Author's note: it's a little dark, but it's sort of been floating around in my minds for a while. Fair warning, it's a crossover, but I'm going to leave the series for you to guess. Also, this is not exactly a JJ HR story . . . not that I'm not a (huge) fan of the pairing, but I'm doing something a little different with Jonny's character here, sort of pushing him a little.
Disclaimer: I don't own Jonny Quest or any of the other characters portrayed herein.
00:42 Local (UTC +2)
Principality of Monaco: Port of Hercules
The Mediterranean sparkled with the lights of the party, far below the main deck of the massive mega-yacht Cetacea. Jonny sighed, adjusting his grip on the Mylar balloons and deftly avoiding a gaggle of giggling women. Ballerinas, most of them – the first and second swans of the Bolshoi theatre had been invited to the birthday celebration of the Ukrainian billionaire Alexei Kirkhoff, along with a cadre of Eastern European models and actresses. He glanced around casually, slipping silently into a deserted corridor.
It wasn't hard to find what he was looking for, as he wove his way expertly through the maze of internal corridors spanning the ship, anchoring balloons strategically to block the many security cameras policing the quiet corridors. This mega-yacht was one of the largest ever built, a one-of-a-kind monument to decadence that served as Alexei's home away from home. It had been a difficult and time-consuming affair to acquire the blueprints, a mission that had been dismissed by Jonny's handler as a lark.
His handler didn't share his suspicion of the eccentric Ukrainian. But then, Jonny was increasingly sure that his handler had been compromised.
Jonny had followed a trail of money diverted from seemingly innocuous sources – arts foundations, cultural grants, restoration projects – back to a few key sources. Kirkhoff was the biggest fish, and the hardest to track down. The electronic trail had cooled at Monaco, which was well known as an international tax haven.
A muffled thump, followed by a muted giggle, jolted him from his reverie. He wasn't alone. Alexei's living suite occupied the top two decks of the yacht, well-insulated from the throaty thrum of the powerful engines, with breathtaking views of the sun deck, the atrium, and the surrounding scenery.
He froze, backing into a shadowed alcove just as the doors to Alexei's palatial bath burst open, disgorging a staggering couple. He recognized the girl as Yulia Marinko, prima ballerina and the star of the Bolshoi. She was well into her cups, leaning heavily on her partner.
Alexei's brother Mikhail. While his elder brother had taken over the family oil and steel empires, Mikhail had aggressively pursued a life of leisure, acquiring a reputation as a spoiled playboy and gracing the covers of tabloids worldwide.
The tension between the two brothers was well-known; Jonny sighed in relief as Mikhail glanced around blearily before staggering off to rejoin the party, dragging Yulia with him. Hopefully, if Alexei noticed any disturbances in his immaculate quarters, he'd chalk them up to his hard-partying little brother.
Jonny glanced around once more, darting quickly across the foyer and into Alexei's suite. His workspace was a thing of beauty, cutting-edge technology blending seamlessly with priceless art and the slick glass and teak and steel that wrapped the entire yacht. He slid past a marble statue that was supposedly housed in a place of honor at a prominent Greek museum. Jonny didn't doubt it was real; Alexei's tastes were well-known, and he never settled for cheap imitations.
Jonny pulled a memory chip from his pocket, sliding into the office chair and powering up the computer. The system was protected by biometric security, but Jonny had a few tricks up his sleeve. He waited while the chip worked its magic, propagating a virus into the boot sector of the machine which would spoof the stored fingerprint and defeat the scanner. Once he was in, he made short work of slurping the files and stored passwords onto the chip, planting a keystroke logger that was virtually undetectable.
He jumped slightly as his pocket vibrated, pulling his phone from his suit. The text, from an unknown number, gave a series of codes that identified the sender as a high-level I-1 agent, and a cipher that required him to enter his own ID codes to translate. It was a variant on public/private key encryption, with each agent having a public and a private code. The public code was used to encrypt a message for a specific agent, whose private code would decrypt the cipher. (1)
The public codes were given only to the handlers, and the private codes were known to none other than the agents themselves.
