Two Weeks Ago

The Volcano

"Me?" asked O'Brien, "Oh, thanks. Errr... Hi, my name is Patrick O'Brien, but by friends call me Eel. I'm from Boston and I..errr... Well, I used to be a crook.

"Patrick O'Brien, my namesake and my great great grandfather arrived in New York back in 1846. Right off the boat he joined the Army. When the civil war was over, he found himself a nice girl called Molly Vallon and moved to Boston where he became a teacher. He had a few kids, they grew up to be cops, all good men, all but one dead in the line of duty. My grandfather had kids of his own; they became cops and soldiers, plus one city councilman. And they had kids of their own themselves, myself and a cousin who died very young.

"Four generations, all good, honest, hard-working Americans. I guess the fifth wasn't so hot. Maybe I'm just different; I'm a half-assed catholic, dropped out of school, got into fights all the time, arrested for shoplifting twice before I grew pubes.

"My parents died in a car accident. I went to live with my grandma… Everybody thought I was no good, everybody thought I was a rotten apple, but grann didn't. She used to say that I'd grow up alright, and that was an O'Brien and that we always find our way. I wanted to do her proud.

"But I got kicked out of high-school and fired from half a dozen jobs. I wasn't cut out for an honest living, so I joined up with Frank Costello's outfit, became a thief, a safecracker. I found out that I was good at it, and that I loved it. My grandma knew nothing of it, she didn't talk to much and had gotten so sick that she never left home. I told her that I joined the army; whenever I was abut to go to the slammer, or lay low somewhere I'd pass her word that I was being shipped overseas.

"So there was this one job; a heist in a chemicals plant where we knew the owner was hiding south African conflict diamonds. What I didn't know was that the owner was hiding something for the League, something with nukes, Water-something…"

"Heavy water?" asked Priest.

"That's it! Heavy water. Anyway, the cops were tipped off, they were on us like brown on shit, there was a shootout. I didn't shoot anybody, though, I don't like guns... I mean no offense 'cause I know Mona loves guns but anyway, one of them hit a gas canister and the whole places exploded... The heavy water was evaporated and I was near it.. I... I don't know, I guess something happened and I blacked out...

"When I woke up I was ten feet tall, literally. It took a little while before the pain stopped and I managed to get away, it took a couple of days before my body got back to normal. I then found out what happened…

"The night of the robbery, the cops went to my grandma's and told her that I died during a robbery. It broke her heart, and it stopped in her sleep, filled with her sorrow and grief…. She died thinking that the last O'Brien was a rotten no good two bit thief.

"I tried to make it better. I decided to be a superhero like that guy in Metropolis, but I sucked at it. The only time I did any real crime fighting was when I accidentally broke a woman's foot whose dead husband was chopped up and laying in the trunk of her car. Then Raimus caught up with me and told me about the League and how they owned the heavy water that made me what I am, I joined him and worked in Caracass.

"As I said, I'm a bad catholic, but I know that grann is looking down on me, both figuratively and literally. I want to prove her last thought about me wrong."

Now

London

O'Brien in the guise of Gump walked down the street toward the Chestnut café, nervously adjusting his collar. His hair was dyed to match Gump's sandy blond locks and it made him itch, he swore in his mind never to let Lucy give him another dye-job ever again.

"Relax. You'll do fine." Said Al-Sheikh through the microphone lodged in his ear.

"Really? It feels like I'm about to puke buckets."

Across the city in the dock Red October, Al-Sheikh stood with Raimus in a room set for communications.

"All minutemen report." Said Al-Sheikh, "Kate?"

"I'm tops." Said Mona as she stood with a sniper rifle in her hands, looking out the window of an empty room in a building overlooking the street in which the café was.

"I can see Gump right now. But Hughes is out my range of fire."

"That's alright. Ali, Michael."

"We're alright." Said Sayid as he looked out the window of a can he and Shaun sat in, across the street at the café, "We can see both Gump and Hughes."

"Saint, Frank?"

"I'm peachy keen, boss." Said Jimmy as he set up a portable camera of the car's dashboard, while Priest lay in the backseat under a thick blanket, "Count Choculla; not so much."

"Ha ha." Priest said under the blanker, "Very funny."

"Anna?"

Lucy was inside the Chestnut café, sipping an espresso and pretending to read a copy of the Guardian, stealing glances at Mandy who sat at a table by herself.

"I'm fine." She said in a whisper, to not draw any attention to her. "She has a man with her, they're sitting at different tables and pretending not to know each other, but he works for her."

"What does he look like?"

"Big man, early forties, blue suit. He has a laptop. I think he might be her security. Gump just walked in."

