[Chapter Five: Recon]

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Mountains, Outskirts of Dungannon, Northern Ireland, 3:08p.m.; 30 July 2003

"Can we push over?"

"Why, Clyde," Emily practically growled, trying to focus the long range surveillance camera on the apparent rendezvous location the team managed to receive.

"A rock is sticking into my stomach… it's rather uncomfortable."

"We're lying on a fucking mountain. There's going to rocks everywhere," she answered, annoyed, as she adjusted the bush the camera was placed in. Looking into the slot, Emily zoomed in further until she could see the large willow tree that marked the aforementioned location. "Plus, this is a good position. This bush is a very simple, non-descript cover… we're staying here."

"Am I not your superior?"

"Yeah, but I really don't care right now. This is where I'm staying."

"Can you two shut up?" Jeremy questioned, sitting with Tsia and Sean in the Communication Systems room at the CTIC. "Even millions of miles away and across a damn ocean, you two can still succeed in providing me with a headache."

"Well, we may be physically that far," Clyde answered, adjusting his position slightly. After a few seconds of trying to get comfortable, he continued sarcastically, "but over the waves – it's not that recent of a development, you may have heard of it – there is only a point two second difference."

"Once again, shut up," Jeremy commented.

"Yes, please shut up, Clyde," Emily repeated.

"Why is everyone against me?"

"Because we all think you're an annoying twerp," Tsia answered immediately.

"Tell me how you really feel," he muttered in response.

He pulled the laptop closer to him in order to see the screen better. Plugging the cord that was attached to the camera Emily was controlling into the computer, Clyde clicked 'Accept' when a box popped up in the middle of the screen. Now able to see what Emily was seeing, real-time, he spoke again to the three Agents in France: "Can you see it?"

"Not yet – ours is still loading," Sean answered.

"Alright, just tell me when, and we'll start."

"Copy, that."

After three minutes of silence, Sean's voice came through the ear-pieces both Emily and Clyde were wearing. "Alright, we have your visual."

"Good," Emily said as she took a picture of the willow tree that the camera was still trained on. "Did you get that?"

"Affirmative," Tsia said. "Nice tree… too bad it's probably been shot at multiple times."

"Oh, come on!" Clyde exclaimed sarcastically. "The fact that it has bullets lodged in its trunk is what makes it sexy."

"Clyde likes wood… that's a new development," Emily said, smirking as she zoomed out slightly.

"Ha-ha, very funny," he replied, ignoring the laughs he could hear through the earpiece.

"Shut up," Emily said abruptly, ceasing all laughter.

"There they are," Clyde muttered, staring intently at the screen as he watched a dark green Jeep Wrangler stop and execute a quick three point turn in order to park directly in front of the tree.

While the jeep was half-way through the turn, Emily took some successive pictures, attempting to capture the license plate. Clyde didn't stop to look at the pictures though – he just clicked the 'finish' button, and allowed the screen go back to the real-time view. All five of the Agents, despite being across an ocean, watched the same image – a jeep idling in front of a regal looking tree with a raven ever so often passing through the view. After what was less than five minutes, the Agents watched as two enclosed trucks came up the road the same way the jeep had originally arrived. The trucks parked so that the second one had its rear bumper approximately fifteen feet from the jeep's bumper while the first truck parked so that there were only two or three feet in between them.

Emily attempted to take photos of their licences plates, but the angle was impossible from the position she was in. Sighing slightly, she aimed her camera so she could get pictures of the men that exited each vehicle. There were only two men in each truck and one man in the jeep that exited. Head shots were taken of all five – and she only knew who the one person was. Ian Doyle exited the back of the second truck while a younger but well built man stepped out of the driver's seat, carrying an automatic weapon. From another picture Emily captured, she could see that Doyle had a gun pocketed in the waist band of his pants.

From the first truck, she took a photo of the driver first – a man who resembled the other driver, right down to the type of clothing and gun. Foot soldiers that probably have no idea who Valhalla is, she thought, before she redirected her camera's aim at the man who exited the back seat of the first truck. He had what was almost a fu Manchu moustache along with side burns – and it was all white, including what was on his head. He too was packing what looked to be a high calibre pistol in the side of his jeans.

