A/N: Our apologies for not posting on time. RL just got entirely too real for a moment. Perhaps Larry tried to poison one of us for telling all his secrets. ;-) We hope you will agree it was worth the wait. Thank you all for your enthusiasm for this twisted tale and our other story, Be Brave Little Angel. We appreciate all your support of our efforts to keep it burning! So cool to see a tweet from BurnNoticeUSA and JeffreyDonovan during #BurnerClub while we watched the Season 3 finale this week.

We have subtitled this sixth installment of our story "The Seduction of Michael Westen."

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Tiddis Ruins, Beni Hamidene, Algeria 1992

Whether it's betraying their country or committing a murder, getting someone to make a life-altering mistake is less about logic than passion. You have to create an environment fueled by emotion, make them rely on instinct, and make them believe they're in a do-or-die situation.

"What the hell?" Michael cursed and then twisted around, looking up at the senior field officer as Larry jerked the M14 out of his grip.

"Damn it, Kid, you blew it! The bastard musta spotted you! Get down there and flush him out now and I'll deal with that little rat Dervishi."

The younger spy scrabbled to his feet, still confused as to what had actually happened. The former Ranger was positive he had been out of sight. How the hell could he have seen me?

"GO! Move it! He's onto us. We have to finish this here and now. If they get away, the whole operation is blown and it's your head on Kopec's desk! GO!"

Michael scanned the sloping ground that offered little in the way of cover between their position and the armed Algerian, who was equally well trained and hidden away in the ruins.

"Are you deaf, Kid? It's us or them and they're getting away! I'll cover you, GO!" Larry brought the sniper rifle up and shot at the other figure, a fleeing Albanian arms merchant, who was giving a whole new meaning to the term gun runner.

With his senior partner's orders ringing in his ears, the ex-military man scrambled down the ridge line, his feet slipping and sliding over the rubble made by the crumbling construction as bullets flew past him. Spotting a clearing to the valley floor, Michael leapt the final six feet to the ground as the last of the Algerian's ammunition impacted all around him, narrowly missing his head. The spy drew the Vektor Z88 semi-automatic handgun he'd been supplied with and ran towards the last place he'd seen the other operative before the man had disappeared amongst the labyrinth of ancient bricks and piled high dirt, grit and sand.

Slowing his steps, the young agent entered the ruins, his whole body humming as every sense was on full alert. He had no illusions as to how dangerous the man he was hunting was. He had read up on their target, Djamel Zindane, before the operation and the Algerian Special Operations officer was a highly skilled killer with plenty of notches in his holster.

His military training was screaming at him that conducting a search of such terrain without full armor was idiocy. But a faint trickle of stones falling sent him creeping forward at a faster pace, his eyes scanning all the nooks and crannies big enough to hide a man.

The sudden crack of a sniper rifle took Michael's attention away only for a second. But as it turned out, that second of inattention was all Zindane had been waiting for. The next thing Agent Westen knew, he had walked straight into an ambush. Two heavily booted feet caught him squarely in the back, sending the dark haired man to his hands and knees, his South African made knockoff handgun spinning out of his grip, landing six feet away along with his sunglasses which he had bought in the market in Tunis less than three days ago.

When a pro plans an ambush, they capitalize on the element of surprise. They attack aggressively so their opponent has to react from a place of weakness.

Acting on pure survival instinct, the American was on his feet in an instant, but not for long as another powerful kick sent him back to the ground. But at least this time Michael managed to bring his opponent down with him. Getting a hand on his adversary's pants leg, he managed to knock the man down, unfortunately right on top of himself.

Blow followed blow as the two men fought to end the other's life, grappling and rolling across the dusty stone littered ground. They both were taking a helluva beating, but he'd had plenty of those and there was no way he was going to be the one to die here today.

The Algerian was older and heavier, their position on the ground to his advantage. But Michael had speed on his side and a lifetime of combat experience, from a home life which resembled a war zone to actual battlefields across the globe as a Ranger and now as a spy. The American operative used that burning rage he carried around inside himself at all times to get upright again and fists, elbows, knees and feet were all used to try to pummel the other guy into submission. But Michael was oblivious to the pain being inflicted upon him.

However, giving away close to fifty pounds and several inches, it wasn't long before the young spy found himself pinned to the ground. With sharp rocks and the remnants of bricks digging into his back, he could only gasp and struggle as the Algerian tried to choke him.

"Who are you?" the older man growled, tightening his grip when his enemy didn't answer.

His vision was fading in and out and his lungs felt like they were going to burst at any second. But none of that stopped the dark haired man from fighting back. Reaching down his body, his fingers found the hilt of his knife. As soon as his hand closed about the handle, he drew it from the sheath and plunged it straight into his attacker's thigh.

Zindane yelled in pain and fell to the side while Michael took several deep gulps of air through his bruised and swollen throat. On their feet again, the two men cautiously circled each other, both now armed with wickedly sharp blades. His adversary was limping heavily as blood continued to pour from his shredded thigh.

