ACCESSING ARCHIVED FEEDS...
DATE: SEPTEMBER 28th 2004
LOCATION: The Hague, HOLLAND, NETHERLANDS
PRECISE LOCATION: PARK SORGHVLIET
SECT VIJF CAM TWEE - 9:12:52
The coordinates matched perfectly.
Entering the park, a slight breeze rustles the leaves making them fall to the solid ground one by one. An incoming breeze of fresh air was warm, the beams of sunlight glowing on her light skin. The flowers were vast, and they concealed the freshly cut green grass.
The pathway was nothing more than dirt littered with random rocks, this far away from the entrance, as the children were playing and the parents talked among each other some distance away from where Martine stood. Massive fields of purple and indigo plants formed huge platforms and stretches of land as far as the eye could see, walking in them was like entering a world of new colour, unlike any other sensation.
The park that the coordinates matched covered a wide area that could fit about three small houses. It was hilly with a tall tree or two near one hill, and the other landscapes were more spread out. There were benches for people to sit in every corner and jogging tracks were all around the edges and weaved in and out of the park. The west corner had a large stone bridge the connected the two sides.
Many smaller Flower hedges and bushes grew all around; this made the park look more pleasant and attractive. This place would have been most beautiful at the time; it would have been so pleasurable to relax here and take in some cool fresh air. But that wasn't what Martine was here for. She had spent the entire night worrying, trying to remember the code-words that the unknown Email provided her and with no idea how those words would even factor into her getting to New York in 24 hours, all she could do right now was wait.
Sitting under a hanging tree, she averted her eyes when a cyclist raced past, not wanting to get any of the kicked-up grit in her face. Sighing, she could be here for hours. Leaving her her office unattended hardly mattered now, she had hope that no one would need her for as long as she sat in the Park, her constant uneasy shuffling on the bench making the dead leaves and grit crumble.
The bench had been exposed to the elements for many seasons, likely it was older than Martine was.
It had come to resemble driftwood, the bright tones of its once fresh state had become a sombre brown, old, but beautiful. She ran her fingers over the swirls in the wood grain, and turned to cross her legs, feeling the slight give in the wood, any creak being lost beneath the sound of pedestrians or fighting geese.
Martine felt the wind tousle her hair, cool, refreshing and let her eyes fall on the horizon. She wondered how many had sat in this very spot and what their emotions were, perhaps some were newlyweds in love, some confused teenagers searching for meaning, some of the common old folk come to remember a loved one who's passed. Though Martine had already felt each one of those emotions, she was none and all of those things, neither at the beginning of her life or the end, but old enough to cherish those moments instead of wishing them away. Having freshly dyed her hair six hours after midnight, Martine made sure to scramble any chance of someone recognising her here.
The change from onyx black to a warmer cinnamon brown had been a short one, like a shade of gingerbread, she had made sure to curl her locks more than usual, another touch to the best disguise she could come up with in the time.
There was little consideration needed, as Martine had changed her hair at least twice before now, so what was the worst that could happen?
Wearing a slim fitting blue shirt, black denim jeans, some month-old pair of unworn ankle boots, a thin grey lace scarf that hung low around her neck and a padded leather jacket which she wasn't even sure she owned, yet found it on her clothes rack anyway. Some darker and more gothic makeup choices than normal, Martine wanted to totally eclipse the other side of her for now.
The only new information she had was the circumstances of Georgia Newport's arrest, she was found in a warehouse in Colorado by a private security team, she was turned into the police promptly and then moved by a special request to Rikers Island. Who would want her moved? And why?
She couldn't trust anything here, it reeked of meddling, was D-Crypt involved? The mysterious contact had gone silent again, probably waiting until she unlocked the next piece of this longwinded investigation.
The thought of leaving the entire affair behind had occurred to Martine early on in her pursuit of this case, but she was so deep now that she couldn't escape, it had to be seen through until the end, too much added up to be a goose-chase, and the connections to the Uganda Case and now several others (thanks to Newport's NSA profile) had given Martine too much cause to be curious, the information wasn't faulty, she had suspects, means, opportunity and hopefully after meeting with Georgia in person, she'd have motive.
Tapping her foot on the path in frustration, she brought herself to her feet to go for a walk, perhaps some time to breath and another survey of the area would point something out to her. These were the coordinates, this park not far from the U.N.'s Court, so the unknown sender (who Martine assumed was D-Crypt again) knew where she worked and where would be the most conventional yet inconspicuous place to arrange a meeting, or whatever this would be.
