NationStates Jolt Archive

ATTENTION:

This thread is open to all nations with diplomatic relations to Monavia.

INTERNAL TENSIONS

OOC:

This internal political unrest results in a good deal of trouble for everyone and leaves behind a real mess (not a civil war or a revolt, but does cause some trouble). Finally, news of the whole fiasco is spreading like lightning throughout Monavia, but takes a while to reach other Novan countries and DL member states.

Disclaimer: I will point out that all opinions of the characters are strictly IC and unrelated to any real-life political views that I have.

IC:

Much had changed since the Monavian Empire had exited isolation just over eighteen months ago. Already, new friendship treaties had been signed with the Free Republic of Lamoni, the Holy Empire of Zaheran, and the Salisbrugic Dominion of Cotenshire, to name a few. Monavia had joined the Delian League and was pending membership in the Fegosian Union, and was even instrumental in the founding of the Bacterial Oil Cartel. Yet, for all of these recent accomplishments, domestic political wrangling had not ceased.

Within the halls of Parliament, both Representative Assemblymen and Senators entered disagreements. Some were the normal sort, concerning the applicability or legality of certain policies, and others were made over divergent views of legislation. Few measures had been enacted that would cause any real stirrings in the country, but every so often, these difference of opinion became public, especially when they had reached unusually large proportions.

The current Chancellor, William Hanover, had won reelection in 2007. His post was not to come up until 2012, five years later, at a time when he was considering the possibility of yet another run for the office, but was also split about simply becoming another regular member of the Senate. While his approval remained quite high with most of his colleagues, some vehemently disapproved of his policies and tactics. They didn’t use such subtle and gentlemanly words as “questionable” and “disputed”, and instead used words that were usually not even put into print. The majority of this vulgar conversation, if it even could be called that, took place behind closed doors, but that did not preclude any of it from spilling out into the halls of Parliament.

Chancellor Hanover’s closest friend in the Senate was the Right Honorable Bruce Bates, a Royalist Senator who chaired the Foreign Relations Committee. While most “committees” in the normal sense of the word were inefficient and able to easily destroy ideas, the group run by Senator Bates worked in a much more agreeable way, one which earned him both the respect and distinct admiration of many people in his party.

Bates had many personal issues to attend to since his wife, Catherine, became an ambassador. She often spent long amounts of time abroad, although regular telephone calls were still happening between the two of them, and Catherine’s term of service in Kurona was to end in the summer of 2009. The aging man of fifty-one years was therefore able to retain his normally elegant and energetic aura.

Bates and many of his colleagues were members of the Royalist Party, a generally conservative party which, for the most part, served the interests and agenda of the Crown. They were more or less moderate traditionalists, with their views ranging from merely preserving the status quo to being even slightly reactionary. They were, however, backed by the populace for the most part.

Bates also held friends in the National Republican Party, a more liberalized version of the royalists, but still having similar opinions on nearly all issues. Their major difference, which was once a point of contention so severe that it formed a schism in the original party, was the cause of a number of duels and bar fights, the former being favored over the latter, until citizens began to grow tired of the increasing number of elections that had to be held to replace the vacant seats of the deceased. This difference, in short, was a belief that a partial republic, under the control of a benevolent (usually) constitutional monarchy, should instead extend itself to grow into a full republic that would institute more democratic ideals in society. In most respects, the two parties had reconciled, however, some of their members still maintained the traditional rivalries to a small degree.

In the Senate, there were 126 seats. Forty were held by the Royalists and thirty-seven were held by the National Republicans. Twenty-three of the seats were held by the People’s Liberal Democratic Party (PLDP), which were mostly center-left; seventeen by the Independent Citizens Party, a union of political interests that was mostly in the center; six seats were held by members of the Free Capitalist Party, which advocated the loosening of government control over certain labor groups and trade; and the last three seats were held by the Socialist Union Party, a very small party, given that socialism was highly unpopular due to the general capitalist slant of the populace.

The political layout of the Senate, reflected largely by the Representative Assembly, was enough to disconcert several of the more leftist members of Parliament, who often grew discouraged at their inability to extend their influences nationally through legislation. One of these disgruntled men was Senator Eliot Lewis, a member of the PLDP. He was often dissatisfied with the powerful position of the monarchy and its ability to exert such enormous power in domestic and world affairs.

His reelection in 2008 brought his position more power and credibility, but in the process of winning his reelection, he also alienated many elements of the electorate which were not in line with his political leanings. This alienation continued into his term of office, and his second term was unlikely to fare any better in terms of his relations with the public.