Emily then directed the camera's focus onto the jeep's occupant who had exited the vehicle. A tall, well built man leaned against the back of his jeep, having already opened the flaps. She took a quick picture of his face and immediately zoomed into the back compartment. All she could see were about six stacked black boxes: three boxes in each of the two columns.

They watched as only Doyle and the other man with the gray hair walk over to the jeep while the two drivers stood back, hands on their guns, and kept an eye out. The three men exchanged few words before the seller opened up one of the black cases to reveal what looked to be an automatic weapon. Capturing as many photos as she could, Emily watched as Doyle withdrew the weapon to get a better look at it. She took a few more photos before she realized he was about to shoot it. Hesitating for a moment as she watched him point the gun in their direction, she let out a small breath as she watched him shoot at a random tree, not quite emptying the magazine. Taking as many decent pictures as she could, Emily continued to keep up with what was happening.

She saw the other man opening the rest of the boxes – she assumed he was just making sure all of the merchandise was legitimate. Beckoning the two drivers over, she watched as one of them gave the fu Manchu guy a suitcase before they both grabbed two cases each. Doyle replaced the gun back into its original case, and shut it. Fu Manchu man took the remaining two cases and walked back to the trucks as well.

Doyle offered the man the suitcase that the driver had previously placed on the ground, and watched as he opened it to count the money. Apparently appeased, the man shook Doyle's hand but then raised a finger as if to say, "Give me a second."

Doyle stood there waiting patiently, his hands on his hips, as he watched the man take out another black case from the back seat of the jeep. As he opened it, Emily took a quick picture and realized it was just multiple rounds of what appeared to be the same bullet – no doubt the rounds for the guns Doyle just bought. They shook hands once more, and the man took off in his jeep.

Doyle handed his driver the case filled with bullets and walked over to the tree he had shot at. He withdrew a knife out of the inside of his jacket pocket and got to work on the tree's trunk. Emily heard Clyde curse quietly, and she silently echoed his sentiment. Once finished with the extraction of the multiple bullets, Doyle walked over to where he had stood when he fired, and bent to the ground. He scoured the ground for a few minutes before he stood up, satisfied. Placing all of the casings he had found into his coat pocket, he entered the second truck, and both vehicles left the area.

After a few minutes of silence, Sean's voice once more filled their ears. "Alright," he said, sounding slightly defeated. "Just go to the cabin – I'm sending in a team to be there for tomorrow to scour that area just in case he left anything."

"I highly doubt that," Clyde muttered as he unplugged the cord from the laptop.

"I know, but it's the only other thing we can do, other than to look at the photos."

Emily packed up the camera gently as Clyde did the same with the laptop. Both of them removed their ear-pieces and microphones, placing them in their pockets. The two of them carefully made their way down a part of the mountain they were stationed on. Once they were off the hardest part of the mountain to walk down, the two were able to quicken their pace. Clyde checked the small GPS he had in his pocket and pointed to their left. They easily found the flattened part of the large rock they were on that was occupied by a small, derelict shack.

Clyde beckoned Emily in first when they arrived at the insecure, wooden door. She twisted the handle and opened it up slowly using her foot with her fire-arm drawn. She sensed, rather than saw, Clyde in the same position, entering right after her. They cleared the small building in twenty seconds as it only had two other rooms aside from the main one they stepped into.

"Home, sweet, home," Clyde said sarcastically as they met up in the main room.

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Abandoned Shack, Outskirts of Dungannon, Northern Ireland, 5:54p.m.; 30 July 2003

Watching Clyde sit down on the ratty, two-seater couch positioned by the wall adjacent to the door, Emily joined him. She set the camera bag down beside her feet, and leaned back.

"I have a spring poking me in the back, can we move over?" she asked after a few seconds, her eyes closed.

"No, sorry, this happens to be a good position," said Clyde, repeating her sentiments from their stake-out, smirking.

"You haven't seen a good position yet, Clyde," Emily answered, smirking in the same fashion as she knew he had been a few seconds before.

"You're cruel, you know that, love?"

"It's a habit I can't get rid of," she replied, smiling and standing up as she remembered the radio. She walked over to the small plastic table where they had earlier put a radio and a microphone. She turned just the radio on to 583.8, the channel reserved for the JTF-12, and went back to the couch.

"You should push over."

"There's nowhere to push over to," Clyde said, gesturing with his hands. "This is a rather small couch if you haven't realized, love."