She was walking unusually slowly, almost robotically, as if her brain was struggling to tell each foot to take the next step. It was all cautiousness, every glance and nervous flash of her eyelids was a step into uncharted waters.
From the rim of the nearest pond, a clearly homeless man approached her, his coat was full of holes with scabs and dirt in slashes across his bare hairy arms and in a drunken rasp, he began to beg her for change in Danish.
Crawling out from under a bushel that was bordering the moss-filled pool, the man scrambled to his feet. His face was drooling and drooping like a mask, hands that fluttered in panic, he madly grasped onto her arm, Martine was about ready to knock his head sideways, until he lowered his voice and spoke English as if he'd been speaking his entire life.
"Say your name" He demanded in an American, almost New Yorker accent, and immediately Martine knew that this was.
"Eileen" She responded plainly.
"Identifications code words?" He stared up at her, pushing forward slightly, she carried on talking.
"Chimera, asylum, fingerprinting" Martine expressed as cleanly as she could do.
The homeless man let go of her and indicated that they had to turn around, so Martine played dumb and followed along.
He pushed a thin cardboard box into her hand, marked 'contemporary art' the homeless man stroked his beard and huffed "This contains a clean passport, return tickets from New York, your pass into Rikers and a bank card to a well-funded account in your new alias"
He informed as they walked from the pond to under the stone bridge Martine had previously seen "Are you D-Crypt?" She asked when they got under the muffled bridge.
The man looked at her like she had suddenly started speaking Chinese "D-Crypt? No idea what you're talking about, I was hired to forge you some documents and set up a couple things, and I've done that" He said with a simplistic tone, like it was just that easy.
"Who hired you? How did you know who I was?" Martine coaxed him, eventually making the man throw his hands up in sarcastic defence.
"Look, toots, I wasn't supposed to tell you anythin' but since you've got a good look about ya, I'll bend the rules for today. I was hired by a man from the DarkNet under the username 'Parnassus', he gave me your photo and further jobs to do, but me being me, I backtracked the guy to a storage facility owned by Turndale Technologies, if that means anything to ya"
He chortled in a coughing fashion, and he wasn't lying about any of it, so Martine nodded, and thanked the man for his help.
After her trip to New York, she'd need to investigate Turndale as ruthlessly as possible.
Being her only possible lead on D-Crypt, she wondered if biting the hand that fed her was a good thing, but they had more leverage on her and she had on them. With incredible foresight and great resources available even this one entity looked unstoppable.
The homeless man had retreated into the shadows of the bridge like a troll would, sulking away back into the bushes, leaving Martine with the package and a day to ready her suitcase before flying to New York. Suddenly feeling her phone vibrate, she expected it to be Westergaard or Lucas asking her for an explanation as to where she's been for the past ten minutes. Instead it wasn't a call, but a text message, flipping her phone up to view the screen's small animation, Martine saw the highlighted moniker of 'Unknown' appear. With no camera in sight around the centre path of the park, at least she could take comfort in knowing that she wasn't being watched.
One message was all that was sent, and Martine wasn't even compelled to reply. The pompous and all-knowing nature eminently coming from the phone she held, meanwhile, another part of her brain was trying to figure out where she had seen the name Turndale Technologies before, maybe on a truck passing that cafe she liked?
Or one of those spam emails or pop-up ads, it could have been one of those. She knew that she had seen it before, but where? Currently observing the cryptic message, her emotive brown eyes struck a cord of oddity, as she evaluated the language, this didn't look like D-Crypt's tough business-like straight talking conduct, this was gloating, thinking that the Investigation was a great game and how it's ending shouldn't be rushed. On that presumption, Martine hurled the phone into the nearest pond.
UNKNOWN
Well done, my dear Martine, but I'm afraid our game doesn't stop here. We'll talk again shortly.
ACCESSING CURRENT FEEDS...
ACCESSING ARCHIVED FEEDS...
DATE: NOVEMBER 14th 2012
LOCATION: Manhattan, NEW YORK, USA
SECURITY 3 WAREHOUSE LINK - 23:10:56
Inside the Manhattan warehouse, even the ticking of the smashed clock had a relaxed feeling, as if it was a heart-beat at rest.
Kara felt as if the air moved like cool water and the aroma reminded her of her aunt's scented candles infused with sweet nectars that had appealed to her far more deeply at night than it did in the light of day. In the twilight the fabrics and metals were muted hues, as if they too awaited dawn to ignite their colours for all to see.
