"Where did you ditch your car," Cat asks, leading the way outside and to the old Dodge pickup parked in her driveway.

"Uh, about a mile down the road," Claire answers as she climbs in the car, sandwiched between Ethan and Cat as they join her. Cat throws her bag in the backseat before starting the car and backing out. "It was at the old gas station." Cat smiles a little, driving fast down the dirt road and past the agents now parked a few feet down the road from her house. They must have decided to stay close after she'd destroyed the bugs they had planted. "Was that...?"

"Yep," Ethan nods, watching as the agents speed after them. "Can this thing go any faster?" With a smile, Cat pressed down on the gas and lets out a satisfied sigh. "You missed the rush, didn't you?"

"God, yes," she nods, speeding up more and making a sharp right down another dirt road that would take them to the main road in the small town a few miles away. The agents in their car followed, obviously having trouble seeing as Cat's truck tires stirred up the dirt and kicked it backwards to the windshield. "So, where are we headed?"

"Virginia." That made Cat grip the steering wheel a little tighter, fighting back a smile so she could pass as stern when she shoots a look at the two passengers. Ethan grins at her, inclining his head slightly to signal that her thoughts were correct. They were going to break into somewhere important there, but what was so important that Ethan would want inside? Who knows with Ethan, you could think he's going to do one thing when he's actually going to do the complete opposite, so there was no point in wondering until he decides to spill it. "Is that all right with you, Cat?"

"Whatever it is can't be any harder than when we broke into the FBI headquarters to drag a mole out."

"That was you two," Claire asks in shock. That story was passed around the IMF for years, though the names of the agents responsible had been changed to avoid criminal charges.

"It was our first mission together and E nearly fucked it all up."

"How was I supposed to know that the guy decided to eat with his secretary," Ethan remarks sheepishly. "He ate alone for nearly a month, so I figured he'd be doing the same thing that day."

"He didn't." Cat shakes her head, speeding up some more before making another sharp turn. "He and his secretary decided to devour each other instead and both were very surprised when I came in through the window." Claire laughs at this, looking between the pair in amusement. "I knocked the woman out and told the guy that his wife would find out about his indiscretion if he didn't climb back out the window with me. Needless to say, he came out willingly and was still begging me to remain silent as our guys were hauling him off."

"She's never going to let me live that down, though."

"Hell no, it'll be a family story and everyone will know how bad their Uncle E nearly screwed their mother over."

"Apparently the secretary was a trained assassin and was planning on poisoning our mole."

"And came after us when she woke up and realized what had happened."

"She chased us to Budapest, and we posed as newlyweds in one of the shops she tracked us to. I mean, we pulled on wigs and had masks and everything; she spoke with a bad French accent and I spoke with a German one."

"We would've gotten away with it if she didn't ask what we planned on naming our first child."

"Yeah, we both blurted out two different names and there's no recovering from that."

"So she shot Ethan, and then I shot her."

"My God," Claire says with another laugh. "You two really do come up with the craziest plans! What names did you use for your imaginary baby?"

"I used Adrian and lover boy here used Nate." Cat shakes her head again, joining Claire in her laughter as she speeds through the small town. No cops will chase after her, only one was on duty at the moment and he was stoned off his ass; the only people she had to worry about were the ones chasing her right now. "So, any idea on how we're gonna get in and how we're gonna do it with just the three of us?"

"Oh," Ethan replies, his grin widening," it's not just gonna be the three of us."


Cat hated trains after being forced to travel by train several times by her mother and her hatred hadn't dimmed over the years either. She paces the compartment, filled with nervous energy that prevented her from sitting still for longer than five minutes. She was sure that it was driving Claire insane, but it wouldn't be a big accomplishment considering most people in their line of work were nearly there anyway. They had recruited two other disavowed members of the IMF, and she knew the large black man sitting across from Claire and Ethan personally; Luther Stickell had helped her during her initial training and they'd been off and on friends ever since, though she rarely got the chance to talk to him after IMF kicked him out. She's never had the displeasure of meeting the other man, Franz Krieger, but he seems a little on the slimy side.

"Simple game," Ethan explains, finally breaking the silence," five players. Exfil opens the pocket, cyber ops lifts the wallet."

"Bank," Krieger inquires.

"IMF mainframe."

"Where exactly is it?"

"Langley."

"I'm sorry," Cat interrupts with a nervous laugh," I thought you said we were breaking into Langley." Ethan and Claire just stare at her, one of Ethan's brows cocked up and that infuriating grin on his lips. She nods dumbly for a moment, finally standing still as she looks at her two friends. The expression on Ethan's face was enough to confirm that she wasn't hearing things. "Okay, great, another illegal story to add to my track record. I don't know why I'd have a problem with that." She begins pacing again, wrapping and unwrapping a strand of hair around her finger in a nervous habit she'd picked up from her aunt. Could this really be harder than breaking into the J. Edgar Hoover building? She hoped not considering she had to play a window washer in order to get into the FBI, which wasn't an experience she wanted to try out again. She was fine with heights, but she didn't like standing on a platform more than thirty feet in the air that was wobbling with every gust of wind. Fuck that.