There's a cold math to blood loss: the more you lose, the weaker you get. And when you're on a clock like that, it pays to act no matter how desperate your plan might be because, if you wait, you may not have the chance…

Michael knew his opponent didn't have the luxury of taking his time. Soon he would be too weak from blood loss and shock. If he let his eyes drift away from the other man, leaving him an opening to attack… And because the wounded man had so little time left, the special operations officer did exactly what Agent Westen hoped he would.

For a few brief seconds, the two battered men were locked in close against each other, guard hands seeking to hold back the knife that was attempting to end their lives. In a rush of desperate strength, the Algerian pushed the blade towards the American's throat…

()()()()()

Skopje, Macedonia – Six Weeks Earlier

An interrogation typically begins with deprivation and discomfort. That means the thermostat cranked all the way up, or all the way down, depending on the climate, uncomfortable furniture, dim lights that strain the eyes and, if there's food, not much of it. It's all about making sure you're exhausted and vulnerable before your interrogator even sets foot in the door.

Tom Card's lecture of what to expect during time in captivity with hostile forces had echoed in Michael's head as he had stood watching his new partner demonstrate some techniques that were not, he'd been fairly certain, in the CIA manual. The difference between "What they teach you on the Farm and what happens in the real world," Larry had assured him.

Vladimir Orborski's time in the basement of an Agency safe house had certainly started out by the book. Since Mr. Westen had been the one to improvise their cover as Russians in the employ of one of the former GRU general's rivals, Larry had made the argument that they should be the ones doing the questioning and that Michael should take the lead initially.

Much to her former trainee's amazement, Station Chief Kopec had agreed.

Getting useful information is about creating a new reality for the interrogation subject with no hope of escape or freedom. You control every aspect of their world: if they eat, if they sleep, even whether it's day or night. When it's time to ask questions, you want them disoriented, anxious, wondering who you are and what you can do to them. You have to make them understand that their entire future their hopes, their dreams, and every breath they will ever take from then on, it all depends on one thing: Talking.

Michael had followed what he had been taught to the letter: isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, followed by sensory bombardment in stress positions. Larry had given him a crash course on how to perform water boarding in a dark room. Two weeks after his surprise trip from his retirement home in Havana, Comrade Orborski had been very unhappy, but not quite ready to talk yet. GRU officers as a rule didn't crack easily and Vlad was no exception.

Interrogating a captive isn't just about what you know about them, it's about what they about you. If they think you're a foreign intelligence agency, they'll behave on way. If they think you're rivals, they'll behave another. It's a choice you only get to make once, so you have to do your homework and get it right the first time.

Mr. Sizemore had then made the argument that it was time to convince their target that they were who they said they were, which meant acting like the pair of brutal thugs they were pretending to be. That was when Michael education on interrogation had truly begun.

I know you've heard this one, Kid. "Violence perceived is violence achieved." I bet Card taught you that you don't want someone screaming, you want them answering questions. You know what? I've found that people are a lot more cooperative about answering questions once they've had a chance to scream.

Because if anyone had an encyclopedic knowledge of torture techniques employed the various clandestine and criminal groups throughout the former Soviet Union and how to imitate them, it was Senior Agent Larry Sizemore, which was probably why his junior partner had been instructed to block the cameras at various times and various angles, all the while making it look like happenstance occurring during the heat of moment.

Well, more accurately, many, many heated moments...

In a weakened state, you wanna avoid pressure on your carotid artery. It blocks the blood flow to your brain and you black out in four seconds. Another new trick Larry taught him.

"Okay, help me get him up," his mentor instructed, taking one side of the nearly naked man who had collapsed face first onto the solid metal table in front of him. Having no means to stop himself with his bleeding wrists tightly bound behind his back, his arms painfully stretched almost out of their sockets, the former Soviet military man had hit hard.

A good interrogator paints a picture of the world outside for a detainee. Whatever he's holding on to, you take it away. Those had been Tom Card's words. But Mr. Westen wondered if this training officer had really understood the true meaning of whatever.

Sitting the unconscious and beaten man upright again, Michael could almost see his own breath in the freezing cold stone room and Orborski's skin had taken on an almost purplish hue during the last few hours wherein Larry had explained what it would take for the general to remedy his new reality and achieve more comfortable living conditions.

Under ideal circumstances, a good interrogation unfolds slowly. But circumstances are not always ideal. If you're operating on a clock sometimes you have to get right in your enemy's face and turn up the heat. Mr. Sizemore was a master of turning up the heat, subzero or not.

"Listen up, Kid. When Vlad here comes to, you're going to let him that we're done with him."

A blade sailed through the air and Michael caught it neatly. He looked quizzically from his partner to their captive to the karmabit in his hand. He waited quietly for Larry to give him the second part of his instructions. He knew he wasn't supposed to kill their prisoner outright, but the young spy wasn't sure exactly how far to take the illusion that the unfortunate Russian was about to suffer a very painful and slow death.

The threat of rendition is usually more persuasive than the fear of immediate torture. For prisoners who want to believe that they've hit rock bottom, the idea that their circumstances could get even worse is a powerful motivator. It's kind of like the grass always being greener, only in reverse.