As the month of November began, the skies over Chalcedon grew colder and frost began to form on the grass lawns of the Parliament Building at night, though it melted by morning. The mood in the building was less dismal than the weather outside, but the heated tempers within were still as hard and unforgiving. This situation was only made worse by Senator Lewis’ plan for charting the future course of Monavian foreign policy.

Lewis was angered by the idea that the Monavian Empire should not involve itself in the domestic affairs of other nations. He believed that Monavia should make itself an “arsenal of democracy and virtue”, one that would wipe out famine, poverty, genocide, and civil wars. His interventionist views were espoused throughout the Senate Chamber for much time, and he grew bolder with every day that passed.

It was well known that Lewis had made many questionable statements, which in many cases had resulted in his censure. On an unusually chilly November day, when the mood of the Senate became even grimmer from hearing reports of the strife enveloping Nova, this pent up pressure erupted into open fury. Lewis gave a speech on November 9, detailing his plan for a grand interventionist regime which would place Monavia “in the graces of all free and democratic nations.” However, he knew that many of his colleagues disagreed with this view, and expected a fierce rebuttal from Senator Bates, his greatest opponent.

He ended his controversial speech with many admonitions to those who disagreed with him, but his final line, the one which later caused an uproar unseen in nearly a generation, permanently darkened his reputation among his detractors, yet ironically made him a hero to his party.

Standing upon the rostrum, with his voice splitting the air like a barrage of gunfire, he delivered a scathing attack upon the Royalists and their conservative allies. “And if this plan to ensure our place among the free nations fails,” he roared, “then I shall place blame upon the unholy secret alliance of the Mormons, the Catholics, and the Jews!”

Bates, a Mormon, about lost his footing from hearing this, and cried, “You shall not escape with impunity!” before he angrily stormed out with several of his fellow Senators. It was well known that Lewis was a ruthless anti-Catholic partisan, but his conduct that day was more of a shock than was ever possibly anticipated.

The Sergeant-at-Arms could barely bring the fighting under control, and had to order the halls cleared. The Representative Assembly still remained in session until it adjourned at six o’clock. Chancellor Hanover was stunned, and being so appalled at the chaos, he retired for the night early after having a light dinner at home.

The next day, Bates returned to the Senate floor with a copy of Lewis’ speech. He took his seat with his Royalist colleagues, and began to agonizingly deliberate in his own mind on what to do. He nervously clutched the silver cap on his ceremonial cane, staring at the rostrum where Lewis had given his speech before. Lewis had committed an atrocity, one which in the mind of Senator Bates, was unpardonable. He rose from his seat and strode over to the section where Lewis was seated.

Upon reaching Lewis, Bates softly spoke to him. “Senator Lewis, I have taken much time to carefully read your speech. I have gone over it three times, taking every moment of my time to understand what you really mean. It was no more than a malicious insult to the Royalist Party and me as well.” He stared into the face of Lewis and lifted up his cane, as if to brandish it in the face of the insolent man. Instead he struck him on his head with its silver capped end, beating the man to the ground. After the first few strokes, the cane fractured and Bates threw it aside.

The whole chamber was now in a state of total confusion. Lewis struggled to lift his beaten body from the ground, hobbling out of the room with himself left severely disheveled and injured, to say the least. Some members cried “Hit him, hit him!” while others condemned the violence. The situation lead to a second clearing, and the body didn’t reconvene until the next day, with Bates absent for the time being.

The newspapers took up the story quickly, and headlines blared, “VIOLENCE IN THE SENATE”. Things had now taken a turn for the worse. The royals knew that it was time to act. They immediately summoned the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Frank Carter, to draft a formal statement to foreign governments.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/8/1/149955/Flag%20of%20Monavia2.png

OPEN ANNOUNCEMENT TO ALL MEMBER STATES OF THE DELIAN LEAGUE AND FEGOSIAN UNION

It has come to the attention of the Monavian government that violence has indeed occurred within the halls of Parliament. An internal investigation is underway, but it is advised that all foreign responses to this incident be forwarded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to prevent any further conflicts of interest. This unfortunate event has caused some to question the stability and resolve of the Monavian government, and I ask that the international community is not hasty to pass judgment until the investigation is complete.

Sincerely,

The Right Honorable Frank Carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs

It was unknown if the world would heed this plea, but it was better than having nothing.

The fourth bump.

OOC:

A few new details. I will be deleting all of these annoying bumps of mine once I get some replies. I will be adding new details to the story soon afterward, probably this weekend. Finally, assume that all news, unless transmitted directly to outside governments or through embassies, should take around a day or two to reach most nations in Nova.

