"Did you know Sean's deploying in two weeks?" Alex knew there were far more important things than that for the team to discuss. Ryan's ominous message over the phone was abundantly clear; Amanda's latest plan was incredibly bad for the team. However, Alex couldn't help but blurt the question when she entered Ryan's office. As she got dressed and rushed over, she couldn't stop thinking about the fact. She was going to lose Sean in two weeks. Yes, they were going to stay in touch. And yes, he was coming back. But she was still going to lose her boyfriend after she just got him. She couldn't let that go.
"Oh," Nikita blinked. The team all turned to Sean for confirmation, and he nodded. That confirmed Alex's theory that he hadn't told anyone else about his deployment. However, she then felt terrible for breaking the news to Nikita that way. She stared at her brother, conflicting emotions marring her features. She tried to control them, but the hurt and fear in her eyes betrayed her. She had to blink several times to get herself together. When she did, she just smiled and said almost too lightly, "Well, we better kill Amanda before then."
Although the team was isolated in Ryan's office, so they could say anything they wished, they simply stood in silence. Awkward glances shot towards Sean, wondering if he was going to explain. Michael in particular stared curiously at Sean. He knew exactly what deployment meant for Sean. He also knew that Sean continued to hold things back from the team. But the Seal didn't want to talk about leaving. He had two weeks before he had to address that topic again. The team should focus on something more urgent, like the reason they were in Ryan's office, "Are you sure this is about Amanda? What exactly did she do, and how does it hurt us?"
"CIA analyst Naomi Ceaver received a flashdrive full of black box secrets from an anonymous source. Kendrick was able to intervene, and he's holding onto them for us. But it's clear Amanda's releasing Division's secrets to the public," Ryan quickly caught Alex and Sean up to speed. Sean was right to move the conversation off of himself. Although the team would have to discuss his eventual deployment, Amanda was the greater concern at the moment. The team had known that she had had a decrypted black box. She had had it for a while. So why was she releasing information then. What was she starting by giving it to the CIA.
"What kind of secrets?" Finally taking her eyes off her brother, Nikita asked. As anxious as she was about her brother returning to the Navy, she needed to focus on Amanda. Her brother was a Seal. He could take care of himself. After all, their dad always returned from his deployments. Nikita hadn't had to worry about him. She didn't need to worry about Sean either. The only person her concern should be focused on was Amanda. Ryan had previously mentioned that the secrets that had been released were dangerous for the Pierces. What kind of attack was Amanda planning then. Just how dangerous were the secrets.
"A list of missions commissioned by Senator Madeline Pierce," Ryan had to force himself to make eye contact with the Pierce siblings. He knew what they would be thinking. He knew the fear and rage they would feel about Amanda leaking secrets concerning their mother. And he knew their minds would be spinning with the implications of what that meant for them. But he couldn't have them panicking. They needed to keep their heads on straight if they were going up against Amanda. She couldn't get under their skins. She couldn't win.
"Nikita witnessed one of those missions," Michael practically blurted. He remembered seeing the Oversight seal of approval on the mission Nikita had witnessed when he was trying to learn about it through the black box. Madeline Pierce's name was explicitly stated on the after-action report. She had signed off on the assassination. She had given vital information that helped the strike team. And her children had heard the gunshot- they were meant to to sell the cover story of a disgruntled ex-employee. But Nikita specifically saw something she shouldn't have. She was a witness Roan and Michael had seen in the window and later in security footage.
Sean had instantly known how bad it was that Amanda released black box information that was specifically about his mother. He knew that the intel not only damaged Madeline Peirce's memory, but it also painted targets on her family; dangerous victims of her missions could come after them in revenge. However, until Michael said anything, he hadn't thought of the connection those missions had to Nikita. If her fake death was exposed, then Division was exposed. And if Division was exposed, well it'd be exactly what Amanda wanted, "Would that have been in the black box? Could Amanda really release that?"