"The two biggest kids on the block in the arms game back home in Russia are Leonid Minin, who runs things through a Russian arms manufacturing company called Aviatrend, and Viktor Bout, who had the Kremlin in his pocket. I happen to know that one of our friend here's biggest rivals before he retired was in bed with Bout. So, my guess is the general got his guns from Minin. We let it slip that we might be persuaded to sell him to Minin instead of taking him to Viktor Anatolyevich Bout and I think Vlad will to try to save his own ass."

Being a spy, you have to get comfortable with the idea of people doing bad things for good reasons; doing good things for bad reasons. You do the best you can.

He'd been in plenty of knife fights as a teenager when that had been the weapon of choice back in the day, but the senior spy had been teaching Michael how to inflict the most pain with the least amount of actual damage at Comrade Orborski's expense the last day or two.

It would be most effective if you would cut the carotid artery just under the left ear if you want him to bleed out quickly. Otherwise, you need to cut a shallow line, avoiding the major arteries until you're ready to finish them off. Now, if you want them to die slowly…

Larry's lecture was echoing in his ears as he pressed the wickedly curved weapon to the helpless man's throat, causing a tiny trail of blood to dribble down from the point of contact with the blade. He stared into the tormented face of his captive and played his part. It took a beat longer than it should have to stop when their detainee tried shouting at him.

And he saw a look of approval in his partner's eyes when he straightened up and snarled in Russian that the man had better not be wasting their time. The general was trying to tell them who in Aviatrend's organization had supplied him the arms and who to come take him off their hands for a price, but the delirious desperate man could barely speak at this point.

One of the hardest things to do in a fight is to make it look like you're trying to kill someone without doing permanent damage. They don't teach any half-moves in combat training. There are moves designed to kill and maim as efficiently as possible.

Even though Michael knew that two CIA agents were going to come through the door to rescue Vladimir Orborski from his Russian captors as soon as Larry had all the names he needed of the man's suppliers, it hadn't stopped the rush of adrenaline that had coursed through his veins as weapons were pointed in his direction and the battle was on!

()()()

"Westen, what did you think you were doing?"

"Sambo, it's Russian mixed martial arts. You can't fight like an American if you're supposed to be a Russian-"

"I know what Sambo is," Rayna Kopec told him dryly. "What I want to know is did you really think it was necessary to break Stanwyck's nose to sell your cover?"

"Hey, the Kid was just doing his job," Larry interrupted, laughing lightly. "And the CIA's new best friend is so grateful to be rescued that you, my dear, now have a former Soviet head honcho singing like a canary in your tight little clutches right now."

Larry could tell the Station Chief was loath to admit it. The pair had succeeded in breaking Orborski and getting them the intelligence they needed to start tracking the shipments going from one of Russia's biggest arms manufacturer's into to various paramilitary groups in the Balkans as well as into embargoed African hot spots all over that continent.

"Alright, you've got the reports. Find out when Aviatrend's next shipment is headed out to somewhere illegal and you'll follow where it goes—after we discuss where you're going."

"Whatever you say, Chief," Agent Sizemore smirked at her qualifier. The little woman wasn't slow on the uptake. She'd already figured out that he was used to running his own show, which made reminding her that he knew who was really in charge all the more fun.

"Great job, Michael," the older man enthused. He clapped the junior agent on the shoulder, causing his apprentice to stumble slightly as they left their boss' office to head back to their housing to get cleaned up. "You've broken your first GRU cherry and a general at that. You are on the fast track here, Kid. Too bad I was playing dead," he chuckled low, a nasty sound. "I would have loved to see you pop that pup in the snout."

The kid must have felt a little bad about getting carried away with playing his cover from his expression. But no matter, the junior agent had performed better than he had expected. Larry had had his doubts, from time to time, whether Michael would follow his instructions.

He knew he couldn't push his protégé too far too fast, but there was that well spring of darkness within the younger man which just needed the right encouragement to come out. There had been some bumps in the road, a few missteps, especially with the waterboarding, but overall his apprentice had taken to running his first interrogation surprisingly well.

"You had to do it," Larry advised. They headed through the office, where the analysts who were working on the intel had given the two operatives a wide berth. "You couldn't let the idiot compromise weeks of work because he doesn't know how to do his damned job."

Michael nodded his silent agreement. Apparently his mind already turning to task of finding their next target, although his mentor could see that the kid was not missing the looks that were being shot his way. He had never cared for the Station's Chief's new trainee and neither did Mr. Westen it seemed. It had taken just a slip of the wrist for him to miss and...

Yeah... he could work with that.

"I'm proud of ya, Michael. Now let's see how fast you can plow through that intel and get us a name and shipment. Then I'll really teach ya something about life in the real world.

()()()()()()

Porti Vlorë, Albania– Four Weeks Earlier

Intelligence gathering tends to involve a lot of number crunching. Analysts have computers especially programmed to turn raw data into useful information. But, as with repairing a radio or dressing a wound, in the field it's important to be able to do the same work with what you can find in a third-rate hotel room.

Larry had watched as he had spread the reports over every flat surface in their three-room flat with a shared bath at the end of the hall. As accommodations went, it apparently had been substandard to what the senior spy had been accustomed to, but having slept in cars in his youth and worse places as a Ranger and a new agent in Afghanistan, Michael had only been marginally aware of his surroundings. His mind had been intensely focused on the information that had been laid out before him.

