"Ooh. Cool. Can I buy it? I have the money," Alex walked up to the group of men, grinning snidely from ear to ear. She'd be lying if she said she hadn't waited to do that since discovering the operation. She loved any chance to ruin corrupt men's greedy business transactions. The fact that she was allowed to do it so cockily for a mission was even better. She and her team could take out a Dirty Thirty and ruin awful grabs for power. It was the perfect mix. And it was the kind of easy, successful mission Division needed after Markov.
Birkhoff (and Sonya, since he had decided to bring her on) still hadn't been able to decrypt the mole's messages. However, the two hackers working together were attempting to narrow down which terminal the messages were sent from. That was at least some progress. It was a lot farther than Nikita had gotten with her search. She was able to compile some sort of list of agents that could be loyal to Amanda and were around Medical at the times of the attacks; though, it wasn't anything substantial. There was hardly any real progress.
Fortunately, Division wasn't stagnant all together. The team got a hit on a new Dirty Thirty, Cyrus, and they were able to form an operation to take him down. Well, they weren't going to take him down completely. The intel they had received, from Shadownet scanning Dirty Thirty activities, told them that Cyrus was still selling weapons. And in his weapons trade, he had made contact with former Gogol agents- therefore, Amanda. The team had to bring their Dirty Thirty in so they could question him to death about the bitch. Hopefully then, they could know just what the hell Amanda was up to. Or, at the very least, make progress with their mole.
With Birkhoff taking a break from the mole to back them up in the field, Sean and Alex rushed to intercept Cyrus at his next arms deal. The plan was to ruin his trade and to bring him in for questioning. The first part ran smoothly. Alex proudly snuck up on her Dirty Thirty and his clients. The criminals were not happy with the interruption. They turned to Cyrus, blaming him for everything. Alex smirked the whole time. That infuriated him the most. Sharply, Cyrus ordered his clients to deal with her, "She's not with us. Get rid of her."
"What? But I don't even have a gun," Alex was unfazed by the lividity. She didn't even flinch when two guns were instantly aimed at her. The amount of time she had trained (and still trained with Sean and Nikita) to catch up with the skills the Division agents had learned did her well. She was able to take away her assailants' weapons and render them unconscious without breaking a sweat. Or without losing her smirk. She aimed her confiscated pistol at Cyrus and shrugged. Taking him in was going to be easy too, "Now I do."
"As do I. And as I figure it, mine's better," For his credit, Cyrus rebounded from his shock fairly quickly. He clicked a button on the remote in his hand, making the rifle he was attempting to sell spin towards Alex. It was a fully automatic assault rifle with hundreds of powerful rounds that could be controlled from anywhere remotely. The gun was the same one Wade had used on Division a while back. That was part of the reason the team was able to find Cyrus. When intel sprang up about a sale of a dangerous weapon they had encountered before, they were able to trace it back to their Dirty Thirty. The rest came easily from there.
"Is it though?" Once the gun was trained on his girlfriend, and Cyrus was sufficiently smug about it, Sean stepped out from where he was hiding. Alex got to have the big flashy show as she ruined the meeting and caused a distraction. Sean hung back, preparing their exfil and giving Birkhoff enough time to hack the rifle. Since he had taken over Wade's remote controlled weapon, the hacker had no problem doing the same to Cyrus'. Sean soon had complete control, and the chance to be smug as well, "Cause. I'm pretty sure Birkhoff found it easy to hack."
Tapping his phone, Sean got the weapon to spin off Alex and point towards Cyrus. Their Dirty Thirty crumbled at the action. He tried to gain control of his weapon. But when his remote didn't work, he froze. Alex dropped her gun and slowly stalked closer to her target. Cyrus held his ground, yet his eyes darted around the room as if they were looking for a chance to escape. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't find one. He flashed the agents a small smile in the hopes that it'd gain him some favors. He could still get out of there, "I'm sure we can make a deal."
