Chp. Summary: "I don't like a lot of things, but that doesn't stop Wally from flinging them around at high speed. Tell us anyway."

Notes: I was going to have this huge epic conversation, maybe bring Barbara/Bruce in again as well, but plot happened and people got chatty. but, hey. bonus conspiracy threads!
Also, huge thanks to zselenophile and catsncomics of tumblr fame for the quick but awesome beta on this thing!

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CIRCLE II

BETWEEN THE CRACKS
10. Protocol

Well, Roy mused to himself, that chat with Oracle was both illuminating and highly frustrating.

To be that close to the identity of the Bat's mole...and then have Oracle hold the information back at the last moment.

Frustration.

No. Frustration wasn't a powerful enough word, considering they'd spent ten years working towards that moment, on both sides of the fence, and now...nothing.

Well, okay, he did have a clearer picture of how the League of Assassins had been getting a tighter hold of Gotham, but he kind of knew that already. They'd lost dozens of people in the last year - let alone the last decade. (He was just praying and hoping that Dick wasn't going to be one of them.)

Like Barbara had said, this was a bloody operation, in more ways than one.

And as far as he could see, it all hinged on the identity of that mole. If they knew that...they'd have the leverage to pry open the League of Assassins, save Gotham, and maybe even rescue Dick while they were at it. Without that, they risked spilling the beans to the wrong person, and losing everything.

With all that in mind, he fired off another text to Oz. :Can u run a Deep Six Nine from there?:

It wasn't his first preference, calling for a Deep Six, let alone a level Nine, but needs must and this situation was certainly feeling dire enough. This was, after all, pulling out the big guns. Deep Sixing a room basically wiped out all electronic devices that were present, with the added benefit that at level Nine, Oz would try to track any bugs that might be in the room.

He just wanted his people safe. Was that too much to ask?

The response was slow and measured, almost thoughtful. If I do this, you're going to have to put your other phone outside the room. Just in case.

Yeah, because they'd never done this remotely, and this may just burn out the Oz phone (so they'd still need some way to keep to keep in contact). :How long do I wait?: Because it wasn't like he could use the Oz phone to find out when it was done while this was happening, and this other phone wasn't quite set up for talking direct to Oz.

Not without doing a few workarounds. (So he knew what he'd be doing while he waited, didn't he?)

I'll text you when I'm done. Or the other Titans will find you.

:Understood.: After a moment's thought, he carefully placed the Oz phone in the middle of the room and went out into the hallway to do his best casual lean against the wall. (Dick was always better at this than him, but...) He pulled the other phone out and fiddled with it for about thirty seconds. :Ok, I'm out:

His phone gave a lazy flash (Oz being busy but still acknowledging the text) so he changed screens and went back to leaning. Having a phone out and pretending to be busy always gave The Leaning Wait more substance. (And it helped pass the time.)

At least he didn't have to wait long. Small mercies and all that. (Because he really wasn't that good at the leaning thing.)

As expected, Wally was the first. What he didn't expect was that Wally was approaching at normal speed and not, you know, something faster. "Yo. You waiting for the others too, or can we go in?"

Roy thinned his lips, wondering just how much he could say in a public hallway. "I'm getting the room looked at. I'm, uh, Deep Sixing it."

"Oh." Wally sucked in a startled breath. "Oh. We're up to that, are we?"

Roy nodded and tapped his fingers idly for a moment against the side of phone before he caught himself and stilled. "Seems like it." They'd been caught with their proverbial pants down before. The results of those types of situations were never pretty. "Just...trying to allow for the worst case, you know?"

Worst case being that the League of Assassins (or as he personally called them, the LoA, because there were way too many Leagues floating around this place) had heard everything that he'd just talked about with Oracle, despite his precautions. Not that he didn't trust Oracle to run her own jammers and security systems, but well, theirs were bigger. (That, and they knew more channels to jam.) (And he'd learned in the past not to rely solely on jammers, not even ones as strong as theirs. Calling in what was basically a localized EMP would also help explain why any bugs were suddenly not working.)

"Yeah, I hear ya." Wally opened his mouth to ask something more but closed it when Garth and Donna approached.

They had good timing, because that was when Oz flashed a message to his phone letting Roy know he was finished.

:Any problems?:

Nothing more than we expected. All clear now, at any rate. A beat. As you can tell, I didn't burn out the phone this time.

Right.

Roy looked up at his gathered team, all of them looking at him expectantly, and sighed. Sometimes the only thing you can do is just go for it, Roy. Like ripping off a band-aid. "Oz says the room is clear." (And the hallway too, otherwise he wouldn't be mentioning Oz at all. Not even to his team. Not after the last few hours, at any rate.)

