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A/N: This is a slight homage to various spy thrillers/films and the like, interlocked with various characters from Glee, which I don't own. This work will start in medias res, it's a style that I like to read, so I figured I'd try writing in it. Puck/Kurt eventually, possible Kurt/Blaine. Rated M. The views expressed in this work of fiction are those of the characters, not necessarily those of the author.

Code Name Porcelain

Chapter 1: Sue's Corner

SuePOV

One of my heroes, Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Germany, once said that "God protects fools, drunkards, and the United States of America." Since the United States is largely a nation of fools and drunkards, I'd say that Otto was being redundant on the matter. Frankly, I'd also say that he was probably wrong on that account. I'd attribute the relative safety of the United States to the ability of ruthless people, like myself, under minimal, and often lax supervision to do things that needed to be done.

My days as a field agent were done. Had been for awhile. One of the problems with aging is that your reaction time slows, you can't run without sleep as well as you used to, and any number of other issues. It wasn't always that way, of course. I got my hands dirty in the field once upon a time. I'm not going to tell you when because I'm not going to date myself like that.

Those days were past however. I was head of the Dalton Desk at the Central Intelligence Agency. The Dalton Desk wasn't actually a desk, it was a group of people who gathered information on the Dalton Organization. Dalton was a multinational criminal organization that did all sorts of sundry things that would have been perfectly ok if they had been done under the auspices of the CIA. At one time, if the unauthorized biographies and tabloid reports on Alan Dalton were to be believed, he was a CIA asset. He probably did all sorts of sundry things that were protected by us, since he had our sanction. Got rich doing what he was doing, as criminals tend to do. Got greedy and corrupt, as people are wont to do.

Alan Dalton turned his back on the agency after the end of the Cold War, when he saw the opportunity for profit by looting the corpse of the USSR, as many entrepreneurial types did. Alan used his money, and his knowledge of agency workings to help facilitate the explosion of organized crime inside Russia, and parts of Eastern Europe. He found the most ruthless elements of the Soviet security apparatus to supervise his empire in the east, and essentially established most of his racket as legal, or at least protected in Russia and some of its former satellite states.

Supervising his Russian holdings which were concentrated in St. Petersburg and Moscow was David Karofsky. Karofsky was a thug, make no mistake about that. It would be a mistake to say that he was only a thug though. He was also KGB. He was in turns brutal, terrifying, and intelligent. Using the information he gained from Dalton, Karofsky cleaned house in Russia, virtually eliminating our presence there over a few years time. Their partnership prospered with Karofsky providing the manpower and some of the connections that a foreigner like Dalton would need to operate with minimal trouble inside Russia.

We were attempting to rebuild our intelligence network inside Russia when September 11th happened. After that, there wasn't any interest in the doings of a multinational criminal organization that had minimal contact with terrorist groups in the Middle East. Dalton was at least smart enough to realize that the Middle East was important to us, and so he confined his dealings there to selling to bad governments. Weapons deals with the Syrians and the like, but not to Al-Qaeda.

As a result, the Dalton Desk was a very small group of people. Artie Abrams, who was paralyzed from the waist down because he got caught in a car bombing in Manila while hunting Al-Qaeda operatives in the Philippines. This desk was a bit of a letdown, but it was preferable to being pensioned, at least to him. He devoted himself to the latest technology and it's intelligence applications, which was more useful on our end then it would be in tracking a group like AQ that avoided use of technology out of fear that we were tracking them through it.

Dalton Desk also had Noah Puckerman. Puck, as he preferred to be called, was a bit of an insufferable person, but he got the job done. He was a wetworks kind of person. He blew stuff up, drove fast cars, and gambled. I think he watched too many Bond movies. His role at our desk also included responsibility for what might have been the most brilliant intelligence coup ever designed.

Code Name Porcelain was one of the most unlikely fronts that the agency had. A fashion designer for Marc Jacobs, he was a fixture at fashion shows around the world. His models were loyal to him, and he had them gather information on our behalf. You'd be surprised how much informal business goes on at fashion soirees like the shows in Milan, Paris, etc. The reason being that fashion knows no occupational boundaries. Gangsters apparently need the latest fashion too. Or at least, their wives, girlfriends, rent boys, mistresses, etc do.

He was MIA. Marc Jacobs website listed him as being on a month long leave of absence, but we hadn't heard anything from him in two weeks. Puck didn't know where he was at, and we didn't have contact with his models so they couldn't tell us anything. We didn't want to blow their cover by snooping around, so we were in the dark.

The phone rang at my desk.

"Sue's corner."

"Sue, Assistant Director Pillsbury on the line. Go to the BBC website now."

"Sure thing Irma."

I pulled up the BBC website. Big headline on the page announced that there was a car bombing in London 45 minutes ago.

"Act of terrorism in London?"

"Did you read the article?"

"No, I glanced at the byline."

"Alan Dalton's dead. More importantly, it looks like one of your assets was involved."

"What?"

"There's a video showing the blast from a CCTV camera stationed above a building across the street. Watch it if you don't believe me."

I clicked the video, and it showed Dalton abruptly storming out of an upscale restaurant in London. He was followed by a young man who was holding Agent Porcelain's hand. An explosion ripped through the plaza. The footage ended there.

"Alma, it looks like my team is going to London."