Chapter One
Alex peeked around the corner of the building, shuttering with the cold wind blowing. It was early May, but someone had forgotten to tell Mother Nature that. It felt like October or November instead. She knew it was necessary to defeat Amanda, now that she was looking at her agent- a young woman only a little older than her, but very similar in looks- it unnerved he a little to kidnap her. She had only recently returned from Amanda's kidnapping herself and it was still fresh in her mind.
"Alex!" Sean's sudden shout once again got her attention.
Looking up she saw Sean across from her. He was all business, as always for a mission. "Sorry." She blushed in reply.
"We've got to focus." Sean reminded her. "This is one of Amanda's agents. It isn't going to be easy to take her down."
"I'm ready." Alex insisted, still quite nervous on the inside.
When they had found the Intel on Amanda's agent, well, when Birkhoff had found it to be completely honest, they had immediately formulated a plan to grad her. As she got into position- they were going to surround her- she ran through the procedure in her head. When she saw Sean in place across from her, she signaled she was ready and they both stood, guns drawn.
Their target was Lacy miller, Amanda's right-hand girl. Birkhoff had gotten wind of an operation she was going to be sent solo on it. The mission was to an empty facility so it would only be Alex and Sean against her. They definitely liked those odds. Amanda would have no idea they knew about the mission or her agent, so it was the perfect mission. "Freeze- don't move or we shoot!" Sean suddenly yelled at the agent.
Alex had to stifle a laugh. The way Sean had said that and the tone he had said it in made him sound like a police officer or the FBI agents they so frequently ran into. She made sure Lacy didn't see her laugh to maintain her tough girl image as they grabbed her. As expected she immediately kicked at Sean's gun, trying to know it from his hand.
Reacting quickly, Alex grabbed a dart gun from her pocket and pulled the trigger right as Lacey kicked the gun from Sean. When the tranquilizer hit Lacy, she almost immediately crumpled to the ground. "I fear Birkhoff may have put a little too much in the dart." Sean grabbed his gun, knowing the tranquilizer should not have worked so quickly.
"Either way, it worked." Alex answered, picking up Lacy's gun.
Sean and Alex picked Lacy up and carried her towards their SUV. The scanned for trackers, not wanting to have Amanda find her that way. Their SUV had a signal dampener, but they also wanted to be safe once they got her back to Division. Luckily they found her tracker easily and it was in her hip, so they easily got it out. Patching her up, Sean and Alex climbed into the SUV to head back. "Ops come in." Alex keyed her microphone as Sean started to drive.
"This is ops. How did it go?" Michael's voice came over the com.
"Everything was according to plan." Alex reported. "We have the target."
"Fantastic." Alex could hear the enthusiasm in Michael's voice. "Bring her in."
It wasn't a long trip back to Division and before long they found themselves back in the car port. As they drove in Birkhoff was waiting for them, a stretcher ready to bring her to her holding cell. "Hey guys. Glad everything went smoothly." Birkhoff greeted them.
"Piece of cake. Kind of surprising for one of Amanda's agents." Sean replied as he opened the rear door to get Amanda's agent out.
Sean and Birkhoff got her out of the SUV and cuffed her hands and her feet to make sure she couldn't escape or go on a rampage within Division. "You overdid the trank a little." Alex reported to Birkhoff as the three started towards her cell.
"Sorry." He replied, "It's been awhile. I wanted to be safe."
"Yeah, well next time research more, huh?" Alex laughed. "We don't want to kill anyone."
"Yeah, yeah princess. Maybe next time I will let you do it yourself." Birkhoff replied.
Alex responded by sticking out her tongue. It wasn't very long before they got into the elevator, took her down to the confinement cells. Once she was safely locked away, Michael, Nikita and Ryan finally arrived. "Everything looks like it went well." Michael commented when he saw the agent locked away.
"As well as expected." Sean replied.
"Did she say anything? Alert Amanda" Nikita had the next question.
