Brian grunts in pain, mumbling something about "goddamn fucking Russians" as he takes the hit, doing his best to check the cop and force his way up the stairs.

Moten gets up in the guy's face. "Look, you may think that this is some sort of territorial pissing match, but we have a missing agent and her last known location was inside that building, and when agents go missing, I take it very personally, especially if I'm the one assigned to investigate. If you screw up this investigation, I can be on the phone to my assistant director in charge in a half-hour, and if we have to bail one of our own men out of your jail both he and I will personally guarantee that we blackball your ass for so long that your grandchildren won't be able to get assignment doing traffic duty. So unless you want to be single-handedly responsible for the destruction of your own career, I suggest you tell your men to stand down now."

(Edited by Punkey at 5:32 pm on Dec. 6, 2004)

Yuri looks at the spindly geek for a moment. When he replies, his voice is soft, but carries an unmistakable tone of menace. "See these fingers? One snap and you die. If you're lucky, your half-eaten corpse will be pulled out of the Baltic Sea six months from now by some piss-ass fishing boat. This is Mother Russia, and my word is law. Your authority, your chain of command and your fucking Constitution don't mean shit here.

"Shut up, lie down, put your hands behind your head, and I won't have my sniper put a bullet through your ugly coconut."

It has not slipped Yuri's notice that this man described a relationship to someone sounding like the woman he was sent here to collect...

"If that's how you want to go about it, that's fine," Moten says. He motions towards the pocket that his cell phone is in. "I'm gonna get my cell phone out, or you could get it out for me, and I'll see if I can't sort this mess out, alright?"

Having awed the team with a round of early Christmas gifts, Pelican leads the agents out of the learjet and towards the truck parked nearby, all the while holding forth on his expertise at nearly breakneck speed.

"I understand you're looking for Agent Spiner. Quite a pity that she's missing, all reports I've seen describe her as an agreeable person - and, if I may use this phrase - a somewhat tempering influence on you folks. One look at your shopping list, and I knew you had the Noriega deathsquad angle covered. I was also made aware of that you've had bad experiences with other intel specialists cramping your style. You needn't worry about that, I'm R&D, and very much in favor of breaking out the heavy artillery every once in a while. I mean, what's the use of having the best toys in the world if you don't get to play with them?"

He pats his attache case.

"You know what I hate about being a secret agent? It's all so grim, so gritty. Save the world, nuke the baddie, but do you get a thank you for that? I mean, this is more than a job, and your heart should be in it. Not exactly fun and games out here, true, but I try to do things I find interesting. Expert here, expert there, some idiot savant who can decrypt stream cyphers in his head - that's just not interesting, you know? Gives us all a bad image. Me, I'm a Renaissance Hacker. Keep the big picture in mind, try new stuff every once in a while. You have to keep an open mind, hunt new ways, push the frontier. Lateral thinking, Ladies and Gentlemen. A mind's a terrible thing to waste on just crunching numbers. That's what we invented computers for, after all."

As they leave the tarmac, a big semi with box trailer comes into sight.

"And all those codenames really annoy me. They called me Pelican. Pelican, of all things! I mean, I have a perfectly good nickname from my mercenary days. 'Hai'. Mac the Knife joke, I'm sure Mrs. Yokozaki gets it. But no, they go with that 'Birds of Prey' theme. Total bullshit. Do we run around in black leather and patrol New Gotham City? I don't think so."

As they near the truck, Peter pulls a small remote control from his coat and points it at the trailer; the rear hatch lowers slowly.

"This thing here? Funny story. Somebody who thought they were Timothy Dalton tried to dodge an anti-tank missile with the truck. Blew up half the semi. Agency wrote it off, me and a few guys from R&D salvaged it and began to repair the sucker in our free time. I was nearly done refurbishing the cab interior with some suede when a beancounter came over to us and found out that the truck in question was working again thanks to some creative requisition forms and black R&D budget. So he asks me if this is the truck we reported destroyed, I say yes, and he says that they want it ready for action! See, this isn't just any truck. This is a mobile safe house."

They walk up into the trailer - there's toolracks upon toolracks, all kinds of equipment lying around, and even a few folding beds way in the front of it.

"My workshop. I do some gunsmithing and car tuning for the locals. Everything I need is in here. Back there are the bunks. I normally use the sleeper cabin on the cab, but I figure this will be useful with you folks around. Your guns are also back there. I'm afraid I had a bit of a hacking run last night, so I haven't sorted everything into nice little piles or something, but you know what you wanted, so just grab it. Just don't touch the loose parts, it's already a heck of a mess keeping track of four different dissembled guns back there. I hope you're aware that you're ruining my smithing timetable. Oh, one last thing before you get the idea for a clever joke or something..."

He cocks his head to the side - sure enough, there's a framed (and signed!) picture of the Knight Rider cast.

"This is a house of good karma. And two inches of composite armor."

Yuri's right hand finally emerges from the coat pocket - with a pistol, which he points at Moten's head. "Shut up, lie down, put your hands behind your head. I will not say it again."

