“When the Devil comes for his pound of flesh,
pray that the butcher is open.”
- Me-Ann Ming
“Damn it all!” shouted Ali-Baba, smashing his fist on the desk in frustration, “She was a good agent, an excellent agent. How did this happen?”
He stared at Simon, who met his gaze.
Simon cleared his throat, and said, “We were taken by surprise, sir. Our outer sensors picked up the intrusion...”
“How many were there?”
“Twenty four bodies counted by the cleanup crew. Probably twice that all up. They had made their shelter in that building, it was only natural that they would want to defend it...”
Ali-Baba shook his fist, “But you, you are unnatural! You are designed to be able to take on this kind of threat single handed! Where were you?”
“I was with Agent Ottavio, a wing over and downstairs by a hidden entrance. We had successfully defended ourselves against nine of them when the claymore and sensors went off. By the time we got there, the assault was beginning. They used flash-bangs, submachine guns and grenades.” said Simon.
An infuriated Ali-Baba turned to Lucas.
“And what about yourself, eh? You were to keep an eye on the surroundings. Any chance you happened to let slip by forty odd ruffians, hmm, and failed to report it in? Asleep on the job again? Ghost hunting?”
Lucas looked straight ahead, drilling the wall with his eyes.
“I was not in a position to have witnessed their access to the site,” he hammered out, “They came in through a service entrance, well shielded from my point of view.”
“So, no movement at all. Are your implants working correctly? Do I need to send you back to Doctor Jung to get recalibrated or something? Really, tell me, I'm all ears!”
“My implants are functioning correctly, Sir. I was simply not in a correct position to have line of sight.”
“Let me spell it out for you Agent. So far your track history is bullshit. A handful of proximity sensors are currently a more effective means for site protection, both with accuracy and cost.”
Lucas remained silent. Ali did not require a response.
“How in God's name am I supposed to send a crack team up against those of Tsang-Tao, or hit strategic targets in the Southern Regions if they can't even handle a bunch of fucking street thugs? How indeed?”
“They had some formidable weaponry...” started Simon.
Ali-Baba turned on him in an instant, “You are formidable weaponry! You have been designed from the ground up to be effective in both assault and defense. It was your duty to keep your men safe. It was your duty to destroy anything that threatened their lives. So now we are down an agent, we haven't got comms online at McMinnville and Houston's pumped several billion dollars into a three ring circus, complete with trained monkeys!”
He held up his finger at Simon.
“Alright, I understand that you had an incursion downstairs to take care of. So why didn't you move your crew back to a safe point until the incursion had been dealt with? Are you deaf as well as stupid?”
Simon began, “I did, Sir. I mean, I ordered them to retreat, but Agent Emily remained at her post.”
“Why did she remain?”
“Her commlink must have malfunctioned, sir.”
“Did you call your team back before you dealt with the first incursion?”
“No, sir. They were only a small force...”
“But large enough to distract you from your duty, Agent, and now Agent Emily is dead!”
Ali-Baba sat down to calm his nerves, rustling through a few leaves of paper making a mess on his desk. Cassandra and Norbert both held the jaws firm at the mention of Emily's name.
Tears were no good in the presence of Ali-Baba, even if they were for a close friend.
Simon ventured, “If I may, sir?”
The captain sighed angrily, scrunching a piece of paper in his fist.
“What is it, Agent?” he said.
“There was an intruder that we captured prior to the invasion,” said Simon, carefully.
Ali-Baba looked up. A lump formed in Ottavio's stomach.
“What kind of intruder?”
Simon, glad to have something to divert Ali-Baba's wrath, elaborated, “A child. A teenager. Must have lived there, probably one of the rags.”
“And what became of him?”
“After interrogating him, I decided he was too much of a risk and had Agent Ottavio destroy him,” Simon smiled inwardly and added, “Which he flatly refused to do.”
Ali-Baba turned to Agent Ottavio, his eyes like daggers.
“Is this true?” he asked.
It was true, of course. Worded any which way, he had refused to kill a child as ordered. Ottavio thought it best to be honest,
“Yes, sir, it's true. I could not bring myself to kill an unarmed civilian.”
“But you were ordered.”
“To commit murder.”
Ali-Baba rose slowly.
“So, what you’re telling me is that you refused a direct order. You let a rag go and warn the rest of his crew and suddenly, to everyone's surprise, they launch a raid?” asked the captain, dumbfounded, “You disobeyed an order and endangered the entire mission because you felt bad about killing some useless lump in the middle of nowhere! I can't believe what I'm hearing? Insubordination! A multi-billion dollar bunch of morons!”
“If I may sir?” asked Ottavio.
“No you bloody well may not, Agent! You... I'm speechless. Damn it all! Get out all of you. Not you, Simon, I want a word alone.”
They filed out to the room.
Norbert looked sadly at Ottavio, gave him a reassuring slap on the shoulder and walked off down the hall. Cassandra held back tears and hustled off to the toilets to freshen up, not looking at anyone.
Only Lucas walked along with Ottavio back to the dormitories.
“He sold me out! He totally dropped it on my shoulders,” growled Ottavio.
“So, what, he's supposed to take the fall?”
“Geez, I thought you'd back me up.”
“You really cocked up, Ottavio,” sniffed Lucas, “They're going to want your balls for this one.”
Ottavio fumed in silence. Lucas continued, “You questioned Simon's orders! You didn't follow through! What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that Pan knew the layout of the building, that he would have been good to quiz about possible dangers, points of access, you know, exactly the kind of thing that would have helped us in that mission,” said Ottavio, “And if Simon had put his ego aside for a couple of seconds...”
Lucas shook his head, “You can't think like that, Ottavio. You don't get to call the shots, Simon does. It's a chain of command, and things don't work if the chain isn't linked properly.”
“Yeah, I know, I went through basic training too.”
“Obviously you don't know! Because if you did you would have obeyed without question, you would have eliminated that kid and stopped him from warning the others,” chided Lucas, “And we would still have Emily here!”
“But we don't even know if he did warn them. From what I could tell he didn't have anything to do with the rags, and, if anything, he was shit scared of them,” said Ottavio, “Hell, they strung him up by his neck and used him as a punching bag! There's no way that kid would have anything to do with the raid.”
“You don't and did not know that. Nor did Simon. The best course of action would have been to do as ordered...”
Ottavio interrupted, “And kill a kid? No, the best course of action would have been to properly interrogate Pan. Heck, I installed that extra sensor in the lower entrance as a direct consequence of him.”
“And look where that got you. Look, you can run through various outcomes until you're blue in the face, the fact remains that you were insubordinate, you questioned your commander and your actions have led to the death of a valued operative.”
Ottavio hung his head, “And friend.”
Lucas scowled at him for a few seconds, before leaving him standing in the hallway by himself.