Nancy walked around the ballroom, smiling and talking, drinking champagne, but all the time observing the people around her. She was at the annual ball thrown by the notorious businessman, Luigi Giovanni, at his lavish Florida home. It had been a bit of a stretch even for the CIA to smuggle her and her team into the party. Apart from being a billionaire with questionable business connections, he also had some very heavy political connections. Security had been painfully tight, and even her impressively solid persona of Nancy Mallard, rich heiress and party girl extraordinaire, had had trouble getting an invite.
"Ah, Miss Mallard, I hope you are having a pleasant time?" asked a familiar voice from behind her. This time her smile was real, as she turned around and glanced at Adam Carmichael, alias Adam 'Macaw' Wilson. He was boyishly good looking, with sandy curls and mischievous green eyes. His deceptively angelic face hid a mind that was razor sharp and his airy, flirty ways hid a heart that was always warm and friendly. He had joined less than a year ago, and was one of the few agents she liked as a friend. After a couple of tries to get her out on a date with him, he had settled into the comfortable comradeship they shared.
"Why not?" She replied with a look of mock surprise. "Expensive champagne, such illustrious company, such refined people who are completely above crass overtures, what's not to like?" she continued with an ironic twist to her lips.
"People hitting on you already, huh?" he responded with a sly smile. "I can see why that would be hard to believe," he mocked, sweeping an appreciative gaze over her frame.
She laughed. "Well, you don't look half bad yourself," she said with a teasing smile as she took in his tuxedo, sitting well on his six-foot-three frame. The formal dress didn't do much to hide the breadth of his shoulder or the length of his muscular legs. She knew, however, how much he hated wearing such clothes, and couldn't resist teasing him about it. "So suave and debonair, I'm surprised to see that no arm candy has latched on to you."
His smile instantly vanished to be replaced by a petulant scowl. "I feel like a ridiculous over-dressed Christmas turkey," he grumbled. "And don't say anything about arm candy, you don't know the effort it took to dislodge the last one," he remarked with a shudder.
"At least you are a guest at this bloody party, not a bloody waiter whom people think it's ok to spill champagne on," said a low voice from nearby. Nancy looked at the champagne waiter passing by and almost laughed at the disgruntled expression on Daniel 'Raven' Richardson's face and the yellow stain on his vest. A married father of three, he'd felt uncomfortable posing as a guest and flirting, so he'd gotten stuck as a part of the serving staff. He stopped near them on the pretext of giving glasses of champagne, and smirked at Adam, "I can understand the comparison to a succulent bird though. Your proposed companion has been eyeing you all night as if you were a delicious morsel, and she's looking for you now." With that, he walked away with a jaunty flourish, leaving Adam scowling more heavily than ever and Nancy trying to stifle her chuckles.
"See you later," he said, mindful of the fact that they oughtn't to spend more than five minutes talking to each other. He walked away, sighing as he caught sight of his target, Giovanni's niece, a rather plump girl who was dressed in a gown two sizes too small for her. Nancy gave a neutral nod and walked away as well, looking for her target, Giovanni himself.
One of Giovanni's many suspected questionable connections was a shipping company that transported cargo both by air and sea. There had been a number of raids on ships which had uncovered drugs and weapons among the shipments, but the shipments were too small to be of any serious worth. The DEA suspected that the main runs were performed by planes, but had been unable to uncover the schedule and the exact location of the runs. They also strongly suspected Giovanni's hand in the business, but had been unable to pin a connection between him and the company.
Until, that is, a DEA agent who had been investigating near Giovanni's offices had mysteriously disappeared, only to turn up dead a few days later. A rising amount of revolutionary activity in Mexico and Latin America had resulted in the CIA being brought into the picture as well. Nancy and a team of agents had been sent to look into the matter and find conclusive proof. It was a fairly standard reconnaissance mission and she was hoping to be done by tonight and on a plane home tomorrow.
It was just as Nancy was turning around to look for Giovanni that she caught sight of a figure in a doorway across the room, leaning against it in a deceptively relaxed pose. The face was turned away from her, but there was a strange familiarity about the profile that had her heart pounding. A group of people passed before her line of sight and when they moved away, he was gone. That profile, I haven't seen it in so long, but I could have sworn it was…
"Looking for someone, angel?" She heard an oily voice behind her, blowing away her thoughts as she swirled around to find Giovanni himself behind her, smiling at her. "I noticed that you had come alone, however, so I'm sure I won't be stepping on any toes if I ask you to dance. I don't know your name, though I'm sure you wouldn't mind it if I called you angel," he smirked.