Softly biting the inside of her cheek, Emily hesitated for a moment and then swiftly made her decision. "Then I guess we're going to have to squish – I'd rather not sit here and have my back be continuously poked until we can leave," she said, angling her body so she could see his face. What she saw shocked her immediately, but she didn't let it show on her features. He watched her with unwavering, darkened eyes, with his arm lightly resting on the back of the couch.

"I guess – if you think that it's necessary," he said quietly, continuing to stare steadily into her eyes. "Wouldn't want you sore due to such a trivial thing as a couch."

Somehow – Emily wasn't quite sure if she was doing it on purpose – her body started to slowly lean towards him, and he moved at the same pace as her. Their eyes continued to stay locked together, their movements tantalizingly slow. They both knew the cost of what was about to happen – but neither of them dared to mention how irrevocable their actions would prove to be. Clyde's arm slid off the back of the couch and rested right beside Emily's midsection, but not quite touching.

Their eyes still never moved from each other's, even when their lips were inches apart. Emily moved her one hand to his shoulder, and the other to rest, open-palmed, on his forearm. All they could hear were their similar breaths of anticipation intermingling with each other along with the soft patter of sudden rain hitting the fragile roof. After just one millimetre more of closing in, Emily lightly bit down on the corner of her bottom lip, causing Clyde to break their staring contest. He glanced down at where he could only see a small portion of her bright white teeth holding the bottom right side of her lip.

As soon as his attention reverted to her lips, he barely had any time to think before the tooth let go, allowing her lips to gently pull upwards. He shifted his focus back to Emily's chocolate brown eyes, only to find them staring directly back at him as if they never moved a centimetre, despite having a moment where he was otherwise preoccupied.

Hesitating for only a split-second, Clyde moved his other hand in order to grasp one side of her hip while his other arm – the one innocently lying by her side – also moved to Emily's hips. Taking that as enough incentive, Emily moved her hand that was previously holding onto his forearm up to the back of his neck and closed almost all of the space, leaving it so their lips were only fractionally touching. Clyde's hands flexed slightly as he simultaneously pulled her body closer and tilted his head so their lips could fully connect.

Their eyes closed as soon as they connected, but at first, they stayed still. Only after a second, their lips moved in sync with one another, keeping it tender and slow. Emily's hand lightly pushed on the back of Clyde's neck, but that's all of the encouragement it took for him to escalate the kiss.

"Hey guys, are you there?" Tsia's voice sounded from the radio suddenly, causing the two Agents to hastily jump apart as if they were electrically shocked. Clyde swiftly stood up and walked over to the table to turn the microphone on while Emily attempted to fight the blush that succeeded to appear on her face. She ran her fingers through her hair in slight aggravation – though the aggravation immediately changed into confusion when she felt multiple knots and tangles. When the hell did his hands get up there?

"Yeah, we're here," he commented, trying to control his breathing, into the microphone.

"What's your status?"

Before or after you rudely interrupted? But that's a good question, Clyde thought immediately before he responded: "Just waiting for information," he said, right before he let out a short, breathy laugh. "And I take it you have some."

"Got it in one," Jeremy said amongst the noise of shuffling papers.

Emily stood up and smoothed out her shirt before she joined Clyde at the table. They made eye-contact for a brief second before Tsia's voice sounded, causing the two of them to look down at the radio as if they could see their colleague speaking.

"We sent some of your photos down to the second floor," she said with anticipation in her voice. "Turns out the guys down there were able to identify the guns Doyle purchased –"

"– as well as the ammunition."

"I was getting to that," she said, reprimanding Jeremy, causing both Clyde and Emily to smirk lightly.

"So, what are we dealing with?" Emily questioned with trepidation laced through her voice.

"It's a Russian-made submachine gun called the PP-2000," Sean answered grimly. "It was only just finished being completed two months ago and issued within less than a month – it hasn't even been publically displayed yet."

"The rate of fire is approximately seven hundred rounds per minute," Jeremy added, "with a feed system allowing a twenty or forty-four round detachable box."

"The PP Doyle fired had a suppressor on it – and we're assuming the others had them as well," Sean commented as he flipped a paper. "Now, for the bullets… from one of the photos, we came to the agreement that the magazines looked more like the forty-four rather than the twenty – but we can't be sure."