It takes a while to learn how to read intelligence files. They start as stacks of unrelated documents, but stick with it long enough and a pattern can emerge. Of course, not all intelligence is reliable, which normally means when you're done checking the file you have to check the source, although he doubted that Orborski had lied to them in this instance.

"Minin is moving shipments through a middle man in Romania, who has a front company, Talbot Transport. Talbot moves the arms through Serbia and Kosovo, where enough guns fall off the truck to keep everyone happily killing each other before the rest leave outta Porti Vlorë in Albania for parts unknown," he had declared after a several days of concentration.

Mr. Sizemore's praise had been effusive and even Station Chef Kopec had seemed impressed with his work. With less opposition than he had been anticipating, he and the senior spy had been given a car and sent off through the mountains of western Macedonia. Winding their way up, down and around before crossing the border with Albania, the two agents had arrived in the port city on the Adriatic Sea eight hours later, thanks to their papers and the right amount of local currencies to grease any itchy palms they might have encountered.

Identifying an illicit weapons shipment from a specific country isn't as simple as checking manifests or spotting a flag on a ship. It's too easy for arms dealers to fake both. But phony paperwork and false flags won't stop crew members from telling you the straight story. Chat up the right deckhand, and you can learn where every shady piece of cargo came on board. There's no substitute for human intelligence. Card's advice had been spot on.

So, after a long day's drive, there had been an even longer night of buying rounds and chatting up the Albanian equivalent of long shore men on the pretext of being in town looking for work. Their quickly assembled covers as ethnic Albanians from Greece helping to integrate them easily in with local assets cultivated in a country that was in an economic and social free fall, like much the rest of the Soviet Bloc since end of the communism.

One of the biggest challenges in covert operations is working with civilian assets. It's often as much about keeping the asset from falling apart as it is about gathering intelligence... kind of like babysitting… only with a gun to your head. Card had laughed at his own joke.

But there'd been a lot of guns involved in Larry's brand of babysitting assets. He'd been a little dazed by the way the covert operative could move seamlessly from being an affable new best friend to someone's worst nightmare in the blink of an eye. There seemed to be no end to the man's ability to read people and situations, instinctively knowing whether cash, a kind word or causing extreme pain was the right way to handle any given situation, though Mr. Sizemore's preferred method involved more brutal coercion than benevolent coaxing.

And Agent Westen, as he had been so often urged by his mentor, had watched and learned.

By the end of the week, they had a target. Valon Dervishi was a man with interests and connections from Tripoli to Tunis to Algiers. Mr. Sizemore had relocated them to the Hotel Lux Vlore, an accommodation more in line with Larry's liking and they'd shifted identities again, becoming a couple of international men of mystery, businessmen whose business was brokering deals among the rich and infamous while they awaited their orders, which the senior operative was confident would be to follow Mr. Dervishi to his next stop in Africa.

You'd be surprised how often covert operatives pose as "international men of mystery." Fantasies about glamorous, covert ops can be extremely useful to exploit; though some secret agent fantasies are more useful than others.

Had Michael not been enjoying the contrast of living in a higher end hotel and perks of being on an Agency expense budget with a spy of Larry's stature, he might have had opportunity to wonder why Mr. Sizemore seemed to be calling the shots on their mission. As it was, the younger man hadn't enjoyed the company of so many beautiful women in such a style since his days of trolling the Art Deco Districts Miami night life not quite a decade ago, the older man having thoughtfully booked them into separate rooms both with king-sized beds.

No matter how good your cover identity is, you've got to sell it, and that's not always easy. Sometimes you have to decide just how committed you are to pretending you are who you say you are. Not only did his partner approve, but Larry had seemed to enjoy seeing to it they'd been having a good time, although the senior spy had insisted that this was all part of their cover needed to get near a man of the Albanian gun runner's power and influence.

Covert ops has its perks. You travel, make your own hours and expense most of your meals. Of course, lots of people will want you dead someday. It's a matter of trade-offs.

"This is the life, Kid," his colleague informed him with a broad smile. "Tailored suits, private planes, all on an expense budget and we get paid to make the world a better place." The mocking edge of his laughter was very subtle. "Sure beats the hell outta jumping outta helicopters into some damn hot jungle LZ in the dead of the night, doesn't it, Michael?"

There's a reason they call the spy trade "the hall of mirrors." You can never know for sure whether you're in control or you're being played. If you do it long enough, you learn to trust your instincts. But sometimes, the closer you are, the harder it is to know where you stand.

As they settled into the company-provided Learjet 36 that would take them from Vlorë to Rome, where they would pick up their target again on a commercial flight, albeit in first class seats, out of the Fiumicino Airportinto the Tunis-Carthage Airport, Mr. Westen found himself agreeing with the older man. He knew his own rapidly rising status had as much to do with whom he was partnered as who he was, but the ex-Ranger was determined to prove that he was an asset to the Agency in his own right and he was on track to do just that.