The dark room was like a place out of time, a place to rest without consequence.
Darkness in that way was a sanctuary, a place to recharge and forget the things the world said had to be done.
Things that haunted her no longer mattered, what Kara had become now was a creature of vengeance and revenge. Revenge, she had always considered it to be a much belied concept. Knowing that she always served people what they had truly earned kept her happy and serene.
The CIA was her lifeblood, her work and the hobby she favoured.
But now she knew they could play their passive aggressive bullshit games and she would smile, nod and give every impression that she was the gracious looser of the skirmish.
Then several months later something bad would come their way, some random freak bad luck. A nail in a tire, a scratch on their paintwork, a couple of dead family members and a series of untraceable phone calls in the middle of night.
Those years and months had passed, the Ordos mission, John's reappearance, the laptop, Decima, Greer, all of it happened in what was such a short time.
Now here Kara was, firstly, she was alive, and second, she had become a bloody trailblazer. Sitting in a raunchy fashion on a metal crate, she held the phone to her ear and kept her brown-tinted eyes on the suited man strapped to a thin interrogation style chair.
Her cascading brunette hair was accompanied by a thick leather jacket, with a material shining similar adjourning her long and prepossessing legs.
"Yes, I've secured the items...perhaps I should have told you before now, but I-" She sighed mid-sentence as the voice on the other end broke in, pouting her lips and averting her vision from the face of judgement that honed in on her in the corner.
It was tempting to pick up her sidearm (a suppressed SIG-Sauer P239) and blast him in the head just to stop his eyes digging inside her.
"Bosses unhappy? I knew you didn't have the spine to do this yourself" Mark Snow chastised her from his strapped-down position in the chair, his everyman face contorted into a knowing sneer. The handler was still wearing his party-favour, a mismatched collection of long red explosive tubes that was strapped to the rim of his chest, connected to a phone plastered onto the front of the bomb-vest, he felt it's clunky drag in even the most minimal of motions.
Stanton listened to the man on the other end, as he expressed a concern as to who was speaking to her.
"It's my help, someone who's gone to a lot of trouble to end up here, I was going to just-" Kara was cut off again, closing her eyes in heated anguish, she then agreed to the next demand, picking up her silenced handgun with a set of skilled fingers, she aimed it at Snow's chest.
"He wants to speak to you" Kara clipped at him in a cold tone, like their relationship in the CIA now meant nothing.
Snow flared up his hands in an obvious statement, as the layers of wire and duct-tape restrained him, he made a groaning noise "My hands are tied here Kara, I don't know what to say" He spluttered when she sprang on him and suddenly stuck the flip-phone in between his shoulder and his ear.
Using the weight of his head to balance the handset, Snow mouthed a sarcastic thank you to Stanton, and heard a low cough and then a high-class dialect from England, as Stanton's smirk awaited him once he glanced up.
"Good evening, Mr Snow. My deepest condolences about your partner, Mr Evans, I'm sure he was a good man...though I find you CIA-types to be quite disposable these days" The voice jested, while Kara leapt back up to the top of the crate, folding her legs, she tapped her boot's toe on nothing at all, still aiming her pistol to Mark's torso.
Mark's lips were about to part, a snuff of a syllable escaped his mouth before the phone operator butted in.
"So that it makes it quite fortunate for you that my dear Ms Stanton was able to release you from such...irrelevancy"
"What do you know about my work?" Snow remarked with a harsh and gruff growl, the veins on the side of his balding head pulsing.
His former employee was grinning ear-to-ear, her hair was in a battle-frizzled style, some designer's non-design. Stanton deeply giggled with a breath of air when the British commanding tone responded.
"Knowing is my business, Mr Snow, and I make it my mission to know a great many things. For now you'll be required to perform a few more actions, with Ms Stanton acting as your supervisor" He commented smugly, secretly, Mark knew that Kara couldn't have done this all alone. Indeed, she was capable, but not enough to access data and company intranets like she's been doing.
Now, judging from the voice, it was possible that a MI5 or MI6 member contacted her to perform these heists, possibly a ex-SAS Commander, but that was unlikely. Of course betrayal was expected in the CIA, the amount of experience and skills that Langley agents are given with near-unchecked authority always worried Mark, the possibility for a occurrence like this was just too high, as soon as someone from the private-sector swooped in, the agent would become compromised, just like Stanton.
Maybe John should have killed her at Ordos like he was supposed to have done. The face of his other colleague hadn't even appeared to him yet, after the fateful mission to China, he had seen Reese a total of once.