"There's video footage of Nikki. And you," Birkhoff didn't want to admit his part in the mission. It was the first time he had had to hack for Division. He had to confirm what a guard had claimed, and he had been so smug about being able to quickly hack the security footage in a building full of senators. He never knew the teenagers he had found were Nikita and Sean until Michael told him about what happened. He still felt terrible about what his hack had caused. Percy had forced him to do it, yet he still led to Nikita's fake death. He still helped set off a horrific chain of events that landed them there.
"You were there?" Bewildered, Alex turned to Sean. She had hardly heard anything about the mission that got Nikita recruited. Honestly, all she knew about it was that Nikita saw a Division assassination, and Madeline made a deal with Percy to have he recruited so she wouldn't be cleaned. The siblings didn't talk about what really happened. Alex didn't blame them. Yet she was constantly learning more and more about the situation that made it all the more awful- like the fact that Sean could've been cleaned too.
"Nikita made me lie," Sean admitted absentmindedly. He glanced at his sister, but she was doing everything she could to stay out of the conversation. He knew she always refused to talk about that night, especially when they were kids. Yet she seemed so much more stubbornly quiet about it then. Maybe a part of her was still trying to protect him. She had gotten them into trouble; he shouldn't have had to pay the price for her stupidity. Or maybe she was still so pissed about the whole thing, that if she talked about it, she'd explode. Either way, she wasn't going to say a word. Nikita was just going to stand still and stew.
"And since Roan and I only saw a girl in the window…" Michael didn't finish his explanation. He had tried to save the witness from Roan that night, arguing that she couldn't possibly have seen anything. But Roan never believed him. Then the guard confessed to running into the teenagers. And then the security footage showed Nikita in the room with a full view of the assassination. Sean might've been spared by lying, yet Nikita never had a chance. And Amanda was going to release all that damning intel.
Despite the look her fiancé gave her- the sorrowful, guilty look for being a part of that operation- Nikita shook her head. She shook her head at all of it. There was no point in repeating the past. Just because Amanda had it out for her didn't mean she was going to dig up the conspiracy surrounding her 'death'. That couldn't have been her plan. She had much more destruction than that in mind. She always did, "Okay. So obviously Amanda wants to tarnish Madeline's reputation. Why give the information to the CIA instead of the news?"
"To scare us?" Shrugging, Ryan guessed. If the President discovered that Amanda had a decrypted black box full of government secrets, and she was releasing that information bit by bit, she'd have the bunker completely wiped out. And if damning intel of Senator Madeline Pierce got out, her family would be in danger. Amanda was dealing a double blow to Nikita, and thus her team, by giving that CIA analyst the flashdrive. They were all terrified about what was going to happen next. No matter what it was, someone was bound to get hurt.
Again, Nikita shook her head. The others agreed with Ryan. Obviously, Amanda was rattling them; she was also probably distracting them from what she was really doing. Nikita disagreed. Yes, Amanda was undoubtedly messing with the team and distracting them. Yet it was so much more than that. It had to be. It was Amanda they were talking about. Each of her plans and manipulations had multiple layers to them. It was almost like she was playing a thousand different games at once. The situation was about more than just the Pierces. Worse things were about to happen, "No. It's more than that. What's Kendrick doing with the flashdrive?"
"We're working on a way for him to give us the intel, and to keep Naomi Ceaver from asking too many questions," Ryan answered. Kendrick had called him the second the analyst gave him the flashdrive. There was absolutely no way it was going to stay in the CIA; Division would destroy the information so no one else could use it against them. There was also no way Naomi Ceaver could question or investigate the black ops group. Their anonymity as they wrapped things up was vile. They couldn't afford for an over achieving agent to stir things up.
