The keycard slid through the electronic reader, responding with a pale green light and the click of the door's lock. Just like that, one of the world's premier assassins was into the West Manhattan highrise using a service entrance. The ballcap and the messy pony tail extending out from under the cap was enough to hide her face from the cameras. A black high gloss leather jacket with blood red stitching and a high collar helped, her jeans fitted and dark, her boots black leather and thick. Her scent was hints of jasmine, lust, and almond. Her face was sleepy, lazy, even downright mournful when she approached the guard station to sign in.
The signature was signed across the given space on the Excel print-out with the speed and grace of a samurai slicing with a katana.
"Not looking forward to Monday?"
A shy smile peeked out from under the cap, brown eyes hidden under dark lashes meeting the guard's. George Webber was his name; he lived with his mother and girlfriend in Brooklyn. He'd been working for the Anders Security Group private security contractor buisness for three years. Before that his life had been a series of construction sites and attempts to get lucky with small buisnesses looking to make it big. He smoked pot, used his nephew as his dealer.
A pained grin finally crept on the woman's face. "I'm supposed to be on vacation--"
"--hence the outfit?"
She laughed, softly, "You got me."
Webber's face took on a smirk even as his shoulders rolled in a little shrug. "Hopefully you can make a quick exit."
It was everything for her not to grin ear to ear. "That's the idea. Thanks."
"Have a good one!"
She thanked him and made a slow walk over to the wall of lockers. '7D' was where she found the combo lock with the backpack already inside it. A quick check of the pockets resulted in a complete checklist of items, and a surprise. For half a heartbeat she debated not even reading the note, but curiosity won out.
Red Woman:
It's all here.
Remember your promise.
-M
PS: Thanks again.
"At least he didn't use names this time..." A whisper and a sigh as she crumpled the note and tossed it back into the backpack before zipping it up, throwing it over her right shoulder, and heading to the elevator. The moment she passed the threshold from staff entrance to main lobby the eyes were on her. The sixth sense of it all made her smile to no one, and nothing, in particular as a man in a suit held open the elevator for her. "Thanks."
"No problem, what floor?"
"21st."
The man in the suit with the bald head paused right before hitting '21' on the button pad. "You guys and girls never look like what I think you'd look like. Except for maybe the ballcaps."
She responded with no more than a chuckle. The man wished her a good day as he got off at 10, and the door closed. The backpack was opened, and she knelt to busy her hands with the devices inside the pack. Everything activated and readied, the backpack zipped shut and she stood tall. The elevator dinged, the doors slid open, and the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency in frost on clear glass met her. A quick right led her down a small hall dead ending in two doors. "Men" and "Women", she took the first. It was closer to the wall, and she needed the wall.
Even in a bathroom there could be cameras. There was no decency in the world these days, she thought with great amusement, as she reached into the bag and activated the first device before ducking into the handicap accessible stall right up against the wall. A hop onto the seat and the gypsum ceiling tile was an irritating, but not difficult, move. Tippy-toes and a peek told her what she needed to know: construction workers were lazy. A leap, a hand hold of red iron, and the second device was slipped into the hole drilled through the firewall; the hole that by New York City safety code should not be there, but that a small bundle of cables were passed through for the security cameras around the elevator and restrooms.
A quick placement of the ceiling tile back and she was out of the restroom, using the modified keycard to unlock the double glass doors with the CIA seal, and walking right in. Right, left, right, and the second door on the left. It wasn't locked; walking into the server closet she realized that was because of the technician typing away at the keyboard placed upon the massive server rack. He turned his head, and blinked, just in time for her fist nerdy ass to the ground. She stepped over him, and kicked his body off to the side. "Oh, look, you already logged in as the system admin for me. You're so sweet, darling."
He was alive at least. Henry Perez; a product of a tech school and a job placement program. He spent his nights playing League of Legends, and watching weeb porn, his days spent working for the tech contractor for this particular branch of the CIA. The background checks were intensive, and thus it was hard to find decent techs. Henry's weeb nerdness meant his life was spent avoiding anything that might pop on a background check.
