Olivia is in a meeting with Mr. Zhao when Hendricks busts through the door, his eyes wide.
"I think you need to see this, ma'am." he says, concern in his voice.
She follows him through the bowels of the building until they reach the armory where the door is already swung wide open and a myriad of voices talking excitedly echo out. As they walk down the many aisles of weapons on display she can hear Lau's voice above the rest.
"I never saw anybody leave with anything." he says, "I don't know how he got past security?"
She rounds the corner to find there's a few field agents gathered, all seeming to be looking around and picking guns up, inspecting them before setting them back down.
"What's going on?" she asks Lau.
"There are quite a few guns missing, ma'am. I was storing a few of my personal collection here for safekeeping but they just seem to be gone!" he said, "And when I started asking around it seems a big portion of our weapons seem to have just disappeared into thin air. I'm worried this has something to do with 003."
"003? You think he stole the guns? How would he have got past security?" she asks skeptically.
"I have no idea. I just know that some firearms were found in his home with the serial numbers scratched off. With everything else that happened I wouldn't have put it past him to be stealing our guns and selling them off, or using them for some other nefarious purpose."
"What?" she shakes her head, "You think he was…"
"I want to see the guns they pulled from his flat." Lau says angrily, "I have to make sure none of them are mine."
Olivia turns towards Hendricks, "Do you think it's possible? I don't understand how security didn't see this?"
Hendricks is still just looking at her with wide eyes, "This is the first I'm hearing about it."
Lau picks up a rifle off the gunrack and looks it over, "Look – this one is out of order with the others, they're supposed to be ordered by serial number. Unbelievable! You know what Rodriguez found, right? We were going through 003's desk and saw there were a ton of missing floppy discs. Turns out he was backing up our proprietary programs and smuggling them out. We found a disc with our spreadsheet program on it – it listed some of our field agents birth names along with some of their code names, but at least it didn't seem like any other information was on it. Though who knows what he got away with."
"What?" Olivia said indignantly, "Why didn't a single person tell me about this?"
Lau raises his eyebrows, "Rodriguez didn't say anything? I thought he told you."
"No, he didn't mention anything to me." Olivia huffs, "Pull whatever CCTV footage we have. Agent Hendricks, bring me the security team that was supposed to be posted here, we're having a meeting immediately! I understand Agent Chen was a double-0 but that doesn't mean he was above the law – why in the world was everyone so lax about his activities?" she feels herself getting heated and tries to tone it down, "I want to find out where those guns are and what information he may have left with. Send another team to search his flat if you have to. Ridiculous!"
And with that she storms off, completely unamused with how carelessly things were handled before she arrived in Hong Kong.
By the end of the day her throat is scratchy and her voice is hoarse from screaming for nearly a few hours straight.
First, she had berated Hendricks and Zhao (though she had done that professionally and without raising her voice), and just reminded them that they were supposed to be leading the team and were clearly not setting a good example at the moment. When they led in the security team who were supposed to be posted at the armory is when she lost her cool. Five employees were terminated, and one placed on a performance improvement plan. After that was done, she brought in Tiago for a few minutes and didn't spare him the treatment he would get as a regular employee. She did yell at him, scolding him for keeping important information from her. For what it was worth he just sat there and took it, staring at her with wide eyes and saying "Yes, ma'am." as he was dismissed.
Hendricks excused himself after that, and Olivia allowed it, figuring he felt guilty enough already and had other work to do anyway. The truth was that he couldn't have his eyes everywhere at all times. Neither could Zhao. She now sat alone with Zhao and covered her face with her hand.
"I can't believe we're dealing with a breach like this."
Zhao shrugged, "003 always was a bit unpredictable. Your predecessor always had a soft spot for him though, for some reason that I could never figure out. For what it's worth he did always get the job done, it just seemed like his personal life was constantly in shambles."
"I should have removed him from duty as soon as I could. How could I not see that?"
"It's not your fault, ma'am. He'd been with the organization so long, no one could have predicted he would go rogue this way. I always just summed him up to a scoundrel who preferred get drunk on his boat rather than actually working. I never pegged him as an actual traitor."
Olivia sighed heavily, "People can surprise you."
