Crowley only agreed to stay in bed until Friday morning and that was after a significant argument, Dr. Mary's vehement insistence, and a coerced promise out of Adam and Warlock to give him regular updates on the plan.
His side smarted as he took his seat in the conference room the next day, but he steadfastly tried to cover his wince. He could not show weakness.
Anathema had already implied she didn't think Crowley was physically up for the mission to which he'd scoffed.
"I'd like to see her try and stop me from London," he spat at Newt when she'd rang off the video call, throwing the engineer a vaguely threatening glare meant to imply that he was not under any circumstances to tell his lover anything Crowley didn't want him to.
Newt had gulped and nodded, seeming to get the double-six agent's message. Crowley had come this far; he wasn't sitting this out. Not when the fate of the world and the person he cared about most in it hung in the balance.
He tapped his long fingers on the table, replaying everything he knew about what they were walking into in his head and trying not to think about how even if they were successful stopping the bomb, it might still be too late for Aziraphale.
His reverie was broken when the door flew open and Shadwell marched in, followed closely by Newt, Adam, Warlock, and Pepper. There seemed to be a bit of an argument going on between them.
"I'll neigh be sendin' an injured man into the field!" Shadwell bellowed. "Tha's how we lost Dalrymple back in '04."
"In all fairness, Sir," Newt interjected, "Colonel Dalrymple was using an untested prototype weapon that backfired. His injured arm likely had nothing to do with it."
Shadwell shot the younger man a withering glare as he took a deep swig of what Crowley knew was sickeningly over-sweetened tea. As far as he could tell, no one had yet to notice his presence.
"Hi guys," he drawled with a small wave. Newt startled and Adam and Pepper chuckled.
Shadwell glowered at him over his mug. "Mr. Crowley, I dunno what's in yer head tha' ya think yer fit to go into the field but..."
"Crowley has to come!" Adam piped up, cutting of his American liaison. "We wouldn't even know what we're up against if it weren't for him. If he feels up to it, we could use all the help we can get!"
Crowley spared a small smile for his young friend. For having very limited experience, he felt like the boy understood him immensely well.
"I agree with Adam," Pepper said.
Warlock gave a nod of agreement, the corner of his mouth quirking up slightly before resuming his usual impassive, bored look.
Shadwell groaned and let out an indecipherable string of curses. "Fine," he spat. "But 'e's not running lead."
Crowley smirked but put his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
We'll see about that, he thought. Plans had a tendency to change once agents got into the field.
A tense silence fell over the room for a few moments(1) until the door opened once again, admitting Brian, Wensleydale, and three other agents who were introduced as Smithe, Tin, and Milkbottle.(2) Wensleydale set down a laptop and clicked a few keys revealing Anathema on screen.
"Alright," she said as soon as everyone had taken their seats. "Let's get started."
Four hours later the plan was set, for better or worse. The objective was simple: find the bomb, disarm it, and take Gabriel alive. Any other conspirators, including Beelzebub or Zuigiber were to be considered expendable, but the CIA wanted Arkangel. They would need him alive to divulge any further assets and, if they were lucky, Aziraphale's location.
While the goal was simple, the operation would not be. As the team had parsed through the plan and every bit of data they had on the hotel and the gala, they realized just how little they knew. Aside from the bomb's contents they knew nothing of the attack, not where it would be planted, when it would go off, or even how many hostiles to expect on the premises.(3)
Complicating matters further was a need for secrecy; even the slightest suggestion that a rogue Russian agent was planning an attack on two former presidents would be enough to start an international incident, and without more details the foundation refused to change the plans for an event that had been in the works for six months.
"Daft bastards said they'd look bad if they cancelled on hearsay," Shadwell had spat. "Best we could do was permission to embed agents at the event for extra security."
This then had been the formation of the plan. Six MI6 agents and four CIA operatives working in four teams to sweep the building, infiltrate the banquet, and watch the perimeter.
Back in his room at the Ritz Crowley ran down the plan again in his mind as he lay in bed, waiting for the pills Dr. Mary had given him to take effect.(4)
Four teams: Brian and Agent Tin, a sturdy looking man with a dark beard, would be embedded with security at the front door looking for anything suspicious; Warlock and agent Smithe, a tall woman with a long blonde ponytail who reminded him a bit of Aziraphale with her deceptive looking softness, would be infiltrating the banquet itself to look for Gabriel or Beelzebub while undercover as a young philanthropist couple (though Crowley and Anathema doubted the ex-KGB agent would be making an appearance); Newt and Wensleydale would run communications and watch the service entrance in the back from a surveillance van; and finally, Crowley, Adam, Pepper and Agent Milkbottle, a sour faced man in his thirties with skin so white he truly lived up to his strange moniker, were to leave the hotel room the moment the banquet hall doors opened and begin sweeping the building for the bomb.
Logistically, they knew the bomb would need to be sneaked in after the party began. The Secret Service would be sweeping everything in the building and its neighbors in the hours leading up to the event, so there was no way it would escape detection if it was there too early. Even going up to his hotel room, Crowley had had to walk through metal detectors tonight.
Crowley took a breath. At least they were sure of something. The bomb would enter the building tomorrow evening. During the morning, Adam, Milkbottle, and Pepper would come up to join him and they would map out their sweep one last time. They'd each been outfitted with a Geiger counter disguised as a mobile phone by Newt, who had also provided Crowley with a new pair of sunglasses.
"That's a new record I think," the Quartermaster had quipped at him, as he handed him the new pair. "You know these cost over £300 a pair, I can't just make a million of them for you to keep in the glove box."
Said single pair of sunglasses was now sitting on the nightstand next to Aziraphale's trick bible and his old, blood-stained tie as Crowley began to feel his eyelids growing heavy.
"It's going to work," he muttered to himself. "It has to work... Don't worry, Angel... Wherever you are, I'll find you..."
1 Which Crowley judiciously decided not to fill with continued table tapping.
2 Whether the latter of these was a nickname or an unfortunate surname Crowley was not sure, but he thought better of asking.
3 While everyone agreed Crowley eliminating Ligur was probably a point in their favor, no one was foolish enough to think Beelzebub and Arkangel were limited to the three accomplices the team had already come across.
4 The only way she had signed off on his release for the operation was an agreement that he 'rest up' extensively. Crowley assumed those instructions were open to interpretation and as such had washed his medication down with a glass of scotch in order to more effectively settle his nerves.