So it was impossible that the message he'd decrypted was accurate:
Agent Q,
Request immediate backup, Operation Desert Fox
Departure immediate – Monaco Heliport
Rendezvous location to follow
DO NOT INFORM X OF DEVIATION FROM CURRENT MISSION
Backup for what, precisely? He'd never even heard of Operation Desert Fox. There were only a few people within I-1 who could possibly suspect that his handler, X, was an enemy agent, and even fewer who could have gotten unauthorized access to Jonny's public code.
The communiqué was most likely a trap of some sort. He frowned, pulling the chip from the computer and hastily powering down.
I-1 had fallen far since the days when Race Bannon was a star agent. The agency was a dangerous place, its hallowed headquarters inhabited by traitors and double agents. A series of crippling betrayals had brought the agency to its knees. In Race's time, the agency had shared the Marines' credo – no man left behind.
The new agency had completely reversed its position, completely disavowing field agents who found themselves captured or left behind. Morale was at an all-time low, and agents were refusing to take partners.
A quick glance satisfied him that he'd left the area as it was. He slid silently into the foyer, melting into the shadows as he ducked back into the access corridors. He swore under his breath, cursing Mikhail's drunken clumsiness fervently when he realized that the balloons were no longer in place in front of the security cameras. Time for Plan B.
Jon's fellow agents didn't call him Q for no reason. (2) He had a veritable stockpile of useful, pocket-sized gadgets, one of which should serve to get him back to the main deck without giving up his identity. He pulled a few pinhead-sized gadgets from a secret pocket on the inside of his coat, clipping them in various places about his person and switching them on. Finally, he pulled out his cell phone, dialing a special code and holding it before his face like a flashlight.
It wasn't as elegant a solution as the balloons – whoever reviewed the footage would be sure to notice the large, person-shaped iridescent blur working its way through the darkened access corridor – but the infrared LED's would at least prevent Alexei's team from making a positive ID. (3)
Jonny found himself back on the main deck, gadgets safely stowed, contemplating his options. He had what he needed from Alexei. X, his handler, thought he was safely ensconced in Japan, biding his time and blending. No one ever accused X of being the brightest tool in the shed. He wasn't worried about his continued ability to fool X. What he was worried about was the cipher he'd been sent earlier. Everything about it screamed of a trap. He wondered idly how many other agents that had simply disappeared had been snagged by a similar ploy.
He decided to take the bait. There had never been any doubt that he would. Now, all he had to do was make his exit – something conspicuous should do the trick.
04:53 Local (UTC +3)
Iraq
It was dark. Scratch that, it was darker than dark. She couldn't see anything from her cramped position, tied up neatly like a package. The floor was dirt, and she could reach three walls from where she lay, if she strained just so.
For a moment she thought she was deaf as well as blind, but the sound of her feet against the wall seemed loud enough to wake the dead. She froze, halfway to sitting, waiting for something – anything. An alarm, a curse, the sound of a door opening.
Nothing.
She waited, frozen in place, until she was nearly dizzy. She let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding and shifted carefully until she was sitting up. Her hands were bound tightly behind her back, and her feet were bound as well.
Her head was throbbing from the blow she'd received earlier – she'd been ambushed, taken from her vehicle at gunpoint. She doubted anyone would even realize she was missing until she missed her check-in tomorrow afternoon. This was most definitely not according to plan, and she wasn't even sure she'd been tagged by the right group.
She debated her options: option one, wait for rescue – that had been the original plan, to fall into the hands of the group that was holding the Bangalori agents and gather intel from the inside, but she hadn't seen any familiar faces when she was abducted; which led to option two - do nothing and take the chance that she'd find out who was holding her tomorrow. It was a dangerous option given that she had no idea who had abducted her, and though the fact that she was still alive boded well, they could just be waiting for the film crew to arrive before doing her in – Americans were high-value shock targets, and American women more so; that left the third option - try for escape. That was more her style, and she could always take a peek around on the way out, try to gather intel that way. She'd run the risk of blowing the entire op, but her agency training had stressed its "live to spy another day" credo, a motto which she heartily embraced.
