"Did they know that you-uh…"
"That I killed him on purpose?"
Wolf couldn't even begin to wrap his head around how those words popped so nonchalantly, nevermind from someone so young …
"They did." Alex nodded.
"Or Three did, anyway." He shrugged nonchalantly.
"He was pretty disappointed his experiment was cut short."
"He just let it go?"
"I didn't say that . I said he was disappointed. And I'm the one who disappointed him. There was obviously bound to be repercussions to that…to disappointing him. Three doesn't really do well with disappointment. Or anger. Emotions aren't really his thing . Said it drives up his hypertension."
"What he do? " Someone in the back called out, breaking the startled silence.
"He locked me in an oxygen circulated casket pumped up to my eyes with the same dosage I gave Ibram and had me buried. Left me in there for a solid twenty-four hours. Let me mull over my ' egregious actions' ."
Alex scratched at his arm absentmindedly, unconsciously jostling his watch just barely smothering the hiss of pain.
He frowned, glancing down, tugging the sleeve back down over the watch.
"But all things considered as far as punishments go, it was definitely on the more merciful side of things." he mused.
"Are you taking the fucking piss?"
It was the perfect mix of just enough astonished bewilderment and perturbed concern in Wolf's tone that had Tom choking back laughs, ducking back into his hoodie like some sort of weird chortling turtle.
The tears of mirth only started stinging once Ben reached over to give him a few cautious albeit reassuring pats on the back.
"I mean, he could have just used me as the new vivisection specimen. So I'm understandably just a little bit grateful he didn't, you know?"
The sarcasm was biting but Ben could tell the topic was hitting a little close for comfort.
"Alright. Moving on." he clapped.
"ARES Initiative." The sounds fell away into the air of solemn somberness.
"I said SCORPIA part 2, but it's more like a *Treadstone situation. The operation is more important than the group in this one, mainly because we have no idea who's actually behind all of this."
He paused, taking a breath.
"What we do know is that it is connected in some sort of way back to SCORPIA. And we know this because there have been matching intelligence from two different operatives at two different times from two different agencies."
He moved to the next slide.
"This man, Uri Azoulai. Thirty-two. Mossad. The only other one that made it back alive.."
It was brief, but Ben had been lucky. He saw the way Alex gripped the sides of the podium. How his frown became a scowl for just a moment as the photo of the man popped up on the screen.
This one was different.
Uri Azoulai didn't fit with the others.
He wasn't entirely sure as to what it could possibly be, but he knew that there was bound to have been some sort of problem between the two.
Something big going by the fact that Azoulai, for whatever reason, brought more of a reaction out of the younger spy than with the man who'd buried him alive .
"We crossed paths in Mosul. He was on a solo op following a lead to some arms deals that were getting a little too powerful in Mossad's eyes. Selling to the enemy and all that. I was on a joint recon op. We weren't supposed to meet, but I had info he needed and he had info he was willing to spare. And with how tits up my op went, I needed to grab as much intel as I could before getting out. Turned out we were both chasing SCORPIA. Or so we thought."
"Of course…" Tom muttered, wincing at the new slide.
"As I said, he made it back alive. But someone sometime between the boat he was stowing away on being less than 3 kilometers out at sea to docking in an Israeli port, threw a bucket of acid on his face. Got his eyes and his throat all the way into his vocal cords."
The bubbling of the skin hadn't gone down yet in the photo. And the hole in the man's neck was much too gruesome to look at, but Tom just couldn't fully look away.
Especially the eyes.
The milky whiteness of where the pupil should have been but wasn't . Cold and staring out into what was probably terrifying darkness.
"As abhorrent as this is, it's not SCORPIA's MO. If they were close enough to throw a bucket of acid on him, they were close enough to kill him and dump him overboard but they let him make it back alive."
He paused again, staring a moment longer at the photo.
"Now, we don't know much about the initiative. It's new, very new. Most of what's known is classified. But there's been a situation and SO has deemed it necessary for you all to be aware. As of 03:00 five days ago, Friday, December sixth, Captain Nathaniel Rutledge of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment has gone MIA from the Stirling Lines Garrison in Herefordshire. Looking over his past ops and other connected ops of his troop, it's suspected that his disappearance is connected with this-" he gestured to the screen behind him.
"Rutledge noted in his debrief a week prior that his platoon had found a few leftover boxes of something labeled Ibixgon . Whoever was hiding out in the building they stormed didn't have enough time to destroy all of it. And it just so happens that Azoulai mentioned Ibixgon as well, in his own debrief almost four months ago."
He took a moment to let the words sink in.
Things were cutting very close to home. Stirling Lines meant Herefordshire, where their own HQ lay. How many times had they had friendly training with the SRR? And the fact that someone could just up and kidnap a captain in his own garrison. Jesus . They were dealing with some seriously talented group…
Tom's eyes wandered around, taking in the expressions of grim solemnity.
People were going missing.
People being highly trained special force operatives. It was spine chilling, to say the least.
He paused, thoughts all but freezing in place as his wandering eyes made it back to the front, just in time to see Alex's brow furrow just a moment as he checked his watch again, giving it a few taps before catching Tom's eye with a questioning quirk of his brow.
And for a moment, Tom actually felt sorry, shaking his head before averting his eyes. Like he was the one who had done something odd.
Freaking spies .
Too freaking good at this emotional mental manipulation.
He was the one who caught Alex acting weird. Not the other way around, goddamn it!
But by the time he realized, Alex was speaking again, closing down the PowerPoint.
"That's it for today. And just as a reminder, you lot have a late-night excursion. If you have any questions, you can ask Eagle back there."
Eagle waved with a smile.
"Otherwise, you all are dismissed."
Ben didn't move. And as far as Tom could see, neither had the assassin, who Wolf and Snake had all but avoided on their way out, so he remained seated as well.
"Rutledge was found dead yesterday." Ben started, moving slowly towards the front.
Gregorovich remained in his seat, surveying the situation that was unfolding.
In all honesty, the man was interested.
"They haven't called off the night excursion." the blond answered, scrubbing a hand down his face, trying to scrub away some of the exhaustion.
"And?"
" And , I wasn't about to tell them that they found some captain's mutilated corpse out where they're about to take a midnight stroll, Ben . And for your information, Matthews has ordered me to keep my mouth shut about it until further notice."
"Matthews? When?"
"He gave me the order when he gave me the file I gave you."
They stood a moment, staring in silent conversation before Alex broke it, grabbing the laptop off of the podium before making his way down the stage to stand face to face with the older spy.
"If you have a problem with that, I suggest you go talk to Matthews yourself. If not, we'll just have to keep our eyes open a little wider.
Be a little more prepared this time around."
"Fox!"
"Eagle! Where you been?"
"Stopped by the instructor's hut for some files. Gregorovich wants to talk to you. Told me to tell you to come over around one. Said it was important but he'd need to tell you face to face. You too, Cub."
Alex nodded, stabbing his fork through a particularly thoroughly steamed carrot, blinking owlishly at the tray in front of him.
"Anyway-" his stare lingered a moment longer on the blond in vague concern.
"-Wolf, you'll be leading back up for tonight's excursion. In the new humvees, mind you. Very nice." Wolf chuckled appreciatively.
"Snake, you and Coyote are on med patrol, and I'll be the *defensive guard for this one."
"Defensive guard? For a domestic excursion?" Wolf queried, fork halfway to his mouth.
Eagle shrugged.
"That's what I asked. Couldn't get a straight answer."
"Interesting…"
"Yeah. I know, right? We'll be leaving at midnight, but Sarge wants everyone down at the parade ground by eleven-thirty."