Peter gives the nickel tour to the team with the subtle vibration of the Gulfstream's jet turbines going to full power in the foreground, slightly shaking the trailer as it takes off.

Back in Krasnoyarsk...

"Trigger is hot. I repeat, trigger is hot." says Sniper Two over Yuri's radio.

Inside the apartment building, Brian goes to work on the one thing standing between him and an open hallway. Smashing the cop into an adjacent wall, he knocks the man out with a hard blow to the ribcage. The policeman collapses to the floor, wincing in great pain.

Climbing several floors (8th floor out of 10), Brian gets up to an appropriate elevation and looks for a vantage point. Fortunately for him, many of the apartments are abandoned, some even having their aged door hanging ajar.

Having secured a room with a view, Brian takes a quick peek outside to see where the locals are roosting. Diagonally from his position (looking SW) is one sniper perched on a roof. He's doing a pretty good job concealing himself, but the freshly-fallen snow does nothing to hide his pitch-black gunbarrel.

Fucking amateur-hour out there. Someone's going to get killed if they're not careful.

Overall, it's a helluva long shot with an MP5, but a steady hand and prepared mind one might be able to plink him.

Deciding to stall until whoever it is in there can hopefully get up to the roof and deal with the sniper, Moten gets on his knees. "Happy now? Now let's talk about this like adults, see if we can't come to some sort of agreement."

Yuri snap-kicks at the man's face. "Shut up! Lie down!" In case this moron hasn't gotten the clue yet, he's not fucking around.

Simply content to let Pelican talk on excitedly, Artis finally speaks up while looking for his gear, a grin growing on his face. "Go back to the part about the guy trying to dodge the missile." Goose jingles the keys a little bit, happy to NOT be in a plane anymore.

{missed the bit from the sniper}

Quote:

"Trigger is hot. I repeat, trigger is hot." says Sniper Two over Yuri's radio.

Holding the pistol in his right hand and the radio in his left, Yuri replies. "<Sniper Two. Do not fire until I give the word.>"

"<Mikhail! Do you have the other man yet?>"

"Sniper One. Roger that, Leader. On your command, only."

The sounds of rapid footsteps and an out-of-breath Mikhail come over the radio.

"Y-Yuri. We have....a man down, but confirms the suspect is somewhere between floors two and ten. We are going through each floor checking every apartment. I have two men starting from the top and working down. I am starting on three and working up. I have stationed a uniform at the backdoor with orders to shoot anyone not immediately showing identification. He will be found, Yuri."

Peter briefly snaps his head in Art's direction before going on.

"Oh yes, sure. You see, we called him Lucky Frank. Fancied himself a stuntman. Anyway, there's not much to the story, Frankie was in way over his head on a stakeout and when they came after him, he floored it. Nearly had three wipeouts, but what he didn't consider was that the truck wasn't going very fast. They were just pushing him into an ambush. So he powerslides around a corner, barely keeping the semi on the road - and right smack in front of him, perhaps 200 meters or so there's a guy with an LAW. Frankie thinks 'Well, fuck it, if Bond can do it' and slams the wheel to the side. The wheels actually lift a bit, but then the trailer hitch gives way. Horrible tearing sound, the trailer goes flying, and the cab slams back down, breaking two axles. And then, the rocket slams into the cab. Good thing we armor our rigs like hell, but still, total loss. Front half blown off, engine slagged, windows spiderwebbed into oblivion. However, there's a reason we call the guy Lucky Frank. While the rocket fucked everything over, he bailed out. Before the LAW gunner knows what's up, Frankie sends a burst of 9mm slugs through his chest. Bottom line, he gets away, the pursuers waste a few minutes sifting through the wreckage without wondering what happened to their Bazooka Joe, and before they can get away, local police has them surrounded. And Frank did deliver the data he was supposed to get, so it's still mission successful."

He pauses for a second.

"Please tell me you don't plan on blowing her up."

Artis takes Peter aside. "Well now, I don't plan on blowing up anything. It's just that... well, you seem to be a nice guy and I feel like I should tell you that I don't remember the last time I've ended a mission with the same vehicle I started it with." He quickly adds, "It's not like I mean to, though! Sometimes you just have to catch that helicopter..."

Peter looks at him with a mischievous grin.

"Catch a helicopter with a truck? You silly Americans!"

He looks around a bit, then lifts a tube from the ground and hands it over to Art.

"Use one of these next time."

Artis almost starts to give it back, and then thinks:

Helicopters in Vegas... Chased by choppers in England... Getaway choppers in Italy...

"I think you and me are gonna be good friends. Don't worry about your truck, I can't possibly see how I can wreck this beast."

Peter shrugs.

"I've got something else that's a bit more handy in a chase, but I decided to have a new paintjob done. We can collect it on the way. Just in case you thought it was roomy in here, it's what fills up the rest of this trailer."

"<Good, Mikhail. Get the fucker, then bring him out here.>"

If Moten is still talking or not lying down, Yuri kicks him [as described previously].

"That's what I'm talking about," Carla says to no one in particular as she eyes the assorted weaponry and equipment. "We finally have a techie who understands us. And who hates helicopters as much as we do."