"It's probably a forty-four clip," Emily said, shrugging. "I can't see any of Valhalla's men – especially if the merchandise is for Valhalla – getting something that would just make it harder for tactics."

"Basically what we thought too," Jeremy said, agreeing. "Also, from one of the photos you took, Emily, Chad said that the bullets appear to look more like a VBR-B rather than the nine by nineteen millimetre 7N21 or 7N31."

"And that means…?" Clyde questioned, raising his eyebrows slightly, with Emily shrugging in response.

"The VBR-B is both armour piercing as well as a controlled fragmenting bullet," Sean answered, "which doubles the chance to hit a vital organ."

"So basically he bought the ones that screw you over a hell of a lot more," Jeremy commented. "Rather than only having the unfortunate opportunity to get a bullet go through your Kevlar, it'll also tear your organs apart."

"Lovely," Clyde muttered.

"My thoughts exactly," Sean said.

"Is there anything else, then?" Emily questioned, interrupting the silence while she rubbed her temples.

"Regarding the fire-arms," Sean replied hesitantly, "no."

"Regarding anything else?" Clyde asked, immediately suspicious. After a few seconds of silence, Clyde's eyebrows rose up into his hairline before he spoke again. "Sean, what else is there?"

"Well," he started cautiously, "we were discussing how Doyle has been increasingly active and how it seems like he has a rather permanent place within this thing."

"And we had a discussion about how we would be able to gain access to Valhalla through Doyle," Tsia commented, tapping her fingers on the table she was sitting at. "Because, as I think we can all easily agree, that it is a possible chance."

"Yes," Clyde agreed, his hesitation increasing by every moment his team drew this conversation out.

"Well, CWS has performed more intel on Doyle since you received this case due of my request," Sean informed him, "and we have thought up a plan, surrounding some of the information that others have gathered."

"What are you getting at, Sean?" Clyde snapped slightly, letting out an aggravated breath.

"Long term infiltration," he answered immediately, deeming it useless to drag the topic on longer than they already had.

"How?"

"Well… we were actually thinking that – well, we think Emily would be the best fit," Jeremy said hesitantly after a short moment of painful silence.

Emily clenched her back molars together for only a moment before she wiped her face of all emotion, nodding. In a complete one-eighty from Emily, Clyde pursed his lips together, shaking his head.

"I don't see why we should risk our own agent in this," he finally said, shifting his eyes to Emily momentarily before he focused once more on the radio. "Our primary job is to get a profile – not to become knee deep with weapon dealers," he commented, trying to stay calm and to appear reasonable.

"Actually, I think it's necessary to have a profiler be the one to infiltrate," Emily said immediately. "And we've been watching him for the past two weeks – I've been watching him. It only makes sense that it is to be one of us. And if you guys," she said, speaking to the agents still in France, "have reason to believe I would be a good fit for this mission, then so be it. I trust your judgement."

She looked over to Clyde only to receive the sight of him staring directly at her. He knew she was going to go – no matter what he came up with for a retort. He also knew she would kill him if he made any other comments in order to try and stop her. All he wanted was for a different agent to go in.

And she knew that he wasn't being condescending… he was just trying to protect her. She knew she could do it – and she also knew he believed in her. But Emily recognized the fact that her team came to a decision that she would be the proper fit, and she was going to respect their choice.

.

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." — Winston S. Churchill

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[Author's Note]
Wow. You guys have no idea how much your reviews made my day. I appreciate every single word! And, if you want me to respond, you have to be signed in! ;)

So, I have another chapter to do that I haven't planned, apparently. Maybe… I don't know, because it might be shorter. But I was thinking that I wanted to do a chapter incorporating Emily learning some of the things she needs to know to go undercover. I also wanted to incorporate Fahey and some Irish mob & how he got snaked into unknowingly helping the JTF. That sounds fun ;)

[Lingo]
7N21: basically an armour-piercing bullet

7N31: the same as the 7N21, but with a higher muzzle velocity (travels further)

Clip: slang for a gun's magazine; the part that holds the bullets

PP-2000: SMG gun that was publically shown in 2004

VBR-B: a controlled fragmenting projectile and an armour-piercing bullet that features a brass sabot and a hardened steel penetrator. (from Wikipedia.)

Waves: slang for radio air-waves