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When the Lion Wakes

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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Ivanol on Sun Dec 12, 2010 6:21 pm

It seemed that as soon as Alderson sat down from his rather startling assignment, he was pulled back to his feet by the issue of his broken computer. How was he supposed to email Natalie all his notes if all his computer would give him was that damned blue screen? Re assuming his classic workplace smile as though all were right in the world, he deemed the fix-it job too advanced for his own basic computer skills and stepped out to find better help. It wasn't long before he spotted Kaori, sitting in her... office chair? As far as Alderson could see, Kaori's wheelchair wasn't within arms reach of her. "Good afternoon", he said politely upon approaching her, glancing once more at the office chair. "I uh..." His voice trailed off as he remained in a slight condition of confusion.

Kaori looked up at Alderson Morris another fine FBI agent, one of whom she knew the work of very well, just by what was spoken about by the people in the office, though she did not know him personally, he always said hello to her when she wheeled by in the mornings when he came in. When she looked Alderson in the eyes she smiled brightly as if nothing had happened, but her eyes would deceive her as she had cried her eyes out for a good fifteen minutes after her brother left the office. She knew there was only one reason why Alderson was here, he needed computer technicians help, well of course he did. He was in Natalie's department and worked for Natalie so he was under her work with list, no questions asked. "Good Afternoon Agent Morris." Kaori stayed in her seat her smile never left her.

Alderson smiled, tapping his fingers idly against the side of his leg. "Natalie's had me out all morning at an interrogation, and I can't get my notes into the computer. It blue screened for the first time in years." He paused for a moment. "You’re a computer wizard right? I was wondering if you could take a shot at the problem. Its . . . beyond me."

Kaori looked down and sighed, she should have known it wasn't for anything social she nodded her head. "Yeah, I can help you." Kaori Logged out of her computer as is the rules looked at her envelope still on the desk from her brother and sighed she took the envelope and placed it in front of her family photograph. She stood up and took Aldersons hand "Help me out to your desk, I'm a little shaky with this walking thing... haven't done it for five years. Just a blue screen?"

Alderson inspected the photograph, then the envelope. He blinked as he heard Kaori's words "You can walk?" he asked with obvious confusion, almost forgetting to extend a hand. Alderson couldn't help but wonder how long he had been gone.
"Oh and yeah... Blue screen."

"Yes I can walk, I started out with baby steps, but when my family was asleep I can walk." Kaori said "I had kept it up for some time, but after my brother's behavior today I no longer feel the need to be weak." Kaori said "Did you know that I used to be an Earthquake specialist for Nassa?" Kaori asked looking at Mr. Morris, of course he wouldn't have known this, no one hear would except for Natalie when she looked at her application. They arrived at Alderson's desk and Kaori sat down, within five minutes she had his computer up and running.
Alderson had to admit it; he was impressed with how quickly Kaori had fixed his computer. However, he was equally stunned by the facts Kaori had just given him. Until now, he hadn't known her to any personal extent. "Its wonderful to see you standing", was all he could manage at first. "You look good on your feet. Did you say your brother was here today?" he said, having looked personally into her brother's files. "Did he help you walk again? That would be incredible, such positive interaction between family." He spoke the last word with a hint of remorse, and suddenly his headache was back. The day had been going wildly. first he learned of an impending nuclear attack, only to return to work to find his computer broken and cripples walking.

Kaori looked alittle annoyed at her brother being mintioned "No he did not, he caught me once and tried to stop me from walking." Kaori sighed "I suppose he felt that if I did walk I would not need him any more.. but he got way to out of hand, I do not understand where his hatred for the FBI or my boss has come from." Kaori shook her head softly. "At times like this I miss my husband's wisdom. He was such a wonderful man, our family was so good together. I miss them all very much." Kaori sighed and then held her hand out for Alderson "Agent Morris, would you be good enough to take me to my desk please?" she asked very softly.

Alderson was saddened to hear about her brother's misconduct , but perhaps not too surprised. "Well thank you", he said tiredly, glancing uneasily over his shoulder for no reason. He hooked his arm around Kaori's to help her back to her desk, further surprised by all the new information he was learning about Kaori. He felt bad when he realized he knew almost everyone in his life to such a shallow extent, even his boss and closer coworkers. "I'm sorry for your loss", he said earnestly, knowing what it was like to loose a family.

Kaori looked up at Alderson and nodded softly "My husband was a police officer, the best one on the field. My daughter Molly wanted to be an FBI agent, my son use to teas her and say FBI's are for boys only." Kaori chuckled for a moment then sighed "And my son wanted to follow in my footsteps only he wanted to work with Volcano’s we were going to go Volcano climbing and sledding the summer they were all taken from me... every one of them... and I would give anything to have it reversed." Kaori sighed she felt it was her fault she should never have taken her family on her job with her, but both the children wanted to and James had a full week off... it had only meant to be a routine check in that city.

Alderson walked Kaori to the rest of the way to her desk. "I can't imagine what that must have felt like when it was happening. Nature's violence can be so unpredictable, even with the best equipment."

Once they got to Kaori's desk she sat down and looked up at him, "I still have work today for Natalie, shes expecting more addresses of known terrorist." Kaori said simply, "Is there anything else I can help you out with today Agent Morris?"

"I'll tell you if anything else breaks", he joked, walking back to his desk. As he finally made it back, he began entering the notes into a secure email, feeling strangely more connected with the office around him. Kaori blinked and then giggled at his joke and smiled softly as Agent Morris walked away.

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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby LightingStrikes on Sun Dec 12, 2010 6:39 pm

Kaori was settled into her seat and looked at the card again, she took it and sighed. Gou was such an idiot sometimes forgetting her birthday and all. She opened the envelope, and as she did crisp 100 dollar bills came out falling, twenty to be exact, Kaori's look was a classic one, one that said her brother was in a lot of trouble. Kaori stood up and bent down and picked up all the 100 dollar bills that was when she heard Joslyn's throat clearing. Kaori looked up and smiled at her.

"Hello Agent Joslyn." Kaori placed the money back in the card and opened her desk draw put it in the bottom draw and then locked it. Kaori wondered what it was Joslyn needed, she never needed anyone, and was just as hard of a worker as she was when it came to work. Kaori smiled brightly once again. Kaori waited to be spoken to.
When The Lion Wakes

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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Lego's Apex Predator on Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:23 pm

"Hi." Joslyn said.
"I was wondering if you needed any help on any type of survillence or something." Joslyn said. She was a little nervous about it. SHe didn't normally ask if anyone needed anything because she was always in her own little world. She could probably blame it on being sick later but that wasn't likely. She smoothed the front of her blouse.

She had noticed the wrinkles and it bugged her. She pushed her brown hair out of her face and made a mental note to put it in a ponytail later to avoid things like this later. She couldn't believe how forgetfull she had been lately. If she didn't know better she'd probably forget something important and then that would be the end of her career as it stands. That wasn't likely to happen though.
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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby LightingStrikes on Fri Jan 07, 2011 9:50 pm

"Hello Agent Joslyn." Kaori smiled brightly at her she thought for a moment "Extra work?" Kaori asked and then nodded "I have a few ideas." Kaori began to think about this, did the FBI need to waste two people on such an assignment, she then nodded her head. "I'll set you up here in this cubical by me." Kaori Got up from her chair and walked over to the cubical behind her. "I am finding known terrorist for Natalie, at the end of the day you can turn into me at least three. I can do eight a day if I needed to."

Kaori opened up the files and showed Joslyn how to work the computer to get the information she needed. "Particularly I am looking for known Hafta members or gangs related to such, over seas terrorist would be great. Once you find them email them to me, I'll email them to Natalie, and as always she'll know you've helped. Until she gives me another assignment this is pretty much everything I'm doing. Would love the help and even welcome the help sometimes it can get lonely here. I feel as if I am the only non-agent personal, and I know this is not the case." Kaori shook her head and looked at Joslyn "My big brother... is in a lot of trouble."

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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Makokam on Thu Jan 27, 2011 12:42 am

He always knew it was a risk, using his own bank account. No one was looking for him though, as far as he knew at least, so it was worth the risk to put some cash away that he could get at later.

Still, he kept his sunglasses on and his coats collar up.

When the men came in, waving guns around and demanding everyone get on the floor he actually had to suppress a cheerful laugh. It’s not that he thought it was funny, it was just that if he didn’t find somebody he could kill with a clear conscience soon he was going to have to settle for someone he couldn’t, and just when it was just a few days from where it was dangerous for him to be in public these tools show up.

And to think he had almost decided against coming in.

He started counting as he reached under his coat and everyone else started getting on the ground. He got to twelve before someone finally noticed he wasn’t getting on the floor.

“I said get on the ground!” the man yelled, without even pointing the gun at him.

“I know. I just wanted to thank you for making my life easier,” he said as he removed three small throwing knives which he quickly, rhythmically, and almost carelessly flicked into the trigger hands of the three gunmen.

Each screamed and dropped their gun as he leapt the railing.

The first he dispatched easily with a snap of the neck while he was still gaping in horror at the knife through his hand. The next he hit first in the neck with his elbow before grabbing the robber by the jaw, leaping into the air and slamming them skull first into ground with a very stratifying crack. The last one had finally managed to get his shit together and had pulled the knife from his hand and was trying to aim a pistol at him.

In one smooth motion John reached into his coat, pulled another knife and cast it at the last robber standing, hitting him in the general location of his heart. The robber gurgled a little, dropped his gun and fell on his ass, starring at the knife in his chest like a dear at the headlights of an oncoming Buick.

John collected the knives from the first two before going over to the third and snapping his neck as well.

He left the stunned employees and customers with a light hearted sense of freedom as the demons whispering in his head were now contentedly munching on the robbers souls or whatever it was that made them shut up for a few days after he’d killed someone. He didn’t get to make his deposit though, but that was alright, he’d need the few thousand in cash he had on hand if he needed to run for it, and since he didn’t access his account they couldn’t prove he was there.
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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Ylanne on Sat Feb 05, 2011 12:16 am

OOC: This post has been edited in order to reflect a change in the storyline portrayed in the following post. Again, I apologize for the more than a month delay in posting this. On another note, the first segment was inspired directly by the source of this "day's" quote and was written in a literary nod to it. The second segment was a collaborative post between Tempest and I.




You were warned. There was no lack of warnings and signs, but you chose to ignore them. You spurned the only way that could have brought happiness to men. Fortunately, though, you allowed us to take over from you when you left. You made commitments to us, you sealed them with your word, you gave us the right to loosen and to bind their shackles, and, of course, you cannot think of depriving us of that right now. Why, then, have you come to interfere with us now?
— Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky





Warnings

When the Lion Wakes
Part Three





Four Months Ago
Cheyenne, Wyoming


She chose, then, to appear for a day in America, in Wyoming, in the most terrible time of religious extremism, when bombs were detonated every year to the glory of God, and in the fatwas of clerics the wicked heretics were condemned. This was not, of course, a glorious coming or salvific fulfillment of an archaic promise. No, she visited those she once called brother and sister only for a day, and there where the ashes of fervor were stoked unseen and unheard in the American countryside. She came down to the quiet rural highway within the Cheyenne city limits in which little of significance occurred. She came softly, watched from a distance, unrecognized until she came to the door. No one in the whole city looked long enough at her to put a name to her face. She was, for the first time, unobserved as she strolled along the highway among tall wild grasses and weeds and the occasional rusted road sign. There wasn't another house for several football fields' length. All she could hear was the occasional motor of a car or lazy, tired song of a bird.

When she came to the door, she greeted the couple in the hall, but their faces were as stone. “Assalamu alaykum,” she murmured softly. They did not return the greeting. After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped inside and they did not move to stop her. To the casual outsider, they might have been acquaintances reunited after an exceedingly difficult time. There was nothing outstanding in the faded, worn clothes with fraying threads and a few holes that she wore bought at a secondhand store down the road a ways, nor was there anything outstanding about the two men inside, who could have belonged at any home within Laramie County.