Donna's eyebrows rose, as did Garth's. Wally pulled a face, already aware of what Oz was up to but upset all the same.

Just because they had certain Protocols didn't mean that they ever intended to use them - especially not on what they'd expected (hoped) to be friendly territory. As much as Gotham ever was these days.

"Did he find much?" Garth asked.

"Nothing more than he expected, he said."

Donna rolled her eyes and grimaced. "Well that's comforting," she muttered. (Especially since their expectations of their welcome? Not actually that high, given the givens.)

"I know, right?" Roy replied. "Well, let's go in and do this."

"Yeah."
"Ok."
"Right."

It didn't take long to make themselves comfortable. Donna settled into a chair on the far wall, Garth leaned against the window looking out into the never-ending rain, and Wally chose to pace. Roy settled himself again in the chair he'd used when talking to Oracle (déjà vu anyone?).

As for the Oz phone, Roy picked it up on his way through the room so he could place it on the chair beside him on speaker. Oz wasn't any less a member of their team just because he wasn't physically present.

Garth sighed and looked around. "Okay, Roy. We're all here. What did you want us for?"

Roy grimaced. Right. Time to start making some tough decisions. "First things first. Have you placed the bugs we talked about before we got here?"

Garth nodded with a little smirk. "Yeah. Wasn't too hard. Just gave 'em to Wally."

Okaaay. That was one way to do it. "So, where'd we get?"

Wally grinned and bounced on his toes. "Bruce's room. Most of this floor. Every visitor lounge in the hospital. I ran out of bugs after that."

Oz spoke up from his phone, in the digitized voice he used only when he had to. "Huh. That explains at least one of the bugs in this room then."

Donna twitched. "Dare I ask how many you found?"

"Two FBI, inactive. One possibly JLA, given that it was sending signals to the Moon. Ours, which I'm controlling. And two unknown I'm still tracking. I suspect I'll end up at the LoA though."

Roy let a long breath at the last two and spared a moment to be grateful he'd thought to use his own set of jammers for that talk with Barbara. Otherwise, they'd all be up the proverbial creek.

Okay, further up the creek, seeing as the LoA already had Dick, the Bat was down, the JLA was useless, there was at least one LoA mole in place, and no one believed them. Well, except maybe Barbara, and she was more a work in progress then a believer.

"Right. Is that why you cleared the room?" Wally asked.

"Yeah." Roy nodded. "We need a room that's ours. I just designated this one."

Donna's eyes widened. She knew the Protocol that Roy was speaking of and what it meant. "Are we that close?"

"Maybe." He breathed in, then out. Thought for a moment of all the things he could say - and couldn't, even in a clean room - and then went for it anyway. "Oracle thinks they know who their mole is."

Garth let out a startled breath and grabbed for a chair. "That's...that's... Not even we've been able to get that close."

"Yeah. She was this close," he held up fingers almost touching, "to telling me, I'm almost sure of it. I just need something to tip her over the edge."

Donna stared at him in horror. "You're thinking of telling her. About...everything?"

"I am."

If anything, the horror increased. "Even...our System?"

He blew out a hard breath. Because he really didn't see any way around this to get the result they needed. "Yeah."

Garth frowned. "I hate to be the voice of reason here, but you know how many lives are at stake."

Even though they'd talked about this exact possibility. At length. Arguing it back and forth for days in the Tower until they were all sick of the topic. And now faced with the reality of it, none of them were any happier about it. (Or any closer to a solution they could agree on.) Blowing the secret of the System...would also destroy so many of the lives they were protecting.

Wally looked around at his teammates, frowning and biting his lip. "I'm fast, guys, but I'm not that fast. I don't think even I can reach everyone in time." Not when they had people scattered from one side of the US to the other, and some of them even further.

"Look," Roy said, "I'm not any happier about it either. You know I'm not. But we have to find out who the mole is on the Bat's end, or we're going to loose the whole thing anyway. That's why I thought I'd...shade it a little." Well, as much as possible, considering who he'd be talking to and what they were talking about.

"Ah." Donna remembered this option. She rubbed her temples, because she also remembered how much she didn't like how very easy it was to connect certain dots. "Our perspective only."

"Yeah. I just wanted you all to know so...you'd be prepared for the fallout."

The Oz phone lit up for a long moment and faded out, like an inheld breath released slowly. "I take it this is official notification we're going ahead with the Sierra Echo Protocol. What level and how long will I have?"

