I promise to move faster on this one now that the Holiday is over.
Lady Jaye awoke in the morning with a suddenness that had her nearly jumping out of the bed. She looked around in confusion, taking a minute to recognize her surroundings. Memories from the previous evening came flooding back as her mind cleared from sleep. She was in a small private room off of the main barracks in the Cobra base.
She stood up and winced as a shot of pain hit her in the head. Her mouth felt cottony and still tasted like whiskey. She rubbed her eyes and headed for the small but functional bathroom nearby. A shower made her feel somewhat better, but her head still ached and her personal bag was back at the hotel.
A knock at the door stopped her rummaging through the bureau drawers, and she pulled on the worn terry cloth robe that had been hanging in the bathroom. She cracked the door and peeked her head out. A young female Cobra soldier stood there with a bundle in her hands.
Lady Jaye opened the door to let her in. The woman looked terrified of her, but managed to stammer the obviously rehearsed lines, "Welcome to Cobra. I have a uniform for you. Major Bludd would like to see you upstairs as soon as possible. I will wait outside in the hallway while you change, and then take you to him." She backed out quickly and shut the door.
The uniform looked like it would fit. She had worn Cobra uniforms before as a disguise, but they had always been overly large and tended to smell like their former occupants. This one was tailored to fit a woman of about her size, and unlike the usual blue or red colors, it was entirely black. A large red Cobra emblem blazed across the front.
She stared at it a moment, wondering how she had ever gotten to the point that she would be donning a Cobra outfit as a uniform rather than as a disguise. She took a deep breath and began to dress.
It was fortunate that Major Bludd had been the one to interview her the night before. Lady Jaye had been worried that Destro or one of the more introspective leaders might be present. Destro understood loyalty and honor, even if he stood on the wrong side; she thought he might find her story a little too pat to be believable. Bludd, on the other hand, seemed to automatically believe the worst of people. That she had defected to the enemy because her commanding officer had acted like a jerk didn't make him suspicious at all. Of course, he was used to Cobra Commander, and the man's own mother would probably hand him in if she got the chance.
Glad they judge me by their own examples, she thought to herself. Now if I can continue to pull this off, I'll be just fine… She stepped into the hallway and followed the other soldier, who kept glancing back nervously over her shoulder as she led the way to Major Bludd.
The man had a small office on the main floor of the base. It was dingy, poorly lit, and lacked windows, decorations, and anything cheerful. Lady Jaye's escort hurried away as Bludd gestured at her to take a seat.
He stared at her a moment, a wide grin slowly spreading across his face. "Welcome to the right team, at last, my dear." She scowled back, not responding. He continued, "I thought I might take you on a tour to see the base, and then introduce you to our communications team. I'm sure they'll be interested to know a little more about the Joe Team's set up."
She slouched in her chair and said, "I thought you were supposed to tell me what Cobra is planning to do to Duke."
Major Bludd chuckled. "As I said last night, we have a perfect idea. All we need is some assistance with the execution… no pun intended."
Lady Jaye felt a chill run down her spine. "So are you gonna tell me or what?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Not yet. I'll let the comm. Team fill you in later." He rose and gestured for her to follow.
Major Bludd showed her most of the major areas in the Cobra base, and she was relieved to be able to stop for a few moments for coffee and breakfast, despite the company. Bludd seemed to be in charge of the entire operation; the Crimson Twins had returned to their own Extensive Enterprises office last night, and she had not seen a trace of the other Cobra officers or the Commander himself, and that was fine by her. It would make her job that much easier if she never saw any of them.
The finally ended up in a good-sized computer room in the center of the building. A main bank of terminals ran across the middle of the room, and larger screens covered the back wall.
Lady Jaye had been keeping track of the cameras positioned everywhere they went. The fact that they were in every room would make her task extremely difficult, but the hallways were unmonitored, which would be a big help. The computer room had three cameras; two in opposite corners, and one trained on the entrance. The cameras fed to this room; the screens on the back wall showed shifting scenes from each of the places they had visited that morning.
She watched them for a few minutes as Bludd spoke with the Cobra personnel at the various terminals. After the screens had run through their rounds twice, she knew exactly where she could walk in each room and not be seen, and where she could duck behind equipment to work unnoticed. She filed away the information for later.
Bludd motioned her over to the group. He introduced her to the technicians and told them to get whatever information they needed from her. He walked to a corner of the room and sat, watching the proceedings.
One of the men took a list from the table and glanced at its contents. He appeared to be a senior member of the Cobras who were present, but their chain of command was always in flux, and it was hard to tell what rank he might hold. He sat in front of the nearest computer and brought up a map of the United States.