EDIT: The bumps have been removed. [As of November 29]

The news coming into the Lamonian Foreign Ministry through their embassy in Monavia was shocking. It was true that fighting had been seen in other legislative bodies before; and doubtless would be again; and that the same could be said of insane political rants.

However, the fact that this was happening in one of Lamoni's allies merited a response.





Foreign Ministry of the Free Republic of Lamoni

To: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, State of Monavia

Having had news of a brawl in the halls of the Monavian Senate relayed to us via our embassy there, the government of Lamoni feels that it must state it's concerns on this issue. However, we will also wait for the results of the investigation into the matter before issuing a public reaction to the events in question.

Signed,

Tanya Ley
Foreign Minister
Free Republic of Lamoni

The first news of the fight in the Monavian Senate reached the Zaheranian government through the mass media, as a formal embassy had not yet been established. As most of their compatriots, the Foreign Ministry bureaucrats had a quite cynical and sceptical view of democracy, and thus the news caused no major shock. Zaheran had seen its share of political brawls during the chaotic years of the Zaheranian Republic, many of them far worse than this. Still, Monavia's status as a major ally of the Empire warranted a response.

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/1717/sealxr7.gif
The Holy Empire of Zaheran
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Official Communique



To: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Monavian Empire
Having recieved word of the fight in your Senate, the Holy Empire of Zaheran would like to express our absloute support for the Monavian government. While we are concerned about yesterday's fight, we have no doubt in the Monavian government's ability to handle the situation with their usual excellency. We will wait for the results of the investigation before we do any public statements, however, as we do not want to aggravate this delicate situation.

Yours sincerely,

Marius Stee
Minister of Foreign Affairs

Department of Union Affairs, Foreign Ministry - Ol'vi

Sunlight glinted off the darkened glass windows of the office complex, located in a large compound just a few miles from the Cosmodrome: the cities claim to fame. A towering Splinter ULRSAM stood on the nearest launch pad today, warhead removed to allow for the carrying of a light satellite. The rocket itself had little in the way of ability for such lift, used only for the smallest payloads into LEO. The proper-sized rockets, such as the one currently being assembled a couple miles away, were those used to lift the commercial satellites into higher orbit levels.

Behind the glass, heavy slats acting to both further reduce the light and to dissipate any blast waves from the rocket launches, a meeting was taking place. The Union Internal Affair Committee sat around a table, meeting with the Alfegan Ambassador to Monavia to discuss the political instability.

"Whilst such an event is certainly not unprecedented in a regional theatre, it is a very rare event for a politically stable nation such as Monavia. As such, we have analysed the events with information provided by our Ambassador, and have come to the following conclusion.
Within the senate, it appears that two major opposing groups have formed: those in support of the royalists, and those in support of the Senator Lewis. These two groups are very likely to cause a wide split in the government, possibly leading to revolutionary activities.
Thus, from our analyses, we have seen the party most to favour is the Royalist side, being the party most likely to maintain stable relations within Alfegan interests.

Whilst it is unlikely a worst-case scenario could occur, we will need to keep a closer eye on the situation. Therefore, we will be required to send some form of observation package. Can the ambassador aid the committee by allowing for a team of Orange Service members to use the embassy as a staging post for observational activities, so that if the build-up of forces for either side is seen we have the ability to broadcast a warning to all native citizens, and to send in a rapid reaction force?"

There was a pause for a moment, before the ambassador spoke.
"I will be willing to let the basement of the embassy for such activities, provided that an adequate reason can be made for sending these personnel out. I doubt the embassy needs that many more cleaners."
"We were thinking the team could be sent out under the guise of a survey team from the ministry, acting to ensure the embassy is running as it should, financially and otherwise. Along with it will be the delivery of a Gecko FAV for the security staff there, the crate being used to house our operations until it need be removed."
The discussion afterwards moved to the arrangement of details, as the missile roared into the sky from its launchpad, a dull rush in the distance.

As to be expected news of the brawl in the Monavian parliament was quickly reported in the national media in Etoile Arcture. The reaction was mixed, ranging from horrified and dismissive on the 24 hour rolling news channels to the butt of a joke for comedians on late night shows. It was hardly the best way for Monavia to raise its profile, either in Etoile Arcture or throughout Nova. But few people were laughing in the Diplomatic Directorate, whose headache this could soon become, or among the General Secretariat whose headache this might soon become a nightmare. The usual messages were thus sent to Chalcedon expressing suitable diplomatic regret at the incident (without ever mentioning it specifcally), wishing Senator Lewis a full and speedy recovery (without ever mentioning the nature of his wounds, how he recieved them, and from whom) and their full confidence in the investigation and that will get to the bottom of the whole matter (without ever letting on that the result of the investigation was certain to be a foregone conclusion).

