Another early Sarah and and co tale with a minor Luc Besson crossover. (What can I say, I like his core characters, they're better men rather than most of the spies in the series.)
NB: The back stories for the characters depicted here are the ones I laid out in my other stories, as they're what I saw in the characters I watched in the series.
Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed, yada, yada.
Paris, 2003
When Sarah Walker was advised of her new assignment, she didn't know whether to be relieved or concerned. It had the makings of being the first real long term assignment that she'd received, as well as the first one where she was assigned to an on-going team (that year she spent with the Secret Service didn't really count), so she hoped that meant that she was getting out of the type of assignments where they expected her to charm (or screw) some generic information out of some random sleazebag every other month. She did know that this was probably a form of punishment from Langston Graham because she elected to re-interpret her instructions and use her non-sexual skills to achieve her mission objectives. Even he didn't have the power to force her to do that or threaten retribution as long as she was successful, so she did whatever was necessary to succeed every time, without going down that rabbit hole unless it was absolutely the only way to succeed.
She had gotten to the point a long time ago where if she were given the choice, she'd rather torture the information out of the mark rather than have one of those disgusting pigs touch her intimately (Hell, she had reached that point before she'd finished her "special" training, those slimy bastards were as bad as any that she'd come up against in the field). It seemed that all she could remember since she was a little kid was being forced to do things that were just plain wrong (if not worse). Her father had had absolutely no remorse when he conned people out of their life savings and destroyed their lives, and she remembered more than a few news articles about people that she knew to have been the victims of their cons having committed suicide. Then when he was arrested and she was coerced (with veiled threats) into joining the CIA to protect him, things just got so much worse, many of the things she was trained and forced to do made her skin crawl (to the point where the training to damage or kill other human beings was actually less disgusting than the some of the other training), and it didn't matter how much she excelled in all other areas of her training, they kept pushing that at her.
At least she was based in Paris this time, so she may get a chance to soak up some of the culture that she'd been dreaming about when she she was sitting in hotel rooms as a kid (watching documentaries while she waited to see whether her father was going to come back, or whether he'd been caught). The apartment she was assigned was hopefully a sign that her life was changing for the better, as it was lovely, light, airy and in a nice area, it even had a view of the Eiffel Tower from the balcony. Her appointed room-mate was part of her worries, though, she knew Carina from training, they'd a few shared missions since then, they talked fairly regularly and she liked her, but she'd been in the same "special" training as she was at the Farm, so Sarah was desperately hoping that they just weren't assigned to this team because the nature of the work was related to that training. The fact that Carina had been traded to the DEA soon after they finished training and she seemed more "off" now only added to her concerns about why they were being thrown back together for this assignment. They hadn't met the other two women on the team yet, all they knew about them so far was that their names were Zondra and Amy and they were apparently sharing another apartment.
Sarah and Carina had a few days to settle in before the initial meeting for the team, so once they were set up in the apartment they spent much of the time shopping and clubbing. It became clear very quickly to Sarah that her and Carina's ideas of fun nowadays differed greatly, so Sarah imposed the rule up front that neither of them brought any guys back to the apartment, if they wanted to hook up with someone they could go home with them. (Well, Carina could, over the past six or so years the only recreational sex that Sarah had had were a couple of drunken one night stands with guys from parties when she was getting her language degrees at Harvard and four or five adrenalin fueled hookups with other agents she'd been in action with. What she'd been through with the CIA had pretty much solidified her views that the male of the species was the equivalent of something that she needed to scrape off the bottom of her shoes and she had absolutely no interest of fending off the one or more guys that Carina would bring home every night in their apartment, if that happened they'd be leaving in body bags!)
They met their other two team members at the kick off meeting in the consulate in Paris after their few days of down time. Zondra was obviously as hard as nails, which raised Sarah's hopes about the nature of their missions (she couldn't see her being one to agree to honey trap assignments), but Amy appeared to be a brainless bimbo who's default setting seemed to be chasing guys and parties (sort of like Carina but without the looks, character, brain or skills), so the purpose of the team still seemed up in the air. While Amy thought it was cool, Sarah, Carina and Zondra just looked at each other in disbelief when the pompous idiot that they'd be reporting to informed them of the team's designation (Clandestine Attack Team, CAT Squad for short, really?) The way the idiot was smirking when he told them made it quite obvious what was going through his mind (for want of a better term) as he did so, he managed to avoid licking his lips as he looked at them, but only just.
