Mellieha, Malta - Oct 11 2013
A dark green jeep sped along the crazy roads of Malta, somehow even faster and more dangerously than all the others. Antoine Triplett was sat in the passenger seat, tightly clinging to it with one hand and his seatbelt with the other. He, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, was scared for his life and rightly so.
"Do you have to drive so fast Dan?" he asked his partner.
"Well only if you want us to get there on time to snag Quinn" Dan responded sarcastically, never taking his eyes off the road.
Triplett grumbled.
"What's the matter Trip? Are you scared?" Dan teased him, the way a brother would.
Triplett went to punch Monroe's arm, as he usually did when Monroe was teasing him.
"Woah! Hey! You can't shove me" Monroe grinned "I'm driving."
"Well hurry up then, we have to be in position in exactly 7 minutes" Triplett retorted.
"Now you want me to drive faster? God Trip, won't you ever make up your mind?" Dan laughed, pressing the accelerator to the floor.
Two tall blonde women – Agents Kelly Parish & Bobbi Morse leapt out of a white speedboat and onto a tiny sandy Maltese shore. The boat quietly sped away across the clear blue ocean as Agents Garrett & Scott headed for their entry point to Quinn's complex. Kelly & Bobbi glanced over the rocky cliff face in front of them to find the water pipe that they were to enter through.
"Ah, there it is."
Bobbi pointed up at the large dark pipe protruding from the rock face. Kelly wasted no time as she marched over to the rock face and started to climb, her short blonde hair blowing around as she did. Bobbi quickly followed suit after sweeping her golden hair into a ponytail.
They reached the pipe in no time. Without even so much as a cautionary glance into the pipeline, Kelly climbed into it and switched on her torch. She had to almost double over to walk through.
"How long now?" Kelly asked Bobbi in her posh British accent.
"4 minutes and 21 seconds until we have to disable the force-field" Bobbi replied.
The white speedboat cut through the beautiful blue ocean. Agent John Garrett was steering the boat as Agent Debbie Scott continually applied sunscreen to her face. She flicked her shoulder length black hair away from her face with her sleeve.
"Are you sure you don't want any?" Debbie asked as she offered Garrett the bottle of factor 50.
"I'm fine" he harshly replied.
He paused.
"You know you don't have to keep up the charade when there's no-one else around?"
"This isn't part of my cover John. There's nothing wrong with making sure you don't get burnt and I thought you'd want to look after the parts of your body that you still have" she replied, fully aware of the robotic parts secretly replacing some of Garrett's body.
Garrett smoothly steered the boat up toward the shoreline. Scott swung the backpack over her shoulder and climbed out of the boat.
"How long have we got now Debs?" Garrett asked as he disembarked.
"1 minute and 48 seconds" she replied.
"We'd better hurry up then" he smiled smugly, "we have to at least pretend to want this mission to succeed."
"Good idea, unless you want everyone to find out that you're faking your commitment to S.H.I.E.L.D." she replied sarcastically.
With that, they rushed off to get into position.
Morse & Parish emerged from a manhole just inside the area of Quinn's complex, their boots and black trousers slightly stained around the ankles.
"So we just press this button and let the software do its job?" Parish asked.
Morse flicked her hair as she looked around, seeing no-one, just a cluster of buildings to her left.
"Garrett said that we just have to get it near enough to the network for the software to detect it, get in and take down the force-field."
"Oh, I just leave all the techy stuff to others. That's not my area of expertise after all" sighed Parish, brushing off Morse's detailed explanation.
"Just be grateful Coulson's team already corrupted the system for us" Morse snapped, clearly annoyed at Parish for her attitude.
There was a short silence between them before Parish returned the focus to their mission.
"52 seconds until we have to take down the barrier."
"And this needs 15 seconds from positioning to take do its job" Morse added.
Parish didn't need to be told that time was tight. She gave Bobbi a knowing look and the two of them silently and stealthily moved toward the buildings.
The green jeep rolled to a stop just a short distance from Quinn's complex. Monroe & Triplett jumped out. Trip quickly moved to the back of the car while Monroe moved more slowly and cautiously, keeping an eye out for Quinn's men.
"Catch" Triplett whispered as he threw a semi-automatic to Monroe.
Monroe caught the weapon with ease, checking the ammo and grabbing a few more mags from the trunk. He checked that he had the rest of his weapons on him. He looked back to Triplett and seeing that he was ready and waiting, they quickly made their way closer to the complex. As they neared their position, Monroe stopped and suddenly dropped into the bushes. Triplett ducked just in time as two of Quinn's men passed on patrol. Monroe looked to Triplett worriedly, tapping gently on his watch, reminding Trip that they only had 20 seconds left. Monroe gestured to indicate Trip was to take on the one on the left, he'd take care of the other guard. Triplett gave him a thumbs up and within 3 seconds, the two assailants lay unconscious on the ground.