The Senate convened as usual, though Lewis, currently hospitalized for for a bone splinter in his brain and several broken bones, and Bates, who was for some reason not in attendance, were both absent. After three days, the Supreme Court of the Monavian Empire voted in its session to keep Bates under watch by police, a normally trivial matter. It had also voted, eight to one, to put in place a temporary injunction against further action in terms of disciplinary proceedings.

The court wished that no articles of censure were proposed until the investigation was complete and the ruffled feathers had been smoothed over. The court would also try the offending parties, once the investigation had concluded, and all charges were formally approved. The final of the three votes held during that session placed Bates under temporary house arrest, to be effective within twenty-four hours and to last for one week. After that, it would be up to the court to continue with further action.

The responses from the international community rattled some members of the government, some to the point of planning to leave the country. However, few gave the idea enough serious thought to follow through with it. Mr. Carter, being preoccupied with other duties, was unable to find much time to reply to the correspondence that was sent to him. When he did, about two days after the violent exchange, he sent letters to the Foreign Ministry of the Free Republic of Lamoni and the Zaheranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/8/1/149955/Flag%20of%20Monavia2.png

OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

To Tanya Ley, Lamonian Minister of Foreign Affairs,

Ms. Ley:

The preliminary investigation is underway, which should reveal the causes of this unfortunate incident. Such a brawl has not happened in a very long time, and it came to me as a great shock. You need not worry, at least yet, for so far things have seemed to return to normal. With the exception of some minor political unrest, I have not had to deal with much else.

So far, Bates had been placed under temporary house arrest while the investigation proceeds. The Senate has been ordered to suspend all proceedings concerning the conduct of its members until the said investigation is complete, however, despite the slowness of the wheels of justice, they will never cease to turn.

My best wishes to the Free Republic and its citizens.

Sincerely,

The Right Honorable Frank Carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He also wrote a similar letter to the Zaheranians.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/8/1/149955/Flag%20of%20Monavia2.png

OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

To Marius Stee, Zaheranian Minister of Foreign Affairs,

Minister Stee:

I have been tried much by the situation now developing, although it has seemed to calm down for the most part. While there have been internal tensions within the Senate, no further violence has heppened there. The presence of such violence has not been observed in much time, and it came as a great surprise to me when the news hit the stands.

I will add that the Supreme Court has, for now, taken actions to prepare the preliminary investigation, and it is proceeding, albeit slowly. I can assure you that it will continue until the court has its answers necessary to execute justice, however, the process will take some time.

Sincerely,

The Right Honorable Frank Carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Department of Union Affairs, Foreign Ministry - Ol'vi

Sunlight glinted off the darkened glass windows of the office complex, located in a large compound just a few miles from the Cosmodrome: the cities claim to fame. A towering Splinter ULRSAM stood on the nearest launch pad today, warhead removed to allow for the carrying of a light satellite. The rocket itself had little in the way of ability for such lift, used only for the smallest payloads into LEO. The proper-sized rockets, such as the one currently being assembled a couple miles away, were those used to lift the commercial satellites into higher orbit levels.

Behind the glass, heavy slats acting to both further reduce the light and to dissipate any blast waves from the rocket launches, a meeting was taking place. The Union Internal Affair Committee sat around a table, meeting with the Alfegan Ambassador to Monavia to discuss the political instability.

"Whilst such an event is certainly not unprecedented in a regional theatre, it is a very rare event for a politically stable nation such as Monavia. As such, we have analyzed the events with information provided by our Ambassador, and have come to the following conclusion.
Within the senate, it appears that two major opposing groups have formed: those in support of the royalists, and those in support of the Senator Lewis. These two groups are very likely to cause a wide split in the government, possibly leading to revolutionary activities.
Thus, from our analyses, we have seen the party most to favour is the Royalist side, being the party most likely to maintain stable relations within Alfegan interests.

Whilst it is unlikely a worst-case scenario could occur, we will need to keep a closer eye on the situation. Therefore, we will be required to send some form of observation package. Can the ambassador aid the committee by allowing for a team of Orange Service members to use the embassy as a staging post for observational activities, so that if the build-up of forces for either side is seen we have the ability to broadcast a warning to all native citizens, and to send in a rapid reaction force?"