She wriggled frantically, kicking off her right shoe and positioning it so she could reach inside and dislodge the small razor blade concealed in a small pocket in the heel. The fact that they hadn't searched her more thoroughly lent credence to her theory that her captors weren't aware she was an agent. Either that or they were so inured by their habitual machismo that they couldn't bring themselves to believe she'd be much of a threat.
Yes, that pretty much covers all the possibilities – either they know who I am, or they don't, she mused.
Her hands were sticky with blood by the time she worked herself free; the razor, it seems, wasn't very sharp. She ran her fingers gingerly over her wrists, reassuring herself that she'd missed the vital arteries, before freeing her ankles and vigorously massaging the feeling back into her lower limbs and slipping her shoe back on.
She still couldn't see, so she felt her way along the rough walls until she located the door. It seemed her captors had rather carelessly thrown her in a closet. More of that machismo?
The door was mercifully silent as she gingerly slid it open, blinking as the few rays of moonlight seeping in through the shoddily painted-over windows nearly blinded her. She waited for her eyes to adjust before moving, her breath catching in her throat as she picked out a few dark shapes on the floor.
Fellow captives, or foes?
She froze as one of the figures shifted, rolling over and muttering incoherently.
Definitely foes, she decided as the dim light glinted evilly off the barrel of a rifle lying next to the shape closest the door. How cliché, she thought. Sleeping with their guns. What next, a security blanket? She kept her eyes on the gun, inching carefully along the wall. Her blood was thundering in her ears, and she swore her pounding heart was loud enough to wake the dead.
She was almost past the last man when she stopped, considering her predicament. Her eyes still on the gun, she edged closer to the sleeping figure. Her vision had adjusted nicely, and she thought she could get ahold of it without waking him.
Should she risk it? She wasn't sure what she'd face once she left the room, and she'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. She felt the weight of every second as she stopped, leaning carefully over the dark bulk and lifting the rifle clear of the blanket as she stood.
Talk about security blankets, she thought wryly as she ducked her head around the corner. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she almost dropped the gun as a shrill cry broke the morning silence, slicing through the quiet as though it was a tangible force. Her heart was beating uncontrollably, and she could hear the men behind her begin to stir, even as a second cry sounded, the weird, alien call that was omnipresent in towns and cities all over Iraq.
She fought back her panic, edging carefully down the hallway and ducking her head into the largish room. Had she closed the closet door behind her? She couldn't remember. Either way, if she didn't get out of the house, she'd be discovered in short order.
A loud shout, followed by a spate of indecipherable Arabic curses, spurred her forward. She made a beeline for the only door in sight, panic overtaking her as she tugged frantically at the latch.
She didn't bother closing the door behind her; she could already hear the sounds of a pursuit being mounted and she needed to get some distance between her and her captors.
She looked around, peering through the moonlit night. She could see other structures looming in the distance, larger and better lit than the smallish hut from which she'd just emerged. A wall loomed in the distance to her left, about ten feet tall and topped with concertina wire and – no doubt – broken glass.
05:27 Local (UTC +3)
Iraq: Suq Ash, about 20 km outside Nasiriyah
The desert was cold at night, a brisk breeze carrying the unmistakable smells of the Euphrates, and of the small town nestled in the crook of the ancient river. A sharp sound shattered the early morning quiet, the ululating cry echoing weirdly off the water and the sheet-metal warehouses lining the aging docks.
Jonny adjusted his coat, pulling off his tie and shoving it into his pocket. He had slept very little on the flight from Nice. Once he'd gotten onto the chartered plane, he'd been informed, via the in-flight comm system, that he was headed for an unspecified destination, and would be debriefed once they were wheels down.
Curiouser and Curiouser, or so Alice was reported to have said.
He had been debriefed – if you could call it that – by the driver of his Humvee, who had graciously informed him that they were headed south. The driver had the cheek to turn off the GPS when he saw Jonny glancing at it. He decided it wouldn't be politick to mention that he could pull out his phone and get his precise coordinates, in a matter of seconds.
