Brian returns from the shower, looking much refreshed.

"I miss anything fun?"

"Tell me about what happened when you were with Moten. I 'm not sure I trust our new guys, but I need more information."

Brian sits down in one of the seats, setting his feet on his kitbag.

"Basically? Apparently he was sent to meet up with me at the apartment building I dropped in on trying to catch up with Jess. We got...entangled...with an FSB agent with an overactive sense of duty, Moten tried to talk him down, and later we had to kill him. Not my finest moment, I have to say."

Brian's clearly somewhat displeased with the entire incident. "After that, we met up with you."

Jess looks around the airplane.

"Anybody we haven't managed to piss off yet?"

Brian grins. "Well, there was this one girl in Scotland who...well, a gentleman never discusses these things. But, I think it's safe to say that we're going to be unwelcome in Russia for a very, very long time."

"Alright, let's go over what we know about the new guys. Peter I met briefly, Boys From Brazil-type, chatty, likes hardware, some kind of mercenary. And I know South American mercs are only as loyal as their options. Moten, I don't know enough about. Did he tell you about himself? I'm kind of suspicious that there was some kind of one-man investigation going on that we had no idea about, and what kind of FBI agent knows that much about covert killing? What did he do before he joined the Company?"

Brian shrugs.

"We didn't talk much...kind of distracted by that whole 'Wanted by the FSB, leaving a path of destruction in my wake' issue. To be fair, his one-man arrival isn't much different than well...my one-man arrival."

He pauses for a moment, thinking. "Also in his defense, *I* did most of the actual killing...and are you seriously going to tell me that a national level police force doesn't know how to deal with something subtly on occasion? If so, I'd beg to differ, I've known far too many people in MI5."

"So you've got two guys out there with Art and Ayumi, neither of which we can trust right now?"

Jess rolls her eyes.

"I don't think this discussion is going anywhere. I'm going to catch some sleep, and I think it would do you a world of good, too. We've been fucked, but we can't stumble into this one and expect magical spy fairies to drag us out again. I want to be on top of my game when I get out of this airplane."

That said, Jess plants herself into a chair and leans back.

"If Moten wanted random agents dead, he had the opportunity to do so..."

The Gulfstream begins its final approach over Vyshgorod, the port city's lights tracing out the riverway below as the sun fades below the horizon.

Jess' SATCOMM receives a text message.

[color=blue:545b2b4210]
From: Harry
To: Hummingbird
Re: Agents

Interesting company you and your friends have been keeping as of late. Took some serious delving to get any info on them. Anyhoo...here's what I've found.

Special Agent Robert Moten

Robert Moten worked for the LAPD for 7 years, and was one of their best detectives, after graduating from University of California Irvine with a Bachelors in Criminology. He was eventually hired by the FBI, and worked for the Bureau for 2 years, where he was trained in intelligence gathering and surveillence. He was assigned to work as part of a task force investigating the Las Vegas incident, and managed to find evidence linking both yourself and Agent Goose to some mysterious paramilitary agency and to several similar incidents worldwide. The Agency, instead of simply killing him or destroying the evidence, hired him. He was, for reasons probably related to his method of entering the Agency, was railroaded into the Basement, where he's investigated and brought down several cults and other extreme elements over the past year. He's just recently managed to get enough pull to try to get into other assignments, and the Siberia mission was his first.

Seems to be on the up-and-up although his physical and speech habits are somewhat disconcerting, and keep people off balance. He's also an extremely intelligent person, and is even more intuitive than he is intelligent, which is sometimes more useful than what he knows. A government suit to the enth degree, but hardly someone who would stray from the path of good.