"You're learning fast Trip, I'm impressed" mused Monroe.
Triplett half grinned, half glared at Monroe as they dragged the bodies into the bushes. On most missions, they probably would have switched uniforms, but they were short on time and their black unmarked SHIELD uniforms looked similar enough from a distance to those worn by Quinn's men.
"15 seconds left" Trip noted.
Monroe reached into his pocket, pulling out an earpiece.
"The girls better be in position" he replied to Triplett.
Trip kept staring at his watch. With 2 seconds to go, they switched on their earpieces and inserted them.
"Go!" came Parish's voice urgently but calmly over the comms.
Garrett & Scott rounded the corner of a building within the complex. Garrett signalled for Scott to move towards the door. Once she got there, she turned to see that Garrett was following closely behind. She tried the door and finding that it was unlocked, the two of them burst through it. Seeing no-one, they split up and headed into separate rooms.
"We've taken down some of Quinn's men but there's no sign of him yet" Morse reported over the comms.
"Well we haven't come across anyone over here" replied a puzzled sounding Scott.
"Trip and I have only come across a couple of Quinn's men. Surely this place should be busier?" Monroe added.
Out of the blue, each member of the team noticed the unmistakable sound of an approaching helicopter.
"Wait, what's that?" Triplett worriedly asked, knowing full well wat it was.
Parish held her tongue, the middle of an illegal, off-the-books mission was not the time for sarcasm. Instead, she carefully walked over to the window where she saw a nightmarish sight – Ian Quinn waiting to board a helicopter that was coming in to land on the roof of the next building.
"It's Quinn!" she yelled, deafening her fellow team members.
There was a stunned silence. Had Quinn seen them coming? Surely not, they had been so quick and quiet. Had he been tipped off? That would mean that one of them was a traitor. Fortunately, Garrett knew that at this moment they had to focus on the mission and he had an idea.
"Parish, you two get to the roof of your building to try and stop Quinn getting on that chopper. Monroe and Trip – do the same. We'll head for the roof he's on. Do not let him get away!" Garrett ordered.
Little did the team know that Garrett, their leader, the very one giving them orders on capturing Quinn was the traitor, the one who had tipped Quinn off under his guise of The Clairvoyant.
Monroe and Triplett were running up through the stairwell just one floor below the roof when they heard gunfire. Continuing their sprint up the stairs, they burst through the door and out into the scorching heat. Blinded at first by the powerful sun, they fumbled hurriedly for their shades as their eyes readjusted. Once they could see properly again, the two men quickly adapted to the unfolding scene in front of them. Agents Parish & Morse were on the roof of the building opposite them, firing at Quinn and one of his men while the body of another lay lifelessly in front of Quinn, blood oozing from it. Monroe followed Triplett's lead, diving behind the air-conditioning unit for cover. They began to fire at Quinn & his bodyguard, making them to duck for cover to avoid the crossfire. Bullets flew around and over the rooftops as the buildings, air con units and even the helicopter became accidental targets. Some bullets that hit the chopper pinged off, causing some return fire at the agents. One of the bullets that hit the helicopter broke the glass window and embedded itself in the pilot's arm. Crying out and clutching his arm, he let go of the controls and the chopper fell the few remaining feet to the roof, crashing onto it with a loud thud and nearly causing Quinn to be knocked off his feet. Realising the helicopter had landed, Quinn carefully climbed inside and slammed the door shut, abandoning his bodyguard. The window beside Quinn smashed as it received heavy fire. The pilot panicked and knowing his boss was on board, pulled up and the helicopter roared away. Conveniently late, Garrett and Scott ran out onto the roof just in time to see the helicopter zooming away. The abandoned bodyguard stood looking surprised, trying to decide on either surrendering or committing 'suicide by cop'. Garrett indicated that Scott should keep her gun trained on the assailant. Garrett turned to see the rest of his team, all still with guns drawn and pointed at the bodyguard.
"You let him get away?" he groaned.
"We tried our best John. Where were you?" Dan replied angrily, feeling let down by his leader.
"We were in another building. We can't fly, we're no Stark or Thor. We had to run like normal humans" Garrett lied.
Suddenly, the bodyguard seemed to make up his mind as he raised his gun at Garrett. He pulled the trigger but Scott pulled Garrett out of the way. The bullet intended for Garrett flew off astray. Another shot rang out and almost instantly the bullet smashed gracefully into the bodyguard's head as he fell dead to the floor. Parish looked coldly over at the bodies of the men that she had killed.