So, here he was, waiting for his "contact" – freezing cold, still in his tux from the night before, and significantly short on sleep. Which explains how the fellow in the desert camo's had managed to sneak up on him. At least, that's the excuse Jonny was sticking to.
He was large, imposing, with a military buzz cut, and easily in his mid fifties. And he was clearly sizing Jonny up. Jonny returned the man's intense gaze with interest, wondering just what kind of a mess he'd got himself into.
"So, you're Q."
Jonny didn't respond.
"Come with me. We don't have time to waste."
Jonny didn't like where this was going. Never mind that the man could have killed Jonny before he even realized he was there. The entire situation was maddening, and he wasn't going anywhere until he got some information. He knew he was in Iraq – he'd crept close enough to the cockpit to recognize the ICAO designator for Jalibah airfield in Nasiriyah. And they hadn't gone far in the Humvee.
The question still remained, however – what was he doing in Iraq? And why the cloak-and-dagger act?
"I'm not going anywhere with you until I get some answers. First off, I believe you have me at something of a disadvantage. . ."
The man had the gall to look annoyed. "Name's Dean. I'll tell you the rest when we get where we're going."
"And that is?"
"Ain't safe to talk here." His words were punctuated by the sounds of gunfire, echoing in the distance and blending strangely with the repeated call to prayer.
"Have it your way," Jonny said curtly, motioning for Dean to lead the way. If he didn't get some answers soon, there was going to be hell to pay. The older man led him down a dark alley, weaving through the maze-like streets of the ancient town with confidence.
If he thought to confuse Jonny, he failed miserably. They had actually only gone a couple of blocks from their clandestine meeting place. Their final destination turned out to be a rather pretentious structure, with a wall and a gate and a gilded sign that read – in English and in Arabic – Society for the Preservation of Mesopotamian Antiquities.
"So, is it safe to talk here?" Jonny looked around, trying to take in his surroundings without gawking. The building appeared to be a smallish palace, the entryway having an elaborately tiled mosaic of birds and trees, crowned by a stunning chandelier that looked to be bigger than the Humvee he'd taken a ride in earlier. The ceiling vaulted to about seventy feet, a gilded dome punctuated by several regularly spaced skylights in elaborate star-shaped patterns that danced across the surface of the dome.
"Kid, this is the safest place on the planet right now."
Jonny didn't take well to being called "kid" – it was hardly his fault that he was possessed of his mother's complexion, which lent itself to his boyish good looks. Besides, he was beginning to suspect that "Dean" was a bit off. He crossed his arms and leaned against the kitchen table, a modern affair that was out-of-place amidst the old-world grandeur of the palace.
"We're not much for formal dining – those of us staying here usually just grab something from the fridge and eat it in here." Dean must have noticed him staring at the table.
"Who exactly is 'we' and what are 'we' doing here?" Jonny demanded.
Dean sighed.
"We," he said, placing an exaggerated emphasis on the word, "are fighting back. We happen to have reliable intel that you're doing the same."
Jonny kept his expression carefully neutral, his mind racing as he tried to piece together what the man might possibly know. Dean didn't let him sweat for long.
"We need your assistance for a mission – a search and rescue."
Jonny was well aware of the implications of that. I-1 had outlawed search-and-rescue missions, to stop the attrition of agents who fell victim to traps in order to save their own. He didn't agree with the policy, and had flaunted it several times, but for his own safety he had to maintain the illusion that he was following it to the letter.
Still, if there were others within the agency that felt the way he felt, it made sense that they would band together.
"How do I know this isn't a trap?"
Dean smiled. He noticed that Quest didn't bother asking why they'd pulled him specifically for this mission. Fact was, he was the best, and they needed the best if they wanted to get their missing agents back alive.
"We've been cooperating with coalition security forces to track down a group of outlaws operating in the area. Not the usual nationalist resistance – this is better organized and much better funded."
