke expelling from its tail-pipe.
Artis begins monkeying with the truck's gear-ratio, trying to find a suitable method of getting the rig back on the road. He should be able to move it, if necessary.
Whilst in the cargo area, beads of sweat begins to run down the sides of Carla's face as she finds an errant cabbage with a particularly hard center. Goodspeed comes of the comm channel.
"Ok, that odor your smelling is just out-gassing from the primer core. That's very normal and relatively non-toxic. That was Catesby activating the remote primer and starting the internal arming timer. You should see that the core is now slightly cracked or partially open, I need you to open it all the way and get at the guts of it. Excuse me..."
Five long seconds later, Goodspeed comes back.
"Alright Carla, still with me? I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is an Army Command K9 found Catesby's present in a delivery truck about an hour ago. The bad news is that it wasn't until your alert that the Agency put two and two together and that it is now sitting in front of me. I'm guessing for simplicity sake that Catesby prepped, armed, and configured the two identically. I'm opening mine. You should see two sets of wires, a green and blue next to a red and yellow."
Carla looks down at the spaghetti of wires and circuitry.
Two sets of wires alright...but one set is red and blue, the other is green and yellow.
Brian sees the two femme fatales go at it with their pistols.
Time to put the bitch down...
He goes for the double-tap firing off two rounds downrange in quick succession. The first tags Catesby in the arm, the second narrowly missing her head, instead tearing a clean shot through her collarbone.
Catesby's still up, due in no small part to her armor and her near-fanatical amount of adrenaline coursing through her battered body.
Gatac