It also meant he went down like a weeb bitch.
A few minutes of reaching behind and around the rack, of attaching devices to cables, and then she was onto the switchboard. A few screws and the board was off and flipped. A few more attachments, and the switchboard went right back on. It didn't matter if they found every device. By then it was much, much, too late. The cheap MP3 player attached to the PA system control board was replaced and turned on, it's timer counting. A final reach into the bag, and she pulled out the syringe. "Sorry Henry, you'll feel a small pinch..."
She was careful when she stabbed the young man, and injected him near his right glute. Back in the backpack it went, and the last device in the bag went live. She walked out of the server closet, and dropped the backpack onto the ground. Her timing was off a second by her count, because the moment the backpack hit the ground the first device was supposed to activate.
It took two seconds for the alarms to start sounding, instead of the one, and she began to walk. Behind her the backpack started smoking as the last device started it's chain reactions. That was the moment the PA system came to life, it's volume controls bypassed: "Sabatoge" from the Beastie Boys drowning out even the klaxons of alarm, dense smoke filling the floors office corridors from ceilings down and floor to ceiling, the hall behind her so thick with smoke around the backpage it was impossible to see the small backpage ignite into flame.
A quick right and she was surrounded by bodies; most doing their training justice and not in an outright panic, but it was anything but calm and orderly. It was nothing for her to walk by, snatching badges that dangled from waists and shirts in passing as she pleased. When she got to the last door, it took three badges until the amber light went green because of the automatic lockdown. Someone tried to follow her, someone yelled at her to hold the door open, and she slammed it shut behind her--taking off down the stairwell. By the time she got back to the service entrance, George was out of his little security office. He was at the exterior door, about to lock it.
"Can you believe this? On my day off, of all days."
George looked back and laughed, nervously. "Now would definitely be a good time to get out while you can. I'm about to lock it for real."
"Thanks!" was all she tossed at him as she passed into the truck loading dock of the side street and alley. Halfway down the street and the hat was tossed into a trash bin, her tummy grumbling at her as she approached the hotdog stand, fire trucks blaring sirens as they rushed by, followed by NYPD. "One hot dog, and a water. Chili and cheese, ketchup. That's all--perrrrfect."
She barely got a bite in before the man with the hair that looked frizzy with the high humidity of the day, stress plain on his face, stepped up. He asked the hotdog vendor for a "dog with everything" and took his first bite as he stepped right beside her. "I'm guessing that was you?"
A quick swallow, a dab at the corner of her mouth with a napkin, "What makes you think that?"
"Hell of a coincidence I was supposed to leave the building and meet you right before something happened and the building was put on lockdown."
She shrugged in the silence of finishing the hotdog with two big, hungry, bites. Trash tossed, mouth wiped, napkin tossed. Hands rubbed free of breadcrumbs. "What do you got Cameron?"
He stared for a long moment as he chewed, before swallowing, and spilling what he knew despite what she was certain he felt was his 'better' judgment. "His name is Giannis Kavadias. Birth records indicate his mother was a Greek immigrant that lived in Brooklyn before returning to Greece not long after his birth. No records about the father...listen, whoever this guy is, whatever you want him for, I couldn't find a hint of wrong-doing. He got arrested for smoking pot in public during college. It was dismissed after park cleanup duty. He's married, he's got three kids, so--"
Her frustration didn't show, and didn't sound, but it was there, "--where's he live?"
"Minnewaska, New York. It's a small town turned suburb about an hour north of the city. I appreciate what you did to help my old SHIELD friends, they wouldn't be alive now if you hadn't, but--"
"--talk to you soon, Cameron. Good luck on that date tonight."
He blinked in farewell.
Stryder BC
Ezekiel
Apollosarcher
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D3AD ST4R