Sierra Echo. Otherwise known as System End. With various levels ranging from a rather tame Ten (which gave people a luxurious whole week to bug-out) to Zero (or as Roy personally called it, Get The F**k Out Now We're Screwed).

Why couldn't they have named the stupid Protocols something better? Something they could actually slip into conversation without raising all sorts of flags that they were doing something Official and Secret?

Because ten years ago they'd been panicking at the enormity of what they were trying to pull off, that's why. Of course, ten years later, having pulled it off somewhat successfully, if his only complaint was protocol names? Sheesh Roy. Get a life. He mentally grimaced. Right. Bad pun.

He shrugged fatalistically. "I think maybe a Three, if we're lucky. And how long will probably be as long as it takes for me to find her and tell her."

"It'll be enough."

Garth cracked his knuckles and gave a sad little laugh. "Yeah. Right. Because that's plenty of time for a level Three."

"Hey," said Wally brightly, "it could be worse! It could be a Zero."

"Wally!"

"Flash!"

"Don't joke about that!"

"Shutting up!" he yelped, holding up his hands placatingly.

The phone flashed again. "On that note, there's been a new development."

Garth looked at the phone and cocked his head to the side. "Is it urgent?" He was kind of hoping it wasn't, given what they'd already discussed. But he had a feeling it was, if Oz felt it important enough to interrupt deployment of Sierra Echo.

"Quite possibly. You won't like it."

Roy snorted and crossed his arms. "I don't like a lot of things, but that doesn't stop Wally from flinging them around at high speed." He grinned at the spluttering speedster in the corner. "Tell us anyway."

"...There's evidence missing from the ambush site."

Okay. Well. That sobered everyone.

"Explain."

"I've been going through the footage, looking for anomalies, anything that can help us find Dick."

Garth nodded. "Yeah, I expected that. That's standard."

"I found a few things, mostly minor, but one thing really stands out. Point me at the wall, and I'll show you."

The team watched the projected footage in silence, as Dick approached the car and streetlight and then...well. Despite knowing what was coming, they all flinched at the ambush.

Oz paused the footage.

They all shared another glance.

"Okaaaay," Donna said, "I'll bite. What are we missing, Oz?"

"Watch what Dick does before the ambush," Oz said, and replayed the footage.

Huh. Okay...

So. Something subtle...something they missed on the first re-watch.

Right.

Okay.

There was Dick. Bag. Cane. Jacket. Glasses. Check. Check. Check. Check.

And the rain. Don't forget the rain.

Approaching...

There were the thugs coming into view of the camera...

And...

Roy blinked at the projected footage of Dick subtly tensing under the streetlight. "Huh. He knew it was coming!"

"There's more. Keep watching."

Okay. Obviously...not obvious enough?

And Dick...had nowhere to go but the car. Right.

So he made the obvious choice. Backed up to the car, dropped the bag to kick it under the car...and...yeah.

Oz stopped the footage.

Wally, as always, realized it first. "The duffel," he said, bouncing on his toes in excitement at figuring it out. "It should've been under the car when we searched the site!"

"So, where the hell is Dick's bag?" Donna asked, glaring at the wall in consternation. If there was one thing she hated, it was being out-played.

Garth frowned. "More to the point, why'd we find the jacket and not the bag?"

"Because," Donna said slowly, her face grim, "someone obviously wanted to throw us off the scent."

"And it almost worked too, dammit," Roy swore. "Thanks for keeping us on track, Oz."

"Welcome. My question is, why would they be so desperate to hide the bag?"

Oh.

Oh…

Roy promptly swore and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying desperately to stave off the oncoming headache. If Dick had stored all of his identity papers (both the one he was using now and the ones he'd been hiding under) in his bag - which he would've because it was SOP, and he hadn't made any stops on the way, knowing him - and now the bag was missing...

Yeah. This was something he really should've seen coming. Dammit all to hell, if the wrong people got their hands on those identities and started tracking them, everything was in danger.

Forget telling Barbara. They'd have to move Sierra Echo from level Three to...Zero, effective immediately.

Later. Figure out the damage later. Get the bag first.

Donna looked at him for a long moment. "Let me guess. It's bad."

"Well, it's not good," he replied and proceeded to explain what he'd figured out.

"Okay," Garth nodded. "So. First things first: We get the bag back; then we go from there."

"Right," Roy nodded. "Wally."

"On it."