"Nancy Mallard." She replied with a simper. "And I would love to dance with you, Mr. Giovanni."
Luigi Giovanni, Nancy decided five minutes later, was a rather repulsive egomaniac. He was a couple of inches shorter than her five-feet-seven and probably weighed a hundred pounds more. He seemed to have an infallible view of his own attractiveness however, and continually kept leering at her and feeling her up. Money will make anyone attractive I suppose, Nancy thought sourly, as she kept up a vacuous smile and empty headed chatter, and responded with drunken giggles to his advances.
When the dance ended, she leaned heavily against him, pretending to feel dizzy with too much drink and the heat. As he led her out of the ballroom and towards the terrace around it, Nancy tittered, "Ooh, you have such pretty gardens Mr. Giovanni! I heard that you have very pretty flowers in your conservatory as well. Can I see them, in private, with you?" she ended with a coy whisper.
"Of course angel, though none of my flowers are as pretty as you. And please call me Luigi," he replied, running his fingers over her bottom. Nancy gritted her teeth at the touch and the excruciatingly lame pickup line, but her ploy succeeded and he led her away from the ballroom and walked along the corridor towards the more private sections of the house.
Just as they reached the conservatory however, a waiter came up and whispered something in Giovanni's ears. As he turned to leave, Nancy caught his cool grey eyes behind Giovanni's back as he imperceptibly nodded. Dominic 'Scarecrow' Shepherd was a part of the organizing team for the party, so he would have had a chance to scout out the place and locate Giovanni's private rooms and the number of guards. She blinked once to say she understood, and then focused on what Giovanni was saying.
"A minor trifle that I have to take care of, angel, so shall we go back to the party?" Giovanni asked.
"Oh Luigi, you promised to show me the pretty flowers." Nancy pouted. "In private," she whispered seductively.
Giovanni hesitated, but the obvious charms of his fair companion won over his prudence. "In that case angel, why don't you sit on this bench here, while I go sort this out? I will be right back," he replied.
"Sure, Luigi," she smiled, keeping her eyes peeled on him until he disappeared from sight. Giving him fifteen seconds to go away and after checking that the coast was clear, she pulled out a tiny microphone that was strapped to her thigh and put it in her ear.
"Phish, come in. Do you read me?" she whispered as slipped out of the conservatory, and walked silently along the corridor towards the side stairs.
"Loud and clear, Iris. I can see you too!" Cody 'Phish' Dalton replied, from his position in the communications van located less than a hundred meters away on the road from Nancy's position. He was looking at Nancy on one of the screens in the van, the images coming from the now overridden cameras in the house and grounds.
Her team had done their research well, Nancy thought as she came up on to the second floor. If she had met someone she would have pretended that Giovanni had sent her to his bedroom, but with Cody giving her information about the whereabouts of the people in the corridors, she met no one. She cautiously headed down the corridor to Giovanni's private quarters and stopped before the first door. It was locked, and it took less than a minute to pick it.
Jackpot, she thought silently, as she looked around Giovanni's study. Her job was made all the easier when she saw that there were no filing cabinets, just the computer on his desk. She rapidly walked to it and pulled out a tiny ear piece and what looked like a memory device from where she had strapped it to her thigh.
"Phish, I'm in his office now," she whispered as she plugged in the memory device, which contained a veritable treasure of hacking software, into the computer. "I have connected the memory stick to the computer. I'm going to look around a little to see if I can find anything else. Are you getting the data?" she asked.
"Connecting…bypassing his password…man, his computer security really does suck! Yup, I'm in and we're downloading!" Cody responded enthusiastically.
"Great. Can you see Giovanni or his thugs?" she asked.
"Yes, he's in the west wing near the ballroom talking to his head thug, Carlos. There are none of them near your location. I'll give a heads up when Giovanni heads back to the conservatory." Cody replied.
"Thanks," Nancy said, already getting down to work. She opened the drawers in Giovanni's desk, picking the ones which were locked, and methodically looked through his files. There didn't seem to be anything of interest, though she noticed that he seemed to have an inordinate number of Playboy magazines. Sighing with frustration, she replaced everything as it had been and stood up.
