Nikita tossed on a short navy jacket, effectively covering the gauze that wrapped around her right bicep. A bullet graze from her latest mission. She would have rather gone without it, but the doctor in medical was sycophantic about treating every scratch and bruise. It came with the territory of being a top Division agent, and the second in command in everything but name.
Michael's office was her office now, but other than the initial sweep, everything he used remained where it was. She felt his presence when she entered the room; smelled him every time she crashed on his couch. She couldn't bring herself redecorate and Amanda remained taciturn on the decor. Nikita wondered if Amanda was doing it on purpose, letting everything stay the way it was before Michael went rogue. Nikita smiled mirthlessly. Of course she was, psychological warfare was her specialty.
Owen was already there as Nikita strolled into Operations. Birkhoff looked up eagerly at Nikita's arrival, pointedly ignoring Owen's hovering, neck-breathing shadow. Nikita came up close to Owen, uncomfortably so, and stared blankly at him until he shrugged and took a step back.
Birkhoff uttered a 'thanks' under his breath before proceeding with his latest discovery. "Okay, boy…and girl. Remember those fingerprints we found at Michael's apartment? How we never found a match?" He glanced expectantly at a silent Nikita and Owen and then muttered something about Michael being a chatterbox.
"Anyway! Check it. You're about to see some big brother badassery. Citadel Academy, a military prep school, uploaded supplementary student data—including fingerprints-on to their server this morning and two hours later, Shadownet picked it up and flagged a match…"
"Don't keep us in suspense or anything," Owen muttered dryly.
Birkhoff started, then went on to calling up the data with a quirk of his lips.
The name and face of a young brunette flickered on the overhead digital display.
Nikita's brow crinkled as she stared at the girl's portrait, drawn to the two dimensional image that appeared to animate in her mind with startling familiarity. The memory was an elusive, intangible mist. It came to her with a physical reaction. Her nose suddenly stung and her lungs squeezed painfully. Nikita coughed into her hand, her jaw tightening behind the concave of her palm. She forced herself to inhale a pressured hiss. No, not a mist, but a face behind smoke, fire, and blood.
"Alex," Nikita breathed, her eyes a shadowed revelation of alarm and dread.
Birkhoff nodded, continuing, "Last name Winslow. Seventeen years old. Straight As with distinguishing marks in combatives, marksmanship, munitions, strategic planning, field leadership, war games, blah blah blah. It's like the girl wants to run her own private army or something. And outside of school, we have her birth certificate, passport, social, and medical records. All of them are squeaky clean…"
Nikit didn't dare to speak, for fear she blurt out something incriminating, something she couldn't possibly have known had she been looking at Alex for the first time.
Owen gave Nikita a sidelong glance. Even if she always played her cards close to her chest, she was being uncharacteristically quiet. He caught Birkhoff's eyes, but the tech didn't even bother to shrug. Owen crossed his arms with a huff and offered, "Ok, why were her prints found at Michael's? Are they related somehow?"
"Distant and immediate relatives all accounted for, no match. Maybe it's for recruitment. Girl seems pretty badass," Birkhoff admitted begrudgingly. "Although she doesn't fit the profile of our usual strung out crackheads." Then as if he just remembered he was in the presence of two former drug addicts, Birkhoff hastily amended, "No offense."
Owen flashed Birkhoff a toothy grin.
"What about her parents?" Nikita asked thinly, chewing the insides of her cheek.
Birkhoff's series of keyboard taps produced another screen of data. "They both died in a car crash when Alex was three. A Daniel Pope is on the records as her guardian. Home address is a P.O. Box. Phone number traces to a disposable. Can't trace bank records either, tuition and some sort of stipend are already prepaid to graduation, looks like it was paid in cash."
"Girl's background too convenient and Daniel Pope went through a lot of trouble to keep himself untraceable. Could be Michael," Owen speculated.
Birkhoff shrugged, "Well, it's not a Division alias or we would have caught it already."
"So if it's him, he's not doing it for Division." Owen frowned, puzzled.
Nikita flattened her lips just as they started to tremble. Owen and Birkhoff continued to debate on the discovery, but she knew Michael did it to save her. Somehow he'd found out about Alex and realized Division would cancel her if Alex was discovered. The more she walked in Michael's Division shoes, the more she came to realize how much Michael had done for her despite protocol, despite judgment, despite reason. How was it possible that she was continuing to fall in love with him, when he was no longer here, when he had just disappeared without so much as a good-bye? There were still moments in her day, when she would try to look for a sign, any sign, that Michael was waiting for the right opportunity to approach her, so that they could be free of Division together. No sign ever came.
As much as a part of her wanted to just leave it all behind, start anew and be free of the constant turbulence of emotions, Nikita couldn't help but remember how adamant Amanda was that the black box Michael took was a time bomb. If it exploded, Division was the only resource Nikita had that was capable of helping him. Meanwhile, the only way to protect him was to be the one chasing after him. And with her new standing in Division, she had at least some influence in how the recruits fared. Second guessing was fatal in the spy business, but for all the questionable decisions she made, she couldn't help but wonder, what would Michael have done?
Nikita wasn't even sure what she wanted anymore. Division was limbo, and the only thing she could do was live day by day, doing the best she could, suspended into a frozen state by forces that were out of her control.