The man hadn't answered his question. Not that he could really say anything to convince Jonny – it was just too difficult knowing who to trust these days.
"Drug runners."
Jonny had largely stayed out of the Middle East, though not by choice, but that didn't mean he was unaware of the regional instability. On top of ethnic tensions and pseudo-political dalliances with other hostile nation-states, Iraq and Afghanistan had become the center of a new sort of triangle trade, where guns from the west were funneled through a corridor of rugged terrain and scant enforcement, to be traded for unprocessed drugs and (increasingly more often) hapless women and children. The regional drug lords were allying themselves with the so-called freedom fighters, resulting in a thriving drug and weapons trade, as well as a campaign of ethnic cleansing that was almost unparalleled in its organization, level of funding, and complete anonymity.
"There's one in particular that's been causing a problem – has a knack for sniffing out our agents. We think they're holding one of ours right now, and he's probably wise to the whereabouts of several of her counterparts from the Bangalori ISF."
"Her?"
It slipped out before he could stop himself. Female agents weren't completely unheard in the post-Cold War modernism of the agency, but they were still a pronounced rarity and were even considered a liability when undercover in rigidly patriarchal regions such as Iraq.
"We were working the problem from the other end, with the help of several of our Bangalori counterparts."
"Working the problem from the other end? You mean 'using them as bait'?!"
"More or less," Dean said coolly, frowning in frustration. Truthfully, he wasn't any happier about the logistics of it than Jonny was, but the necessities of their situation dictated some harsh realities. And, when it came down to it, those Bangalori agents – and his own agent he'd sent after them – had known exactly what they were getting themselves into and had volunteered for the assignment with full knowledge of the risks to life and limb that it entailed.
And it really had been their action of last resort. They'd struggled to get a man on the inside of the operation, or to find a suitable turncoat, any source of information at all. The operation was tightly knit, with tribal and familial connections forming the foundations of the group's structure. They had all but given up on tracing the smuggling routes, until one of the Bangalori agents had come up with their current plan.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time – well, not necessarily a good idea, but at least a workable one. Until the agents had completely lost contact, that is. Sending Drew in after them had been another bad move. She'd disappeared almost twenty-four hours ago, near as they could tell, and that most definitely had not been in line with the plan.
With most of his rag-tag 'team' off on mission-critical assignments, Dean had been forced to call on Jonny. He normally liked to vet his new agents in team situations, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Jonny had quite the reputation at I-1, and from what he could see, it was well-deserved. He didn't think for a minute that the kid couldn't retrace his footsteps to their meeting place, despite his attempt to throw him off track by wandering through the back alleys of Suq Ash.
Jonny had acquitted himself well on several high-profile missions, missions of a highly sensitive nature – so naturally, the entire agency knew about his daring exploits. Dean also happened to know about his spectacularly destructive romp through three provinces in India, the result of which included the wanton destruction of three city blocks in the historical Pink City of Jaipur (not his fault, really), a trail of disabled vehicles and traffic accidents stretching from Rajasthan to Gujarat (he had a history of being hard on the cars he drove, but this was well above and beyond the norm, even for him), as well as a few scuttled sailing vessels (an extension of the car effect, no doubt), all of which attracted the attention of most of the major news outlets on that side of the planet. The affair also ended in the retrieval of a captured agent who'd been operating near Pakistan, and had piqued Dean's interest in recruiting him.
"So, what's the lead on those missing agents?"
Dean sighed in relief; he'd been almost sure the boy would help him – but, in his line of work, that one chance in 100 was the one that cost you everything.
"I think she's being held in one of the old palaces near here – it's an entire complex just outside the city, and it's being inhabited by one of the local warlords and his cronies."
"You think," Jonny said flatly, raising one eyebrow.
"I know what you're thinking, but we don't have time to verify the grab. They've beefed up security at the compound, and they're the most . . . politically active group in the area, if you will." He didn't need to add that every moment the agents were in their hands, their recovery became progressively less likely. Women were popular targets with extremists – even if the group that had taken them wasn't politically motivated, they could curry favor with the radical groups by trading captured foreigners.
