# Split Across the Continents 7

Unit J HQ

Sophie finished her shower slowly, mulling over what Sam Jones had said. Major missions like this were quite rare for someone her age as they were usually delegated to the older and more experienced agents, then again, Sophie's last mission had record breaking effects as she had handled it far beyond the parameters of what was expected which had ended with her saving the lives of almost a hundred people directly and several thousand. It had gone so well that she had been promoted to a rank normally held by the fifteen to sixteen year old agents. Not much came with this promotion apart from bragging rights and on occasion the better missions. Benjamin's last mission had been a partial success but his epic failure in the fitness department had prevented any type of promotion. After her promotion, Sophie had rubbed her promotion in his face so much that Benjamin hadn't spoken to her for days until they were forced to go to Wales. Karma's a bitch was the last thing that Sophie thought before her phone rang for the second time that day.

"Hi Sophie, it's Elaine." Sophie internally groaned at this. Elaine was her handler, essentially a mixture between parental figure, social worker, teacher, and a huge pain in the ass. She was the sort of woman who didn't like her whole intelligence career being thrown away to act as a glorified form teacher but underneath that, Sophie guessed that she might actually care about her.

"Hi Elaine." Sophie said carefully trying to predict the reason she was calling. She had done all her homework, she hadn't failed the training exercise, she had been mean to Benjamin but then that wasn't anything new.

"We need to have a talk about your mission preparedness. You have only just returned from your last mission and before that was Level One training so your last solid month in school was almost six months ago." Elaine continued as Sophie groaned.

"But I can't go round turning down missions… thats the whole reason I went through three months of hell to begin with!" Sophie exclaimed as she started to try to run a brush through her tangled mess of curls.

"I am going to put you through academic assessment then if you pass, you will be deemed fit to go on this mission. But bear this in mind Sophie, you haven't actually seen the mission dossier yet or had the briefing so you might turn it down anyway." Sophie nearly laughed at this, nobody ever turned down a mission. It was as effective at shutting down your intelligence career as having your face on the front of the evening news. Nobody did that and hoped to be offered a place on a good mission.

"Why do I have to do academic assessment? I was above everyone else my age anyway." Sophie whined.

"We train you to be the best you can be at everything. Six months away from school is bound to have had an impact and we need to assess it before you can be deemed mission ready." Sophie made a face at this before hanging up. She was well aware that this wouldn't help her case at all but she had just spent a weekend on a cold mountain, she was ready to be pissy.

"Good evening, Sophie," The ever calm voice of Sam Jones radiated through his office. As one of the most senior mission controllers, Sam had one of the biggest offices and true to his nature it was tidy with little whale paper weights organizing everything. The old leather couches near the window fit right in with the old building aspect of HQ but the shiny Macbook with the adjoining screens around his desk contrasted so greatly that it made Sophie's eyes hurt. Sam motioned for her to sit on one of the couches whilst he approached her with a shiny manilla folder bearing the name "Operation PixieDust" written on it. The name was so random that Sophie almost burst out laughing. Sam motioned for her to open it and as she did, a dossier with the same name fell out as well as some background reading. Her last mission had been thrown together last minute and she hadn't had time to read a mission briefing but clearly this one had some more time behind it.

Mission Dossier for Sophie D. Please don't remove this from Mission Preparation.

A brief history of drug smuggling.

Drug smuggling has been one of the largest and most difficult of all illegal activities to shut down since the signing of the International Opium Convention in 1912. Since then specialized task forces have been set up around the world to combat this with hundreds of major organized crime rings and gangs heading the distribution. Before the use of heroin was prohibited, it was commonly used as an aesthetic for surgeries with its derivative, morphine, still in common use today. It's effects are powerful and combined with its deadly addiction, leaves its users completely under it's control often leading them to steal from family, friends and have been known to commit murder in order to achieve their next high.

