forum A Snake in The Hen House (2/6) spots opennenneenenenen

Started November 03, 2019 by Deleted user

tune

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Victor perked at the mention of Russian. "If you need help with that I'm fluent…" He raises a brow, before returning to going through Bears desk. He sighed and shook his head. He needed sleep.

Chris' eyebrows knitted together for a moment, only a moment, before they slid next to Shane with a slight yawn. "Alrighty, which document are you looking at?" they peered over Shane's shoulder and gently pulled the paper from his hand. "Which bit are you stuck on?"

Shane gave Victor a smile of thanks for his offer to help, then turned back to the page. “Right here. It says something about a mission in Moscow- or at least I think it does.” He tapped his finger on the paper, and shivered slightly as he felt Chris’s breath on the back of his neck.

"Ah, that was when Bear asked me to head to the US embassy in Moscow." Chris smiled happily as if reminiscing happy memories.
"That was around the time that the Russians were developing the new idea of the 'Red Sparrows', and believe me, they were good. I should know, I was one of them. My role on that mission was to pose as a Red Sparrow who was posing as a guard to the president. I uncovered the ins and outs of what the Russians meant to accomplish with this honey trap scheme. One of my 'co-workers', Bella Armanic, managed to seduce a marine who was actually guarding the president and was given access to the property as a result. They almost stole information regarding the deal Russia and America were supposed to be making with each other, a deal that would have cut off Bear's Russian contacts. I managed to retrieve it from the embassy before it could be stolen and rewrote the entire deal in order to keep those contacts available to us. Though I will admit it was difficult. While the Red Sparrows didn't question my 'loyalty' to them, the guards at the embassy were reluctant to accept my ID as authentic."

Shane’s eyes widened in surprise. “Seriously? Or are you just taking advantage of my terrible Russian skills? ‘Cause that’s absolutely insane!” For a moment, pure childish glee took hold of his expression.

"Why would I lie about one of my most favorite missions?" Chris sharply turned to Shane with one eyebrow raised, though the smile on their lips showed they were not offended by the man's doubt. "It was an insane mission, especially when the Red Sparrows learned I was a spy."

“Oh shit, how’d you get out of there?” Shane asked, leaning forward in interest. The pile of folders lay discarded by his side, and his full attention was on Chris.

A bright smile exploded on Chris' face as they began to remember that moment. "While I was trained with the Red Sparrows, I knew things that they didn't—had training that they didn't. It's pretty easy to use someone's own work against them when you know how." they let out a soft chuckle and rubbed their temple. "Men were set as honeytraps as well, and they were the ones who were the easiest to manipulate." Chris' happy expression turned into a frown for a moment as they added. "Doesn't mean it was easy, or that it came without pain."

Shane was entranced by Chris’s story, and winced when they mentioned the downsides. “Yikes. That sounds rough,” he murmured sympathetically. He rubbed a hand across his jaw and looked away. “I’ve never even left the state,” he admitted. “Traveling so far away with no one to rely on.. that’s pretty brave.”

"Brave, dangerous, but a hell of a lot of fun." Chris patted Shane's arm lightly, a surprisingly innocent look in their eyes. The concept of never leaving the state was so surreal in their mind that they almost pitied the man. "Well if you want, I can take you on a trip? Anywhere you want to go, you name it, and we will go."

“Sounds lovely,” Shane said quietly. He gave Chris a small smile. “Could I have a rain check on that offer, though? Right now, I’m needed at home more than ever.” He tugged his jacket off of the chair and spread it over his lap. To be honest, Shane was rather scared to admit that he had no idea where he wanted to go.

"I think we are all needed at home more than ever." Chris glanced around at the others in the room, convinced that only Tam was in the house 24/7. They turned their attention back to the discarded files with only a half smile on their lips. "Lets get back to work shall we?"

"You've been needed at home for years," Tam said mildly, reaching over for one of the files and scanning through it with only a cursory level of interest. His Russian was nowhere near passable, he only managed to catch a few words. "Anyways, what are we looking for again?"