When they started getting their missions, it was a mix of good and bad news, they did have to spend a lot of time on the party circuit, charming information out of marks (and Zondra surprised Sarah and Carina by how sickeningly well she could work a little black dress and heels with her colouring, figure and legs), but there were very few real requirements to go the extra mile with the marks, and Carina and Amy were more than happy to cover those requirements. Also, they got plenty of chances for knock down, drag out fights with the guys they were up against (and the only form of getting physical that Sarah and Zondra were prepared to consider with the type of sleaze-bags they were sent after was beating them senseless). For all of Amy's brainlessness, the team worked well, Amy was competent enough to fill in the holes and the other three were at the top of the game (Carina and Zondra may not be in Sarah's league, but they were at least as good as anyone else). The CATs quickly made a name for themselves, not as the sexed up bimbos that they were selected to be, but rather as one of the more effective teams in the business, and their success rate was a surprise to most of their superiors.
As with many other undercover teams, the girls tended to stick together socially as well as professionally (outsiders couldn't be trusted into their secret lives), so it was a good thing that they all shared a love for the drinking and dancing of the club scene. The general rule was, as soon as they were off the mission, they would go out partying to work off the adrenalin buzz. The main difference between them was that Sarah and Zondra would leave the guys behind when they left the dance floor, whereas Carina and Amy would normally take them home (or rather go home with them, after Sarah shared with Zondra about the no guys in the apartment rule, Zondra immediately imposed the same rule in their apartment, which was something that Amy held against Sarah for some time), it wasn't usually too hard for S & Z to dissuade those guys who wanted to insist that they continue the fun once they were off the dance floor, but they generally tried to leave them without any permanent damage (unless they really pushed it), just pain and embarrassment. Because Sarah and Zondra invariably left together (all the better to ward off the dogs) after the other two went off with their night's takings, the would generally find a cafe or head back to one or the other's apartments for coffee and catch up, talk about anything and everything (other than what their room-mates were getting up with whatever guys they'd picked up that night, that was something they didn't really need to think about too much). As the "responsible" half of the team, they tended to get on pretty well, and over time got fairly close. Zondra accepted that she wasn't really up to Sarah's level (she was only human) but that wasn't anything that Sarah ever rubbed her or Carina's faces in, so it was easy for her to accept the status quo and relax together as friends and partners with complementary abilities. While it wasn't discussed, they all knew of Sarah's already legendary reputation as Graham's enforcer, and of being the Ice Queen who never allowed anyone to get close to her, but when it was just the two of them and they were winding down, Sarah would let Zondra see through the cracks from time to time, much as she did with Carina, so they both had glimpses of the person underneath, and they understood how privileged they were to be allowed those looks behind the mask.
For all of their different attitudes, the trust and friendship between Sarah and Carina deepened as the months went by, they regularly got back to their apartment in Paris and spent a reasonable amount of time there, bonding. They'd curl up on the couches late at night with drinks or huddle over coffee at the table in the mornings and laugh about what had happened or the exploits of the marks (or Amy) on their missions, get giddy about the capabilities of whatever new equipment or weapons that they managed to get their hands on, or just talk. They touched on their differing attitudes to sex once, but they found that it was something that neither of them were really ready to discuss, so they both retreated into their own brand of self loathing as they considered what they'd been pushed to do in that space. They both knew in the back of their minds that the experiences that they'd gone through at the Farm had moulded their choices, but what Graham held over them was daunting enough to prevent them sharing anything about the leverage that he used to keep them both in line. It wasn't that much of a surprise for ether of them to discover that they were both only one step away from their European origins (Poland for Sarah, Hungary for Carina), as they'd hear each other muttering in the tongue of the old country often enough. Nor was it a surprise that their lives of crime before joining the CIA were just as much a shared experience (they'd seen each other do things on missions that screamed what their backgrounds were to each other, because it wasn't the way they were trained to do those things at the Farm, it was a display of skills that they'd learnt in the real world). No matter how close they got to the others, these secrets remained between the two of them, because slipping up about their own past could expose the other's.