The hall where she was standing was well lit with natural light, an elegant, tiered chandelier hung still in the foyer. A wide staircase curved up from the first to second floor where a balcony had been crafted from fine wood, a mirror on the wall. It was a large estate, built at the turn of the twentieth century and renovated recently. A stately home on its own secluded parcel of land, the property belonged to one of the American division leaders. Ali had been told it was frequently used for meetings, though never more than twice in the same calendar year. The floors were polished marble in the hall and dark-stained cherry in the parlor to her left. In the sitting room to the right, Ali saw the floor was made of green marble with a thick carpet by the lavish couches there. She could hear herself breathe in the full silence. She looked at the men, began to speak, but before she could say even one word, they turned and disappeared through a door, leaving her alone.

Ever so softly, she stepped into the sitting room, brushing her fingers against the façade of the stone fireplace, the rough hew of granite smoother and polished in a dark gray. Pale, sober sunlight streamed through tall, sweeping Palladian windows, in front of which hung translucent silvery curtains to prevent curious, peering eyes from watching what occurred within. If Ali strained her ears, she could hear distant voices, speaking several tongues, but the words were indistinct, muffled by insulation and furniture. She was not sure they were familiar voices; it was impossible to distinguish one from another. Here, it smelled like some sweet herb she could not name from some distant country she had long since forsaken. She wondered if there would be tea.

On the mantel, there lay a green photo album, an unburned silver votive, and a figurine of an angel painted with care by a child in a sweatshop halfway around the world. It was warm. Ali stood by the fireplace. She fingered the wrought iron poker in its polished copper tray before letting her hand fall to her side. The fireplace was unused, she saw, by the lack of soot inside or a woodpile nearby. For a moment, she fancied herself an honored guest in a friend’s house, but then the reality of what she came here to do returned. It overwhelmed her weak faculties. She was not here to play at fancies of the imagination. Nay, this time, she was here for a different, almost contradictory, purpose altogether. She was here under the influence of Reality, a very dangerous thing indeed.

Footsteps fell in the hall. Ali had only to glance to the arched entryway to the sitting room to catch sight of a much younger woman. She wore a simple white blouse and soft beige pants, her long, dark hair tied in a single braid. She ought to have been forty, not yet fifty, but her face belied her age. A clear complexion and full lips gave the impression that she was not quite thirty, but Ali saw a conniving brightness in her eyes that suggested her true age. There was a capacity for greatness in this woman. She came further into the room, her gaze having alighted upon Ali from the moment she first appeared, and stared with an unabashed intensity at the older woman. In this woman’s face, Ali saw a shadow of the cherubic child she had once known. This, she realized with a growing sense of dread, was Rabiya. She hesitated in her purpose, but she assured herself, the lapse was only momentary.

“You?” asked Rabiya in a hushed, reverent tone, drawing closer. “Is it really you?” She inspected Ali, her eyes trawling over the worn blouse and sweater and skirt before resting on the woman’s face, one more sunken and creased than her own. “Never mind, you don’t need to answer me. Say nothing. I know only too well what you might tell me now. Besides, you have no right to add anything to what you said before. It was enough, perhaps more than enough. You gave us poems, treatises, lectures, sermons, letters—all in great abundance. These you gave without inhibition. You may have put too much of yourself into them. We heard what you said; we saw your writings, studied them. We followed to the letter every enjoinder, every commandment you thought fit to utter. Yet here you stand, long after you had left. Why did you come back? I know—and you know it well yourself—you are only here to interfere and to make things difficult for us. Isn’t it true? Don’t deny it.”

She peered at Ali, her dark gaze piercing, her fingers fluttering over a hardcover book on the coffee table by the white couch. Her voice had a soft, musical quality to it. It could slash or comfort at will, offering an entire operatic repertoire of possibilities. “You have no right to return. It’s been well over twenty years. When you left, that was the end. Fin. You had been everything to us. You were everything to my father. You were the noor of his eyes but you destroyed his vision. Our father died without knowing what became of his favorite child. You were his sun-daughter. You made his birds sing for love of you. And then you left. The castle you built became a fortified city in your absence, grew from one city to a city-state and finally to a nation without borders. Don’t look at me like that, like you didn’t know, couldn’t have guessed. Now that you’ve returned—and you must have known it would be so—it will crumble and die, unless I act to keep you from doing just that.”

Rabiya took a step toward Ali, jabbing her finger in the air like an accusation. Her little silver earrings jingled. Ali had not yet moved. “What were you thinking? You will destroy our family. You were adopted into our family as an orphaned child. You were raised up as a daughter and a sister and a mother instead of lowered as a slave. You were a part of this family as if you shared its blood. And now you will destroy your own creation. Are you that arrogant? We are exactly and only what you molded us into. Don’t pretend otherwise. Look in the mirror and bear witness yourself to the idolatrous depravity in your own soul before you seek to judge the rest of us. Before you can utter a single word against us, remember that you were not only among us but you led us when my father left the world of the living. Oh, you wretched hypocrite!” There was a sudden fury in her voice, a knitted rage in her eyes. Rabiya moved ever closer. “Be damned, you who dared to return only to be repulsed at those you once led and claimed to love. How now? I see that look on your face. You cannot possibly be the woman I remember, the one the others worship. You have her face—albeit older—but if looks mean anything, you have come to end us.”

Rabiya paused. Perhaps she was waiting for Ali to respond. She picked up the book, a small red Bible, opened it, rifled the pages. Perhaps she did not know quite what to say next. In any case, her pause did not last long nor did Ali interrupt it. “Don’t say anything. You have no right to speak. You were once the most trusted of all of us, but I know now you can never be trusted again. Don’t poison me with your words. You’ve already fed us enough poison for a hundred thousand lifetimes. I myself wonder sometimes where you have been, what things you have done these last decades. Have you hid, shamed in a Himalayan cave?” She looked at Ali curiously, staring into the woman’s eyes. Ali did not meet her eyes. “Have you eaten with the Maasai in their villages or meditated with the Buddhists in the solitude of their temples? Have you crouched at the tundra’s glaciers or ridden through the mists of the Gobi? Have you camped in the Empty Quarter among the Bedouin or mingled with common criminals in the cities? Or, Tahira, have you made your home in a quiet bed in an American suburb? Don’t give me that look. I can’t bear it, not from you. Besides, I know of more horrific stories, I think.”

Rabiya laid down the Bible with an unexpected tenderness, opening the drawer on the side of the coffee table, from which she drew a gun, its barrel sleek and black as a raven’s wings. She ran her dainty fingers along its side in a manner that suggested great familiarity with the weapon. Her eyes never once left Ali’s face. The older woman might have been a statue. “Don’t make the mistake of misunderstanding me. We know who you are, even if you will not say so. You can’t possibly be anyone else. The look in your face, the hesitation in your step, the way your eyes refuse to meet mine? You are her. Tahira Ali Almontaser.” Ali flinched at the sound of her name. “The one we once considered beside my father. You are older now. Your hair has gone entirely gray; your eyes are marked by wrinkles I don’t remember. I see your face all the time—on the old propaganda posters we used to distribute, on some graphic in the corner of our website, in post offices, and on the occasional magazine featuring some article on our family… I think the photo on your wanted poster flatters you. Certainly, you seem younger there than here, standing so close to me. Do you still refuse to answer me? That’s all right. Don’t bother. Your face was once the public face of our family. It would be impossible for me to refrain from laying claim to its image. I know you better than you know yourself.”

Rabiya turned the gun over in her hands as a mother stroking her child. Her gaze lingered before traveling back to Ali’s face, blinking twice. Her tone shifted again, its musical quality changing with the ease of a practiced player. “Do you remember, Tahira? Do you remember how you and I were once almost the same? We were sisters. You were my role model. Everything you were, I wanted to be. My aspirations were to be like you in every way. I worshiped you. It was a kind of idolatry, I’ll be the first to admit, but didn’t our father preach idolatry? A different kind of idolatry, to be sure, but idolatry nevertheless. That’s what they believe—they believe in this End of All Time; it is for this they earnestly long and nothing else will ever sate their desire. Doesn’t all extremism come to the same end? It is an idolatry of ideas, with an ideal placed upon a pedestal. In such a situation, nothing else will ever compare to that which is worshiped and nothing can be its substitute. Our father knew this all too well about what he preached, though I’ll confess to you something I know you’ll never tell—our father did not believe his own sermons. It wasn’t so much a fantasy or play at prophet as it was a grand experiment of the highest science and psychological study. He observed our family most scientifically. How odd that so few of them have ever discovered that fact.” Rabiya cocked her head, looking for some reaction. “I think they suffer from mad delusions. Perhaps most of society is afflicted with this terrible ignorance and gullibility. It’s a propensity for believing whatever anyone in authority tells them. This is how extremism is propagated; this is how the willing masses can be organized into deadly tools to strike at will. But you, Tahira? Did you believe any of it? You preached it too, heralded our father’s teachings around the blue earth in the name of Truth. For forty-three years now, you’ve headlined newspapers and been the target of government task forces because you were my father’s successor. But I’ll ask you again—did you believe those words you wrote and said? Really, truly believe them? I see in your eyes that you did. How sad. You are looking down even now, unable to look me in the eye. Is that shame etched in your features? Well, Tahira, I must say I’m disappointed. You are a fool if for one moment you truly, in your heart believed any of it.”

Rabiya played with the safety on the gun, her inquisitive eyes piercing Ali’s face as if she could see into the depths of the woman’s soul. Perhaps she could. She let her fingers slide along the gun’s barrel again, stopping just before the end. “Tomorrow morning, I shall declare you anathema before the Council. You will be condemned to death for your blasphemy—apostasy even—and treason and you will be taken out to be killed. What will they do then? They may decide that you must be purified through pain before you die. They might prolong the entire affair. In any case, you will soon be dead, given to a grave we can see. You will cease speaking and your demise will be certain. A bullet to the brain, Tahira, that should suffice. It’s simple and far more elegant in my opinion, but I promise you that at the very least, I shall not be your executioner. I shall merely be the signer of your death warrant. Then again, I may say with all due modesty that you yourself did that already. You came here. Didn’t you know it? Oh yes, I suppose you did. This couldn’t have ended any other way. Once you are gone, our family will continue believing you had been our father’s second and disappeared carrying out the work of God. There’s no need to tell them otherwise. Your execution can be a quiet affair. The rest of the world? For them it will be the same as before. Your return, your betrayal—you may not have yet done it, but you and I both know why you are here—these shall never be known to any but ourselves. The council shall keep its silence and your memory will remain untarnished. It’s better that way. If the world learned what you had done, why it would certainly damn us. That is why they must never find out. That is why, Tahira, as much as I once considered you a sister and a dear friend, you must die.” There was a hint of something not unlike sadness in Rabiya’s voice. Ali still had hardly moved. “Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not so simple or cruel to be merely glad to see you go nor merely saddened at the loss of a great opportunity. You have been many things to me, Tahira, and you have the potential to be many things more. But you have made it very clear, simply by coming at this time that you have not returned for tea and sympathy. This is no family reunion. You are not a returning hero, nor are you our long lost sister back from the grave. You are no longer welcome here.”

Rabiya laid the gun on the table, but the weapon was still within reach, close enough that she could, at any moment, take it into her hands and do as she willed. She sank onto the couch with glittering eyes. Ali remained standing by the fireplace. For now, the two women were alone. They might have been mother and daughter or aunt and niece or tutor and student or two friends engaged in deep conversation. The reality was, of course, quite different, and certainly more tragic. “In the last two decades, we have chased after destiny as the lion seeks prey. Didn’t you preach to us many times of our ultimate immortality and divinely guided destiny? Oh yes, that elusive notion. Well, now you have seen the men and women who elected to obey these teachings—your teachings—to unquestioning follow those of us who interpret God’s will. Yes, that business was quite costly, but in time, through your teachings, we saw it through. Oh now, they are doing exactly what you wanted them to do. Only you find it too ugly to watch. You don’t believe anymore though you once did, do you? You look at me without a trace of anything save sorrow, and you do not even consider rage or determination or want? I want you to know, though, that right now your former brothers and sisters are convinced that they are closer to God than they have ever been, although they themselves have surrendered their will to us and put it meekly under our command. This is what we have achieved, but was it really what you wanted, was this the divine revelation that you wanted to bring them?”