The air barely had time to make a muffled bang before Wally was back, looking all sorts of unhappy. And wet. So very wet. He shook himself off, flinging water around the room. "Gah, its a madhouse out there. On the other hand, I did find the bag...but there's a problem. Okay, maybe a few problems?"

Roy sighed, wondering to himself how this could possibly get worse. "Hit me."

The speedster held up his hands to start ticking off fingers. "Coupla things. First, it's a coupla blocks east, towards the docks from the original site. Two, there's another ambush set for it. Third, it definitely looks like someone's gone through it. And fourth, I'm pretty sure there's a tracker on it."

Okay. It's worse. Roy took a deep breath and let it out. Take it by numbers, Roy. He shared a quick look with Donna and Garth, then turned to Wally. "Break that down for me, Wal. How'd you find the bag again?"

"Oh, right, sorry. Forgot that bit. I searched the alley, but the rain's made anything that was there pretty useless. So I started spiraling out. Hit paydirt a couple of blocks east."

"And you're sure it's the same bag?" Roy pressed.

"Yeah. Such a big ambush for one little bag was a bit of a hint. Plus, there's the Bat and Titan micro-symbol we got him to embroider."

Yeah. It was supposed to be an identifier if Dick ever lost the bag. They were just never supposed to need it. Roy pushed that memory aside for now and kept going. "And what do you mean by ambush?"

"I mean easily forty, maybe fifty thugs with heavy firepower and knives, enough to overwhelm five ordinary people and maybe even one to two of our type of people, depending on who we sent."

"Charming," Donna muttered.

"Oh," Wally continued, "and they have tats. Like the ones in the footage."

"Great. LoA thugs. Couldn't be better," Roy snorted. "What about the bag itself?"

"Zip's open, but I didn't take much time to peek."

"And the tracker?" Garth pressed. "You sure it's a tracker and not something else?"

"Yeah. Pretty sure. There's a disguised truck parked around the corner, as well as a sniper nest. Both of them have digital eyes on the bag."

Right. Not the best scenario...but doable. They'd overcome worse, he knew it, even if right now Roy was hard pressed to remember the exact details. "Then can you take the bag without triggering either the ambush or the tracker?"

If anything, Wally looked even more unhappy. (Or maybe a bit ashamed?) "Yes to the first, maybe on the second. I'll need Oz's help, because it's got some kind of fancy shielding on it I can't vibrate through."

Donna sighed and facepalmed. "You already tried to lift it, didn't you?"

Yep, definitely ashamed. "Uh, possibly? Didn't get very far before I saw the tracker and put it right back. No more than a picosecond, I swear."

"Dammit Wal," Roy swore, feeling the headache throb at his temples. "That's not what I meant when I told you to go find it!"

"Hey, everyone, just chill. What if we try a decoy?" Garth suggested, hands held up placatingly. "Leave the tracker there and do a bait'n'switch?"

Roy nodded as the headache retreated. Marginally. "Yeah. That might work. And Wally?"

"...Yeah?"

"Just...try to be discreet this time, okay?"

The speedster grinned and winked before disappearing.

He was back moments later; gently placing a rather unassuming if rumpled duffel bag, half-unzipped, on the floor in the middle of the room.

Right.

Roy gave him the side-eye, his focus more on the bag. "Any trouble?"

"Nope. Went just like clockwork."

"And the tracker?" asked Donna.

"Still in place...on the other bag, jeez guys, take a joke, seriously."

Roy rubbed his forehead. "Seriously? Not the time and place, Fleet Feet." He cracked his neck and massaged it, hoping that would help his headache.

It didn't.

"Okaaaay," Garth said. "So we have the bag. Now what?"

Now, they really needed to know how much of the bag had been gone through, by whom, and if Dick's other identities had been searched. Roy tapped his fingers against his chin thoughtfully. "Oz. Can you do your thing from here or do you need the bag itself?"

"You know I get my best results if I have the everything, Roy." For a flat digital voice, he certainly managed chiding really well.

"Okay, Vic, we'll get it to you ASAP. I was just checking." He gingerly picked up the bag and turned to their speedster. "Wally."

"Yep. Analysis Room. On it." He took the bag just as carefully and promptly disappeared with a stiff breeze filling the room. "Done," he said as he reappeared, empty-handed a second or so later.

"Oz say anything?"

"Only that he'd text the results since Sierra Echo is a bit of a priority right now."

Roy nodded decisively. "Okay then. We'll proceed with the Sierra Echo Three unaltered until we hear back from Oz. Everyone ready?"

Garth sighed and nodded. "As we'll ever be."

"Then let's do it."

TBC