Through these times, they developed a trust and level of dependence on each other that they didn't extend to anyone else (though Sarah's was tempered a little by the way that Carina's apparent need to throw out the plans and improvise on missions reminded her of her father's tendency to do the same things in his cons, and the choices and consequences that had been forced on her as a result of his misplaced confidence in his abilities). Carina convinced Sarah to help her skim the takings from some missions here and there to give them the resources to properly set up the safety nets (both private and shared) of safe houses, identities and drops that they'd need to give themselves escape routes if and when everything went to shit. Once they had the funds where they could access them and had set up identities etc, they both took a little free time off while on missions to hunt out good locations for safe houses, dead drops, safe deposit boxes etc and establish them if what they found met enough of their requirements. They had also charmed the analysts and tech support guys into doing them favours and set up secure computers, communications systems, accounts, identities etc for them for their private use off the books. Sarah felt a little guilty using the guys that way sometimes, but at least she kept things to a friendship basis with them, so it didn't feel as much of a betrayal as it would have if she'd snuck them off to a supply room for a quick screw like Carina tended to do when she really wanted something. Anyway, the result was that they had bolt holes and resources spread through Europe, North and South America, as well as some through Asia and the Middle East, and helped each other maintain their safety nets. One thing that they shared between them was a group of identities and pipelines for getting into and out of the US from Canada and Mexico without detection.
They traded off the usage (and thereby maintenance) of those IDs and pipelines between themselves, though Sarah used the pipeline from Mexico into Southern California more (to check on her mother, or more to the point, to sit in her car for an hour or so in hope that she could see her mother from afar before she went back to the world and deeds that her mother would be horrified about if she knew), and Carina used the pipeline from Canada into Virginia more, as she had family there she checked up on, too. Sarah and Carina were pretty close physically and colouring-wise, so they recorded details for the shared identities that were halfway between the two of them, then they made a point of mixing up hairstyles, hair colour, over the top makeup etc all the time to mask the minor differences in their appearance and make it easier to swap back and forth, one of the hassles they had was the need to record the names and images of the customs and border officers that they dealt with each time, so that they could try to avoid going to the same ones too often (to ward off the chance of someone noticing that there was a difference). Of course, they both knew that the other had separate resources that they kept private, but that was the nature of the game, they'd had it drummed into them throughout their lives that you could never totally trust anyone else, and therefore neither of them ever showed all of their cards.
The team worked well together. Given the nature of their missions, much of the time they were solo or paired up (Sarah with Carina and Zondra with Amy) to cover the different elements of the operation in different locations, so they often only all came together at the start and end of missions and when there was a major strike, but they were generally communicating unless they were undercover or madly chasing the mission objectives (so they were working together, just not in the same location). Sarah, Carina and Zondra relished a good fight (whether it was guns, blades or fists), so they generally didn't get through a mission without at least one or two battles. Amy didn't share their joy of fighting, she'd wade in when required (OK, forced), but she'd choose making out (or more) with guys over anything mission related if she was given a choice.
Due to the mixed affiliations of the team members, their missions were spread over a wide range of operations, taking down drug lords and cartels, weapons dealers, human traffickers, international crime families, people dealing in government secrets of the US or its allies (or the ones they cared about at that moment anyway), whatever the powers that be wanted them to go after. As the CATs' successes and reputation built up over time, they were allocated more and more serious missions, the idiots who initially planned for them just to be pieces of fluff to parade around and look good were overruled by those above them who could actually recognise the potential of what they were seeing in their mission reports. Given the formula was obviously working for the team, the powers that be just kept giving them higher profile missions, as long as they kept succeeding with their missions.
That was how they ended up being engaged to take over the operation to go after the Gentle Hand, the organisation headed up by Augusto Gaez was attracting a lot of attention from the various organisations around Europe and the rest of the world (as it was carving a bigger slice out of the markets that it was moving into all the time), but those organisations hadn't had any luck tracking the Gentle Hand down as yet. The task force was concentrating on the Hand's European operations when they were engaged, as that was where most of the activity was (even though Gaez was actually based in Rio). The CATs got a few runs on the board quickly, and they were getting better results than those they took over from, but it didn't take long before they started seeing similar patterns, every time they got close to Gaez or his lieutenants, something would happen and they'd disappear just before they could be apprehended. Given that this type of thing had been happening before the CATs came on board, they presumed that the leak was from part of the team that they'd acquired when they took over, so they were running an investigation of everyone in the team in conjunction with the primary hunt for Gaez and his lieutenants.
They thought they were getting a break when Amy turned up evidence that communications were going out to the Gentle Hand from the Italian offices that the team maintained. They did a sweep of the offices and investigated everyone there, and found communications equipment and questionable transactions on the accounts of two of the operatives based there. The two operatives were questioned by the team, but died before they gave up any details. While they were not happy that they hadn't managed to break the men and extract more information (they should have insisted that someone more experienced than Amy ran the interrogations, but she was adamant that she'd earned the right by being the one who uncovered the leak, so they let her run with it), the fact that they had apparently plugged the leak was hopeful, and the operation went back to full speed ahead.
