August 12, 1998

Had a meeting with Devlin today. He completely caught me off guard by telling me that I was going on a deep cover mission. Apparently SD-6 has set up a new headquarters in Chicago, so they're sending agents undercover to find it and destroy its operation before they gain too much power. My cover in Chicago is Samuel Coulson, a high school English teacher.

August 13, 1998

I got the full report on the mission in Chicago today. It's going to be bigger than I expected. There's a team of about 60 agents in all, 50 of which will be undercover. The new branch of SD-6 is now called SD-8. Our team is suppose to use intelligence we have to investigate people with possible links to SD-8, but basically we're searching for the proverbial needle in a hay stack. My partner on this op is Courtney Parker, in addition to being one of the undercover agents she is also suppose to be the rendezvous between Chicago, the office here in L.A, and headquarters in Washington. Her cover is as a lawyer who has associations with firms in other states, hence the frequent travel. It was hard for me not to laugh when I heard that. That role is almost custom made for her. She even looks the part of a high powered, no nonsense lawyer, the reason being that she already is a high powered, no nonsense CIA agent. Not that I'm putting her down for it, I know she'd take it as a complement as if I said that out loud.
Weiss is on the team too. His cover is as an investment banker, so when we met after work for some drinks I had to listen to him moan about boring cover jobs. That is until I told him what my cover was, then his whining turned into taunts about me teaching. My favorite was his response to when I told him to shut up, "Or what you'll keep me after class?"
Eric may be my best friend and all, but sometimes he can be a real pain in the ass.
Devlin assigned the agents going under from our office to a week long preparation program at Fort Irwin, and the fact that they're making us actually stay at the fort for the duration of the training can only mean that have so much information to cram into us that they want to be able to drag up at any time of the night or day. The fun is beginning already.

August 23, 1998

I finished training program, it consisted of a brush up course on deep cover procedures; a college course on English literature which I am a little proud to say I passed with flying colors; and a course on teaching techniques. In it I learned about how to interact with teachers and students, grading scales, SAT and college preparation, and something called the academic knowledge and skills. The instructor was a marine lieutenant/ex-teacher who had absolutely no qualms about voicing her opinion on how the CIA was showing "complete irresponsibility for the students' education by assigning an under qualified agent to the job."
Translation: "You're an incompetent idiot."
All of the preparations have been made, our temporary headquarters in Chicago is up and running, and my cover as Samuel Coulson has been fully established. The cover story for my friends and family is that I've been transferred to Washington for a short time for an operation at Langley. I spent the last two days hurriedly packing, and now I have exactly 10 hours until my flight leaves tomorrow morning.

August 24, 1998

Well I'm here finally. I left L.A. this morning as Michael Vaughn on a flight to D.C. When the plane arrived my luggage went missing. Since I was due on another plane leaving from North Carolina, this time as Sam Coulson, I couldn't afford to wait around. Even with my badgering it took them two hours to find everything. I then left the airport in my CIA issued rental car, driving like a bat out of hell to get to Raleigh in time to catch my flight. It was an eight hour drive all the same, and by some miracle I managed to not get pulled over.
Just before as the plane scheduled to take off a thunderstorm came through, delaying us on the runway for more hours. I got off the plane in Chicago at 10:45 that night with a migraine, low blood sugar, a bad case of jet lag, and was late 20 minutes late meeting with my new landlord. The first words out of his mouth when I arrived where, "Thank you for being on time." Only after that did he give me the keys and show me up to my new place.
The delivery guys arrived with my stuff later. As they were leaving on of them said to me, "That's everything Mr. Coulson."
"What?" I asked without even realizing.
He looked at me confused and repeated, "I said 'that's everything Mr. Coulson.'" It was only then that I realized my dumbass mistake. Once the movers left I set to unpacking. The bottom of the first box collapsed when I lifted it up, spilling everything out onto the floor. It was then that I just gave up, and wandered around the streets until I found a take out pizza place with a liquor store next door. Thank God for Samuel Adams.
So now I'm brooding about today's airline hell, and how I nearly blew the mission before it even started by forgetting my cover. At least both Michael Vaughn and Sam Coulson have the excuse of a stressful move to be sitting around nursing a beer bottle. This mission is getting off magnificent start.