***Some pre-chapter business stuff: Sorry for not getting this out sooner. It wasn't intended to be a normal-length chapter to begin with. I got really busy all of a sudden but I should be going back to something resembling a normal schedule soon.***

Chapter Six

Free Agents

Somewhere in downtown Amirabad

February 25, 2028

1230 hours

As the waiter darted back to the kitchen with the orders he had just taken, Diego leaned in to Avery. "Listen. I've got some information on the plan."

Avery perked up. "I'm listening."

"Fleischer was working for someone else. It's all a big competition. There's another guy who was buying conventional equipment from Fleischer, though…it's something we did for the OBI."

Avery butted in. "I thought Fleischer's working for the no-borders people. Wouldn't that violate his principles?" Diego just chuckled. "Of course it doesn't, Mister Danielson. Fleischer's principles are those of a mercenary. He trusts in money, in wealth. He is not concerned with your view of morals, or mine. That's why he isn't feeling so poorly about living the rest of his life in prison. He still has his money. He can still make his deals, I'm sure."

Avery looked at Diego with a confused look on his face. "So…we've done nothing of real importance so far? Is that it?" Diego shrugged. "You've stopped a world war, if that's what you're asking. Surely that is a good enough start, no?"

"The fuck it is. I've only stopped one way for world war to break out. But there's how many other possible ways just with this whole shitstorm that's already broken out? Two? Three? I'm not exactly satisfied. I gotta take this back home and start working out an un-fucking operation."

Avery started to pack up to go back to the hotel. Diego made an effort to stop him. "The ISI is coming back for their intel, Avery," he said, trying to pull Avery away. "Fuck that. I'm getting that intel first, and they're not getting their filthy fucking hands on it," he replied. "Not if I've got anything to say about it."

Diego reached out to him. "Calm down, Avery," he said. "You're missing something."

Avery stopped, and slid back into his seat. "Okay," he replied, "what is it?"

"The nationalists. They're working with Bruunists," Diego said. Avery looked at him quizzically. "Why would Bruunists and Belkans work together?" Diego laughed. "Because, Mister Danielson, they are not worried about winning. They are worried about destroying. If they worried about winning, the Belkans would kill all the Bruunists and then take the Stonehenge for themselves. But they are too worried about burning everything up to care. They will be satisfied with the arrangement they have now, and the Bruunists are willing to oblige. At least, some of them are. The ones in charge of taking over the Adamas might not like interruptions, though."

"Yeah, no shit," Avery replied. "But what does all of this mean, big-picture?"

"The Verusans and Vedians are being used, Avery. That's what it means. They are being used as a means to a world without governments, a world without boundaries. That's what they fought for in '96, you know."

Avery got back up. "Well, now I know what to tell Beckett," he said, before leaving.

Traveler Inn

30 minutes later

Avery burst through the door, startling David out of a concentrative trance. "Jesus," Avery muttered when he saw what David was doing. "Do you think they're coming?"

David gave Avery a blank look before replying. "Why else would I be loading a Galil, man? Get your shit together."

David stood up and turned to Avery. "Here," he said, robotically jamming a portable hard drive in Avery's face. "Take this. It's got what you need. There's a car two blocks down if you go left out the front door."

There was a clatter about three floors down by Avery's reckoning. He could hear them screaming out commands in Vedian.

"Government agents! Clear the hall!"

He turned to David. "We can't stay," he said desperately. "Yes," David replied, "I can stay. You have to go. You have to tell Fort Eustis what's going on here. If I don't stay, we'll both go down."

There was conviction in his voice. But Avery's airman instincts were kicking in. "Nobody gets left behind," he replied.

"Dead men tell tales, Avery. Only the living can tell the truth."

David began to push him to the door. "Get out of here while you can. They'll come up one stairwell. Take the other one."

He held his pistol to Avery's gut. "I'm going to make you if you don't," he growled.

Avery stepped into the hotel's hallway. He listened for the Vedian yelling, turned the other direction, and started jogging.

As the ISI agents began beating on the door, David started softly singing to himself an old protest song from the days of the Clavician War, cradling a rifle in his hands.

The door gave way. "You got the wrong soldier!"

It was followed by an eruption of gunfire.

•••

As he rounded the stairs on the far end of the hall, Avery could hear the spit of automatic gunfire, but he didn't have time to think about it.

Avery burst through the door at the base of the stairs into the lobby. Looking around, he saw a lot of commotion as people were obviously trying to figure out what was going on. Spotting the front door, Avery started sprinting to the left, and then, to a car that looked vaguely familiar. As he neared, the door opened.

"Jump in, Avery! I'm getting you out of here!"

The voice was familiar much in the same way as the car. It didn't feel right, but Avery felt he had no choice, and jumped in through the open door. Looking toward the driver's seat, Avery realized who it was. "Scheinberg! You idiot! I told you to get on the plane!"

Balthazar turned to the back seat and smiled. "Yeah, but you forgot about yourself! I felt like I was forgetting something at the terminal. You seem to keep forgetting that I know how to access those nanobots of yours."

There was an awkward silence.

"Anyway, we gotta get you out of here. I guess David gave you the master drive?" Avery looked at it carefully for the first time. Sure enough, it was the labeled master drive. "Yeah. I guess this is our ticket back to legitimacy."

Balthazar just shook his head. "I'm not sure I'd be so confident. I think Donilon hates all of us by now. But maybe we can at least get on Beckett's good side, and maybe some other people back at the Agency too. There's still the issue of the Weeker. Dunno what we'll do about Night Train."