Tracking 'the man in the suit' wasn't a particularly genius move, as it did lead Snow to the man in question, but it also dropped him into Stanton's cold grasp, and lost him a partner and any former credibility he had. "So you're the one she takes orders from? Looks like she went from one agency to another" Mark presumed, rounding out on his theory. Briskly, the voice disregarded what Snow had said with a scoffing sound.
"Oh I assure you, my company does not seek to order Ms Stanton anywhere, we are engaged in a mutually beneficial partnership, the purpose of which you will soon understand" The Brit articulated.
Constantly observing her former handler, Kara recalled her own past. John. Their on-and-off work based relationship was more than complicated, leading her fatal kiss to touch him many times. Even from the first time that they met in Hungary, to the meetings with Beale, Corwin and then Snow.
Unity kept them together, but it was the work and the loyalty that drove them apart. The entire Casey job (followed by Ordos) was almost too staged to be true, and ever since Greer revealed that the bombing of the tech facility and John's betrayal was orchestrated by a source at some secret governmental office, he had twisted the knife just the right way. She had been promised a lot by that man, the name of the all-telling laptop's buyer, justice against her former superiors, and an exit from the entire affair afterwards, with nothing tracing her back to it. Mark believed her to be insane after surviving Ordos, she could see it in his eyes, the way he spoke with a calm and rational expression, only showing an ounce of dauntlessness to Greer, who was just a voice in a phone and not a physical and violent presence.
"Hey!...your Grandpa wants me to pass the phone back" Mark announced as he wiggled his bound hands again, his eyes tensing in a split of unfounded confusion and ignorance as he was breaking Kara from her pool of thoughts, the leather-clad brunette hopped off the crate, raising her weapon to mid-height, she gently removed the phone from the wedge in his ear and shoulder. "Is that all?" She chimed, stepping back to a safe distance from the rustic splint-bottomed chair, and Mark's restrained ankles that posed no threat; but still couldn't be trusted.
"Quite so, my dear. We can't talk again, not until you have succeeded in your task. Do you have the hard-drive ready for deliverance?"
"I do. NSA certified, just as you said" Stanton deadpanned, eyeing a placid and unruffled Snow.
She had taken some twisted pride in having him work for her now, stealing and robbing as she and Greer pleased.
"Excellent, I foresee a great partnership ahead of us...and as long as you deliver your end of the bargain, you will have the name of our mystery buyer" Greer withheld. The phone produced static and a final technological death rattle, so much for that burner. Outlining the steps for her plan, Kara turned her back to Mark, dropping the phone.
"How about another field trip?" She said, smiling.
ACCESSING CURRENT FEEDS...
ACCESSING ARCHIVED FEEDS...
DATE: FEBRUARY 20th 2013
LOCATION: Manhattan, NEW YORK, USA
PRECISE LOCATION: THE SUFFOLK HOTEL
ROOM 1458 CAM 02 - 16:46:27
Veronica had remained in her hotel room after she learned about Aquino from Mike, she had always trusted his word since the Farm, if he was on to something, then it might as well have been correct. She did one last brush of her quilted ebony brown hair and fixed the last button in her purple shirt.
Looking at herself in the mirror, she had already sent away Agent Wilson's entourage and the look of his prying's thugs malicious normality.
But that was close to three hours ago, and Veronica had given away a post as an active agent after Langley, so she acted as a dimwit, fooling the first squad into leaving her alone, for now. Mike had sent her classified documents and emails detailing several key points about the ISA, and much more than just regular contacts.
From what she saw...Cole was primed to expose them. That couldn't end well for him, as Veronica knew that no whistleblower ever made it out alive. 'Protecting the Program' that's what the liaison for the Office of Special Counsel always told them on day 1 of basic training.
Veronica slipped on some heels and flinched at a hard knock on her hotel room door, it was probably Michael's partner, Indigo Five Alpha. She popped a piece chewing gum in her mouth to freshen her breath a little, staying up too late was havoc on the body and mind.
Going to the doorknob, Veronica started to open the door, and her curiosity got the better of her.
On the other side of the door was a simply-dressed brunette, pretty of face with cute features and a freshly-picked peach skin tone. "Can I help you?" Veronica inquired with the upmost inquisitiveness, the response was in a butter-like tone, it was almost sensual in how pleasant it was.
The accent was easy to pin, Texas? Washington? Ottawa?
Okay so maybe not that easy.
"Yes" Was all the woman had to say before she raised something as fast as a strike of lightning, was that a spray bottle?