()()()()()

Tunis, Tunisia – Two Weeks Earlier

Grabbing someone who travels with protection is about finding the moments when they're least protected. Fortunately, even the most paranoid insist on doing some things alone.

And that is how Valon Dervishi had found himself suddenly devoid of the company of the escort Mr. Sizemore had hired to entertain the Albanian for the evening, had discovered himself to be equally devoid of the companionship of his body guards and had found himself in an abandoned building on the outskirts of Tunis. As it turned out, their current captive enjoyed his time in the company of the two Company Men far less than the hapless Vladimir Orborski had. Unfortunately for the arms dealer, he had not been locked in the basement of a CIA safe house with cameras monitoring every move of his captors, which had resulted in a quicker but far more painful interrogation than the one the Russian had received.

When you're interrogating someone who thinks they have nothing left to lose, you have to give them another reason to talk. If you're looking to motivate someone who's cut off, alone and convinced they're going to die, you can't beat revenge.

Whether it was his discomfort with the increasingly bloody cross-examination or just an inspiration born of desperation to complete the next phase of their mission, Michael decided on convincing the man that his buyer in Africa had contacted his supplier in Russia directly and they were from the home office investigating who in the supply chain had talked.

And while Larry seemed annoyed at first over being interrupted while he worked, the older agent had quickly grasped where his junior partner had been going with his gambit. Their unrehearsed but well played ploy of talking about their employers' business in front of their prisoner had rather quickly resulted in their detainee giving them the name of his end user.

Whenever you get a fresh piece of intelligence in the field, you have to decide carefully who you're going to share it with. Because every asset you talk to, agency you work with and resource you update brings along a new set of problems. Card's lecture on shifting nature of field operations had proven all too true and their hostage soon found himself bound and gagged albeit with his wounds bound up under a heavy tarp in the bed of their Toyota Hilux

It had been a long drive in the dusty darkness to the nearest available CIA safe house while they decided what to do with their latest revelation. Michael had always been capable when it came to thinking on his feet, a hard-won legacy of growing up with Frank Westen, but he had to reluctantly admit that there was a bigger picture in play that he hadn't fully grasped.

The Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) – or Department of Intelligence and Security as it was currently known – had been led by one man, General Mohamed Mediene, also known as Toufik, since its most recent incarnation. It had been used by those in power to combat the threat of an elected Islamist government when the Islamic Salvation Front's surprising domination of the first two rounds of free legislative elections in December 1991 had caused the authorities to intervene in January of 1992, canceling the elections.

The resulting civil insurgency between the Front's armed wing, the aptly named Armed Islamic Group, and the national security forces of the ruling FLN had created a market for arms, of which their new target, Djamel Zidane, had apparently been working both ends.

A highly placed member of the Algerian special operations community who was obtaining weapons for his country and current enemies of his country seemed like someone who needed reporting to the present authorities. But Mr. Sizemore had indicated that there might be more to it than met the eye. Certain types of government had been known in the past to create apparent threats in order to have an excuse for seizing power. Larry let him know they needed to check in, which completed surprised Michael given the senior spy's penchant for making decisions on his own as to what was in the best interests of the mission.

But as he helped his mentor unload the Agency's newest albeit unhappy asset, Michael Westen couldn't quite keep the smile from his latest success in the field off of his face.

()()()()()

El Kala, Algeria – One Week Earlier

Mr. Sizemore couldn't have been more pleased, short of a gratifying homicide, which he could still technically commit within the next 24-72 hours. He had contacted the little woman back in Skopje and she had actually proved useful. Local CIA assets had confirmed that Djamel Zidane had been suspected of double dealing, although there had been no solid proof. Toufik would be delighted to discover the truth on the Agency's dime. Should the rumors prove truth, then the head of the DRS would surely have been equally pleased to have the Company take care of his personnel problem for him. The CIA hadn't wanted local assets involved in the operation and Larry had the perfect answer to everyone's problem.

A quick call to Mr. Meachem and the orders had filtered down relatively quickly through the chain of command. He and Michael were just eating dinner while finishing their second day in their Algerian safe house when they had received the communication he'd expected from HQ Macedonia that their orders were to terminate with extreme prejudice one Agent Zidane.

"Go ahead and feed our guest," the senior spy requested. "We'll be needing him for the next part of the operation. Bring him out here when you're done. We need to chat."

He was fairly certain Michael was puzzled by the relative kindness they had shown their prisoner thus far. Larry had allowed his apprentice to indulge his Boy Scout nature, and skill set, sewing up all the little holes he had cut into their captive the other day. Then they had loaded the arms merchant into the bed of their Agency-provided pick-up truck for another very uncomfortable ride under a tarp but mercifully after dark into the neighboring country.

The shaken but silent Mr. Dervishi was told in small but no uncertain words with a mixture of encouraging smiles and serious scowls what his new role in life would be, otherwise it would be a very short life indeed. The Albanian was informed that he had been cleared of having any part in this very bad business. However, the men they worked for back in Russia were very disappointed that he had apparently failed to cover his tracks sufficiently such that his buyer had been able to contact his supplier in Romanian. Talbot would be dealt with; but, as an atonement for his sins, Valon would be arranging a meeting with his buyer.