Avery shrugged. "Me neither. With the sabotage of the planes, the attack plan is temporarily halted. Using Osean planes with Osean markings is too risky. Indus doesn't have Osean jets, or, if they do, they're older Yuke knockoffs. Can't exactly fool anyone with a squadron of F-35s."

As the car pulled up to the airport, Balt and Avery realized they weren't even close to out of the woods. "Fuckin' A, this place is crawling with cops," Avery muttered. Balt just nodded in response. "Well, maybe we'll get lucky, they won't be as automated as Osean cops, right?" he replied. "Either way, there's no time."

Avery couldn't disagree. They had to pray for good tickets out of Vedia.

•••

It took some hand-greasing, but their efforts were not in vain. By 1900, they were over international waters.

Once clear, Balt made a last check. "Still got that drive?" Avery held it up to indicate that he still had it. "Good," he responded, "now we just gotta get that thing to Beckett. How do we get through Osean passport control?" Avery smiled. "Let me handle that. Meanwhile, we need to get some rest."

Allen Hubert International Airport

Oured, Osea

February 27, 2028

0700 hours

"All Osean citizens in this line, please."

They were at passport control. This was the last big hurdle. Of course, they didn't get through.

"Doctor Danielson, I'm going to have to ask you to step aside."

"Mister Scheinberg, I'm going to have to ask you to step aside."

But they'd already planned for that. After being shuffled into a room together, an Osean immigration officer stared hard at the pair for a few minutes. This was typical. Enforcement policy stated that most suspects would break down from this, but not a couple of veteran intelligence officers. Avery broke the silence.

"Your staredown is positively adorable, it might have broken down a college student bringing coke through here, but now that fun time is over, I'd like to ask to speak to a Bureau agent, please. Of Investigation, if you needed that spelled out for you."

The immigration officer groaned in disgust. Nobody liked Bureau people. Maybe he'd break these traitorous bastards, though.

Within an hour, Special Agent Jason Wood, Osean Bureau of Investigation, was arriving at Interrogation Block Echo at Allen Hubert International. He was at the Oured Field Office and had gotten a call about a pair of possible rogue CIA agents being detained there. What immigration officers didn't know was that Special Agent Wood had been contacted by a man calling himself "The Shield of Liberty," who had told him in no uncertain terms that the two agents were in fact working in Osean interests, and thus were to be set free.

Wood didn't know what all this was about, but when he checked the criminal profiles of the two, there were no outstanding warrants. So either these immigration officers were confused, or they were being told something different.

Special Agent Wood entered the room with the two CIA agents, who looked pretty tired and annoyed. He explained the situation as he knew it, and then told them to go on to wherever it was they were going.

"Wait…you mean you're not going to hassle me before hearing me out?" Avery asked. Wood just shook his head.

Walking out of the airport, Avery turned to Balthazar. "We need to get to Fort Eustis."

•••

OCIA Headquarters

Fort Eustis, CD

February 27, 2028

1300 hours

"Oh my god, I've never been so happy to see my office." Avery sighed. "But that's not important. Let's get to the DCI's office, on the double."

Within minutes, Avery and Balthazar were standing outside DCI Beckett's office. After being shown in, the pair took seats in the leather office chairs they now viewed as near luxuries rather than the normal pleasantries before this ordeal.

Beckett opened the meeting. "What the fuck are you two doing here? You're almost traitors, if not actually traitors to this country. I don't even know why I haven't just shot you two right here."

Avery calmly retrieved the hard drive from inside his jacket. "Here," he said, sliding the drive across the desk, "start reading."

Beckett motioned for them to leave. Avery knew it would take awhile, but he didn't really have anywhere to go either. "Are you sure? We could stay here and make sense of this, you know."

For the next several hours, the three pored over the documents, revealing Bruunists taking over the rebuilt Stonehenge in San Salvacion, Neucom's plans involving a nuclear war in Vedia, and the hope for an alliance of Verusa and Vedia to be used to create a new "world with no boundaries."

The phrase had given everyone pause.

"A world with no boundaries," Beckett said, hesitantly. "The same thing those men over thirty years ago were fighting for—do you think they're behind this?"

Avery shrugged. "I don't think these guys are connected. Between Fleischer's leanings, the way some of these memos are worded, and the way nationalists tend to be…I doubt these are connected. I'd call them more along the lines of 'competition.' What do you think, Balt?"

Balthazar nodded. "The Stonehenge plan has Grey Men written all over it. The nuke plan, it's contained. They want to forge a new world, and they'll just cast the Vedian and Verusan nationalists aside when they're done. It's all pretty freaky." Avery chuckled in response. "Yeah…one of these plans threatens to destroy the world as we know it…the other threatens to just burn everything up in retaliation. Neither one is any good, though."

Beckett seemed to have heard enough. "Okay. Let's say this is all true, this is what we're left with. Now what? We've got a president who's effectively betrayed the Federation. But what do we do about impeachment? The election's barely eight months away. There's a lot of bullshit and not enough time. Let's say, both of you are right, we have Whackjob Team A on one side, and Team B on the other, and each one is committed to one of these plans. But what is the action plan? What's our plan?"

Avery leaned closer to the desk and smiled. "We take down Stonehenge and Donilon in one fell swoop."

Beckett slumped back in his chair. "But we'll need time!"

Avery kept smiling. "You worry about time. Buy us more. Me and Balt…we'll handle the rest."

Beckett sighed in resignation. Danielson wasn't going to give him any other choice. That much was clear. That's how he always handled things. Even though his oath of silence was retracted, he was never truly going to give up that same attitude. That aura of invincibility.

"Alright. I'll see what I can do. But know the Council's going to pitch a hell of a fit."

Avery and Balt got up to leave. "That's not our problem," Avery said as the pair left the office, "we're free agents now."