Ali had not yet moved. Rabiya sighed, let tiredness creep into her voice. “I’m not afraid of you, Tahira, not anymore. Once, your words carried great weight, your very presence held some sort of unearthly power over a room merely because you were in my father’s favor and you took up his mantle. Well, and I too have wandered, I too have preached my father’s teachings, I too prized the emotional fervor of doing the work of God, and I too was striving to lead the flock of sheep that you and my father before me had led. Certainly, when I was a child, I believed in these follies, but when I grew older, I put away childish things. Epiphany was scientific for me instead of spiritual. For all I know, there is no such thing as god and life is entirely meaningless, an accident without rhyme or reason. Morality is a social construct. Nevertheless, we shall prove to the entire world we are quite serious. I myself think it laughable, but I must admit it is never dull to plot the downfall of world governments. Our latest operation is called Rahah Almarfud—its code name, you understand—and through this, we shall irreparably damage those you once damned enemies. For a while, we will be remembered with great trepidation in textbooks and among historical societies. Eventually, though, we will all die and bring our secrets to our graves. Even this very conversation—or, I daresay, a monologue—will soon be forgotten even as our influence and power shall expand on the shoulders of the ignorant faithful. Again, I tell you, tomorrow you will see those who once loved you and whom you once claimed to love quickly and without a thought dig the grave into which I shall lay your body for coming here. If anyone has ever deserved our wrath, it is you. Tomorrow, you will die.”

When Rabiya ceased speaking, she waited some time for her companion to answer her. Ali’s silence suffocated the room, drowning it with its unspoken platitudes. Rabiya saw that Ali had listened intently throughout, apparently unwilling to reply. The younger woman longed for her to say something, anything, no matter whether bitter or terrible. Instead, she suddenly approached the younger woman and laid her aging hand over Rabiya’s soft, supple palm. Rabiya shuddered. She wanted desperately to say something, but no words came. After a long moment, she stood, took her gun, and parted from the room.

Once Ali had been alone again for some time, she returned to the hall. She heard no voices. It was as if anyone inside had thoroughly vanished. The stairs creaked as she ascended, her hand running gently along the wooden railing. She had never before been in this house, yet it seemed strangely familiar. Upstairs, the hall was permeated with the fragrance of jasmine, a sweet, sensuous perfume. She glided across the floor as if in a dream, her hand pushing open a door. Inside, there were a great oak desk and several bookcases. Perhaps, Ali thought, some key to this latest operation would be hidden here.

She was right. Inside the top drawer on the right hand side of the desk, Ali found blueprints, maps, and a code cipher. She glanced left and right with hurried looks and laid the papers over the desk. Ali fumbled for a pencil, pored over the words. It had been a long time since she had examined these kinds of documents, but it was not excessively difficult to return to them. With great care, she blotted out the names of individuals and the geographic coordinates of locations, substituting meaningless common names—John, Muhammad, and the like—and the geographic coordinates of points far enough into the oceans that any attack launched there would be rendered harmless. Her writing was meticulous, imitating the characters of the original author of the documents, in both form and style.

From the hall, she heard footsteps. Ali’s eyes darted to the doorway. There was no one there yet. She slid the documents back into the drawer along with the pencil, shutting it with great haste, before hurrying to the door. She peeked, catching sight of Rabiya ascending the stairs. Perhaps the woman would pass by without noticing Ali. Those hopes were quickly dashed when Rabiya continued, when finally, she leaned toward another doorway, giving Ali enough of a window to slip into the hallway again, her fingers trembling, her eyes wide. Rabiya turned. Ali’s heart jammed in her throat. For all her secret pensées, Ali wondered that she was afraid of dying. Their eyes met. In the same instance, Ali dropped her gaze and fled for the stairs. Rabiya swore explosively, following after the older woman.

Ali was surprisingly nimble for her age, managing two stairs at a time. That’s when she heard the rapport of the gunshot behind her and felt something solid slam into her arm, bringing with it a sudden, fierce pain. “Get out!” Rabiya shouted, her voice echoing throughout the house. “Get out and never come back, never, never!”

Ali was already out the door. Behind her, like dewdrops, blood spattered along her trail.




Present.

Azzan Kam, Mossad
William Rapp, Interrogation Specialist, CIA
Tahira Ali, detainee number 29083564
United States Penitentiary Lee, Jonesville, Virginia


USP Lee was silent this time of night, or rather, this time of morning. It was just past three a.m. when two black "Knight" armored cars rolled to a halt in front of the gates. The guard, tired and nearing the end of his shift, stepped forward to check the ID of the man driving the first vehicle. He snapped a salute almost at once. "Colonel. Welcome to USP Lee."

"Thank you Mr. Johnston," replied the driver, eyes quickly taking in the man’s name tag. "I am here to have Tahira Ali moved at once. Here are our orders." He waved a folded paper in the guard’s face, carefully pulling it back a second before the other man would have reached for it.

"Of course sir!" replied the prison employee as he picked up the phone next to him and spoke rapidly into it. A few seconds later the doors clicked, motors sounded, and the gates rumbled open.

The two armored cars rolled forward and into the main parking lot where they drew up in front of the foreboding looking entrance. Doors opened and six men stood on the tarmac, one in the uniform of a colonel, the rest sergeants or lower in rank. They all had the badge "Officer of Military Special Investigations" on their shoulders. One of the men, a thick set sergeant with a huge reddish beard, remained with the vehicles while the others followed the Colonel inside.

Inside, the warden of the prison, a tall, thin man, bald but with a long, carefully combed mustache, strode forward to greet them. Normally Andrew Husted was home, sleeping at three in the morning, but he had been distracted with a mountain of paperwork, and, determined to finish it at once, had been at the prison long after he would have otherwise left under normal circumstances. Ali's presence had not eased his mind.

A former military man himself, Warden Husted recognized the rank insignia on the leading man's uniform. "Evening, Colonel," he said gruffly, eyes alighting on the colonel's face as he extended a hand. "I understand you have some orders to carry out?"

The "Colonel" shook the offered hand with a grin. "Morning actually, Warden. And yes, I have been ordered to move the prisoner Tahira Ali from here immediately. Sorry I can't say where, classified, I'm sure you understand."

"I'd like to see a copy of your orders," Husted said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "I'm not asking for any classified information, but I must account for transfers, you understand."

"Of course, Warden, of course." Rapp drew the orders from his pocket and handed them over. They had been expertly forged by the CIA and bore the signature of the FBI’s Assistant Director of Counter-Intelligence, a man who even at this moment was being arrested in Washington.

Husted took the orders, scanning through them rapidly, his eyes moving back and forth across the page. "Is there a reason for the transfer, Colonel?" he asked, handing the orders back to Rapp.

Rapp gave a shrug of the shoulders as to suggest he was not privy to such information. "I would like to know as much as you, Warden, but on the need to know basis, I apparently didn't need to know."

"I'm going to catch a lot of shit for this," Husted remarked, shaking his head. He motioned with two fingers. "Come on then. She's in an empty cell block, over in the West Wing."

"Much obliged warden," replied Rapp as he fell into step next to the older man, his security detail of four men following in their wake.

Husted strode purposefully through the corridors of the prison, stopping at each sally port to slide his identification through the slot, and manually keep the gates open for the military men following him. None of the prisoners stirred from their sleep as they passed, and Husted only gave them parting glances, his hands clasped behind his back.

In the West Wing, Moses Kent had been watching Ali, leaning against one of the walls with tired eyes, fighting the urge to climb into the nearest bed and sleep. He'd drawn the short straw and been stuck with the extra shift. Ali herself was asleep, lying on the thin mattress in the prison cell, dead to the world. In sleep, she looked at peace, a stark contrast to the image in the file.

The last sally port admitted them, and Husted came to a stop. Facing Rapp, he cleared his throat. "She's all yours, gentlemen. I trust your CO will be to blame when the shit hits the fan?" Husted was only half-joking.

Once the Warden and the Colonel had vanished around the corner, the Sergeant who had waited outside entered the prison and moved quickly to the security station. The guards on duty gave him a glance but thought nothing of it, heads turning back to their card game, confident they could avoid detection with the Warden away for the moment.

Azzan waited until one of them put down a winning hand and then very quietly ejected the security tapes from the wall behind him, using his body to shield the motion. Each time he ejected a tape, he ran a magnet above its reels. The tapes would be erased and rendered completely useless. That wouldn't be noticed until the morning shift arrived.

Rapp grinned. "Don't worry, Warden. My CO is going to going to get all the heat he can manage, I assure you. Thank you for your cooperation." He nodded for the door to be opened and walked into the cell, banging loudly on the door. "Up and at ‘em, princess. Time to move!"

At the sudden noise, Ali's eyes slid open. "Salaam alaykum," she murmured automatically, and then looked over to Rapp, blinking in the darkness, as she took stock of the intruder, her eyes narrowing as she rose to a sitting position, gaze falling over Rapp's face, unsure who this stranger was. He was dressed in an American military uniform. Slowly, she stood, her gaze resting on the man's chin.

Rapp looked at the prisoner with disgust. She was the very thing he and his fellow agents waged a secret war against in the Afghan mountains. "Sergeant, cuffs." He stepped aside as a sergeant produced a pair of flexi-cuffs and secured the prisoner’s hands. "Good. Let’s go." Rapp led the way out of the cell and watched as his four men fell in around the prisoner before turning back to the Warden. "Thank you, Warden. Perhaps you would be so kind as to lead us back out of this maze?"

"Of course," Husted said, nodding once. "This way." The warden motioned toward the way they had come from, striding through the winding halls of the prison in the darkness, his steps falling softly. Ali did not speak, following the men without uttering a single word, until they approached the lobby.

"Sir—where are you taking me?" she asked softly, her English spoken haltingly, looking toward Rapp.

Rapp heard the question come from the terrorist but he didn't bother to answer her. If he had had his way, she would have been in a CIA interrogation room for the past week already while he and few others squeezed everything she knew out of her until she knew no more; a bullet to the head and it would be over. He noticed Azzan standing nearby and the man tipped him a wink. "Warden, thank you for your help. It’s been a pleasure to meet you. Until next time." Rapp winked at the other man's look of distress. "Just kidding, I promise you. You won’t be holding any more prisoners of this importance."

"It's been an interesting experience, Colonel," Husted said, nodding once to Rapp, just noticing Azzan, though he said nothing. "Just remember, your CO is taking all the shit that gets thrown at me come morning." The warden watched as they took Ali. The prisoner said nothing further, complying meekly with the men taking her from the prison.

The small group climbed into the Knight armored trucks and the engines roared to life. Rapp waved once to the Warden as they pulled away, confident that the signed orders he had conveniently "forgotten" on a desk in the security room would protect the warden from any persecution but make the FBI’s Assistant Director of Counter-Intelligence even more doomed.

With a screech of rubber the two heavy vehicles turned left out of the prison gates and vanished into the pre-dawn light, navigating a random course through the quiet streets until arrival at a small heliport. There a single black Lynx helicopter with "Sightseeing" across its flanks waited silently. Two men with sub-machine guns appeared from the shadows and after a quick discussion they exchanged places with Rapp and Azzan, who hustled Ali aboard.

Azzan climbed into the pilot’s seat and started the aircraft, not bothering to watch as the two trucks disappeared. The engines whirred to life and within minutes they were airborne. He did one quick circle to make sure everything was running properly, and then he dipped the nose and aimed for Colorado.

Once aboard, Ali looked about the interior of the plane through tired eyes, not sure where she was going, or why. These things she did not ask, sure that if something needed to be said, it would be. During the flight, she remained silent, staring at the floor most of the time, the expression on her face unreadable. It would not be a particularly long flight—and Ali had not been on a plane in a very long time, not counting the flight from Kabul to the States.

The helicopter was on the verge of crossing into the Rockies when Rapp slipped a black bag over Ali's head. He didn't much care if she saw where they were going for she would never leave it alive, but procedure had to be obeyed. As they crossed over the mountains and flew deeper into the heart of the silent giants, he felt his gut tighten. Within a few hours they would be learning the key to so many terrorist secrets it would keep him and Azzan busy for years to come. He felt the helicopter start to drop and didn't need Azzan to tell him they had arrived.

All went dark. Ali could feel her breath hot against her face, became acutely aware of the sound of her heart beating in her ears, the heart rate increasing, as a natural physiological response to the sudden change. She was sure it was now past fajr, that if she were still among the members of Hataf, there would be exhortations to pray. Subconsciously, her shoulders stiffened, her eyes trawling about, but to no avail. She could see nothing. Ali lowered her head. She did not know where they were taking her—all she knew was the look of repulsion on the soldier’s face. What damned her was that she believed it was well-deserved.