Within a month, though, it was apparent that the leaks hadn't been plugged, as Gaez and his lieutenants were still getting notified and escaping capture. They were picking up the minor players, but no-one who could be used to take down the Gentle Hand. The only consolation that they got out of this was that they were still having more success than their predecessors on the operation, Gaez and his boys kept eluding them, but while they did have time to run, there wasn't time to clear out the resources or product at the locations that were being hit, so the team were managing to impact the Gentle Hand's operations, and the analysts were getting leads on other parts of the Hand's network when they went through the computers and other information captured when they took the sites.
The Gentle Hand was behaving more and more like the cornered rats that they were as the task force's successes against them grew. It was probably related to the fact that Gaez's orders were along the lines of "If you don't die fighting, you will when we get to you", but the battles were getting desperate. They stopped running solo missions, as it was too dangerous, so at the very least they were paired up (in their original pairs). Even that wasn't enough towards the end, though, as the Gentle Hand's men were going to fight to the bitter end, unwilling to risk what they'd face from Gaez and co if they didn't. Even with the rest of the operational personnel that they had with them, they were outnumbered by the Hand's people just about every time they went after them, and the desperation with which the Hand fought meant that the task force's people usually couldn't match them. They actually got to the point where even Sarah was overpowered by the Hand's resistance, she'd run out of ammo while she was pinned down in a warehouse where they had been trying to shut down a human trafficking operation. She could hear the Hand's people closing in as she was cataloguing the weapons she had left without ammo for her pistols, but all she had was the two empty pistols (to possibly use as projectiles or clubs), six knives, and her hands, feet and body. It wasn't much, but she should be able to take out at least a dozen of them before they took her out, maybe twice that if she was lucky. It wasn't the way she'd have wanted to go, but that was the nature of the game in their business. She looked over at where Carina was entrenched on the other side of the warehouse with a few of her team, at least they appeared to still have ammo (given the fact that they were engaged in a furious fire fight), she would have liked to have a chance to say goodbye to Carina, but apparently that wasn't to be.
When the moment came, Sarah threw the empty pistols, taking out two of her more competent attackers and then engaged those closest to her with hands, feet and knives. In less than a minute she had taken out another four of her attackers, but she just couldn't manage to create enough space to allow her to snatch up any of the firearms that they'd dropped to give her a fighting chance. She'd received about 7-8 shots to the torso so far (though luckily her body armour was holding up so far and none had penetrated), so she was hurting like hell, but she was determined to take out as many as possible before they got her, so she kept fighting as if possessed, at least the shooters reduced her attackers by another three (as they'd gotten in the way of the bullets meant for her when they were trying to take her down). She was beginning to wonder whether she was actually going to make her dozen though when someone started firing behind her, and the shooters started dropping, she was engaged with those close to her and couldn't look, but whoever it was was obviously on her side (and fairly good) as the shooters targeting her were dropping like flies. Her rescuer worked his(?) way closer and took out a couple of the ones behind who were close enough to be engaged in hand to hand combat, then she felt her shoulder being grabbed and she was pulled back behind cover (taking the chance to scoop up a couple of weapons on the way).
When they were safely behind cover she had a chance to look at her rescuer, she recognised him from the briefings but didn't know his name, so she said "Thanks...?", he looked at her briefly, saying "Mills, and you're welcome" she nodded, saying "Thanks Mills" before turning back to join him in engaging their opposition as she thought about him. He was no young hot shot, the guy had to be in his 50's but he was obviously still damn good, he'd taken out at least ten in about three minutes when he engaged to rescue her. Working together, they steadily worked through the opposition until Carina and her team on the other side of the warehouse managed to overcome the ones on their side and give them support. Once Carina's team had engaged so that they had to fight on two fronts, it was quick work to clear out the rest of them. When they'd been taken down Carina's team went through, mopping up those left alive, some were taken away for questioning, but not many.