Mr. Sizemore put a map of the Port of Algeria in front of the formerly enterprising weapons dealer and explained exactly where he would lure Djamel Zidane so that his young friend there could dispose of him with a sniper rifle. Once the soon-to-be-ex-Algerian Special Ops Agent was dead, Mr. Dervishi could walk, well more accurately run away, and their employers would be contacting him to resume their business arrangements. Should the unemployed arms dealer fail to complete his assignment to demonstrate his loyalty...

Larry didn't have to finish the sentence to know that he had clearly made himself understood. He held a cell phone out to their new asset and then nodded towards the dark haired man sitting behind their prisoner. Mr. Westen chambered a round and pressed the pistol into the back of the man's skull. "Make the call and no deviating from the script."

The call completed and Valon Dervishi being secured back in his cell for the night by his partner, the CIA's premier wet work specialist began to plan their next move, making a shopping list to be delivered by their local assets on the ground before the end of the next day or there would surely be hell to pay. He loved it when a plan came together for him personally and professionally. He knew Michael's military record said he was a top sniper.

Now, he would see what would happen when he took that rifle away from his protégée It was time to learn if his apprentice had the guts and the skill to kill up close and personal with his bare hands. As a Ranger, he'd had the benefit of lots of equipment and back-up.

Now, his mentor would see what Michael Westen was made of without either.

()()()

It's important to keep your guard up at the end of an operation. Once you've found your target, won their trust and made a deal, it's natural to wanna relax a bit. But, the fact is, it's exactly the time to be most careful. When money's on the line and things go wrong, they tend to go very, very wrong. That bit of Tom Card's advice still seemed like solid wisdom.

Because from where Michael was sitting behind the wheel of the Toyota Hilux, trying to keep an eye on their criminal asset without getting too close as the cramped streets of the old city became more congested with human and animal traffic as well as vehicles, things looked like they could go very wrong at any minute despite the precautions taken.

Spies don't keep a lot of prisoners. When you hold someone, you only learn what they tell you. Let them go and you can learn what they do and where they go.

"You don't have to get too close, Kid," Larry advised as they followed their fleeing felon from the streets of El Kala towards the west. The older man had a large electronic device balanced on his knees, cumbersome for something allegedly so state of the art. "We've got trackers in his cell phone, in his wallet, in his shoes, in his belt and on the car he's in. So we don't need to worry about losing him. We need to worry about him spotting our truck."

"In that case, I'm surprised you didn't manually insert one," Mr. Westen remarked wryly.

"Maybe I'll let you hold 'em down next time we try it," the senior spy smirked.

The bulky device, similar to the prototype "string ray" machines used by the FBI, was the latest tech toy in the tracking realm developed for the CIA. It had a longer range and greater accuracy, which was good in that their target was preparing to head out onto the plains. Unlike the busy streets of the small Algerian port, there wasn't much place to hide on the winding roads once both of the vehicles were out of the major traffic.

Just because someone believes you are who you say you are, that doesn't mean he'll do what you want him to do.

And Valon, who's name meant seething in Albanian, was apparently doing just that, because the arms dealer was definitely deviating from the plan and Michael could only attribute it to the fact that the man must have been furious with whomever had gotten him into that little encounter with his manufacturer. But Larry seemed confident, even though the gun runner was now turning his stolen 4x4 off the main road, nowhere near the city of Algiers.

Once their target had gone off the reservation so to speak, Mr. Sizemore seemed to no longer care that their unwilling asset was not doing what he was supposed to. In fact, it seemed to please him that Mr. Dervishi knew who was on his back bumper, so to speak.

Three hours circling through the surprisingly green highways in the foothills of the nearby ranges, the covert operatives parked their pick-up a short distance away from where Valon had abandoned his ride and gone ahead on foot towards the Tiddis ruins, a popular site containing the remains of an ancient Roman trading town that had recently been closed.

There was no one else around and the late afternoon sun beat down on their heads. They watched through spotter and sniper scopes respectively as the haggard man before them searched amongst the tumbled-down stones, thick rock walls of what once been buildings and the plethora of archways still standing. They were up on the ridgeline with a clear view of most of the area before them. They had good cover, but it was so damned hot and dry…

"Remember, Michael, you take out Zindane and you leave our new friend there to me."

The most dangerous time in any operation is just as everything is coming together. You never know whether you're about to get a pat on the back or a bullet to the back of the head. Of course, there's not much you can do but act like everything is fine.

The supplier and the buyer were having what looked like a heated argument in the shallow valley floor below them. The pair were circling each other and shouting, wild hand gestures accompanying the verbal abuse they were heaping upon one another. Mr. Westen cursed internally, but waited patiently for Djamel to stop moving to get him in the cross-hairs.

He had no idea how, but as Michael lined up his shot on Zindane, the damn man looked straight towards where he and Larry were hidden along the top perimeter above the crumbling remnants of ancient commercial center. He had a fraction of a second before…

Even as his finger slipped inside the trigger guard, something brushed his elbow. He heard the sharp retort of the rifle being fired and saw the puff of dust and grit through the scope as the bullet narrowly missed its intended target. He watched in frustration for another second while the DRS Special Operations Officer and the Albanian war merchant fled in opposite directions, the former into the ruins and the latter across the antique stone road back towards his vehicle. Sonuvabitch, they were getting away! What the hell happened?

