Thanks to Kristen! This is the last chapter for this week, as I won't be able to update while I'm away. This also means that I won't be able to answer all my reviews until I get back, but I will get round to them as soon as I get online! Promise!
Lots of answers in this one for you to chew over. I hope this keeps everyone happy until I return. Pity I couldn't have left it on a cliffhanger...
Chapter 9: Operation Lazarus
"Operation Lazarus has been in existence for six years. It is above top-secret and is strictly need to know. Before today, only five people inside the CIA were read in, including Agent Ellis and myself."
Lily indicated Charlie, who was busy with the laptop still.
"To truly understand the operation, I need to take you back thirteen years. A United States Army Colonel, Jasper Shepard, was under investigation for taking a bribe. However, that is only the official story. In reality, he was under investigation by the CIA after a biological weapon design disappeared."
She could see that Jenny had reacted to this news. Lily knew better than to offer comfort right now; it was only going to get worse.
"I was already CIA by this point. My boss told me what was going on; he wanted to know whether I knew anything. I went home to confront my father, who denied everything. Two days later, he committed suicide.
"However, eight years ago, I began to suspect that something was amiss. The official reports revealed nothing, but I heard a rumor that my father was still alive. Naturally, I followed every lead into the ground. I found nothing. Until one day, six years ago, I literally ran into him."
Jenny looked simultaneously shocked and homicidal. Lily fully expected another argument later, but hoped her sister would hear her out for now.
She recalled the day she had found her father. She had been in Cairo on urgent CIA business when she had received a phone call informing her that her partner was dead. The news had scared her; Edwards had been her mentor. He had been missing for several weeks, believed to have been kidnapped by al-Qaeda.
She had been required to formally identify his body. Staring at the torture marks – the bruises, cuts, dried blood, burns from both electricity and cigarettes, ligature markings, knife wounds, his severed tongue – she had been terrified. She knew that someone had sold information on him, and it was now up to her to plug that leak. What she didn't know was whether information had been sold on her; whether she could continue to operate in Cairo or whether she needed to run.
In a daze, she had left the hospital and wandered the streets. She needed coffee. One cup of coffee and everything could be okay. She would call her boss, give him the bad news, and carry on. She had to carry on. His death would not be in vain.
She spotted a small café halfway down a side street, and turned to enter it. She went crashing into someone. Her hand snaked towards her gun, determined to use it if she was in danger.
She froze, hardly believing her eyes. Jasper Shepard stood in front of her.
Lily forced herself back to the present.
"When I informed my boss, he set up Operation Lazarus. It has three stages. Stage One was to prove that he is still alive; that was completed within six months."
She didn't mention how it had been proved. She was still having nightmares over it.
"Stage Two was a lot more complicated. We needed to persuade him to stick his head over the parapet for long enough that we could get a solid lead on him. This has led to a few…" she considered her phrasing for a moment "interesting attempts to lure him out."
Such as faking Jenny's death, planting a bomb in the Nepalese Embassy to injure herself, and a varied assortment of other ideas.
Oddly enough, none of them had worked. Dumb luck had yet again led them to him.
"We are now at Stage Three, to capture him. We know he either has or is close to manufacturing the bio weapon, and we need to stop him from doing so. If he figures out that Mossad or MI6 is coming after him, he will panic and we will risk compromising the entire operation. He is not scared of the CIA; he faked his death to escape us last time and we believe that he will try to pull the same stunt again. You need to back off."
She glared at Director David and the most senior MI6 agent present. If they attempted to blow the op at this stage, she was prepared to go after them in much the same way she had gone after Vance. It was not going to be pretty.
Tormenting Vance had been very cathartic. Jenny had suspected him of selling secrets and asked Lily to do some research. She had been amazed to discover that Vance had sold information on Edwards's whereabouts. She had changed a few of her plans, and gone after him with everything she had. Even now, three months down the line, she was pleased by the thought that he was suffering in Gitmo. And she had put him there.
Making a mental note to visit him at some point, simply to rub salt in the wound, Lily continued.
"Jasper Shepard is not capable of doing this alone. He has joined forces with a regular arms dealer, someone well known to some people here."
She nodded at Charlie, who started the slideshow.
"Alexei Ilyich Bronstein. Also known as 'odinokij volk', The Lone Wolf. Born in 1973 in the Soviet Union, his father was in the KGB. His parents were executed just before the end of the Cold War. Alexei was supposed to follow in his father's footsteps and join the KGB. Instead, he took up arms dealing and has been causing problems ever since."
The images on the wall behind her showed The Lone Wolf conducting business deals, drinking coffee and boarding planes.
"This man is dangerous, and I do not use that word lightly. He is not just an arms dealer; he is skilled at using most of the weapons he sells, he is exceptionally merciless, and he is intelligent and wily. He has been a constant thorn in the side of this op since Day One."
The images shifted. He was now shown handling weapons, running down a deserted street and standing over a dead body, gun in hand.
"Mossad and MI6 have separate files on him."
She inwardly smiled at the look of shock on the faces of the people in front of her. Normally, she did not show off just how much information she had accrued. However, the only way she was to win this was by forcing the others to accept that she was in the better position to apprehend her father.
She was starting at a disadvantage as well. They had to recognize that she was prepared to, if necessary, commit patricide. Her main concern was that Mossad would send someone to assassinate him without informing her. She knew that he would survive, and things would get even worse. Although they did not know it, this was personal, and she was determined to take him out herself.
No one bought shame on the Shepard family. And he had.
"The CIA now know that Shepard and The Lone Wolf are in London, conducting a business deal. Our intelligence is good and reliable."
She hoped that they didn't ask her to prove it. She could, but it would cause a lot of problems. Not only for her.
"We are in a good position to not simply strike, but to tail him if need be."
A half-truth. They were in a very bad position to strike, but a very good one to tail him. She needed more time, which wasn't going to occur with two other agencies breathing down her neck.
"We have the necessary resources to conduct this operation."
True.
"We have more background information on the key players than your agencies put together."
True. Especially on one player in particular.
"We have agents who have been working on this for years."
Charlie and herself. Mainly herself though. She was close to spiraling into obsession, and after watching her sister's almost meltdown over Le Grenouille from the sidelines, she knew she would have to be careful not to do the same. Charlie was keeping an eye on her.
"We know and understand the stolen biological weapon, and are capable of stopping it if need be."
She hadn't the foggiest idea how to stop it, but she knew several people who might. The others didn't even know what had been stolen, and she was not planning to tell them either. Hacking the CIA would take days, and she had deliberately wiped all records of the weapon from the system.
In addition to 'misplacing' the relevant paper files.
"And last, but by no means least, we have absolutely no intention of sharing any of our information with you."
She meant it. She been taught to keep her cards close to her chest, and she lived by it. She hadn't even told her sister, who knew most of her deepest, darkest secrets, of her suspicions regarding their father's suicide. Jenny had come to the conclusion that it was murder, and Lily had never bothered to correct her.
Until now.
She hoped that she hadn't just burned all bridges between them.