"Indeed." Zhao says, "Ma'am, if you don't mind, are you sure you want to push for Rodriguez to replace 003?"
"He still has a year of additional training before he can take the title of double-0, I'm sure he can handle it. By the time that rolls around he'll be in tip-top shape."
"Erm, no." Zhao says, scrunching his face while thinking of what to say, "What I mean to say is – it's just that – we've never had luck with our agents who carry the number 003."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you know about the agent who came before Chen?"
"Honestly, I have no idea Mr. Zhao, what about him?"
Zhao clears his throat, "It was a big scandal at the time. Obviously I wasn't there to see it but I'm told by some of the old-timers that the former 003 was having an affair with another field agent's wife. It didn't end well. It ended in a double-murder-suicide. His suicide note was apparently a rambling mess, but then again, this was before mandatory mental health screenings."
"So what are you saying, that the 003 position is cursed?"
Mr. Zhao gave a little chuckle then, but he had a dark look in his eyes, "I suppose you could say that."
"I'm sure it's fine. The prior deaths are just coincidental, I doubt there's some sort of bad karma or ill-fate associated with the position, let's not give in to magical thinking, shall we?"
"Of course not, ma'am. It's just sometimes-" he pauses, "You're right. I won't bring it up again."
She excuses herself and goes to find Agent Lau, and of course she finds him with Tiago, both are still raiding the former 003's desk.
"Find anything else?" she asks.
"It looks like 003 was keeping tabs on all the other field agents. He had tried to delete a specific file from his hard drive but didn't plan on anyone trying to retrieve it. He had the names of everyone involved at Station H. Even mine, though he didn't list me as a double-0 at least. And there was no other information aside from names… What do you think he was planning to do?" Lau asks her, concern written all over his face.
"I have no idea, 005." she tells him, "But I don't want this investigation botched any more than it has been. I want you personally to go to his flat tonight and see what you can find. Mr. Zhao will get you the key. I trust you'll get the job done?"
"Of course, ma'am." Lau tells her with confidence, "I'll report anything suspicious directly to you tomorrow morning."
"Great. Thank you 005. Mr. Rodriguez, are you ready to go?" she asks Tiago.
He smiles sadly, "Yes, ma'am."
Once they're a few blocks away she apologizes to him, "I'm sorry to be stern with you, but the next time you find anything like that you need to report it to me immediately, not just sit on the information. Is that understood?"
"I understand. I just though Lau would have said something."
"He wasn't the one who found the lead, it was you so it was your responsibility. Once you're in the field you have to take more initiative."
He nods, "I apologize. How can I make it up to you?"
"Get me a drink."
They found a place that was truly a cheap imitation of a British pub, but it would serve its purpose as being a place where she could get some cheap drinks. They had a large Union Jack flag on the wall and played rock music over the radio, while the whole place smelled like fried fish and cooking oil. She was on her third lager and had taken a few bites of the poorly made and frankly tasteless meat pie she ordered when Tiago expressed some excitement at the choice of song they were playing over the speakers.
"Do you know this song?" he asked, "I've got this album on tape back at home."
She tried to listen over the chatter of the other patrons, only really making out the guitar riff, "Yes, I think I've heard it before."
Olivia just wanted to drown her sorrows, but now Tiago was singing next to her, his voice getting louder and louder.
"I like the way you walk!" he sang, putting his arm around her waist, "I like the way you talk!"
"Tiago! Stop it, not in public!" she said, moving his arm away, "People are looking."
"What? No one's looking." he grinned, and she started to worry he would make another scene since he was also three beers deep, "Come on and shake – shake it up baby!"
"Oh my God, Tiago." she muttered, but couldn't help the smile that came to her face.
"I don't mean maybe, you're driving me crazy-" he sings, inching his face towards hers, "Come on, come on-"
Before she can protest again he's planting a kiss on her in the crowded pub, completely indifferent about who might see. She gives in to his kiss for a moment before she pushes him away.
"You need to control yourself!" she says sternly, before glancing around the bar to make sure no one has noticed. She does see the bartender, just a young girl about Tiago's age, giving them a side-eyed look from where she's standing.