She squirted it in Veronica's eyes, singeing her eyeballs, Veronica heard a sizzle before she went to scream and slam her palms into her sockets, but she was pushed backwards by the shoulders and thrown into her room before any sound was uttered.
"I'm sorry about my...brutality, but if you talk quickly then I won't have to burn anything else" The woman grappled Veronica by the hands, taking her wrists in her black-painted nails, she dragged her (still yelling in pain) to the bathroom, dropping her to the tiled floor.
The strange and violent brunette made little noises of work as she spoke, wrapping up Veronica's wrists in clear plastic zip-ties, perfectly tightened, she withdrew a small taser, buzzing and crackling, she smirked and took a short breath as an interrogation began in Veronica's hotel room.
"You recently received intelligence from a covert operative of a branch of the US Government, what was the content of these documents?" The woman asked, smartly at first.
Veronica stuttered, still recovering from the acidic spray or whatever the liquid was.
"H-how do you know? - who even are..are you?"
"My name? I've had a few, in around half an hour, my name will be Veronica Sinclair. But for now, you can call me Root" She said menacingly, but still wearing a strong ear-to-ear smirk.
"I'm not gonna t-tell you anything..." The captive woman stammered, crawling up against the cold bath, her vision still not improving as the figure in front of her was hazed and wavy.
"Well, I think we can change that. I bought this stun-gun cheap, you know, but I'm becoming more fond of it by the day. What do you think?" Root squatted down and snickered before she jammed the electric prod of the taser towards her hostage's chest, the initial zap was a jolt of pain, surging into Veronica with a low rumble, but it didn't have time to sear and fade as the next round of the taser jamming into her chest came.
It was an hour in the making, before Root halted...and with interest, she turned to the iron sat on the kitchen counter behind her.
About eight minutes later and with strangulation, blunt force and electricity used to extract no info, Root searched for an alternate means of persuasion.
With a almost defeated inflection, Root hid the taser back in her jacket's pocket "Clearly they train you to resist electricity, have you ever tried branding? I hear once the hot iron touches your..." Her index finger lightly touched over her own set of breasts, running along the top of her bust, they were perking neatly from the blue shirt in which they were set.
"It isn't pretty. So either you start talking, or I see what the human threshold for extreme cauterisation is at four-hundred degrees Fahrenheit" Root smiled again, it seemed that was all her face could do.
When Root was about to shrug in confirmation, her hostage finally broke under the pressure, her answer was vague, but as she only knew what she could piece together, that's all she could give the torturous woman.
"Michael Cole...sent me information about a wire transfer to a nuclear engineer called Daniel Aquino. I thought they came out of accounts with Hezbollah but someone had s-spoofed the transfers, I tracked down the original accounts, which came from a group at the Pentagon. The intelligence support activity" Veronica dumped on her.
"Go on. Tell me all of it, then I'll let you go" Root promised, her eyes turning from lethal with a sadistic masochist's flare to a woman just wanting answers.
"Their budget is confidential but it stretches back for five years, most of it coded on a project called Northern Lights, I- I don't know what that is, but Aquino was apart of it. They had him build a facility of some kind"
"It's name?"
"Research. I can't find anymore names of the workers, but Mike said that Aquino told...his partner...the name of a contact in Northern Lights" The hostage's knowledge ended there. Root puckered her lips momentarily while thinking "Have you been approached by anyone else?" Root wondered.
"Agent...Wilson's men searched for me in here three hours ago, but I was able to deter them"
"Cole's partner, a name?" Root pulled a stretch of grey adhesive tape from her jacket.
"Indigo Five Alpha, her alias is -"
"Sam Shaw" Root had already seen the file, working at Special Counsel's behest gave her a lot of chance to invest her time in mapping out the playing field, and the players.
Root had delved into her file among many others, so she'd be prepared once they met. "Thank you so much, Veronica" She ignored Veronica's pleas as a pair of snapping hands strapped the strip of tape across her mouth, muffled in panic, the real Veronica's vision returned at that moment to watch as the intruder took a container of nail-paint remover from the bathroom cabinet and went to move her overcoat and handbag, along with a black steel Heizer Defense DoubleTap pistol.
"What a nice little chat, now keep quiet, and don't move very much. I'd hate to show you what I can really do when I pay hardball" She threatened, swiftly exiting the room without another word. What had she done?
The entire thing happened faster than the life of a mayfly, and as she heard a phone ringing outside in her hotel room, Veronica slumped to the floor in utter misery.