Andrew Henderson was born in the 1972 in North London to wealthy parents who founded their success on a small private airline called Henderson Air. He was described by his teachers to be intelligent, but easily distracted and they predicted a bright future for him if he was able to knuckle down. During his teenage years, Henderson was expelled after being caught selling cocaine to his peers at school. His drug test indicated that he was a fairly regular user. After completing rehab, Henderson attended sixth form college where he studies business, geography and mathematics achieving high grades in all of them. He was then later expelled from Bristol University after being caught yet again with cocaine in his room. After serving a brief prison sentence in 1993, Henderson dropped off the radar. Henderson resurfaced in 1999 when he was found to have known links to a cocaine smuggling gang that the leader, Rick Greyson, was arrested for in 2002. It is believed that Henderson escaped the initial wave of arrests and took over as leader and reestablished connections across the globe with Henderson smuggling drugs in at as many as 16 different ports in the UK. Police are unable to make any arrests due to inability to tie him to any crimes. Henderson changes burn phones every week and it is impossible to send any adult agents to infiltrate as Henderson will suspect them.

The American connection began when it appeared that AHG cocaine was being smuggled in to the US from the UK in the bags of school children on a school trip. AHG cocaine has since been found entering the US through ports as well as through the air. American DEA have since been investigating many other schools on the exchange program funded by AHG. So far, 20 schools within Washington DC, New York City, San Diego, Boston, and Seattle have been found to have AHG cocaine within them. AHG uses children as their dealers for several reasons as children receive lighter if any prison sentences, children have easy access to users and they are always on the lookout for ways to make extra cash.

The Unit J mission: In Washington DC, a navy officer was found to be murdered with his ten year old daughter having links to AHG. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) believes that the murder of Lieutenant Marcus King is related to the DC gang of AHG and upon further questioning of his daughter Sarah King, Sarah admitted to having been threatened by AHG. Unit J agent Sophie's job is to infiltrate the DC gang of AHG and gather intel regarding the running of AHG within DC. She will be posing as Sophie Hayes, a ten year old girl who has been recently expelled from her British boarding school in the UK and instead is attending James Morgen Middle School where she will attempt to become involved with AHG. Sophie's history of expulsion should allow her to become more involved with AHG as her expulsion shows an ability to take risks. She will be living with two NCIS agents (to be determined) who will pose as her parents who will attempt to find out more about AHG from the adult perspective.

This mission has been classified as MEDIUM RISK as it involves close interaction with known violent gang members as well as involvement with drugs. There will be a mission controller working directly with NCIS in Washington DC but the agent should be advised that she will be working independently for the majority of the mission. Unit J agents are reminded that any voluntary Class A drug ingestion will cause for them to be expelled.

Sophie finished reading the mission briefing and looked up at Sam.

"Why the hell is this mission called Operation PixieDust?" Sophie asked him trying to hide a grin.

"It wasn't mentioned in the briefing but we believe that the cocaine used, has a street name of pixie dust. The Americans thought it up, not me. Have you got any real questions about the mission?" Sam smiled sheepishly.

"Do they know I'm a kid or are we going to spring it on them like last time?" Sophie asked remembering back to her previous mission. She had been staying with an Israeli Intelligence officer who hadn't been told she was ten until she showed up at the front door.

"They will shortly. I have already spoken to the head case agent, someone called Gibbs? Seemed like a miserable git but you can't always get the most positive ones. If you agree to the mission then we will probably fly out to DC in the next week or two." Sam added.

"Of course I'll take the mission. I've never been to America before." Sophie smiled really hoping that she could skip her educational assessment before Elaine got on her case again.

Sophie opened the folder and started to settle into some background reading, boring but essential, and started on the cold slice of pizza in Sam's office.

"Just one thing, Elaine has mentioned that you need to have an educational assessment. The american middle school you will be going to will be well below your usual standard so I will talk to Elaine and make sure that your normal school work will be sent with you to DC and you can try to catch up what you missed. This is likely to be a couple of months long so we can't have you skipping school for that long." Sophie groaned at that hoping that that memo had been lost.

"Hey, it's better than you being deemed unfit for missions over something as stupid as an educational assessment." Sam chided.

"I'll do the stupid educational assessment."