“Grudges, enemies, that kind of thing. People with a motivation to kill Bear.” Shane listed them off on his fingers.

Tam nodded, flipping through a few more pages before he grabbed another. And another. And another. "Grudges and enemies are great, but isn't this all covert ops? Even if Cris got their cover blown, nobody knew they were linked to Bear."

"That's where you are wrong." Chris took all the papers and set them out on the floor. They grabbed a highlighter pen off the desk and started drawing all over the papers. Every bright yellow line was another enemy's name, another incident concerning Bear and the family. They took all the other files and did the same thing. Of course, everything had been written in code, of course Tam wouldn't have seen the names. "That should make it easier for you." Chris sighed, capping the pen and chucking it among the papers on the floor.

Shane tilted his head in consideration. “Good point. Maybe we should be looking broader. Perhaps anyone who could’ve seen our organization as a threat, or groups working in our same field.” He looked on at Chris’s edits, and smiled. “That’s… a lot.”

"But everyone sees our organization as a threat." Tam offered Chris a grateful smile, picking up one of the slightly less mysterious-looking folders and starting to work on deciphering it. "That's kind of the whole point. I'd say we're better off looking into people who would gain from our family's collapse but haven't shown outright aggression for a while."

"I am a very thorough person." Chris tossed their hair flamboyantly and cocked their hip. "I always have to prepare for the worst, so any little detail is worth noting down." They picked up one of the papers for an example. "This document is talking about my time in the Sparrow school," with one perfectly manicured finger they pointed at one of the highlighted lines. "This line here mentions a completely different thing regarding the Spanish mafia and their activity against Bear." They carefully placed the paper back down on the floor, and a solemn look befell their features. "It didn't matter what I was writing about at the time, if I had information to give I would write it down anywhere, even in the middle of a sentence." It was Chris' job to do that after all. After scanning over the rest of the papers, they picked up another one and handed it to Tam. "If you're looking for someone who would benefit from all of this then this is the one you want to read."

Tam took it eagerly, flipping through the pages with an every growing smile. "Oh! This is just perfect, Chris! Aggressive, dangerous, just smart enough to stay under the radar. It's exactly the right profile for someone who plans to uproot our little criminal empire. What's this line here say?" He pointed to a rather large chunk of highlighted text.

“Spanish mafia… They pulled off a big job on our turf a few years ago, but nothing since…” Shane mused. “I do think that sounds convincing.” He lounged back and leaned against the chair, eyes half-closed. “It’s real funny we have so many enemies,” he muttered sleepily.

Chris' eyebrows knitted together as they read and re-read the highlighted chunk. After a couple of seconds they nodded their head. "After scouting out the home of Gilda Johannes, the leader of the Nordic Drug Syndicate, I found that Yves Sodean, the leader of the French street gang over in the states, had frequently visited for approximately 447 minutes a day. I managed to install a listening device into the major rooms of her home while posing as a maid, and discovered they plan to team up should Bear's reign end. While I don't currently feel they are a threat individually, if they were to form an alliance against Bear, the family may be in danger."

“Oh heck.” Shane sat up suddenly. “That does not sound too good for us. The Nords and the Frenchies teaming up is like something out of a nightmare.” He shivered involuntarily at the thought. “I should see if those two are mentioned as working together anywhere in my private documents.” He blushed the moment the words came out of his mouth. “Whoops. You guys weren’t supposed to know about those.”

"Yeah, those two are pretty much the dream team. Frenchies just got a shipment of illegal arms straight from Chinese smugglers and damn are they ready to step onto our turf." Tam seemed almost cheerful at the prospect, practically salivating over the thought of the guns. "And I can save you the trip to your secret diaries, Shanie Poo, we've cracked down on them three times to try and stop them from collaborating."

A shadow crossed Chris' eyes as they turned their attention to Shane. "My life's work is here, on the floor, exposed for everyone to see, and you were planning to keep your personal documents to yourself?" The disbelief was unreal, the anger began to boil Chris' blood. They turned away from Shane and crossed their arms under their chest. "Unbelievable."