()()()

Tiddis Ruins, Beni Hamidene, Algeria – Twenty Minutes Later

For a few brief seconds the two men were locked in close against each other, guard hands seeking to hold back the knife that was attempting to end their lives. In a rush of desperate strength, the Algerian pushed the blade towards the American's throat…

But in the end it was the stronger man, the one who wasn't bleeding to death, that with a roll of his wrist slipped his knife between the other man's ribs and then, with a twist of the blade, ripped a devastating hole in his opponent's left lung.

Michael felt the hot rush of blood and air from the punctured lung and then the weight of the older man as the Algerian crumbled onto him before falling to the ground. The young spy slowly sank to his knees, sighing deeply and then listening dispassionately while his target drew another couple of tortured breaths before lying quiet.

The sound of someone approaching had Mr. Westen back on his feet, weapon at the ready. But it was his mentor who appeared at the site of the bloody carnage.

"Good work there, kid," Larry declared happily as soon as he arrived at the scene of the battle. Kneeling down the senior field agent rolled his junior partner's victim on to his back. "Right up into the left lung, I wouldn't be surprised if you nicked his heart too. Damn if you're not a natural at this job, Michael."

Now he had his breath back, the dark haired covert operative stared at the corpse and then over to where his gun had ended up. "He disarmed me."

"So what? Don't put yourself down, Michael. It was a good first-time hands-on kill. Hey, you should be proud. This was a helluva mission, Kid. Ya kidnapped top GRU brass, took out a major arms smuggling route and capped it off by finishing off a double dealing dirty spy."

Michael nodded, basking in the praise for a moment when he had expected to be chewed out for missing the sniper shot and necessitating the fight. After picking up his pistol, the younger man next went to retrieve his sun glasses, pausing as he saw one lens was cracked.

"They were new," he muttered disgustedly before tossing the useless shades away.

"Don't worry about it. You can buy more. Hell, expense it. You deserve it."

That was when the young spy remembered something. Returning to the body of his opponent, Michael walked a few paces past the dead man. There on the dirt were the aviator shades the Algerian special ops guy had been wearing that had gone flying in their fight. The covert operative held them up to the sun. They were dusty but undamaged.

Blowing the eyewear off with a quick puff of air, Michael donned the Oliver Peoples Victorys sun glasses and smiled. Surprisingly, they fit like they were made for him.

"He doesn't need them anymore," he reasoned. The young agent continued grinned as the older man beamed back at him, the satisfied smirk nearly splitting his face in two.

"Okay, Kid, let's get this mess cleaned up and get back to civilization."

()()()()()()

Skopje, Macedonia – One Week Later

Station Chief Kopec stood in Agent Stanwyck's office watching the building monitor screens.

Since she knew her assistant was on the first floor tending to the coffee, she had gone to his desk to pick up Agent Westen's version of what had transpired over the last four weeks, having just read Mr. Sizemore's take on the mission, a glowing review of the young man's performance full of praise for his cleverness and taking the blame for the missed shot.

That had caught her attention and she wasn't willing to wait until Stanwyck got back with her coffee to read Westen's version of the events. As it was, Rayna wasn't sorry she'd walked in when she did. Although she probably shouldn't have laughed, her job was stressful enough without letting a little humor slip in where it could. At least no one else had heard her chuckling at the look on her trainee's face when the dynamic duo, as they had been dubbed by the analysts on the second floor, had come through the front security door.

She noted that both of them had been wearing nearly identical tailored navy blue suits as they came into the three-story private house that doubled as the Balkans Station Chief's HQ in the region. Alan Stanwyck had frozen like a deer in the highlights, the death grip he had on the two steaming mugs in his hands threatening to shatter the porcelain.

"Agent Stanley, that looks like it hurts. Sorry about that," Michael said, though the tone was hardly regretful." How's the nose, anyway?" He was smirking at the two swollen black eyes and severely discolored deviated septum on the face of the man before him.

"It's Stanwyck," the trainee answered tersely, his bruised visage a mixture of fear and loathing. "Excuse me…" It was more of a demand that a request as the other two operatives were blocking his access to the staircase.

"I think you need go easy there on the caffeine, pal," Larry advised as he and Michael barely moved back the half step necessary to let the man by. "You're way too jumpy."

"The other one is Chief Kopec's coffee."

"Really?" Larry moved back into the younger man's path. "And what blend does the little lady drink? Something imported or the local sludge?"

"You'll have to ask her."

And with that, the affronted young agent pushed past the pair and ascended the stairs. Rayna continued to watch as her former trainee and his new partner lingered in the lobby another moment. The raven haired man was handing a karmabit to the older agent, who pushed it back towards the other operative. Westen shook his head and Sizemore smiled, tucking the knife in Westen's jacket pocket.