"Yeah. Tell me about Amanda," Although she grinned slyly, there was no lightness in Alex's tone. She wanted Amanda. Capturing the bitch was the only way Alex, her team, and all the other agents trapped in Division could be free to live the lives they deserved. The President's stipulation had a chokehold on them until all the Dirty Thirties were taken care of. However, Amanda was the most threatening. With Ari and former Gogol and Division agents on her side, she had the power to do anything she wanted. Knowing her, that anything could destroy the world. The other Dirty Thirties were nothing compared to that.
Even Cyrus could admit to the thought. Upon hearing Amanda's name, he flinched. He hated her just as much as the agents did. Good, he had no loyalties to her. Sean and Alex were able to bring Cyrus to Division without further trouble. He was eventually dumped into an interrogation room and forced to wait for Michael and Nikita. The two tag teamed with Alex and Sean. While the field agents dealt with the criminals they had left behind and handled the rifle they had brought in, the others questioned the Dirty Thirty. It was a fair trade, especially since Cyrus already knew Nikita, "Nikita, surprised I didn't see you in the field."
"Well, I do love the element of surprise. I wish I could say the same about you. But you are pretty predictable. How else do you think we traced you to Amanda?" Nikita leaned against the wall and flashed a cocky grin. The last thing she needed was Cyrus questioning why the leader of the former rogues was missing from the field. If she played it off as nothing, then maybe he'd treat it as such. Besides, the interrogation shouldn't be focused on her. They had to get intel on Amanda. Hopefully before she did something else drastic.
"Hey. I just deal with her man Ari. I want nothing more to do with her," Despite the cuffs around his wrists, Cyrus raised placating hands. He only dealt with former Gogol- therefore, Ari. He had been selling weapons to them even before the fall of the organization. Percy used him to acquire weapons for Division, and spy on other weapons dealers. However, Cyrus had had free range to do what he pleased with his business until he was needed. That had made him incredibly successful. And apparently, that also made him the fountain of information everyone needed.
"That's fine with us. As long as you tell us what you've been selling," Michael moved closer to the Dirty Thirty, crossing his arms sternly. Intimidation more than likely wasn't going to work on Cyrus. Although he was an arms dealer, he had still been trained like the other Division agents. He could withstand interrogation, until the team found something to make him talk. They already had an idea of what that was. Cyrus hadn't given up his business for the recall order. Obviously, he cared more about that than his possible freedom. Or, he simply had more faith in that than he did in a promise from the President.
Nikita was banking on the latter. She knew Cyrus. She had helped broker deals with him in Division. He relied on his business to give him more freedom than anyone else had. That was what he valued. If the team threatened to take it away, he'd tell them what they wanted to know. After that, they'd work on his Dirty Thirty ways. But in the meantime, as everyone knew, the focus was on Amanda, "I told you he wasn't going to talk. Oh well. When we let him go, we'll do it by a federal building. I'm sure his clients won't think he talked. His business will do great."
"Wait. They want Sideswipe," Before Nikita and Michael could leave the interrogation room, Cyrus sighed. Division was right about his contact with Ari. The former head of Gogol wanted a specific weapon that had recently hit the black market. It was designed to knock out transmissions and takedown aircraft; it was basically meant for the little guy to be able to stand against monstrous armies. In the hands of former leaders of black ops organizations, Sideswipe wasn't good. It didn't take a genius to know something terrible was going to happen.
"This can't be right," Even when a self-proclaimed genius was stumped by his own computer system, he could figure out something was wrong. Birkhoff couldn't make sense of what his computer was telling him. He was able to track down the terminal the encrypted messages were coming from, and it claimed Sonya was the mole. That didn't make sense. How could she be the mole after what Amanda put her through. Also, why would she be assisting him if she was the mole. Birkhoff wouldn't believe it. Maybe something went wrong when she had helped- some lines of code were corrupted. He should run the search again.
However, as he fixed the code and ran it again, Birkhoff still didn't feel right about it. Maybe the code wasn't wrong. Maybe there was more going on than he knew. He continued to not have an explanation for why Sonya stopped dating him months ago. There was a possibility it was related to the whole mole thing. Or it was a complete reach. Whatever it was, Birkhoff was beyond confused and torn up inside. His instincts said one thing, while his heart another. Another search had to bring him clarity. He was going to need it.