"Data's almost copied, Iris," Cody said. "Did you find anything else of interest?"
"No, I didn't…wait a minute…" Nancy's voice trailed off as she noticed a piece of paper sticking out from under the computer. She pulled it out and read the note which said 101557 – 102557 – A.A - Dep – 03 - 12 - 0430.
"You really should get out of there soon. What is it?" Code asked anxiously.
"It is a set of numbers followed by the word 'A.A Dep' and then another set of numbers. I'll write it down just in…" she stopped suddenly, tensing. She'd heard a noise, like a stealthy footstep. It didn't sound like it had come from the door, but she had been rather absorbed, so she wasn't sure. She stood absolutely still, straining to hear something over the pounding of her heart, but she heard nothing.
"Iris, are you there? Are you ok?" came Cody's concerned voice.
"Is the coast still clear, Phish?" she whispered.
"Yes, the corridors are clear, but I think Giovanni seems to be done with his business. What's wrong?" Cody asked.
"I thought I heard something, but now I'm not so sure." Nancy replied.
"You should get out of there, Na-Iris," came Cody's slightly panicked voice. "You've been there long enough and the files are done copying. Giovanni seems to be heading back to the conservatory too."
"Don't worry, I'm out of here. I'll just unplug the drive and switch off his computer." Hastily, Nancy cleaned up, and returning everything to its original place, she exited the room.
Giovanni and Carlos turned as the man entered the room.
"What?" Giovanni snapped impatiently.
"There is a CIA agent in your office. Or rather, there was. She has probably finished downloading all the data from your computer now" he replied quietly.
Giovanni felt a flash of fear. "How did you find this out? Why did you do nothing to stop her?" he demanded angrily. Carlos cracked his knuckles threateningly.
"I was in the next room. She was speaking, probably into a hidden microphone. She also would have had some backup within the house itself. She could have raised the alarm much faster than I could have taken care of her," the man answered with exaggerated patience even in the face of Giovanni's rage.
"There wasn't much data in that computer anyway. Even if they figure out the finances, it doesn't count as proof." Giovanni said nervously, wiping the sweat beading on his forehead.
"I don't think that's all she found. She was talking about a piece of paper with numbers on it. From what I heard, I assumed that it contained our departure information as well," the man replied, looking at Giovanni with a raised eyebrow conveying his derision at writing down sensitive information with such easy access.
Giovanni went absolutely white. "Por dios, if they figure it out…but I have to leave tonight! I cannot change my plans and I cannot cancel this shipment. It has other things besides the usual contraband. And everything is in place. It would be impossible to change the location or the schedule." Giovanni sat down heavily, his shaking knees unable to hold him up. "Did you see who this agent is?" He asked suddenly, looking up.
The man hesitated. "I did not see her taking the information. But I heard her voice…and it belonged to the same woman I had seen earlier in the ballroom." He turned to Giovanni. "You danced with her, the woman in blue."
Giovanni got up in a rage. "Nancy Mallard? Why that two-timing slut! And I left her all alone in the conservatory!" He spent a minute sputtering in his rage before he calmed down enough to be struck by a thought. "Wait, you haven't spoken with her, so how did you know it was she from the sound of her voice?" he asked suspiciously.
"I've…encountered her before, unfortunately," he said with an unpleasant curl of his lips. "She has the cunning of a fox. I was lucky," he said brusquely.
Carlos put his hand on his boss' shoulder. "I'll go take care of her, boss."
Before Carlos could move however, the man spoke. "I don't think it is a good idea, for the same reasons I couldn't take care of her earlier."
"Then what do you expect me to do?" Giovanni burst out, panicked.
The man rolled his eyes in exasperation at his boss's obvious incompetence. "There is a good chance that they might not figure it out. After all, they don't have much time. We should go ahead with our original schedule."
Giovanni and Carlos looked at him as if he were mad.
He smiled then, a wicked glint lighting his eyes. "I said we should keep with the schedule, not with the plan."
Author's Note :
A big thank you to all my reviewers! On the topic of updates, I might be slower than I had originally promised, but I still have every intention of completing the story. So thank you, in advance, for your patience! :)