Chapter 1: A new case

"We have a case!" announced Cabe, when he came into the garage. He looked quite serious and went straight to Walter to hand him a small flash drive.

At the time Toby was sitting at his workplace, his legs rested casually on the desk, while he was reading one of his psychiatry books. As soon as he heard Cabe's typical announcement, he threw the book aside, jumped up and went to the small table in front of the monitors, where they usually did their briefings.

Happy and Sylvester stopped their rather heated discussion about the changes on the life vest Sly had mentioned earlier. In fact he was relieved that Cabe's entrance had suddenly interrupted their talk, because Happy had taken his simple suggestion a little bit too seriously and was giving him a hard time explaining.

"Good morning," Paige said and when she looked at Cabe's facial expression she added quickly, "do you want some coffee?" She may wasn't a waitress any more, but she knew very well when a man needed his fuel.

The Homeland agent smirked at her: "No, thanks. This case will temper with my blood pressure enough. I shouldn't add coffee to the mix."

"What's up?" Toby asked. "You look like someone stole your favorite toy."

Cabe looked at him even more stressed out than he already was. "This isn't some joke. Our new case comes directly from assistant director Cooper and its top secret. We have to handle this whole mess very professional." When the agent talked he looked specifically at Toby, who was sitting on the table.

"Cabe," Walter announced while he joined the team and various information filled the screens behind the agent's back. "We are a group of professionals now. We handled a lot of risky jobs during the last year, proved our value to the authorities and we are working at peak efficiency."

"Walter's right," Toby added with a smug grin on his face, before he turned into "Dr. Curtis" by saying: "Don't worry so much. You don't get any younger and too much stress can cause burnout and is one contributing factor for cardiac diseases."

Happy, who was next to Toby, poked him hard into the side to shut him up without anyone noticing. But Toby winced and shrieked dramatically. "Ouch! My kidney!"

"Maybe we should concentrate on the case," Paige interjected.

"She is right," Walter agreed and pointed at the screens in front of them. "What's all this about? On the stick you gave me are loads of files about Homeland operations, personnel and reports about possible targets on US soil. I don't see the connection."

"Yeah, Walt has a point," Sly mentioned while he was reading some of the files on Walters laptop. "I already looked at 32 percent of the data, but I can't figure out a logical correlation between these pieces of information."

Team Scorpion looked at Cabe who now started the actual briefing. "There is only one valid connection between the files you are looking at. All of them were stored on a hard drive that belongs to Homeland agent Richard Baker. He is very important for many ongoing Homeland investigations and supervises a bunch of highly trained task forces. Yesterday the hard drive was stolen from his briefcase and when it was found several hours later in a garbage bin it was deleted. No physical evidence was found on the hard drive, the briefcase or the garbage bin. Security cameras didn't record the perpetrator either. That's were we come in."

"Let me get this straight," Happy said after Cabe's short summery. "Homeland wants us to investigate the person who stole the hard drive?"

"Yes, but it is more complicated than that, because we have to work on various quarters at the same time," Cabe explained. "First of all it's very important to get this information back, we have to prevent that this intel is sold to the highest bidder on some dark net side or whatever. Second of all we have to find the person who is behind this security breach. As fast as possible."

"That won't be that big of a deal," Walter interjected immediately. "I am sure Sly and I can write a program to search for evidence of the data you gave us, so we can detect any attempt of selling it or reveal a potential whistleblower. As a consequence we would also find the person who is behind all of this." Before Cabe could respond Walter and Sylvester rearranged their laptops on one of their workplaces and began with coding some algorithms.

"Aren't there any suspects already?" Paige asked. "You can't tell me that there is no ongoing investigation by Homeland or FBI agents regarding this matter."

"Maybe the relevant authorities could mail us some files of their suspects and I could make a quick psychoanalysis to find the perpetrator," Toby suggested eagerly.

"There are no other agents investigating this particular case," Cabe told the team, "because only a handful of people know about this. Namely agent Baker and his head of security, assistant director Cooper, I and now you. Like I mentioned before, it's top secret."

Now Toby narrowed his eyes, while reading Cabe's tense body language. "There is something else," he stated.

"Indeed, there is," Cabe admitted, "and you won't like it."

"Spill it!" Happy demanded, while Cabe shot a glance at Paige to give her a hint that her special skills would be necessary today.

"Baker is an old protégée of Merrick. Cooper requested our assignment to the case, because she doesn't trust him completely. Since last month Baker is forming a new task force with a focus on counterterrorism and the hard drive was stolen within the restricted area of the training facility. Only limited personnel had access to the building where Baker was working with his team. Mainly Baker, his security team, his personal assistant, the team itself and a small group of doctors, psychiatrists and scientists who monitor the mental and physical condition of the participants."

"When you said top secret, you really meant it" Happy stated dryly.

"So what is our task exactly?" Paige asked, a little bit confused by Cabe's unusual secretiveness.

"We are assigned to find the mole" Toby answered full of delight. "That's awesome! We are going to infiltrate this small group of people without telling them our true agenda and everyone within the walls of this highly secured government training facility can be our man – or woman, of course. It will be like our own spy movie!"

In between Toby's little outburst Sylvester stopped typing on his laptop. He had a terrified look on his face, when he addressed Cabe. "Please, tell me Toby is exaggerating and we are not going to put ourselves in close proximity to a potential traitor."

"Oh my god, Sly!" Toby exclaimed. "Don't be such a pansy! This is going to be like a childhood dream come true." Happy rolled her eyes dramatically, even tough there was a hint of a smile on her lips.

"This is no game," Cabe told the shrink seriously. "We have to be very careful with our investigations. Nobody can know about the security breach or our investigation."

While Cabe was lecturing an overly excited Toby, Sylvester tried to calm himself by steady breathing and touching the first aid band he was wearing on his ring finger. Like always thinking of Megan gave him inner strength even if his pulse was a little bit off.

"Focus, guys", Paige intervened. "If we really want to be successful we need a waterproof plan this time."

"Paige is right", Walter agreed and began to state some more facts. "Cabe, we need detailed information on all people who had access to agent Baker and his briefcase."

"You already have everything Homeland has on them on the flash drive I gave you," Cabe answered.

Walter nodded and went on: "Toby, you are going to study them and prepare a profile on any member of this project. Paige you can help him as well to figure out who we can connect with."

Toby immediately grabbed Walters laptop and sent the data to his own, while his boss told Happy: "We have to study the layout of the building and the surrounding area and we also have to pack some equipment to enhance the surveillance."

"I'm on it", she answered and Cabe gave her some blueprints and other documents regarding the training facility.

"Sly and I are going to finish the program to track the pieces of information and we can also try to find out if someone messed with the surveillance on sight", Walter finished.

The whole team was busy with their handed tasks. Sly and Walter were coding as fast as they could. Happy studied the blueprints and from time to time she put some tools into a large bag to take them on the mission. Toby was still very excited and went eagerly through the files of the employees and task force members to find a weak spot. Paige sat next to him with the other half of the documents, when Cabe said gravely: "There is something else."

In that exact moment Toby spotted a very familiar name, when he opened the document on the medical staff. "Holy crap", he exclaimed.

Paige looked wondering at him and his bewildered expression, when she spotted the name as well. "Amy Berkstead-Carter, leading psychiatrist" was written on top of the page he was reading.