The Lynx helicopter settled onto the narrow landing strip that looked out over the craggy mountains. As the rotors wound down and the door was opened, Rapp breathed deeply of the mountain air, the heavy scent of pine trees and the fresh clean air that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the city. In many ways it smelled just like Afghanistan. The vista below them spread out, the endless peaks of the Rocky Mountains vanishing beyond sight in every direction.

Behind him a metal door opened and aircrew appeared to take control of the helicopter as Rapp and Kam walked their bound and still-hooded prisoner into the hanger. It had once been a nuclear fallout shelter known only to a very few top government officials. Over the years it had been sold to a company that was a front for the CIA. It was virtually impossible to access by anything other than helicopter and was the most secure location Rapp knew of within the boundaries of the U.S. All the guards had been handpicked and were fanatical patriots. It was the perfect place to make Ali disappear.

She could not see where she was going, and momentary panic gripped her as she walked, taking each step gingerly, stumbling as she moved, unsure where to put her feet. Ali sensed the change in air, the openness of the mountains. She could hear the pine trees rustling in the gentle breeze. This was where she belonged, in the abandoned country. Then the milieu changed again, Ali finding herself standing on very different terrain. "Where—where am I?" she asked, her soft voice muffled, hardly penetrating the cloth.

Again Rapp ignored the question, instead nodding in recognition to a thick set black man who was walking towards them. He halted a few paces away and looked the prisoner up and down. “This is her huh?”

“Correct.” There were no names here. “In all her glory. Have you got a nice spot picked out for her?”

The big man grinned. “The very best. Follow me.” He turned and made his way towards an open elevator that looked as if it still ran on chains and a steam pump. The four climbed onto it and the black man hit a switch. Somewhere an engine whirred and the elevator began to rise with a rattle of chains. After a few minutes it stopped and with the welcoming agent in the lead they made their way past a guard station manned by two very alert looking young men who cradled sub-machine guns. They nodded familiarly to Kam and Rapp and glared balefully at the hooded woman.

“Here we are,” said their escort as he stopped in front of a heavy steel door built right into the rock. “Open three,” he called and the door ground opened to reveal a six foot by six foot cell. It was made from the stone of the mountain with a single narrow bed cut from one wall with a rubber mattress on it. A video camera was perched high in a corner, the room’s roof nearly twelve feet in height. Rapp pushed the prisoner into the cell and removed her handcuffs. Then he backed away and watched the door close on the hooded figure.

Ali stumbled inside, flinching at the sound of the door shutting. Voices faded away. She was alone again. A moment later, she felt circulation returning to her wrists with a stinging pain. Ali reached up and slowly pulled the hood from her head, blinking, only to realize the cell she was in was as dark as it had been under the hood. She reached out with her hands, blindly stumbling about in the dark, when she crashed into the stone shelf that served as a bed, yelping in surprise. After a moment, she could see the faintest outlines.

Ali sank to the floor, leaning against one of the walls, her knees drawn up to her chin, her hands resting on her knees. She could hear herself breathing, inhaling, exhaling. She did not speak. In the feast of silence, she could hear the sound of distant, feral screams and explosions, great, wracking sobs, could smell burned husks of wood and metal, rotting flesh and propane. In the darkness, she trembled, moisture forming at the corners of her eyes.
​“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
― Arundhati Roy

“The only way to survive is to take care of each other.”
― Grace Lee Boggs

“every day is another chance to practice living out the values that matter most to us. to be our best selves. to be the legacy we want to leave.”
― Mia Mingus

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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Ivanol on Sun Feb 13, 2011 11:47 pm

Alderson sat in his car, where he had just managed to seize two hours of sleep. Though his seat was reclined, he sat up, fingers drumming against the dashboard. He gazed at the speed meter of his car, as though willing it to rev up to 90 miles per hour and take him flying down the highway. He then looked at the fuel gauge, suddenly wishing the needle would drop to E. He was in the parking lot of the Headquarters, too unsettled to face the priorities of his job and too discouraged to go home to his answering machine. He was trapped in his car like a dog on too a hot day.

After his computer was fixed, he had sent out all the notes he had gathered from his “interrogation” of Tahira Ali. He flipped the pages of the written copy through his hand, noticing how his handwriting had become even more jagged and erratic with each passing page. It was the signature of fear.

Only then did Alderson realize just how terrified he actually was. His hands were shaking slightly but noticeably. His face was pale and nervous. He was irrationally afraid of losing the last family ties he had, and he was afraid of terrorists to such an absurd extend that it drove him to constant paranoia and hundreds of routine precautions. Why the hell had he chosen a job that kept a standard issue gun by his side? In a world where one missile could caramelize a city, where a simple command could turn millions to ash, where men felt it was their religious duty to slaughter the innocent, it seemed that he would have been happier working at a pillow factory.

He had forgotten why he ever aspired to be an FBI agent. And the more he thought, the more he began to remember. When he had been applying, his thoughts had not lingered upon the detrimental psychological effects the job could have on him. He had been thinking of how perfectly suited he was to be an FBI agent in counterterrorism. Having feared it for years, he had entered the field already knowing more about terrorism than most other agents. But most importantly, he had taken all his fears and channeled them into a determination, a purpose to help eradicate that which he feared.

Somewhere his determination had faltered, drowning him once more in an ocean of self-worry and paranoia. He would rise to the surface once more. Taking a deep breath, he prepared to go fufill the job he had signed up for.

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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Ylanne on Mon Feb 14, 2011 12:03 am

Supervisory Special Agent Natalie Schultz, FBI Counterterrorism Division
Azzan Kam, Mossad
William Rapp, Interrogation Specialist, CIA
USP Lee, Jonesville, Virginia


In the wake of the fiasco over the news article of the century—and the fact that the Director of the FBI was livid beyond belief—Natalie Schultz had driven out to the prison first thing in the morning in order to discover who exactly had let a reporter in to see Tahira Ali. It had to have been a reporter with an inside contact because why else would this news story be splashed over international headlines, redistributed to more blogs and news sites by the minute? The name of the traitor was easily located—Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Kyle Reeves—as Natalie glanced at the visitors log, immediately placing the time and date. Accompanying the familiar name was an entry that read "Special Agent Allison Moore.”

As a byproduct of eidetic memory and boredom, Natalie recalled that the only Allison Moore in the Bureau had been on maternal leave for two weeks now. She turned to Warden Andrew Husted, the older man standing beside her with his arms folded, and demanded, "Take me to see Tahira. Now, Andrew. It is a necessity for me to ensure the security of ev—"

"Ali is no longer here," Husted interrupted with a small wave of the hand, as Natalie stared at the man's long mustache, the pen whirling in her hand. "She was transferred, orders from the top."

"In that case, I need to see th—" Natalie began, and Husted interrupted again.

"Here they are," he said, offering the copy of the orders Rapp had left behind. Natalie glanced at them, flipped through the pages, committing them to memory with a single look.

"Well, then," she said, twisting to look at the wall. "Thank you for your time." Natalie nodded briefly to the Warden before returning to her car. Sitting in the driver's seat, she pondered the documents. They did not specify a receiving location. The military, while decidedly anal about need to know, would not be so ambiguous in its orders, she decided. Thus, the likely culprit was the Bureau's longtime rival, the Directorate of Central Intelligence.

Phoning a well-used number, Natalie put in a call over her secure wireless, hoping to contact someone in the Agency's counterterrorism division. Over the years, she'd participated in several Agency operations, even spending two years in Afghanistan a few years back, where her linguistic skills proved invaluable. And unlike some at the Bureau, Natalie harbored little animosity for her Agency counterparts. That trend, however, seemed to be coming to an end.

Somewhere deep in Langley, a bored-looking desk agent glanced at the call coming on his line. For a few moments he was tempted to ignore it and let another agent deal with it, but with a longsuffering sigh he finally picked up the phone. "Central Intelligence. How may we save the FBI today?"

"It's Natalie Schultz," Natalie said, her monotone syllables spoken rapidly, "and I need to speak to someone in counterterrorism immediately, meaning at this moment, please."

"A moment please, Agent Schultz." The line went to hold before she could reply. The wait took nearly a minute before a different voice came onto the other end.

"This is Agent Blake, Counter-Terrorism. What can I do for you, Agent Schultz?"

There was an uncomfortable pause before Natalie responded, the pressure on the pen in her hand increasing. "I need to know where Tahira Ali is," she said, finally, the tension still evident in her voice.

"I wasn't aware she was missing," came a somewhat surprised reply. "Last I heard she was in your custody."

"According to Andrew," Natalie said, referring to the Warden, "she was ordered transferred shortly after midnight by the military, with the orders bearing Kyle's signature," referring to the man the CIA had ordered arrested for treason, "which is simply nonsensical as Kyle is the same man who let the reporter into the prison! Someone at the Agency must know where she is!"

"Hmmm. I'll put you through to Assistant Director Swanson. He might know. Or I would hope he knows; otherwise I reckon it’s well above both our pay grades." Without another word the phone went silent then began to ring.

It rang four long times before a gruff voice on the other end came to life. "Agent Schultz! You never call, you never write, you never visit until something has gone wrong. What do you want?"

"Tahira Ali's location," Natalie answered, the pen spinning wildly in her hand as she peered out at the parking lot. Mostly empty. As usual, she took the question completely literally, deliberately ignoring the social niceties.

"Haven't a clue what you’re talking about. I have a note here though, says I should put you on up."

For the fourth time the line went silent. It didn't even ring this time before a woman picked up, the cold voice of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency precise over the phone. "Agent Schultz?"

"Yes," Natalie answered, in her typical monotone, "that is my name, although more accurately my surname." A moment later she placed the voice, the pen whirling faster. "I have been attempting to ascertain Tahira Ali's location. Have your people resorted to such drastic measures that none of them deign inform me?"

"My people," replied the Director savagely, "are cleaning up after the FBI. Again" She flipped a lock of red hair over her shoulder. "In the next five minutes a black SUV will pull up beside you. You are not to ask questions and you are to obey the orders of the men inside to the letter. Do you understand me?"

There was another uncomfortable pause before Natalie answered. "Yes, I understand," she said, the pressure increasing on the pen as she leaned forward, peering out into the parking lot wasteland with squinted eyes.

"They will take you to Ali. Your clothing and personal effects will be delivered to you at our facility. That is all." The line went dead.

There were hundreds of thousands of protestations waiting to be shouted at the Director, but none of them materialized. Natalie slumped in her seat, the pressure on the barrel of the pen steadily increasing as she waited for the inevitable SUV to arrive, cursing the CIA in all the languages of Afghanistan. It wasn't her fault the bastard had taken a reporter to see Ali! Natalie Schultz was not to blame for this.

She ejected a CD from her car's audio player, even though it hadn't actually been playing, and closed it in its case, which she deftly returned to the glove compartment. After a moment, Natalie removed her Glock from its holster, rotating it over and over on its side, as if she could burn it into her memory.

The SUV, when it arrived, was like nothing she had ever seen. It was the big black armored variety they had recently begun buying from the Canadians, the Knight armored car. Two men rode in it, looking more like cowboys than agents. They wore denim jeans and rugged t-shirts and sported big beards that made them look like Vikings.

“Agent Schultz,” said the bigger of the two, gesturing to the SUV. “If you would please join my friend in the back seat.” The second man had opened the rear door. Both looked calm and not even slightly worried about the Glock in her hand. It was obvious they were hard men.

Dressed in khaki pants and a turquoise-colored Pakistani kameez shirt, Natalie Schultz looked more like an errant teacher or the mom down the street than an FBI agent, though she was known for this affect among her colleagues. When the man spoke, she looked up, almost confused for a moment, before she hurriedly slid her Glock back into its holster, the pen still in her other hand, climbing out of her own car and locking it.

Natalie did not seem to be intimidated by the sudden appearance; instead, she seemed almost relieved. She opened her mouth to ask a question, and then she remembered her instructions. She closed her mouth, climbing into the back seat of the SUV next to the smaller man, sitting as far away as possible, almost to the point of leaning against the side of the vehicle.