"Birkhoff, we got new intel coming your way," Ryan unfortunately ripped the hacker out of his tormented thoughts. He dragged him along to Ops, where Michael and Nikita were briefing everyone about Sideswipe. Despite its destructive power, Nikita seemed excited about all the weapon could do. Yet she made certain that wasn't the focus of the discussion. Ari and Amanda wanted Cyrus to purchase them the weapon. They had big plans for it. And luckily, the arms dealer knew some of those plans.
It wasn't the whole scheme the two villains were attempting, however. All Cyrus knew was what Ari wanted Sideswipe for. He planned to use it in demonstration for potential buyers; he wanted to be the convoluted middleman so that he seemed to have more importance in order to gain more favors. For anyone that wasn't Ari, that was a roundabout way of getting things done. But he always liked to keep himself and his activities hidden until the last second, unlike Percy. Ari had more patience to get what he wanted. What that was, though, Michael voiced the team's only guess, "So use Sideswipe once, then sell it? They need money for their plan?"
"Money to buy power?" Sean shrugged. Why else did Ari and Amanda do anything. Since he had known them, all of the moves he had seen them make were to gain power. Their most ambitious goal was Zetrov. When that had failed, they must've resorted to whatever they were up to currently. Between employing former Gogol and Division agents, kidnapping Owen, a cryptographic key, and Sideswipe, what the two were doing didn't make any sense. But it was dangerous. The team was sure of that. Amanda and Ari would always be dangerous.
"Let's just focus on the op, alright. Alex, you're going to meet the sellers with Cyrus. Michael and Sean will provide backup," Massaging her temple to rid herself of her newest headache, Nikita moved the team forward. They could spend forever trying to figure out what their enemies were planning. It wouldn't get them anywhere at the moment. Division should run their interference immediately. They'd go with Cyrus to buy the weapon, then track it to Ari and Amanda. Once they knew where the two were, they could attack. There wouldn't be any attempts to bring them in, though. Those were enemies that had to be killed.
No one disagreed. The team planned for their operation, relying on Cyrus for intel on how everything was to happen. He and Alex would meet with the people selling Sideswipe while Michael and Sean observed their movements from afar. If anything were to go wrong, the two would be ready to step in. A tracking implant was also placed in Cyrus' arm as insurance that he wouldn't run off on them. He'd help them acquire Sideswipe, bug it, and bring it to Ari and Amanda. He was Division's chance to end everything once and for all. That couldn't be ruined.
As soon as the team was ready, Cyrus scheduled a meet with the Sideswipe sellers. They rushed out to the field, leaving Nikita stuck in Ops. She kept herself busy watching through satellites, though. She didn't need to observe that mission. There were plenty of eyes in the field. And it seemed straightforward enough. However, Nikita couldn't keep herself out of it. She couldn't sit back while her husband and friends were putting themselves in possible danger. There always had to be some way she could help them. Even if it was just to tell them something weird she noticed about Cyrus' body language, "Hey. Watch your backs. Something's going on."
Cyrus wasn't on the same com as Alex, Michael, and Sean. He was oblivious to the warning they had received. Although they weren't sure what had caused Nikita to say it, they didn't question her. The agents prepared themselves for whatever would be thrown at them. They thought it'd come from the dealers handling Sideswipe. Instead, they were thrown for a dangerous loop. Cyrus finished the deal, switched the weapon on, and turned on Alex, "Now. Before we go. I just want to say, she's Interpol, and there's a team surrounding our position."
"Sonofabitch! Michael, Sean! Alex needs you now," As the weapons dealers fired on Alex, Nikita shouted in the coms for backup. The young woman was able to handle herself against the surprise attack. However, Cyrus and Sideswipe slipped from her grasp. Michael and Sean weren't given a chance to chase after either; they had to help Alex and save themselves. From Ops, Nikita and Birkhoff tried to track their Dirty Thirty. But they couldn't do it with Sideswipe turned on. All trackers were jammed. Cyrus and the weapon were gone. And so was Division's opportunity to kill Amanda and Ari.