Pointing out the various small marks scattered across the continent, he asked her, "It would help to start if you could confirm the locations of theses military bases and safehouses for us."
She took a seat next to him, and leaned forward. "What do you think I do for the army? I don't know the locations of every top-secret base in the United States. I know the locations of a few of the Joe safehouses, our own bases, and that's it."
He looked at her skeptically. "So where's the main Joe base?"
She laughed. "No deal. I'm not giving away any information that could compromise my friends or my family."
The soldier shrugged. "Fine. Give us the safehouse locations, then."
Lady Jaye simply sat with her mouth closed. Bludd called over, "She's supposed to help with the V2 plan for now. She'll be willing to trade more information after we complete it."
The man nodded. "Right. Then what we need are some passcodes. Specifically, the infirmary and Duke's office at the Pitt."
She rolled her eyes. "Okay, if you don't know where the Pitt is, how could that possibly help?"
"We have a…third party willing to work with us, don't worry. But he can't get into the areas he needs to."
Man is this guy dumb, Lady Jaye thought. He's just confirmed for me that the traitor is on base, that it's not one of the team leaders, and that it's a man.
"A third party? You're kidding. No one can get on base without some pretty serious clearance. He'd need the front gate and main hall passcodes, too, if not others. Who is he?"
The man cleared his throat, realizing he was saying too much, and as she had hoped, went too far in the other direction to try to compensate. "He can get on base, don't worry. He's not there right now, of course. But he has very high ranking connections. He could get the other codes, but doesn't want to draw too much attention to himself."
Lady Jaye knew that the man would have invented a lie that was pretty much the opposite of what was true. So, the man was on base, was fairly low on the totem pole, and had no access to the higher clearance passcodes. That narrowed it down, but not enough.
She sighed. "I can give you the codes, but I guarantee they've changed them since I left. It's standard protocol when someone goes AWOL. They change every three weeks, anyway. It was nearly time just before I left."
Turning to the computer screen, the man brought up a computer program, and hit a few buttons. To her surprise, the main Joe database came up, although it was only partly readable. Most of the words and links were a scrambled mess. "Then can you provide access to the system?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "And give you access to everyone's personal files? No way."
"Fine. Can you get to the new passcodes on here if we let you work on the computer by yourself?"
"Only if you don't log the keystrokes and keep this computer off of the network. You let me erase my work when I'm done, too. And no one watches me, including on the cameras."
He turned to Bludd, who nodded. She watched carefully as the man did as she instructed, making sure he didn't try any tricks. It seemed safe enough; he explained how the terminal could be isolated from the rest of the system, a trick they often needed to use when working with government files so that hidden bug bombs and other traps wouldn't spread over the network if they were sprung.
Bludd and the others sat on the opposite side of the room, leaving her with the computer. She checked a few other settings, confident that her actions would be untraceable later. She silently applauded the stupidity of Cobra in general, and set out to contact Duke. She sent him a message appraising him of the situation, and told him that she remembered the special codes the leaders had come up with over a year ago for just such an emergency. They had invented codes that would work in every area of the base, opening any barricade or office door, and would also send a silent alarm to the comm. Room and to whichever CO was on duty. She was glad now that they had thought of it, though the original intent was for use in an attack on the base if one of them was being held by Cobra as a way for a hostage to spread the alarm without warning the attackers.
Lady Jaye pretended to work for a while longer, finally typing the codes out on a text file and putting them on disk. She carefully erased all traces of her work, ejected the disk, and rose from her seat.
Handing the disk to Bludd, she said, "They erased all of my clearance. Fortunately for us, Duke doesn't know that I have his personal passwords."
He smiled and gave the disk to one of the men. "See that this reaches our contact." He turned to Lady Jaye. "I think this is going to work out wonderfully. Any thoughts on how you would like to occupy your time from here on out?"
She didn't like the lecherous gleam in his eye. "I thought that I would leave when we were done with this. How long until we see some results and I can get out of here?"
He took her arm to walk her from the room. "Come, now. Don't you want a more permanent position with Cobra? I thought that you might like to help train some of our troops over the next week or so. We may need your help again, and I would hate to fail because you departed so quickly."
Lady Jaye shuddered inwardly, but gave him a small smile. "I suppose I could keep busy while I'm waiting. Don't start designing a special uniform for me yet, though. I'm not exactly interested in the career move. I hear Cobra has terrible benefits."
Bludd laughed. "Perhaps spending some time here will change your mind. May I show you to your new quarters? I thought that something bigger would be more appropriate." He opened a door to a hallway she hadn't visited yet, and gestured for her to enter. She walked through, feeling his eyes on her the whole time.