“Your weapon,” said the red-bearded man as he held out a hand. He waited until she gave it to him before sliding it into a locked box. A quick twist of a key locked it and he passed the key back to her. “You will get it back at our destination.” Then he passed her a black bag. “Over your head. Any attempt to see our route or destination and I will kill you.” Natalie stared blankly at the bag for a moment. Finally, she took it, sliding it over her head with great precision, almost as if she were agonizing over the exact manner in which to do it. The entire time, the pen remained in her hand, the pressure against it increasing so much her knuckles turned nearly white gripping it.

The rumble of the truck engine was the only sound that penetrated the hood as the vehicle followed a route completely different from that of Ali's convoy though the ultimate destination was the same. Once again the black Lynx helicopter sat quietly on the tarmac and Rapp helped Natalie climb into the back seat while Azzan once again played pilot.

The aircraft rose, banked and began its climb over the city, nose aimed towards the distant mountains. In the front Azzan carefully scanned for any sign of pursuit while Rapp kept his eyes fixed on the FBI agent, a pistol held loosely in his lap.

A thousand questions waited to be asked, but Natalie squelched all of them, working hard to drown out the incessant rumbling of the engines. She was on an aircraft of some sort, and were she in the right frame of mind, Natalie might have been able to place the exact model based on the sound of its engines. For now, her mental processes were hampered by the sensation of the bag against her face. She clamped her fingers around the pen in her hand with an iron fist, the fingers of her other hand rubbing the hem of her kameez shirt at a constant pace. This was the only way she knew how to quiet the anxiety bubbling up in the back of her mind without asking any of the thousand questions.

The whine of the engines increased as they rose higher into the mountains, the blades thumping at the thinner air as they labored to clear the pines that rushed below. Had Natalie been able to see she may have wished she couldn't as Azzan, a helicopter expert, whipped the aircraft through the mountains only a few dozen feet above the craggy ridges.

At length the aircraft slowed and a powerful down draft buffeted the helicopter as Azzan slowly lowered them onto the narrow ledge and its do-or-die landing pad. The ground crew appeared as before and tied down the aircraft, stepping back long enough to allow Rapp to help Natalie climb from the cabin. She seemed unsteady at first under the chill mountain wind and Rapp inhaled deeply of the clean smell once again. He loved coming here.

Once inside the facility he waited until the door closed. "Agent Schultz, you may remove your hood. Welcome to the Eagle’s Nest.” The name had been given to the place after an eagle’s nest had been discovered above the entry to the hangar some years before. The birds still came every year despite the helicopters and the facility crew had taken a liking to the birds and were extremely protective of them.

Natalie reached up, and with the same methodical precision, slid the hood from her head, blinking to adjust to the lighting. She looked over at Rapp, the pen beginning to spin in her hand again, her posture oddly rigid, her gaze resting beside the man's face rather than meeting his eyes. The look on her face would have been more appropriate for a patient being operated on without anesthesia, but it took several moments before she actually spoke.

When she did, her voice came out almost hollow sounding, lacking inflection, as the fingers of her left hand slid into her pocket. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say to that," Natalie said, taking a moment to look around, memorizing the place with each glance, as part of her mind computed the exact geometric specifications of the hangar.

“A thank you would be sufficient, Agent Schultz.” Rapp said airily as he glanced towards the small security post nearby where two men watched them without expression. A few minutes of silence were finally broken by the arrival of the giant black man once again.

“You have brought me another guest Agent 007!” rumbled the big man as he stopped in front of Natalie. “Though I suspect this is Agent Schultz, not another terrorist.”

“That’s correct M,” replied Rapp. “Here to stay for a week at least. Her gear will be in on the next helicopter. Have you a nice room for her?”

“The very best.” White teeth showed starkly against the handsome black face. “This way, Agent Schultz.” He gestured towards the elevator.

After a moment, Natalie's head swiveled in the man's direction, her eyes narrowing as she followed him. "Am I allowed to ask questions now?" she asked, only the slightest change of inflection indicating that her statement was, in fact, a question. Most people who met Natalie Schultz often did not believe that this same woman was probably the FBI's single most accomplished counterterrorism agent, and with good reason. She stepped into the elevator, craning her neck upward, staring up, the pen still in her hand.

The elevator dropped this time, coming to rest after thirty seconds of fall time. The sight that greeted Natalie was so different than what she would find Ali living in, it was remarkable. A plush carpet stretched out before them, the stones walls on either side lit with mellow lights that most would find pleasing.

“First door on the right,” said “M” as he and Azzan remained on the lift. Rapp nodded to Schultz and started down the hall, opening the door and waiting for her to enter. The accommodations were better than many four star hotels. The front entry held a small cloakroom and the entry to a large bathroom. Next was a living room complete with desk, computer, couches and a big screen TV. A kitchen could be found through a door to the left and on the right wall was a door that led into a large bedroom with a queen sized bed and an on suite bathroom. All the rooms were generously furnished and glowed with soft lights that made them look cozy indeed.

Rapp allowed Natalie to enter first and waited at the door. He grinned at her, the annoying cocky grin that so many people hated him for. “I think now would be a fine time for your questions. Shall we sit?” He gestured to the couches.

She rested one hand against the doorframe as she stepped inside, blinking at the suite where she would be saying. At the very least, the lighting would be conducive to her sensory needs, Natalie assessed, stepping inside. With little visible change in her facial expression, Natalie looked about, memorizing the space as she took in the furnishings, the pressure on the pen slowly increasing and decreasing at steady intervals.

Several moments after Rapp spoke, Natalie nodded, sitting down on one of the couches, the pen still in her hand. The couch's fabric, she found, was soft, the texture of interest. She rubbed her free hand against it. "May I contact my team and my superiors, to inform them I will be unavailable for an unspecified length of time?" she finally asked, struggling to make the question rise and fall in the typical manner. "And may I have my weapon returned? My duties necessitate it. Also, exactly how long do you expect I will remain? Where exactly is Ali? And why am I here?" The questions came rapid-fire, with hardly any pause between them, the change in inflection almost negligible.

Rapp was fascinated by Natalie and the way she operated but sometimes she could be incredibly annoying. He took a seat across from her and smiled. “Firstly, your superiors and team have been informed you will be unavailable for a length of time. Your weapon, of course.” He tossed her the key to the case and pointed to the case where he had left it by the door. “You are to remain here for six days after which you will be allowed a day to return home, and then you will be brought back. This is to facilitate getting as much information from the prisoner as quickly as possible.”

He paused for a moment, looking in her eyes. There was an intensity in his own gaze that easily matched hers. “You are here to pick that piece of terrorist scum’s brain clean so I can hunt down and personally kill every last single terrorist-loving piece of shit she knows. If you don’t succeed by being the genius we all know you are, then I will do it my way, and she won’t survive that for more than a few days.” The words were no boast, said so simply that they laid bare the utter hatred he felt for Ali.

Natalie caught the key, turning it over in her hand, watching the way the light glinted on the metal with a sort of fascination. Several moments of silence passed, an uncomfortable break in the conversation, before she responded. "You do realize that Tahira Ali turned herself in at the Kabul embassy, and that she has been extremely—albeit unprecedentedly—cooperative in the past few days."

Tilting her head to the side, Natalie stared at Rapp's face, miming eye contact to the best of her ability without actually making it. It was a trick she'd learned years back, to look at someone's nose in lieu of meeting their eyes. Her own vivid green eyes were alight with the unabated energy that seemed to leak from her rigid posture and articulate speech.

"Are you informing me that after six days, I will only be home for one day, and then will return to this facility here?" Natalie asked, leaning slightly forward as she spoke, forgetting to add the proper inflection on the question this time.

“I am aware of that and yes, you have just been informed of that very fact. If you must know, you weren’t going to get a break at all, but I argued it might be good for you. I have done a number of interrogations before and the break is nice.” He paused, as if wording his next sentence. “And I don’t give a damn if she turned herself in. That means I don’t trust her. When the bodies of her buddies start piling up, I’ll believe she isn’t just in it to try and throw us off of something else.”

"Of course, every avenue of possibility must be explored," Natalie agreed, nodding. "Trust is exceedingly difficult. Rapport is never to be equated with trust, as the former denotes merely a candidness, whereas the latter implies an act of faith, which is impossible to objectively measure and detect." She tapped her pen twice against her leg, leaning back into the couch. "What I don't comprehend, however, is why such pains were taken to remove both the subject and myself from our previous locations, without so much as a hint regarding this... change." This last word was spoken with the faintest hint of disdain.

“I assume you are well aware of the reporter who was allowed to visit the prisoner. That cannot and will not happen again. The information she may have, as you well know, is priceless to the security of this nation. Anything we can do to have it removed swiftly and effectively without interruption is ideal.”

"I was only made aware earlier this morning," Natalie answered, "however, I would have dealt with the situation myself had my authority not been superseded by virtually everyone evidently superior to myself." The FBI agent paused, her gaze sliding to the side, mentally measuring the big screen TV in the living room. "What is your name, or an alias by which I may address you?" she asked, appending almost immediately afterward, "When shall I begin, and how much control over the interrogation shall I have?"

Rapp grinned. “Agent 007, or 007, will do. You will have unlimited access to the prisoner and you may start at once if you wish. Anything you need will be provided; you simply need to request it from myself or M.”

Slowly, Natalie returned Rapp's smile, although hers suggested more of a mechanical response than either a pretentious or genuine one. "I will need about half an hour to compose myself before I commence anything," she said, standing. "Everything I need is in here." She pointed to her head. "And there." With the key, she gestured to the case, where she had not yet retrieved her Glock. "Being alone is preferred, as it allows me to best prepare myself."

“Whatever you need, Doc,” laughed Rapp as he stood. “When you’re ready you may call for one of us using the phone.” He gestured at the phone that was mounted on the wall next to the entry door. It had no buttons. “Just pick it up and it will ring. Request an escort to see the prisoner and you will be taken up there.” He moved to the door before offering her a sarcastic bow. “Until next time.” Then he was gone.

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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Script on Wed Feb 16, 2011 3:45 pm

Beebeep! Beebeep! Beebeep!

Dawn’s hand- No, Taylor’s hand flailed out from her position on the sofa in her mostly-empty apartment to grope for her phone, which sat on the floor a few feet away. Sluggishly, the blonde girl pulled herself up to a sitting position, blinking away the sleep that filled her eyes. The phone’s alarm continued to blare away as Taylor took the few steps towards it, bending down to flick the annoying thing off. The clock read 11:30.

Guh. Having not managed to sleep until something like two in the morning, it was probably a good thing that she didn’t have work today. If Taylor had her way, she wouldn’t wake up until much later, but unfortunately she needed to get somewhere where she could watch the news. Her TV was sitting in a box in the middle of the room, but there was a lot of work to go through before it would be set up. She needed to get people around to connect it, as well as her broadband. Thankfully she could get all of that out of the way with one visit, having signed up for a package deal with Sky.

There was a delivery scheduled for later in the afternoon, and the aforementioned connections were going to be set up by a Sky technician in the evening. What Taylor needed to do now was actually get up and out, and buy some food.

It took her near on an hour to get herself in a fit state to leave the house, having to rummage around in her suitcase for a change of clothes and figure out where in the apartment the shower was in a half-asleep haze. Once Taylor was out, however, she was awake and ready to face the day. The afternoon sun was sparkling on the surface of the Thames, and the city was buzzing with life. Office workers on their lunch breaks, tourists and students mingled in the upper-class area of London, but Taylor paid them little mind, instead making a beeline for the nearest shopping centre where she could find a working TV set.

It was a short walk to the Currys Digital store on Victoria Street, and luckily for Taylor, one of the numerous giant TVs in the store was indeed tuned in onto BBC News. Taylor looked at her watch – it was nearly one in the afternoon, which meant that the paper would already be out back home ... and then the headlines came up.

”Interview with Tahira-Ali by undercover reporter reveals shocking information about terrorist plans”

It was out there, now. That was all Taylor needed to know. As the severe looking woman at the news desk began to speak, the blonde girl turned and left the shop. She would tune in later to find out how the world was reacting...
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(03:04:15) Lialore says: I wanted to be the poo.