Until now.
"We should question Alex to see what she knows," Owen decided once they were back in her office.
"No!" Nikita retorted vehemently, "We found her prints in Michael's apartment—it could have gotten there any number of innocuous ways. You know perfectly well what we do with people who find out about Division."
"Yeah, I do," Owen answered flatly.
Nikita caught the brief grimace across her own face. Her eyes fluttered in a silent apology. She appealed softly, "She's just a kid, Owen."
Owen shifted his gaze on a dark spot in the carpet. Some stains can never be cleaned. Finally, he glanced up to meet Nikita's dark eyes. "What do you suggest we do then?"
Light animated Nikita's shadowed face as she sprung into action at Owen's words. Her plan would require a lot of prep work, both on the official level and beneath Division's radar. She called up the information on Citadel Academy on the flat screen. "I'm going undercover. I'll get her to tell me what she knows without exposing her to Division."
"And what would I be doing in this plan of yours?" Owen asked, still against the energy vibrating from Nikita.
"You can follow up on any leads I get from her," Nikita replied as a matter of course.
Owen flexed his jaw. "So I'm supposed to wait in the car until you get something out of her."
"I don't see a problem."
"We're supposed to be partners on this."
Not if she was going to pull this off. Now was a good time as ever to pull rank. "We're working together but I'm still the lead agent, so we're going to do this my way, my rules. Say it."
A tech poked her head in the door. "Nikita, you're wanted in Amanda's office, now."
Nikita didn't move. "Owen."
Owen smiled crookedly, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I know how to follow orders. Your rules. No cleaning, got it."
Nikita's mouth fell open to protest, but the words never finished making their way out of her mouth before Owen pivoted and left. She couldn't dwell on that any further, there were other priorities now.
There was another in Amanda's office when Nikita arrived. From the soft waves of blonde curls and the rigid shoulders, Nikita surmised who she was before seeing her face.
"Nikita." Kelly's smile was not unfriendly, if perfunctory.
Nikita nodded in acknowledgement before taking a seat at the table. "Kelly."
The click of tastefully expensive heels proceeded Amanda before she entered the room. She sat with a grace that both agents could only emulate.
"Now that we're all here," Amanda said with a perfected curve of her lips, "I've called the both of you here because this mission not only has a small window, you'll be entering enemy territory, and your objective will be the retrieval of a hostile asset."
"Amanda," Nikita interrupted. She paused, deliberating the risks before continuing, "We have a lead on Michael, I need to be on top of it."
"I'm aware. This mission needs you, Nikita. Owen can perform the preliminary surveillance until your return. As I said, we have a small window for this operation." Amanda's expressively placid face brokered no further arguments.
"You said Michael was a priority," Nikita responded stiffly.
Amanda said nothing and switched on the flat screen on the opposite wall. The image of a man exiting a nondescript door was all they had available. "Ari Tasarov. Nikita, you were the last person in Division to successfully infiltrate Gogol's defenses and return alive. You came closest to removing him."
His eight year old son had been in the way, Nikita thought mutedly, her eyes downcast.
As if satisfied with Nikita's silence as acquiescence, Amanda continued, "He's been a frequent visitor of a Gogol detention facility in Ankara. We have intel that one of the prisoners has special insight into a range of delicate proceedings. Tasarov is relocating the prisoner to an unknown location. Your mission is to intercept the transport and retrieve the prisoner. We don't know the disposition of the prisoner, so you're to treat him as a hostile asset."
The blood in Nikita's veins pulsed like battle drums. The mission was an intensely dangerous one, and if she was to succeed, she had to focus on the task at hand.
"This is a two man operation. You'll find the standard cover credentials and the latest intel in your brief. Birkhoff will be on hand to coordinate with you and provide updates on their movements via satellite imagery and CCTV. Arial transport to Esenboga International is in two hours."
Two hours of prep was hardly enough, but at least Kelly knew Nikita's style and understood what needed to be done before liftoff. Sure enough, Kelly closed her brief with a snap and she was out the door before Nikita was barely out of her seat. At least someone capable would be watching her back, Nikita mused.
Nikita was at the door before Amanda spoke again.
"Nikita, has Michael tried to contact you?"
Nikita stiffened. "Why would he, I'm in charge of catching him." She kicked the resentful tone up a notch. It wasn't hard.
Amanda gave her a sympathetic smile. Behind those stretched crimson lips were all teeth. "He's not the person we all thought he was," Amanda sighed, just on the edge of dramatic.
The urge the roll her eyes, now that was hard to suppress. Nikita knew there was more to come.
"Nikita, Michael is a priority, but we must also continue doing what Division does best, removing threats to national security. The sooner you complete this mission, the sooner you're free to see where this lead we have will take you," Amanda's voice soothed hypnotically before she laying a playful touch at Nikita's elbow, "No pressure."
Nikita blinked at her. "I'll be back," she emphasized. Michael and Alex were hers. Her love. Her redemption. The only good things in her life.
Amanda canted her head like she hadn't expected otherwise. "Of course."
Nikita imagined herself shaking a fist at the woman. Then it was no longer difficult to smile smoothly at the Division leader. She nodded and headed out, feeling Amanda's reptilian eyes behind her, but there was nothing to do but look ahead.
Hope was the most addictive opiate.