"No. She had no time." Alex answered. "She saw us- well Sean alerted her to us, then she kicked his gun away and I got her with the trank."
"No bugs? Trackers?" Birkhoff questioned.
"She is clean." Sean replied.
"Fantastic. Now we just wait for her to wake up?" Ryan asked.
"It may be awhile." Alex teased Birkhoff again, "Birkhoff went a little crazy on the tranquilizer."
"Okay, okay, I overdosed her a little! I'm sorry!" Birkhoff replied, "Geez isn't a guy entitled to a mistake?"
"Sure Nerd." Nikita slapped his shoulder, "but you don't normally make mistakes."
They decided that Alex would stay with Lacy until she woke and once she did, she would call everyone else. It took about an hour when Alex peaked over her Kindle to see the girl starting to wake. Keying her com, she said, "Hey guys, you should get down here."
Both Nikita and Michael confirmed as Alex stood up to greet her. "Hi Lacy, nice to meet you." Alex greeted her once she was fully awake and looking in Alex's direction.
"Who the hell are you/" Lacy gruffly replied.
"Alex." Alex relied, walking along the plastic separating them. "Surely Amanda has told you who I am."
"Who is Amanda?" Lacy responded. "What are you talking about?"
Smiling to herself, Alex knew the agent would deny her knowledge of the situation. "Oh let's just be honest. We know you are Amanda's second in command- otherwise we would not have found you and grabbed you when we did."
"You are making some kind of mistake. I have no idea what you are talking about." Lacy protested.
Rolling her eyes, Alex's head snapped back to the door as she heard it open, Nikita and Michael walking in. Alex walked over to them and Nikita asked quietly, "So how is it going?"
"Pleading the fifth." Alex whispered in reply.
"Doesn't surprise me." Michael answered.
"How do we break her?" Alex questioned. "I know we are not the type to torture."
"It doesn't matter." Michael answered. "If she doesn't give any information, then we just don't get information, but we still have Amanda's second in command."
"Maybe we can break her by kindness." Nikita laughed.
"I doubt that if she's been working with Amanda." Michael answered, "But I guess we can certainly try."
"Hey Lacy, is there anything we can get for you? Anything to eat or drink?" Nikita walked up to the plastic.
"I just want to go home!" Lacy protested. "I don't know who you are or what you want, but you are making a mistake."
Nikita turned around and the three of them looked at each other. It was going to be a challenge- they were going to have to come up with something to get her to open up with something to them. "Let's see what Birkhoff can dig up on her by facial recognition. See if it can give us any information to use." Michael suggested.
The group left the guards to watch her and headed to Birkhoff's office. As they walked in, Birkhoff was clearly surprised to see the group of them all together coming into his office. "What can I do for this mob?" he asked them with a laugh, his fingers still tapping away at his keyboard.
"We can't get to her to talk." Michael announced, "We need to see what we can find out about her from facial recognition or her booking fingerprints to get some information to try to get her to talk."
With a nod, Birkhoff slid his chair to a different computer where he once again started typing. "Her fingerprints are scanned in, let me run those." He rolled over to another station and typed a little more, then a third station he pulled up her picture and ran another search. "Shadow Net is working it's magic."
Michael rolled his eyes. He still, after all these years, could not stand that name. Nikita and Alex stood there watching as Birkhoff researched. On the first computer it searched INTERPOL records, trying to find a record of the fingerprints. The second was pulling records by her name; the third was pulling up surveillance video from around the world. "The video will give us an idea of when she joined Amanda, where she was before that, all those kind of things." Birkhoff explained. "Fingerprint and name search will give us her history."
"How long is this going to take?" Alex asked.
"Are you in a hurry?" Birkhoff glanced at her in reply.
Alex just shook her head. "Just curious."
"Depends on the history she has." Birkhoff replied, "Shouldn't be more than a few hours."
"Great." Nikita replied, "We wait."