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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Skallagrim on Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:28 pm

13:54 PM Tuesday-
Naval Station Norfolk.
Government Chartered ATA L-1011



Mario snorted as the pert young lady touched his arm, her voice ethereal, hazy, jumbled in his dreams. Her voice louder, accompanied by a much firmer shake to his arm, “Sir? We're about to land please put your seat up.” The illuminating smile and gentle nod of her head was both motherly and erotic at the same time. Exhaling and wiping sleep from his eyes, Mario grinned back and sheepishly adjusted his seat. After another deep yawn he chanced a glance out the porthole, the sky was hazy and over cast, droplets of water lingered and streaked on the outer glass as the plane jostled and bumped due to the turbulence.

A slight tugging in his chest as he realized he was home, glancing around he saw the faces of the Marines that had flown back with him, they had the same feeling of relief washing over them. He had been lucky to get this flight, after leaving Africa he landed in Italy and loitered, waiting for a FAGTRANS to come in. Waiting almost six-hours, the flight he waited for had arrived. It carried elements of the 5th Marines on their way back from the 'Stan. After another agonizing hour getting clearance, he was aboard, winging his way back to the world.

The pilot's voice crackled over the speakers with a single phrase that caused everyone, including him, to cheer, “Welcome home...” Closing his eyes Mario felt the tension drain away, even though he had been sleeping for most of the flight he was weary. The thickly muscled black sergeant who was seated across the row from him, grinned when they made eye contact, “You're a Marine.” Chuckling Mario nodded, his grin was as wide as the sergeants, it wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact. “Oo-rah!” He grunted with gusto as he reached over and clasped the extended hand, the sergeant eyed the gear on the floor next to the bulkhead, “That ain't Marine issue though.” Shaking his head Mario sheepishly answered, “No sergeant, that is true. But the man using them is.” Both men nodded knowingly, a silent understanding that anyone not a Marine would fail to comprehend, as the plane touched down on the runway.

Filing off the plane, Mario found himself on the tarmac facing a throng of wives, girlfriends, husbands and children milling about. Expectant eyes looking for a familiar face. A faint smile crossed his lips before he moved away, avoiding the reunion. A small child ran to his father, a wife hugging her Marine, tears of joy in her eyes. Mario inhaled deeply as he moved away, in the shadows, his back ramrod straight as he humped his gear towards a nondescript black SUV.

The sergeant had lifted his two children up and held them close, his wife wrapped her arms around and kissed him. During all this his slate gray eyes watched the Marine walk away, no one to meet him but a car. His wife noticed him watching the man, “Babe? Who is that?” Inhaling deeply the man looked down at his wife and shook his head, “I don't know, I just know he is a Marine and that is all I need to know.” One last look as the SUV pulled away, the sergeant whispered, “Oo-rah.”

Inside the vehicle Mario slumped into the seat, eyes closed as he thought of the last time anyone who cared waited for him to get off a plane. The driver glanced in the mirror, he had been in the army once, he knew what was happening, “You want me to take you somewhere first? McDonald's?” Eyes still closed a smile spread across his lips, “Yea, yea that would be great.” The driver nodded and made his way to the fast food joint on base, “Order what ever man, it's on me, one warrior to another.”

Slurping down the icy cold coke, Mario eyed the driver, “When does my flight leave for AFETA ?” Nodding towards the setting sun, “In about 45 minutes. A greyhound will be landing and you'll be getting on it.” The driver said as he eyed the orange globe that sat lazily on the hills. Another bite of the savory big mac filled his mouth, after a chew or two Mario grabbed a few fries and shoved them into his mouth as well. The food felt good, it felt like he was home again. He finished the meal in another few minutes, it was almost time. He was headed to Camp Peary and he'd be debriefed. There was a wishful thought that he'd be able to get some leave but most likely he'd be assigned to another dirt poor country where someone had made a mistake and pissed off the Uncle. Little did he know how wrong he was.
The writer who cares more about words than about characters, action, setting, atmosphere is unlikely to create a vivid and continuous dream; he gets in his own way too much; in his poetic drunkenness, he can't tell the cart- and its cargo- from the horse.
John Gardner



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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Script on Sat Mar 26, 2011 3:32 pm

Washington Post Article


My fellow Americans, and citizens of the world who this article will inevitably reach. I don’t normally like to start my writing off with such pretentious opening sentences, but I feel that this article really is something that the President ought to have been making a speech about a long time ago. Only a few days ago, former leader of the terrorist group HATAF, Tahira Ali, was brought into custody by the American military. Since then, the FBI have been interrogating her for information on terrorist plans.

That much you all know. But what you don’t know is what they have found. Rahah Almarfud, they call it – the death of worlds. In July this year, HATAF plan to launch a series of nuclear assaults upon the entire civilised world. The American government already knows this, and I personally have sent the information onwards to the security services of the other targeted countries. I do not know whether the government has informed them prior to this, nor do I know if this information has even left the FBI yet – but I know that the public has been left in the dark.

I was able to achieve a unique privilege through a source who will remain unnamed, and I managed to infiltrate the holding facility where Tahira Ali is held, and interview her. This begs the question as to whether she is being held securely enough – certainly not, if I was able to get in. The following is a transcript of a recording I made of the interview.

This interview also contains personal insights into Tahira Ali herself – the mastermind behind many of HATAF’s plans and attacks. She professes repentance, and perhaps she is genuine. She condemns her former allies, and accepts any justice that we would impart upon her.

Following this is a transcript of the interview that Dawn conducted with Tahira Ali on page four – though the names of the target cities have been omitted, as have any suggestions that that information is available.

What this information means for America is clear – the government must react swiftly, and we must stand as a people against this threat. Now is not the time for panic, but for cooperation with the government – and a demand for action.

This will be my last article, as you might expect, given the circumstances. Good luck, America.

-Dawn Keating.


I blame the general lack of professional style on the fact it was written in a single night.

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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Ivanol on Mon Apr 04, 2011 4:25 pm

Alderson sat alone at his desk, reading the article in the Washington Post again and again. His coffee had grown cold, though within himself he felt as though he were burning up. He had resolved that such an article should have no status other than confidential, but here it was… “In the god damn Washington Post,” he said to himself incredulously.

He called Natalie angrily and received no answer. He called twelve more times and finally he decided to leave a rather scathing message.

“Now is not the time for panic,” he repeated aloud from the article. “Bullshit. We’ve got something called the Death of Worlds on our case and they say it’s not a time for panic. People are going to be scared out of their damn minds. Why the hell did this leak? What qualifies as confidential around here?”

His fingers drummed anxiously against his knee.

He waited a few moments, though no more words came to mind, and then he hung up. In an absurd, hopeless way, he wondered if his sister would hear this. Maybe it would make her realize that life isn’t long and that she should see him again. Or would he grow old—if he ever did—still alone?

He began organizing files and information about the case on his computer. In addition, he sent enervated emails to nearly all of his coworkers, openly denouncing the article. His fingers seemed to be mauling the keyboard with every keystroke.

But suddenly something struck him—something devious and unjust. Something he needed. The FBI had a lot of resources. Maybe he would make finding his sister a secret case of his rather than an individual pursuit. He smiled.

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Re: When the Lion Wakes (Closed)

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby LightingStrikes on Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:14 pm

At the end of the day, Kaori had gone home using her scooter once again. She knew getting people used to seeing her walk would be like a culture shock. She looked down at her iPod as music soared through it. Listening to music from the Phantom of the Opera was depressing. Then again, so was she.

At afternoon break she had decided to look again at the envelope Gou had given her. Besides the birthday card, there was close to five thousand dollars. Kaori shook her head. Now where the hell had her brother gotten that kind of money? She wasn’t poor working for the FBI. Everything she did have was because of her husband James. He had ensured that if anything happened to him, their insurance companies would pay any outstanding debts. Her business shut down after the accident. Kaori wondered whether she was ready to go into business again, to leave the FBI and do rock climbing and work for the meteorology department in the government. Her old boss Allen loved her and respected her work very much; they even cussed at each other once. On the other hand, she had no idea where she stood with Natalie. Often, she had no idea when Natalie would return and Kaori hated that part of the job. She was always worried about her boss.

Kaori was so deep in thought that when Al the driver came to unhook her wheelchair he had apparently asked a question. “Huh?” Kaori asked looking up at him.

“You all right, Kaori?” the driver asked. Kaori nodded. “You’re not act---“

“I’m fine,” Kaori snapped. “Can't I have a quiet moment without everyone jumping on me?” she asked. She took in a deep breath and nodded, returning to her calm and collected self. “I am fine.” Kaori looked at the big empty house and opened the garage door and wheeled herself in. She closed the garage door and when she was sure no one could see she opened the back door to her house.

Kaori made herself dinner, ate, and then walked towards her room. On the way, she stopped and opened Gou’s door. He wasn't there. She only saw his computer and an open desk drawer and a mug shot style photograph of her stuck underneath the keyboard of the computer beside a folder bearing her name. Kaori took a deep breath before walking into her brother’s old room. Her eyes grew wide when she saw the folder with her name on it. She picked up the folder and began to read its contents. It seemed Gou was supposed to get her on his side, and she was supposed to be working for Hataf by now.

Kaori began to look for anything else that could be useful for Natalie in the case against Hataf. Her eyes widened as she saw the duffel bag. She pulled it out from underneath her brother's bed and sighed as she looked at it. It felt heavy. She opened it and gasped. Inside, there were stacks of hundred dollar bills and a profile of Natalie. That's when she saw the family photo of her boss with her adopted daughter. Suddenly, Kaori fell into tears. Her brother! Her own brother was against everything America stood for, yet he had been raised by the same people. How could this have happened? Was he in trouble? Did he need her to keep him safe?

“JAMES!” she cried, unable to think of anything else. None of this would have ever happened if she hadn’t taken her children and husband to work with her that day. Kaori picked up the phone. Who to call? 911? No, not a 911-type emergency, the local police wouldn’t be able to handle this. Then she thought she should call Natalie. She shook her head no; the last time she tried to call Natalie she only ever got her voicemail. “What do I DO?!” she cried with tears in her eyes. Mostly, she was afraid now. The son of a bitch had a key to her house. He could be here without her knowing!

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Re: When the Lion Wakes

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Ylanne on Tue May 03, 2011 11:55 am

(To be replaced by an actual post. Apologies for the discrepancy; this takes place in March 2010.)

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Re: When the Lion Wakes

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Ylanne on Sat Jul 02, 2011 10:52 pm

Eight in the morning found the thin, blond woman sitting in front of a brand new computer terminal with an email application dominating the screen. A few clicks and dozens of panicked emails from throughout the Counterterrorism Division appeared, an unsurprising majority originating from Alderson Morris. Her tongue jutting between her teeth, she squinted at the barrage of emails (some of which were from the press office, and others of which were daily news updates) evolving from confused to furious to panicked in tone. The soft lights of the borrowed room played with the shadows of the crevices of her face as her fingers dashed a quick mass message to the Counterterrorism Division. The CIA bunker wasn't unpleasant, at least not as far as aesthetics and physical comforts went. In fact, even by most hotel standards, it was quite luxurious.

Good morning,

I'm fine, at least physiologically. I am currently on special assignment in an undisclosable location. Both my email and my internet connection are secured with special encryption, so anyone who finds it necessary may contact me for the duration of the assignment. I do not know how long I will be here or when I will return on a permanent basis; however, I will return for a single day period in six days' time at which time I expect a full briefing. Effective immediately, Special Agent Alderson Morris will lead the Tahira Ali and Hataf task force out of Headquarters as its acting lead agent until my permanent return. I also have access to a secure telephone line if it is necessary to speak with me in that way. Please call only if the matter is of extreme importance and cannot be addressed six days from now. Please find the reporter Dawn Keating and obtain a warrant for her arrest on grounds of revealing information pertinent to national security, trespassing on federal property, impersonating a federal agent, and any other applicable charges. Also, it is imperative that you find and neutralize any nuclear threat posed by Hataf.

Natalie


She glanced over the message again, and, deeming it to be sufficient for its purpose, clicked send. She took a sip of the coffee beside her desk and then rose, making her way to the phone in the wall, where she requested the prisoner for interrogation. Slender fingers slid the phone back into its cradle as Natalie Schultz headed for the door. Today, armed with Alderson's notes and years of study on her own, she would pry into the mind and soul of Tahira Ali. The thought might have frightened a weaker personality or excited an overzealous one. For Natalie, the dominant sentiment was an intense curiosity, not unlike that she had expressed in her college days during laboratory exercises. With a small, uneven smile, she accompanied her escort in silence, staring at the ceiling as they moved through the secret facility. By the door to the interrogation room, she gave a nod and stepped inside.