"I can't control myself around you." he says hungrily, one of his hands reaching out to grasp her knee.
"Well, you have to." she says and takes his hand off her leg, "We'll be back soon enough, I think you can keep it in your pants for a little longer." she tells him under her breath.
He pouts but after another sip of his beer he's singing along with the song again, "Shake it up baby…"
She's only slightly drunk when they finally leave, not nearly drunk enough to forget about the colossal mess that is Station H. They need five new employees as quickly as possible, and when she thinks about the paperwork and clearances that will have to be done her head begins to spin. Worse yet is that Tiago can't stop humming and singing the tune to that damned song. As they walk back all she can hear is him repeating, "Boom boom boom boom, gonna shoot you right down!"
She hopes and prays that Agent Lau can fix this situation for her. At least he has a bit of brains behind his brawn, unlike some of the other blunt instruments she happened to employ.
It's a little past midnight and Tiago is asleep. Olivia envies how peacefully he sleeps, like the young man without a care in the world that he is. He's on his back, the white sheet bunched up around his hips and both his arms above his head, exposing his long and toned torso. She wants to reach out and stroke his chest, but thinks better of it, not wanting to wake the sleeping beast.
They only have three more nights together. Three more nights on this bizarre and totally unexpected trip to Hong Kong that part of her wished had never happened. She wished she'd never known the taste of his lips or the feel of his hands on her body so that she wouldn't ache for those things once he was gone.
She looked down at her arm, now mostly pain free, and the swelling around the stitches had gone down considerably. It seemed this trip had truly marked her for life now. In between meetings and meals and meandering around with her lover, she'd finally found the time to call Matthew. When she told him about her arm he had expressed concern but didn't seem overly distressed about it. "You've been shot before, and in much worse places too. I'm sure you'll be alright, dear." he had told her somewhat cheerfully, as if it wasn't worth a second thought.
It was so unlike Tiago's reaction, who had in the days that since passed bent down and placed small kisses around the tender flesh. He would look at it with interest and ask her how she felt every day, showing great pleasure that she felt less and less pain with each day that passed.
As she drew the sheet up over her naked body she shivered and felt a wave of nostalgia wash over her; but it wasn't nostalgia for the past, it was almost as if she knew these moments would be the ones she looked back on with rose tinted glasses. She molded herself against Tiago and let sleep take her, dreaming all night of the dark waters of the Pearl River Delta.
In the morning she's back in Zhao's office, and Agent Lau triumphantly swings open the door, throwing two handfuls of floppy discs on the desk.
"Look what I found." he says with a smirk, "Some were hidden under the floorboards and a few I found in the tiles of the ceiling. Oh, and I found one of my guns taped to the inside of the toilet tank. I'm not sure why he put that specific one there. It had the serial number stripped of course but I knew it was mine from some of the scratches on it. I dropped it in a very particular way once."
Olivia gazed over all the discs, only half surprised that Lau had found so many of them.
"Did you find anything else while you were there?" she asked.
"Actually yes. Some receipts for wire transfers, from all sorts of places. For what it's worth I don't think he was dealing with the mainland, I think he got into some deep water with the local crime syndicates - that's because I also found a fair amount of what I'm assuming is heroin."
"Heroin?" Olivia rubs her eyes.
"Yes, ma'am. That would certainly explain why he was having so many physical difficulties towards the end."
She slams her hands down on the table, "Alright. Beginning now we're also doing random drug tests, starting here in Station H and eventually it will be association wide. A situation like this is not going to happen again, and I don't care how much money it costs to test our employees, this nonsense must stop. You'll help me implement this, Mr. Zhao?"
"Of course, ma'am. It's just you don't have much time left here?" he raises an eyebrow quizzically.
"I know. That's why you'll have to do the bulk of the work without me. Plus there are telephones, you know, and it's not as if I won't be at my desk in London." she turned back towards Lau, "Thank you, 005. Now if you don't mind, why don't you and Mr. Rodriguez start going through these discs to determine if anything is missing?"
"Will do, ma'am." Lau says as he tries to gather all the floppy disks back in his arms.
She just hopes that none of her active agents in the field have been compromised.