"What's our timetable?"
"I'll take you there now."
05:59 Local (UTC +3)
Iraq
She made a mad dash for a low hedge paralleling the wall, swearing as she tripped over a sprinkler head. She could see through the hedge as the men came pouring out of the hut, carrying flashlights and guns.
She counted one, two, then three as they emerged and spread out. From the outside, the hut looked small enough to contain only the two rooms she'd seen – some sort of guardhouse, maybe? It appeared that she was in a compound of some sort, possibly a palace compound, judging by the landscape and the irrigation arrangements. Sprinklers were not a common luxury, nor were decorative hedges a commonplace item.
So, she knew she was at a palace, but Saddam Hussein had dozens of palaces throughout the country – this could be any one of the numerous palace compounds strewn across the landscape, she supposed. Many of them had fallen into disuse, and were being used as makeshift strongholds by local warlords.
She burrowed further into the hedge, squeezing herself into a gap in the foliage as one of the men rushed past, training his flashlight along the wall. She waited for a few moments after he'd past, then made her move.
This is a bad idea. She didn't have many other options – she needed to know where she was, and who she was dealing with. She retraced her steps back to the small hut. The sky was growing light in the east, the first signs of the dawn tracing across the desert sky. She didn't have much time, but she knew she had to figure out where she was, and who was holding her.
06:04 Local (UTC +3)
Iraq
Jonny was faced with a ten-foot wall, topped with concertina wire. The wall stood between him and the compound Dean had led him to. Dean's intel indicated that it was highly guarded, the men inside well-armed and well-trained.
He sighed, adjusting his tux and scaling the wall. He was short on sleep, and his John Lobb dress shoes were not exactly well-suited to climbing; a slip near the top almost cost him a few square feet of skin, but he tucked into it, flailing wildly as he dove headfirst into the hedges lining the base of the wall.
Smooth, Quest.
He rolled to a crouch, brushing himself off as best he could. There was no hope for the Firado tux, unfortunately, and at this point he was pretty sure the shoes were a write-off as well. He adjusted his tux once more, making sure it was buttoned, to cover as much of the white of his shirt as possible. It was getting light, unfortunately, and he wanted to remain undercover as long as possible.
Ideally, he'd be in and out before they even knew he was there. He'd been on enough missions to know that nothing ever went according to plan – even when the plan was more carefully laid out than "storm the palace, alone, in the tuxedo you were wearing from the night before, and find the girl who's maybe being held somewhere in the vast complex surrounded by trained, well-armed guards."
He edged back into the hedges when he heard voices approaching. His Arabic was a little rusty, but he craned his neck to hear. Perhaps he'd be lucky to catch a snatch of conversation that would lead him to his quarry. Something along the lines of "Let us check now on our captive, who is being kept in the utility shed at the southeast corner of the compound, which can be easily reached by following the path along the decorative hedge."
He'd been awake too long, to even imagine such a thing. Still, the girl wasn't going to rescue herself, and there was an off chance that one of them would say something useful, so he moved to follow the men.
A shifting shadow to his left caught his eye, and he stared in shock as a thin figure darted from the hedges, the first rays of dawn glinting off her reddish hair. She was too quick for him to get a glimpse of her face, but he was sure she was his target for extraction.
She was gone, vanished into a low structure. He glanced around for landmarks to be sure of his position - he'd memorized the crude layout Dean had given him. She'd run straight for the guard house.
Well, if he wanted to live forever, he'd have chosen a different line of work.
Footnotes:
(1) This is a commonly used form of encryption.
(2) Q is for Quest, obviously, and also for Q (brilliant, I am), the go-to guy for gadgetry in the James Bond serials. If you don't know who Q is . . . I really can't imagine that you wouldn't, but I suppose you never know. I miss Desmond Llewellyn.
(3) For those who must know, this will actually work with most night-vision cameras – an infrared LED will confound infrared cameras, and they're readily available. Use this information responsibly, kids.
Please read and review - I definitely want to know what you all think!