"We can't send the intel over email. It's not secure enough," Before anyone could suggest it, Birkhoff instantly refuted the idea. If it was anything else, maybe they could take the chance of having an electronic communication sent by the CIA. But black box intel was way too volatile. A hacker dedicated enough could steal the information while it was in transit. No normal hacker would do so. But a hacker working for Amanda definitely could. They could then send the intel to a news outlet, who'd run a story about the CIA knowing and hiding secrets about black ops groups and corruption. So, yeah, email definitely wasn't an option.
"We'd have to set up a dead drop," Michael was already thinking about how a dead drop might work. They'd have to have someone on the team pick it up. He doubted there was another mole in their ranks. Yet the flashdrive wasn't anything to risk; just anyone couldn't pick it up. They could post an Alpha team around the drop, though. They'd need extra eyes watching out for Amanda or one of her goons. She might not actively interfere. But the operative she had ordered to give Naomi the intel could still be around. Maybe if the team captured him, he could lead them to Amanda. That was a big if, yet Michael had hope.
"Which only Kendrick can do," Muttering mostly to herself, Nikita built off of Michael's idea. Kendrick wouldn't trust the flashdrive with a CIA agent. He'd have to hand deliver it to Division. He'd be out in the open, breaking from his bodyguards to be able to meet discreetly with the team. It'd be the perfect moment to attack him, if someone was thinking about it. Nikita believed Amanda was. It made sense with all of her actions so far. She was drawing Kendrick out to kill him, "She's going to kill Kendrick."
"What? Why?" Alex instantly questioned Nikita's theory. Amanda didn't have anything against Kendrick. Why would she start a war with the CIA when Division was the ones actively trying to kill her. The Director of the CIA wasn't a threat to her. Killing him wouldn't send a message either. Amanda wouldn't waste her time or energy on Kendrick. Trying to bring down the Pierce family, though, Amanda would do anything she could to make that happen. She'd torture and kill all of them without hesitation.
"Think about it. He's our only ally in the Government. Amanda kills him, we're not safe from the President when more leaks happen. The stuff about Madeline is just to get our attention. Then she's going to strike," Nikita quickly explained her thoughts. She had no doubt that Amanda would kill Kendrick as a way to get to the team. The rest of her plan might reveal itself afterwards. Kendrick's death would just be a step towards her end goals. But not if the team stopped her. They saved Kendrick, and worse pain wouldn't occur.
Nodding, Sean agreed with his sister. More accurately, he wanted to believe his sister. What Nikita said made sense. Amanda would try to kill any allies the team might've had. She also would've attacked Nikita's family just like she was attacking her friends. Yet Sean didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to imagine Jill, Sandy, and their families in danger. It was easier just to swallow the fact that Amanda planned to kill Kendrick. That was something the team could easily prevent if they planned enough. After all, they'd have complete control of the dead drop, "This better be the most overprotected dead drop in history."
With undercover agents; snipers positioned around the street; Sean, Alex, and Nikita on site; and Birkhoff, Ryan, and Michael watching from Ops, the dead drop was way more than overprotected. The team spent the rest of the day planning how they were going to grab the flashdrive from Kendrick. Birkhoff had hacked his calendar and found he was scheduled for a meeting in the city the next morning. The director could then slip the flashdrive in a tip jar at a nearby coffee cart, and Nikita could grab it. Eyes would be everywhere, prepared to strike at any possible Amanda movement. Nothing should go wrong.
After securing the area, Sean and Alex climbed into a nearby car and stared at the coffee cart. There hadn't been anything out of the ordinary, but they weren't going to relax until Kendrick was safely in his meeting and the flashdrive was destroyed. Amanda had the tendency to surprise them. The team couldn't let their guard down for a second. Sean continued to stare out the window even as he answered his phone. He didn't check the ID. He thought it was one of his sisters or someone from the Navy. He wasn't paying too much attention to it, and he regretted that, "Hello, Sean. I'm so sorry for what happened to your mother. She was a good woman."
There was no time to figure out what Amanda meant. Before Sean could say anything, or even alert Alex, to who had called him, a bomb went off.