As soon as the warehouse was secure, they called in transport and released the girls being held there. Sarah had taken enough of a beating (from the hand to hand and the number of shots she'd taken) to need assistance, so Mills supported her as they moved about the warehouse, organising the mop up operation and seeing what intel they could collect. As soon as Carina managed to free herself up, she came to check on her, and propped her up on the other side from Mills. When things were in hand, they literally dragged her off to get medical attention (to confirm that she had gotten out of it with three or four cracked ribs and extensive, deep, bruising all over her body), and there she finally had a chance to talk to him, she once again thanked Bryan (as she now knew his name to be) for wading in and saving her that way, he waved it off as only doing his job, but said with a grin that she did remind him a little of his daughter, Kimmy, so he had been motivated to make a bigger effort. That got a laugh out of Sarah as she said that she probably should thank Kimmy for that then and asked about her. He opened up as told her that Kimmy was thirteen and dug out a picture of a precocious little girl with a very determined expression (that she obviously got from him), saying that he'd been away from her and her mother for most of her life, because he was dragged from one mission to another, and he'd just missed her thirteenth birthday as well. Sarah sobered as she looked at him, so distraught about missing out on his child's life but still here on the other side of the world, doing his best to save others. She thought that they were right when they said that spies and families (or even real lives) didn't mix, but also thought that men like this deserved to have their lives, they were forced to give up too much for the good of others. That being said, as long as he was stuck here on the task force, she wanted to make sure that he was near her, because having a man like that at your back meant that your chances of surviving and succeeding were a hell of a lot better than they'd be otherwise.
When they checked the logs on the communications gear that they recovered from the warehouse, they found that it had been another tip off call that let Gaez and his boys get away again, and that was why they were ready for them. They did another sweep of all the task force equipment and this time they found something extremely unsettling, the transmitter that had been used to make the call was embedded in the heel of one of Zondra's boots. Zondra of course said that she didn't know anything about the transmitter, but Sarah couldn't accept that. Perhaps it was partly the fact that she could still hardly walk reminding her how close to death she'd come or (far more likely) it brought back the betrayals that she'd experienced throughout her life, from her father, her mother always leaving when she was a little girl, everything she'd gone through with the CIA and the people she'd been working for and been partnered with, but she was being slapped in the face with the apparent fact that as soon as she relaxed her guard and allowed herself to trust someone like she did Zondra, she was betrayed again and it left like a knife twisting in her gut. That was why anything that Zondra said about the fact that Amy wore those boots at least as much as she did, or Carina trying to get her to see the possible truth in what Zondra was telling her didn't get through to her, she had allowed herself to trust someone, and had been betrayed (again), that was all she was capable of hearing at that point.
Zondra willingly submitted to polygraph tests and any other interrogation or testing asked, and the findings of the investigation were that there was no evidence that Zondra had any involvement in or knowledge of the use of the transmitter, so she was cleared and re-instated to the team, but that couldn't be accepted by Sarah. She couldn't bring herself to trust Zondra any more and that ruined the team, the house of cards that were the CATs' achievements came tumbling down as Sarah couldn't work with Zondra, which quickly led to Zondra having reciprocal issues with her. It took less than a month for the great success and reputation that the CAT Squad had spent nine or ten months building to unravel, so that they were a joke among those who had been their strongest supporters, because every mission fell apart from then on. When it was obvious that the CAT Squad could no longer work together they were disbanded, to be sent back to their old roles with their various agencies.
When the CATs broke up, Sarah had drawn apart from Carina as well, it was only the way that Carina bared her soul when they packed up the apartment and left Paris to tell her that she could ALWAYS depend on her, all she had to do was call, that made her start separating Carina from the distrust that she had with everyone else. Even so, it still took nearly six months for Sarah to find her way back to the space where she could feel that she really trust Carina again, but they managed to keep in touch and caught up whenever they were in the same cities, so they made it.
When Sarah went back to Langley for re-assignment, Langston Graham told her that she could go back to the type of solo assignments that she used to do (implying that her missions would be exactly like she used to be assigned, but without any latitude to re-interpret what she was told, so if she was ordered to sleep her way through everyone in an organisation for the mission that was exactly what she would be required to do), or she could accept the partner that he assigned her. Given the fact that she couldn't stand the idea of those assignments and knowing that she would be forced to do whatever she was told to, she told him that she would take the partner that he wanted her to take. At that Graham told her that her new partner was Bryce Larkin, and called him into the office. Sarah thought about what she'd heard about Larkin as Graham waxed on about what a great team they'd make, Larkin had the reputation of being Graham's Golden Boy, often successful, but too erratic to be trusted by many operational personnel, yes, he came out of most missions smelling like roses (and given all the accolades), but the casualty rates of others on those missions due to his grandstanding and sloppy work meant that most didn't want to work with him. Yes (she mused) he was attractive, almost as attractive as he obviously thought he was, but being his partner was likely to be a dangerous business. Given the alternative, though, he was the lesser of two evils, so she plastered a smile on her face and nodded at the applicable points as Graham went on about about what a great team they'd be, and how he expected great things from them.