"Alright, everybody stay sharp. Anna, keep listening for anything."

O'Brien went directly to Mandy's table and sat down at the free seat opposite to her.

"Mandy," said O'Brien, adopting the Gump impression he'd managed to perfect in two days, "How's it going?"

"It's Miss Hughes to you, Mr. Gump." Said Mandy, "Charles, go ahead."

The man at the second table tapped a few buttons on his lap top, without looking at them he said in a Yorkshire accent, "I'm going to scan you for spyware. This'll just take a second."

Prior to leaving the Red October a few hours ago, O'Brien was fitted with a tiny microphone in his ear. Al-Sheikh said that it was Nemo's invention, and that it could avoid detection by almost any scanner that the League could bring to the café. O'Brien then asked him if that meant that there was a small chance that he would get caught.

Al-Sheikh simply laughed at the time, mumbled something in Arabic that made Priest chuckle, then slapped him friendlily on the shoulder before he left.

O'Brien was careful not to hold his breath under Al-Sheikh's instruction, but he was as nervous as hell in those fateful second.

"He's clean. Now, what was your mother's maiden name?"

"Jenny Curran." Said O'Brien.

"Voice pattern recognition matches."

"Thank you, Charles. You can wait in the car."

"Yes, ma'am."

As soon as Charles was gone, Mandy took a plastic inhaler from her purse. She held it to her lips and pressed a button, whispering,

"This is Mandy Hughes. The following is a recording of my meeting with Agent Forrest Thomas Gump, the date is June 23 of 2008."

Mandy placed the disguised voice recorder on the table, then picked up her cup of black coffee and asked,

"What happened?"

"According to protocol, I convinced Sands to give us the night off, myself and Hunting. We were drinking together while the operation was on, but two of their off-the-books operatives just happened to stumble into that bar in East London, the Winchester. They managed to get word to their bosses, who pulled their people out."

"Who were these off-the-books operatives?"

"A woman called Mona Sax, assassin, ex-organized crime, and one Judas Priest, vampire, ex-military. They used to be the Gotham cell."

"Alright, so the four Captains rounded the survivors up and took them where?"

"An island in the tropics, uninhabited and uncharted for all I know. I have no idea where it is."

"What happened on the island?"

"Lots of paranoia. They tried to figure out who was it that betrayed them, after two months of interrogations and probing; they decided that the mole was gone, one of the many who disappeared."

"They didn't suspect you?"

"They did, myself and Hunting; being conveniently out at the time and all. I played it cool, passed the lie detector tests and my psychic upgrade held up fine. I think they suspected Hunting was the mole more than they suspected me."

"Nice Alabaman boy like you," said Mandy, subtly-mockingly, "Why wouldn't they?"

"…Yeah." Said O'Brien, feigning swallowed-pride.

"How long were you on the island?"

Outside, Sayid listened to the conversation on the van's radio.

"Two weeks."

"And where did you go then?"

"The three submarines submerged and docked at the bottom of the ocean not sure which one. They set up passageways between them all to make sort of a headquarters at the bottom, far from any commercial lines and preying eyes."

Sayid casually look up, to see Shaun staring out the window with intensity. He was breathing heavy and had broken a sweat.

"Shaun?"

Shaun kept staring out, breathing loudly from the mouth, with a quickening pace.

"Shaun? What's wrong?"

Shaun started trembling as he was breathing faster than ever.

"SHAUN!" said Sayid as he grabbed Shaun's shoulder.

"What?" asked Shaun, his breathing back to normal and his jitters gone.

"You tell me, what. What's wrong?"

Shaun looked down for a moment.

"It's this café; we used to come here all the time."

"Who?"

"Me and Liz. We made plans to come the following day, the night they killed her."

"Oh." Said Sayid, letting go of Shaun who went back to staring out the window, though this time he did it with composure.

"I'm sorry."

"S'Alright, Sayid."

"You know, Shaun, We have all this covered. You could walk away, take a cab back to the docks, back to the Pearl. The rest of us can handle this by ourselves. You don't need to be here."

Shaun looked out the window. He did not look at the Chestnut café, he didn't care about it. The fact was, Shaun had never been to this street before in his life, much less the café. Shaun was staring at the man in the blue suit who stood having a smoke outside the café.

"Yes, I do."

"What about MacGuffin?" asked Mandy back in the café.

"It's not MacGuffin; it's Talbot." Said O'Brien, "His story checked out. The captains hooked him with a new identity, gave him some sorry-for-you-troubles money and dropped him off in Australia."

"Alight. What is the opposition as it stands right now?"