"Keep it, Kid," she heard Larry say. "You earned it. Consider it a belated birthday present. It's been christened with Russian and Algerian blood now. I'd say it's been lucky for you."

Michael pushed the expensive sunglasses higher on his nose as he thanked his mentor, smiling back as Mr. Sizemore said, "Not as nice as those new shades you picked up at Tiddis."

"It wasn't as easy as that. I worked hard for these," Mr. Westen returned, taking the amber glasses off and putting them in the inner pocket of his form fitting new suit coat. "Seemed a shame to let them go to waste; he wasn't going to be using them anymore."

As the duo turned and climbed up the staircase, Ms. Kopec met the unfortunate Mr. Stanwyck coming out of his office and took her mug from him. "Thank you," she acknowledged and went back into her place, biting her lip just a little. The conversation between the two agents coming towards her office had disturbed her, but the look on the battered man's face had threatened to blow her composure and that just wouldn't do.

Rayna left the door open and settled behind her desk.

"Go ahead, Kid," Larry urged. "I'll be out here having a chat with your friend. Maybe teach him how to block that move of yours next time somebody pulls it on him."

The blonde gestured towards the entryway and the seat before her with a tilt of her head. She had worked with the man before her long enough that he knew what she'd meant.

"Good work, Westen, but I'm sure you know that already. Your partner has been more than generous in his evaluation of your performance. The cover you instituted with Orborski paid off. You and your colleague successfully broke a GRU general without breaking too many Geneva Convention conditions." Her tone let the dark haired agent know that she did not entirely approve of everything that went on the basement of that safe house.

Rayna stared at him with those blue eyes that seemed to look into his soul and continued.

"Your analysis of the data led to discovering the middle man in a highly active arms smuggling route and Agent Sizemore credits you with breaking the Albanian as well."

His boss pushed what he recognized as his receipts from their time in Vlorë across her desk towards him.

"Clearly we need to have another discussion about what the Company considers an allowable expense. Other than that, the only bump on the entire road to Algeria seems to be your missing the target with the sniper rifle. Again, Agent Sizemore stated your performance was exceptional. He said that he was brushing an androctonus scorpion away from your arm and bumped your elbow, ruining the shot and forcing you to terminate the target hand to hand?"

Rayna let the statement hang in the air, making a question out of it.

"Yeah, good ol' Lare, always looking out for me," Michael replied, plastering a smile on his face that Ms. Kopec was coming to distrust. "Actually, the androctonus is the most deadly of the scorpions found in the region. Its venom can kill in minutes. He took quite a risk."

"Yes…" the Station Chief agreed. "Agent Sizemore has taken quite an interest in training you, Westen. I'm sure he's very committed to protecting the Company's investment in you."

The former SP stared at her former trainee for a long moment and Michael gazed back, looking calm and collected, just as she would have expected he would.

"How do you find working with your new partner?"

"I'm learning a lot of practical tradecraft that is very applicable to field conditions."

"You want to keep working with Agent Sizemore?"

"Yes."

She waited for him to continue or qualify his statement. But with no more response forthcoming, Rayna pulled an order written on CIA stationary from a file on her right.

"Agent Westen, you are no longer a trainee, you are a field agent and, as such, you have been assigned a handler. I believe you already know Dan Siebels?"

A genuine smile graced the young man's face. "Dan is my handler?"

"And I'm to let him know that you want to continue to work with Agent Sizemore?"

Michael nodded affirmatively. "Thank you."

"You've earned it. Rest up while you can. I have feeling your services are going to be much in demand. You can go, Westen."

She watched the newly minted field agent's retreating back and tried once again to reconcile her gut feeling about what was going on with her former trainee and the CIA's top wet work specialist and the obvious successes of the two missions they had been given. They seemed to work well together. Westen's poise had clearly improved. He was confident instead of cocky. He was capable of thinking out of the box and had always been intelligent. They seemed like a good pairing on the surface, Sizemore's experience seasoning the no longer green agent.

Rayna shook her head as she got up from her chair and began to pace around the room. Watching the two of them interact reminded her of the woman who had recruited her, Kay Anderson. While Sam Axe had cajoled and pleaded with her to get out of bar tending and bouncing, to stop hiding out in dive bars and do something positive with her life and finally had gotten her into the Navy, the silver haired woman had challenged her to do better still.

The senior agent had been in service of her country back when the Agency had been the OSS. Ms. Anderson had appealed to Rayna's sense of purpose and her growing patriotism. The Company needed capable women, women so capable they could show up the men with one hand tied behind their back. That dare had sparked something in Rayna Kopec.

The Station Chief sighed heavily. She had kept in touch with Kay throughout her career, less so as she had moved up the Company ladder. But Ms. Anderson had been a constant source of encourage and advice in her early going and a good friend from there on out.

She wished she could get a hold of her friend right now. It would help to get an outside perspective on the relationship between the two operatives. Having no reason that would make sense to anyone official for her misgivings, she would keep them to herself for now.

Westen had said he wanted to work with Sizemore. They appeared to work well together and there was no arguing with their effectiveness as a team. The Company was pleased with their results and, unless there was something more concrete to consider than the itch she got every time she saw them together, the pair were partners for the time being.