"If we're going to Virginia," Krieger states, standing up," why don't we drop by Fort Knox? I can fly a helicopter right through the lobby and set it down inside the vault. And it would be a hell of a lot easier than breaking into the goddamn CIA."

"Or I could throw you off this train for being a creepy little shit." He scowls down at Cat, but her expression has him backing down. It was an expression all moms were able to do, one that meant 'do what I said or you won't like the consequences.' She's used it on Ethan several times, though it never seems to affect him for some reason. "Trust me, if E says he's going to do it, then he'll find a way to do it without loss of limb." She hoped so, at least. Alexander would not be happy if she returned home with one less arm. Luther was calmer about the whole thing than Krieger, always so collected no matter the job or the risks.

"What are we downloading," he asks.

"Information," Ethan says, his vague answer only making Cat's nervous tugging on her hair increase.

"What kind?"

"Profitable." Well, that just tells us everything, Cat thinks with a scowl in Ethan's direction. He ignored her with ease, his gaze fixed on Luther with a grin still in place. She didn't like that grin, that grin meant he would be tending to his adrenaline addiction.

"Payment on delivery," Claire adds when Ethan doesn't continue. Cat lets out a huff, snatching Krieger's cigarette out of his hand and taking a long drag from it, letting the nicotine fill her lungs before she slowly lets it out. She'd missed cigarettes when she was pregnant with Isaac and this is the first one she's had since she found out she was pregnant. Calming slightly, she goes back to pacing, the cigarette held between two fingers. At least I'm not shaking anymore.

"I don't know," Luther says after a moment, placing his sunglasses in a pocket inside his white suit jacket. Who even bothered with sunglasses on a train when the windows were tinted? "I just don't know." Krieger moves past Cat, snatching the remains of his cigarette back before sitting down and stamping it out in the ash tray.

"This doesn't sound like the Luther Stickell I heard of," Ethan taunts, sitting forward, looking at Claire and then at Cat before meeting Luther's gaze again. "What did they used to call you, the Net Ranger? Phineas Phreak? The only man alive who actually hacked into NATO Ghost Com." He was playing to Luther's ego and that worked almost every time.

"There was never any physical evidence that I had anything to do with that. With that...That exceptional piece of work." He was grinning now, nearly matching Ethan's as he grows excited about the new job.

"You know what else there was never any physical evidence of," Cat asks, sitting on the arm of Claire's seat, her hands pressed against the table. "That two IMF agents broke into the FBI and yanked out a mole." That was the one story that wasn't completely hushed up by the IMF, so it was the one she enjoyed telling the most. "But just like with your little game, it still might have happened." When she knew she had Luther's and Krieger's complete attention, she continues. "NATO is nothing compared to what we need you to do at Langley."

"Y'all are kidding yourselves. Even with top of the line crypto, cray access, STU-III..."

"Krieger can get all of that, can't you," Claire interrupts.

Krieger gives her a look, setting his glass of expensive wine back on the table and resting his elbows on his knees before answering," May take a little time."

"What the hell do you mean," Ethan demands before turning to glance at Claire and Cat again. "And here I was believing what Claire said about him was true." Cat gives a disappointed shrug, shaking her head. Luther, smiling widely, continues listing the things he'd need.

"Thinking-machine laptops," he tells Krieger," I'm talking about the 686 prototypes with the artificial intelligence risk chip."

"Twenty-four hours," Krieger replies. With a laugh, Luther faces the the leader of the operation, his hands clasped together.

"And I get to keep the equipment when we're through."

"Well, it'd be stupid to return something that amazing," Ethan agrees.

"Look, uh, I can't just hack my way inside. See, there's no modem access to the mainframe. It's in what we call the stand-alone, which means I'd have to be physically at the terminal." If Cat knew Ethan, and she liked to think that she did, then he would already have most of this thought through.

"Relax, Luther, it's much worse than you think." What the hell is that supposed to mean? "The terminal is in a black vault lock down and the only person allowed in the room has to pass through a series of security checks. The first is a voiceprint identification and a six-digit access code, but this only gets him into the outer room. Next, he has to pass a retinal scan. And finally, the intrusion countermeasures are only deactivated by a double-electronic keycard which we won't have." Cat pinches the bridge of her nose, trying to figure out Ethan's plan on sneaking in. "Inside the black vault, there are three systems operating whenever the technician is out of the room. The first is sound-sensitive, anything above a whisper sets it off. The second system detects any increase in temperature, even the body heat of an unauthorized person in the room will trigger it if the temperature rises just a single degree. That temperature is controlled by the air conditioning coming in through an overhead duct, thirty feet above the floor."

"Are there any security measures covering the vent," Cat inquires, wondering if she could get her hands on those plans.

"Yeah, they're guarded by a laser net." That could be easily taken care of if they decided to use the vents. "The third system is on the floor, and is pressure-sensitive. The slightest increase in weight will trigger the alarm. If any one of these systems is set off, then they will activate an automatic lock down. Believe me when I tell you, all three systems are state-of-the-art."

"We're gonna crawl through those vents, aren't we?"