Dr. Peter Kruger
Peter has spent the majority of his life in the espionage business; at 16, he became a mercenary operating primarily in Eastern Europe under the codename "Hai", was recruited into German Counterintelligence after Glasnost, and finally seconded to the Agency at the turn of the millenium. Peter prefers his work for the Agency since he gets to play with the really cool toys, though he does occasionally long for the old mercenary days when he had a clear-cut mission, people didn't just backstab each other for no reason, and people treated his equipment with respect.
He has a lot of different skills and will not hesitate to make that fact known, but he rarely brags, instead trusting his obvious expertise to convince people. Although he does not primarily focus on computer use (skilled as he may be), he has a few personality traits that mark him as an old-school hacker: his curiosity, his willingness to study and retain large amounts of only periphally useful information, and his basic expectation that people around him will act reasonably in the face of compelling evidence. Despite working in a field where he constantly interacts with jaded and self-serving people, he has retained this optimism.
Interestingly, he goes back a bit with Moten, though the two never met. Peter did provide the pictures of Goose and Hummingbird from the Vegas mission which eventually led to Moten's and his own recruitment.

Probably not on the take. He's got too good of a deal with the Agency to turn rogue.

Elena Zamnov

Tough nut to crack, mostly due to the disintegration and generally poor record keeping of post-Cold War Russia. Most of their databases are still on paper.

The most recent record I have for her is a AWOL warrant out for her arrest from the Russian Army's 93rd Scout Recon Regiment dating all the way back to 1997. Service record indicates she joined the Army at age 17 in 1993 and obtained the rank of Junior Sergeant in 1995, advancing to full Sergeant in 1996. Her MOS lists her as "Scout Sniper" a note of a certification of "Expert" in shooting. Tours in Balkans and Chechnya.

Her whereabouts and occupation directly following the AWOL charge in 1997 are unknown.

FYI. I'm incomputercado for the next three days...deepsea fishing.

Cheers.

Harry.[/color]

Jess steals a quick glance at the SATCOMM, then goes back to napping.

How come there's never enough intelligence in intelligence business?

Abandoned boathouse on the banks of Dnipro River, 50km south of Kiev.

Nightengale quietly stands on the dock, checking his watch then keys his radio.

"All units. Report in."

"This is Hummingbird and..."

Jess looks at Elena, grinning.

"...Fulmar reporting in."

Jessica, what is a Fulmar?

A bird. You call it Glupysh, I think.

Why that one?

Because it was the only one I could think of in a hurry.

So, you're giving me nicknames now?

It's code. Shut up.

Brian chuckles softly. "We know you were thinking fast sweetie but...Fulmar? Also, Osprey here."

Jess and Elena sit in the boathouse, out of sight.

"Why does he always have to get the last word in?"

(Edited by Gatac at 5:49 pm on July 12, 2005)

The levity of the bittersweet reunion is broken by the dull murmur of helicopter turbines closing in on the area. Two choppers are quickly spotted by Brian, perching himself in the treeline. Nightengale pulls out his binoculars and gives the birds a once-over before getting on the radio.

Mi8s, no exterior armaments. Watch for door gunners and a bunch of company when they land.

Elena pulls the last cigarette of the pack and squashes the empty container in hand. She lights the cigarette and steps out of the boathouse for a bit of air and a last minute smoke before the borscht hits the fan.

(puffing away)

Jess sees Elena take a long drag and waits for her to exhale. Before she does, Elena takes another heavy pull before flicking the half-smoked cigarette into the snowcover. She turns around and unshoulders her rifle as she hastily blows out two lungfulls of tobacco.

"We've got more company!" shouts Elena, giving a nod to the road.

"It would seem your friend Samantha has brought more than just a few bodyguards to this meeting." says the Russian, pulling back the cocking mechanism on her AK and pointing it down the road.

Jess readies her weapon and steps out of the boathouse.

"Grab some cover, Elena. I'll draw their fire."

Brian settles into the position he's taken, sighting down the rifle one last time.

Helicopters...you'd think they would have learned.

One of the two helicopters lands on the open field north of the boathouse with commando-clad men deploying at touchdown. The other chopper flies directly overhead, dropping a small package out it cargo door before ascending, the package parachuting itself to the ground nearby. The procession of vehicles (4 total) approach, stopping just short of the treeline with their engines idling.

Elena keys her radio.

I have four vehicles. All late-model Range Rovers. Their windows are tinted but I would expect they are fully loaded.

"Let's show those guys what a serious ambush looks like."