A small, concrete room with fluorescent lights, bare walls and floor. There was not a one way mirror, like the interrogation rooms to which she was accustomed. But that was fine. She squinted up at the light and then stared at the door, green eyes peering at the metal structure as if she could scan the other side with only a look. It was cold. She stepped into the hall and reached for the thermostat, adjusting the meter to a more comfortable temperature. The air ventilator hummed. Footsteps fell from an impossible distance and Natalie turned to see a small, orange-clad figure with a black hood over the head being led down the hall. Natalie pointed and the guard -- after all, she didn't know any other way to describe the man holding the prisoner's arm -- took his charge into the interrogation room. "Remove her restraints, please," Natalie said in her characteristic monotone, her expression entirely devoid of emotion. She glanced at the hallway again, memorizing the pattern of stone in the walls before turning back. The guard left, shutting the door behind him. Natalie flinched as it closed.

She looked at the prisoner, whose petite figure was dominated by the square, solid quality of the room. Tahira Ali had not moved, even to remove the thick black hood draped over her head. Natalie's fingers twirled her pen with a lazy attention, staring at Ali's hooded face with narrowed eyes. Interrogation rooms were all the same, most places. Only the smallest of differences distinguished them -- the color of the paint (or the lack of it), the exact dimensions of the space, the smells lingering from past occupants -- and even then, they were immediately recognizable for what they were. Natalie was sure Ali knew where she was and what was happening. There they were, two women, two statues, representing two entirely separate and irreconcilable worldviews now confined to an twelve by twelve by twelve cube. Natalie stared at the corner of the room. By her calculations, it had been at least twenty minutes of silence.

"You can remove your hood," she said. Her voice didn't even come close to filling the monument of silence stifling the room. Natalie watched. Ali's fingers reached for the thick, dark fabric, slowly sliding it from her face. Thin, gray hair tumbled around her face as she squinted, staring at the floor through half-shut eyes. The prisoner's lips formed a small frown, but the only expression, Natalie thought, was a hint of something much like fear. "I'm Natalie," she said, thrusting her hand toward Ali.

Ali blinked at Natalie's hand. After a hesitation, she extended her own, taking Natalie's soft palm in her calloused one. When she leaned back into her seat, her lips parted. "Where," she began in a small voice, "where am I?"

Natalie shook her head, her pen spinning faster. "That's not important," she said, her gaze sliding to the side of Ali's face, though a part of her had been tempted to provide the closest geographic coordinates that she had been able to calculate. Her vivid green eyes met the pale, blue-gray eyes of the older woman. “When was your last contact with Hataf?”

“It were four months ago,” Ali answered, keeping her eyes on the floor.

“To whom did you speak?” Natalie asked, the questions coming more naturally now, with practiced inflection at the end of her sentences to indicate an interrogative. Her therapist would be proud of the extra effort she had put into her prosody.

“I spoke to Rabiya, Anoushiravan’s daughter,” Ali said, one hand draped carefully over the other. She was still, hardly moving but to speak, whereas Natalie was a storm of motion, her pen rotating in one hand, and rocking slowly from side to side as she spoke, as if she were a metronome.

“No one else?” Natalie’s gaze slid to the light embedded in the ceiling, squinting at it.

“Not four months ago, no,” responded Ali. “It was only Rabiya and I.”

“What is Rabiya’s position in Hataf’s hierarchy?” Natalie was forming a mental image for the word hierarchy, imagining a complex, cartoonish apparatus of wooden ladders against a white background. Her pen twitched in her hand.

Ali paused, her head dipping lower for a moment. “She leads the Great Council. She is my successor.”

“So you maintain that you left Hataf.” Natalie’s eyes made their way back to the side of Ali’s face. She noticed that the older woman hadn’t made eye contact, something most people usually demanded of her. She adjusted her glasses, pushing them farther up her nose.

“Yes.”

Natalie stared at Ali, noting the subtle curve and hunch of the older woman’s shoulders, the way her gaze had flickered to the right a moment before her answer. She was afraid. And why shouldn’t she be? “When?”

“It was in the year one thousand, nine hundred and eighty-nine,” Ali answered, speaking slowly as if to savor each word.

“So for two decades, you haven’t been part of Hataf.” The pressure on Natalie’s pen increased.

“Yes, sayyida,” Ali said.

“Where have you been?” There was a hard edge to Natalie’s voice that had been absent only seconds before. If it was true, then what had Tahira Ali been doing for the last twenty-one years? And what was the real reason for turning herself in?

It was the question Ali least wanted to answer. Hiding? Yes. She was no Ibrahim El Ghamry, no proud and public defector leveling accusations against Anoushiravan and the Council. He had much courage. Ali did not have that courage. But how could she say that to this American agent? Too many of the Americans had come to question her, and not one had yet touched on those twenty-one years.

“There was once a small girl,” Ali said softly, her voice almost a whisper. Natalie leaned closer to hear. “When she had seven years, she saw a boy tear the wings from a butterfly. She cried, and when he was gone, she held the dying creature and sang to it. The teacher saw the girl and punished her for the boy’s cruelty. But she never spake.”

“What are you talking about?” Natalie’s brows furrowed in confusion and she leaned back, spinning her pen again.

“Never mind,” Ali said, shaking her head slowly. “It is nothing.”

“Well obviously it’s not if you’ve mentioned it,” Natalie said, the sarcasm creeping into her voice unaffected.

“I traveled,” Ali said, sighing as she spoke.

“What?” Natalie blinked at the older woman, staring at the side of her face.

“I hoped they would not find me,” said Ali. “I was afraid. I did not want to die.”

“You mean the police.”

“No,” Ali said, and shook her head. “I mean Hataf. The Council knew, sayyida. When Rabiya spoke to me, she—”

Natalie’s eyes jerked up, making momentary eye contact before sliding away again. “What? What did she say?”

For a moment, Ali was back in the house in Cheyenne, standing by the marble fireplace while Rabiya sat on the white couch. She could smell the jasmine, hear the quiet rage in Rabiya’s voice as she assured Ali that she knew why Ali had come. For the first time, Ali looked up, although her eyes were careful not to meet Natalie’s. “She told me that she knew I had left. When I did, those decades ago, I had spoken to no one. I think I am too late now in speaking.”

“You’re talking to me,” Natalie said, tilting her head slightly to the side.

“I did not speak soon enough,” Ali said, “but I pray I can speak now.”

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Re: When the Lion Wakes

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Ivanol on Sat Jul 02, 2011 10:53 pm

Alderson Morris read over Natalie's Email, which had been addressed to a number of other people. About halfway through, his eye twitched involuntarily; he would be leading the Tahira Ali task force? He was so startled that it took him several more reads to comprehend the remainder of the email. If the terrorists didn't want him before, they would now.

Dawn Keating. He would be happy to arrest her.

The melody of fingers dancing across a keyboard resumed as Alderson began pulling up Dawn's phone records, the first place he'd browse for incriminating evidence. As the minutes passed, he found himself becoming angrier and more determined-- the terrorists he lived in fear from his whole life were always elusive, intangible fears taunting him somewhere outside his reach. The Dawn Keating case was different. It was tangible, and it was was already becoming an outlet for all the fear and frustration he previously had nowhere to place. A strange, delirious smile cracked Alderson's face.

Agent Morris was beginning to feel somewhat sadistic. It was a feeling he had known before, years ago, in elementary school. His mind drifted back to an autumn day, where the blue sky was clear of all but the gash of a solitary jet stream. It was recess, and he was at the playground. Dehydrated, brown leaves danced around the feet of 7 year old Alderson Morris as a gentle breeze wafted between him and Michael Burrows. Michael had tormented Alderson for months, playing on Alderson's crippling fear of germs by coughing and sneezing on him every day; Alderson, paranoid out of his mind, found himself unable to eat or sleep during the nights afterward. Now, on that autumn day, Michael wasn't moving.

Alderson, the youngest and brightest boy to ever graduate from Middletown Elementary, would spend the next several years of his schooling in the Dean Clifford School for the Mentally Unsound. His parents did all but disown him. His sister was the only one who kept him company.

Alderson's smile widened as he unearthed a log of Dawn's credit card transactions. Yes indeed, by the time he was done, he would have Dawn's head on a pike in front of his house.

Well, not literally.

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Re: When the Lion Wakes

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Baby on Mon Aug 15, 2011 12:26 am

Veronica was lying flat on her stomach, one eye closed while another was staring into a scope. Her feet were stretching in different directions, sometimes remaining frozen in one direction to get a good stretch, other times switching from left to right in rapid succession. Her breathing was steady, and the wind was gently blowing from the top of the building. A small sucking sound of the cool wind was heard as Veronica inhaled,

"Did you know that the Incas thought that gold were 'tears of the sun'?" A male voice said calmly, with no tone in his voice to either approve or disapprove of the random fact. It was almost robotic, and anything less would suggest emotions, which would give a higher chance of triggering a verbal response from Veronica. After a few seconds, a calming blow was heard. Veronica finally exhaled, a long, deep breath was her attempt to calm her nerves.

Veronica was distracted, a pile of wrangled strings lay next to her frozen body, knots that were freed from her unrelenting hands. And today was 'History Facts' day, one of Veronica's favorite topics to listen to. She saw a man with four bodyguards leave a building. He wasn't too important, just a governor who stuck his hands in the wrong pockets. They were taken care of usually through blackmail, causing for them to resign from office in the next year or so, or say they would not run for the next election. Blackmail was subtle, no one truly investigates why someone wouldn't run for reelection. But Governor Duval here was too comfortable with his power. He enjoyed his ties with other governors too loosely, and borrowed money he couldn't give back. The money was to supply the schools in the state, rebuild a few orphanages, plant trees to help 'Go Green'. Florida couldn't produce a bigger pack of lies in the form of leadership.

"In Ancient Egypt, some people paid their taxes in honey." Veronica pulled the trigger, blood splattered on two of the bodyguard's suits. A lady screamed, but it was the only sound after the gunshot for awhile. The shock silenced people, sometimes paralyzed them. It was slightly beautiful to Veronica. The surrounding people experienced what Veronica had to live through, wanting to move and speak in the right moment, but stuck and helpless until the shock is over.

"Some people p-p-pay in blood." Veronica stuttered coldly, picking up her strings while calmly ignoring the gunfire in her direction. They couldn't see her, nevertheless get a good shot. The building was too high up, and the guards could only see the nose of the rifle hanging off of the ledge of the building. An off-beat whistle was hummed while Veronica slid through a wide pipe, her romper sliding up to her cheeks by the speed she descending at. She landed on soft sand, put out for her while The Agency was setting up the pipe three days earlier. A few feet ahead was a car and a driver, waiting for her to drive off into the backstreets of the city.

"Does blood taste better than honey?" Veronica asked her driver while getting into the car. He was used to Veronica's questions and how random they were. Sometimes he responded to them, other times he didn't. He turned the radio up, and changed the stations to hear what was on, all of the stations were talk radio of course. People were talking excitedly, the word assassination was red in Veronica's mind, and it blinked every time she heard it on the radio. On and off, on and off, on and off. Red assassination, red assassination.

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Re: When the Lion Wakes

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Alasund on Sat Oct 01, 2011 2:03 am

The hands flickered quickly across the equipment, checking it over one last time before slotting it into various holsters or sheaths. The pistol was double checked, the one that she'd customized a few times just to make sure it fit properly into her hand, fit comfortably and easily.

Slipping it into it's holster, she checked the other pieces, and then turned to the door, buttoning up the vest before walking out onto the street. Rather than taking transport, she just walked along the sidewalk, the rest of the crowd buzzing around her. Just as it always did early in the morning.

It seemed the city never was sedate, and she'd never really get used to the hurrying too and fro. The screech of tyres as the cars accelerated off the red turned to green lights. The man rushing to get across before the lights changed once more. She knew it would change before she got there unless she hurried, but she refused to be harried anymore, by anything.

She could remember the rush of fear, the fleet-footed running through undergrowth or abandoned streets. The pounding of feet behind her the lent her another burst of speed. The hammer of the pistol slamming down, the gun-powder exploding as the force compressed it. She shook the memories off, the lights changing as she paused at the curb.