"A lot of people have dropped out. The McManus brothers, the Af-"

"We're not interested in those." Said Mandy, "They're just bottom of the food chain enforcers."

"Alright. Structurally, they're going to keep all cells off-the-books, communication with intelligence would pass through the four captains using call-signs. They've talked about decentralizing the intelligence wing, or even keep it mobile. Jack Mason has taken over coordinating intelligence. My guess is that they won't be at it forever, sooner or later they'll move closer to the old model. Everything is in my report."

O'Brien then produced a memory chip that he placed on the table by the voice recorder.

"Well done, Mr. Gump. Josephine will be pleased. Speaking of which, she's been thinking about pulling you out, saying that the risk of you getting caught is too high."

"The risk has always been high."

"Do you want to go back undercover?"

"Want might not be the right word. But I'm in, they trust me. I know the ropes, the game and the players very well."

"I agree. It'll be Josephine's call, but I don't think she'll think different. We'll get in touch via e-mail, if we Josephine does agree to the continuation of your mission we'll establish a new set of drops. Meeting's over."

Mandy picked up the voice recorder, pressed the off button then placed the thing in her purse.

"Don't get up yet, Gump."

"What is it?"

"The people who tracked down Talbot, they were the ex-Gotham cell, right?"

"Yeah, it's all in my report."

"So they were the ones who found out about Josephine's real identity?"

"Yeah. That made them kind of popular on the island."

Jimmy sat listening to the meeting in the car, with Priest still under a blanket.

"So you too have learned her true identity."

"Is that a question?"

"Did you?"

"I couldn't help it…Why, did you want to know it?"

"…No. You can go now."

"Minutemen, proceed to leave as planned." Said Al-Sheikh through the team's ear-pieces.

"Man, what was all that about?" asked Jimmy as he picked the camera off of his dashboard and turning it off after Mandy got into Charles' car and headed off. Lucy walked out soon after, followed by O'Brien a short while later.

"Isn't it obvious?" said Priest.

"Apparently it isn't."

"Mandy Hughes is Josephine's lover."

"I know. Would you mind cutting to the chase, Doctor Crane?"

"She's Josephine's lover, she doesn't know her real name. Gump, however, does know her name, and he's just an employee. That has to put a strain on a relationship."

Sayid and Shaun's van drove down the street past Jimmy's car. A minute later, Mona walked out of a building holding a briefcase containing her disassembled rifle and got into the passenger seat. Jimmy drove off.

Later

The Red October

The minutemen sat in their operations room aboard the Red October, discussing this afternoon's simple but critical mission.

"Good work, everyone." Said Al-Sheikh, "Especially our man of many faces, Mister O'Brien."

"Thanks, boss."

"I truly expected you to fail, but you were most competent. As it turns out you are not a complete idiot as I had once thought."

"Umm…Thanks, I guess."

"Now we just have to wait to see if the League swallowed our bait."

"Excuse me," said Shaun with a raised hand, "What about the other bloke, I think his name was Charles."

"What about him?"

"Shouldn't we check who he is?"

"There really is no need to."

"Still, we should cover our bases." Said Shaun nervously, "Lucy, do you have any idea what his name was?"

"Umm… I think I heard the name Charles Chellios. But I think he was just her security, he was not even allowed to listen to them as they spoke."

"Yeah, Shaun." Said Mona, "You're over thinking this."

"I guess I am." Said Shaun as he got up, "I think I'll go check on Jimmy."

"If you wish." Said Al-Sheikh, "I believe Captain Raimus would like us to have dinner with him tonight in honor of this success."

"If this means I'll finally get to see you stinking drunk, Al-Sheikh," said Priest, "Then there is no forces that can stop me from seeing that."

Jimmy was packing his belongings in his room when Jimmy came knocking on the chamber's steel door.

"Hey, Shaun. What's up? Came to see me off?"

"Yeah. I heard you'll be based here from now on."

"Yep. Working as Mason's sidekick."

"Give him my best."

"Sure thing, buddy."

"Listen, Jim. I need to ask you a favor."

"What kind of favor?"

"The kind that stays between the two of us."

"Why the secrecy, Shaun?"

"It's a private matter. Can you do it?"

"Why don't you tell me who it is and I'll tell you?"

"There's an old mate of mine, I need to find out where he's living these days."

"You just wan an address? I can do that. Who's your friend?"

"His name is Charles Chelios. About 185 to 190 centimeters tall, white, bald, early forties, he's from Yorkshire."

"Okay." Said Jimmy as he picked up his bags, "That's kinda weird, but doable. Look, I gotta go. Give my best to everyone else."

"Will do. And good luck in London."

R&R.

Next Chapter: Dorian Gray returns.