She stood waiting, consciously unlacing her fingers from around the handle of her pistol. The lights flicking ever so slowly. She was heading to her office, a little way from her appartment, where she usually spent the day. As an independant contractor who worked for the government or various police units, depending on where she was needed, she had many a silent day. She would never have expected to even have an office a few years ago, but now, as she strode along the sidewalks that she now knew like the back of her hand, it seemed like something she'd always had.

Time warped like that. It seemed to speed past sometimes, leaving you confused as it jumped by, when othertimes it move excrutiatingly slowly, as if to prolong the agony. Then there were memories, the memories that would haunt her for the rest of her life. The losses and gains that she would remember for the rest of her life.

Like meeting the oddly distant FBI member, Natalie Schultz... In some ways, she reminded Amelia of a distant mother. She would, no doubt, always look up to her, although she couldn't stand the restrictions that she'd willingly put herself under. But that was just a difference in opinion.

Turning the last corner, the tall building which housed her offices, as well as a thousand others. You'd think that someone that worked for the state would have more prestigeous offices, but she preferred the humble, if cramped, style.

The moving escellator underneath her quitely did its job as she stood thinking. She hadn't seen Natalie in a while, she hadn't given herself freetime in a while... Perhaps she'd go visit some countriside soonish. She hadn't been on wild land in a long time. The escallator reached the top, and she turned to the right. She didn't wave, despite having been here for a little while she usually ignored the other offices. They had a job to do, and so did she.

She barely looked at the screen of her computer as her fingers rattled off the password. The applications left up pinged to life again, the mouse flicking across the screen towards the email device. Now the question was, what awaited her today?
Verdant plains and cold dark night. I have nothing more but silence.

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Re: When the Lion Wakes

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Tempest on Wed Oct 12, 2011 12:15 am

Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, Colorado.
0800 Hours
Azzan Kam


The whine of a jet engine barely pierced the cabin of the Falcon 50 as it began to accelerate down the mountain bound runway. Azzan Kam was its sole passenger as he leaned back in a plush chair, a rum in one hand as the other slowly scrolled down the page on his computer.

Name: Dawn Keating
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Role: Freelance Journalist
Hair: dark red
Eyes: Blue
Race: Caucasian (Exceptionally pale)
Parents: Father (Dead), Mother (Divorced)
Notes: Fiery dispossession, wealthy
Known associates: Jordan Renar


It wasn't much, the address of the parents and her apartment in Washington, that was it. Azzan knew without even a visit that it would be empty. She was well on her way if she had any common sense. He scrolled back over the page again, staring at a photo of the girl. She was stunning alright, reminding him somewhat of the CIA's Director but the girl in this photo had a smile and friendliness to her that Jessica Clark probably never had.

"Where are you hiding little rabbit..." He spoke to the computer, taking a sip of his rum, licking his lips thoughtfully. He enjoyed a hunt more then most. Rapp to catch and break, Azzan liked to hunt and he had done very well at it, snagging more then a few old Nazi's in his time with Mossad. He paused on her family history and then smiled thinly.

"If I had your background, your money and your personality where would I go..." He muttered again, reading between the lines of her brief bio. The answer when it came seemed to bloody obvious. "The old country." He wasn't surprised, his own mother had been a British national and it was the same place he would go if he was forced to leave Israel. But even if he knew that, how would he know where to look. She was undoubtedly clever enough to change her appearance.

He was slammed back in his seat as the plane began to climb rapidly now and he closed the laptop, closing his eyes to think. There were only so many ways to hide red hair like hers. He knew, his own red hair and beard were difficult to disguise at times. Blonde was out of the question unless she bleached it more or less every couple of days. It was doable...

She was wealthy as well and if Azzan had learned a few things about human nature it was that people rarely sacrificed luxury if they could avoid it. Odds were she was living in a higher end area, probably a larger city since that would be what she knew best. Big city folk rarely fit into the small communities. He opened the laptop again as the jet leveled out and quickly jotted down his thoughts, forwarding them to the CIA Washington sub-station. They would compile his thoughts, along with those of Rapps, for distribution to the right people. In the meantime he was going much further then a missing Journalist.

A phone buzzed at his side and he picked it up. "Sir, we are enroute to New York, Rome and then the Canadian Airbase in Kandahar."

Azzan thanked the pilot and hung up. The man would never see his face nor he the pilots. It might seem a bit extreme but it was the best way to ensure security. He didn't envy the pilot, the flight would be long even in a fast jet like the Falcon 50. He settled back and closed his eyes. Rapp would get what they needed from Ali and Azzan would use that information to track down and locate the enemy. Then, when Rapp joined him, they would hunt them down and kill them all.
Nothing to see here

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Re: When the Lion Wakes

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Ylanne on Mon Nov 28, 2011 5:23 am

Natalie E. Schultz, Supervisory Special Agent, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
Tahira Ali A., detainee number 29083564
Eagle's Nest CIA facility, Colorado, United States


Silence crept into the concrete room like heated air pushed through a ventilation system, slowly and surely until it enveloped both women with its distinct discomfort. Tahira Ali watched the younger woman in front of her with great interest, yet remained careful to avoid meeting her eyes. Natalie -- as she had introduced herself -- was atypical when compared to her other interrogators. At times, she assumed the task-oriented hyperfocus that had seemed to characterize the military interrogators, and at other times, she seemed almost personable -- much like the first CIA interrogator.

Natalie rocked back and forth where she sat, all while squeezing the rather ordinary looking pen in her hand. Natalie did not make eye contact with Ali. This in itself made Natalie quite different from Ali's previous interrogators. The others probed her with their searching gaze, sat perfectly still or paced aggressively across the floor. Natalie was a constant flurry of motion who seemed to stare at the lighting fixture more often than at her subject.

Ali wondered if Natalie was aware of the silence. It stretched for well over ten minutes -- Ali measured time by imagining four raku'ah, the number required for the asr prayer. She did not think that interrogations were supposed to be marked by silence -- unless it was to intimidate. Natalie had simply stopped speaking awhile ago, and Ali now had nothing to say.

It was like this for the time of at least another two sets of raku'ah before Ali's gaze flickered toward Natalie's face again, catching sight of the younger woman's distant-seeming eyes. The FBI agent seemed to be staring at a minute crack in the concrete wall beside where the two of them sat. Her shadow moved with her rocking motions, and Ali watched. Natalie no longer seemed to be aware of Ali's presence across the table.

"Ya hadritik sayyida dhabitah," began Ali, inclining her head, her voice so timid that at first it might have seemed only a passing thought, "I -- do not know if you had more questions for me."

Natalie's eyebrows bunched very closely together, her features contorting for a moment before she looked at Ali, pausing for an uncomfortable moment before speaking. "Tell me about Anoushiravan's daughter. You said her name was Rabiya -- or Robabeh if I recall. Where does she live?"

"Her home is in the city of Washington," responded Ali. She had told the military officer that.

"Do you know the address?" Natalie asked. Ali noticed that the younger woman continued to rock, back and forth, like the pendulum of a clock.

“2900 L Street, northwest, in the city called Washington,” Ali said, her frown deepening. She had given the military officer the same information. Had Natalie not been briefed? Or did she seek to test Ali’s honesty? Well, she would not complain or protest if the FBI agent did not trust her. There was no reason for her to do so. Instead, Ali dutifully answered the questions, giving the same answers as she had before. Natalie never met her eyes.

“Do you know if she still lives there?” Natalie’s pen spun faster for a few moments before resuming its lazy motions in the air.

“I would not know, ya hadritik sayyida,” responded Ali, shaking her head slowly. “This was close to ten year past -- perhaps more. When I saw her this year, it were not at her home.”

“Where was it?” Natalie’s voice seemed to allow some type of strange tension to creep into the sound of it, and Ali listened closely as it fluctuated in tone, deviating at times sharply from an even sound, as if forced or overly practiced. “Where did you see Rabiya?”

“It were at a home in Wisconsin, in the city called Cheyenne.” Ali gave the address when Natalie asked, staring at the corners of the FBI agent’s lips. The woman’s lips twitched at odd moments, and started to form smiles or frowns at the most inconsequential moments. Ali wondered whether Natalie was aware of this, but she would not ask.

Close to another two hours later, Natalie slipped from the room, and a few minutes later, the guards came to take Ali back to her cell.




Outside Reagan National Airport
Arlington, Virginia, United States


President Charles Maynard met FBI Director Robert Edwards halfway across the tarmac where he was walking, accompanied by his secret service detail, toward the waiting presidential limousine to take him at the head of his convoy to the White House. The two men strode together with Edwards on the President’s right hand side, and the nuclear football carried on the left. The height difference was stark. Edwards’s head came to Maynard’s chest, but the men did not acknowledge the seeming discrepancy, instead speaking in low tones about some matter or another, occasionally interrupted with laughter from one of them. Their heads were lowered, and the Marines present saluted as the President and FBI Director passed.

The last thing any of the agents trained to protect the President’s life expected was the sudden report of a gunshot. It took less than half a second for the agents surrounding the President to tackle him to the ground, covering him completely from the sights of a sniper and protecting him were someone to shoot again.

They were too late for Edwards. Half of his face was marred with his own blood, blossoming outward from a wound above his right eye. “Get the paramedics! Now!”

“What blood type is he?” came one voice.

“I don’t know,” came another terse response, “check his vitals; look for an emergency medical card somewhere, anywhere.”

“Where are our snipers? Get them locked in on any possible position. Goddamn it. Who could have gotten this close? Doesn’t Reagan have security anymore?”

The voices were strangely calm, but that too was a product of training. A panicking agent was a useless agent. One needed to remain calm and entirely in control of one’s actions and thoughts especially in the face of an unexpected or emergency situation. They were trained for the worst.

Suddenly, the warm spring sun seemed far less friendly than it had only minutes before. And where were the press corps, thought one Secret Service agent. They were always there. Always. Had they skedaddled at the sound of the gunshot? Or had they never been there? He struggled to remember in the chaos of the moment. That’s when it struck him -- the press corps had stopped taking photographs. They were standing under the overhang, behind a hastily erected barrier, cameras at their sides, only daring to ask questions in whispers of the few agents standing by the barrier.

It took less than a minute to hustle the President, under full-body protection, into the Presidential limousine, which itself was bulletproof and blastproof against improvised-explosive-devices. “No delays, no hesitations; get straight to the White House, now.” Those were the agent driver’s orders.

The agents at Reagan National ordered the TSA and airport security to cordon all exits. “Lockdown the airport! Now! No one in or out.” The FBI had been notified within five minutes, and the TSA agent in charge was understandably concerned, pulling out his second pack of smokes in the last four hours alone. The paunchy, middle-aged man could only strike the lighter with a partially trembling finger. “And no one talk to the press; is that understood?”

The whirring of sirens filled the air from all corners of the city and Washington nearby. Edwards would have received the best medical care available. The EMTs pronounced him dead on site. The murmurings among the press began.




Natalie E. Schultz, Supervisory Special Agent, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
Eagle's Nest CIA facility, Colorado, United States


She sat perched in front of her computer, sending an encrypted email to the CIA operatives whom she knew only by code name. Natalie included the addresses in Washington and Cheyenne, and as much description of the properties as she had been able to finagle from Ali, through repeated rounds of questioning. The bulk of the latter two hours had been occupied with those lines of questioning.

Less than a few seconds after clicking “send,” the secure line began to ring and emails began to flood across her screen. Natalie rocked back and forth at a faster rate, squeezing her pen under a tighter grip, before reaching for the phone. “...Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatulllahi wa barakatuh,” she said nearly all in one breath, giving the formal Islamic greeting.

“Director Edwards was assassinated. Get to D.C. Now.”

Natalie didn’t recognize the voice, and there was no caller ID. She glanced at her inbox -- memorizing the subject lines and the names in the sender column in only a second or two -- and dialed the internal extension on the phone. “I need to get back to Washington,” she said.

Within half an hour, she was hustled onto the helicopter kept at Eagle’s Nest, hooded and escorted by one of the staff for security purposes. Natalie made a mental note to do something about the level of “cooperation” between the CIA and FBI. It seemed it was all slanted in one direction. Edwards had, she distinctly remembered in great detail, described a plan for improving the relationship between the two agencies. It seemed he would not have the opportunity to attempt it.





(OOC: You can ask me about the Arabic if you like. Transliterations are weird, so those are mine.)

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