There was a pause for a moment, before the ambassador spoke.
"I will be willing to let the basement of the embassy for such activities, provided that an adequate reason can be made for sending these personnel out. I doubt the embassy needs that many more cleaners."
"We were thinking the team could be sent out under the guise of a survey team from the ministry, acting to ensure the embassy is running as it should, financially and otherwise. Along with it will be the delivery of a Gecko FAV for the security staff there, the crate being used to house our operations until it need be removed."
The discussion afterwards moved to the arrangement of details, as the missile roared into the sky from its launchpad, a dull rush in the distance.

The Alfegans were too late to witness a rather violent situation developing in a small town about a hundred miles outside the capital. Strong partisan feelings divided this small town, although they rarely erupted into anything besides the occasional brawl in the local bars, normally between combatants who were less that sober.

In the main street, however, a different situation was developing. About sixty people, ardent supporters of Senator Lewis, assembled in the town square. While there was nothing illegal about their demonstration, they began to impede traffic. Police ordered the protesters to keep off of the streets and in the square, so as to respect the rights of the other citizens in the town and bystanders.

The town was a closely-knit community, where the political convictions of a resident's neighbors was often known to them, and people spoke with pride about who they voted for in local elections. The crown grew restless, then almost unruly, as a few of them realized that the police who had ordered them off of the streets were mostly Royalist voters.

A riot ensued, although it was quelled in a matter of minutes, with several people being arrested for destruction of public property, assaulting police and bystanders, and disturbing the peace. Most of the demonstrators, though, left peacefully and did not contribute to the violence.

Even the return letter from the Monavian Government didn't fully calm the Lamonian government. The State of Monavia was a Lamonian friend and ally, and this sort of behavior was unprecedented from the Monavians.

The Lamonian President had called his cabinet together, and they were discussing the situation in Monavia.

"If Senator Lewis' position gains traction; the worst case scenario is a civil war. More likely at this time, it'll lead to a political row, maybe even Monavian isolation. It is my recommendation that we send some LIA agents undercover into Monavia in order to keep an eye on proceedings there." The Lamonian Foreign Minister, Tanya Ley; was speaking. She had already given a briefing on what was known on the incident, and she had just given here opinion.

It was quite telling, President Stinson thought after a minute, that no one else could come up with a better idea. President Stinson authorized six LIA agents to pose as new cleaning staff at the Lamonian embassy in Monavia. They were to observe and report on the situation. If more action was needed, it could be taken at the discretion of the LIA director, who would report directly to President Stinson.

Within the hour, the LIA agents were boarding a Lamonian governmental flight to Monavia, and their new job.

OPEN ANNOUNCEMENT TO ALL MEMBER STATES OF THE DELIAN LEAGUE AND FEGOSIAN UNION


It has come to the attention of the Monavian government that violence has indeed occurred within the halls of Parliament. An internal investigation is underway, but it is advised that all foreign responses to this incident be forwarded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to prevent any further conflicts of interest. This unfortunate event has caused some to question the stability and resolve of the Monavian government, and I ask that the international community is not hasty to pass judgment until the investigation is complete.

Sincerely,

The Right Honorable Frank Carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs


Charles read the report from Monavia, it seemed that a minor fight had broken out in parliament. Nothing major, just a small fight. Just two years ago, the confederate party had a street brawl with the conservatives over a small bill. Police forces tear gassed the hall and managed to bring back order.

"Well, I guess we should respond"


__________________________________________________________________
FROM: Charles Villa, Foreign Minister
TO: The Right Honorable Frank Carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs

We are saddened by this information, but politics without passion is not politics at all. We trust the stability of the Monavian Government and will back you in all your needs.
__________________________________________________________________

ooc:Tag for later post (Gataway was an FU member, seeing as Gataway is now assimilated into the Unkerlanti Reich I run the show there too)

The Alfegan Embassy to Monavia - Mainland Monavia

A large blue crate sat in one of the parking bays of the embassy underground car park. The surface showed itself to be manufactured from lightened steel, support struts crossing the corrugated surface. Next to it stood the official delivery to the embassy: a Gecko Fast Attack Vehicle, a dune buggy designed for high speed patrolling around the embassy grounds, as well as any heavy response to intruders. The paint gleamed a deep black, an orange palm along with the symbol of the Foreign Ministry emblazoned on the side.

What the interest of the scene was though were the lights that occasionally flickered from underneath the doors on the crate, along with a thick bundle of cables trailing from the end nearest the wall. Pacing over, a woman crossed the concrete floor, tapping five times on the door of the container before waiting. Inside came a grating noise, followed by the opening of the door. Inside was revealed an LED lamp hanging from the ceiling of the crate, behind a barrier of empty wooden crates. Slipping through the gap, the woman found herself in the nexus of the operation: two computer terminals sat showing the progress of a data transferral back to the Intelligence Department of the War Ministry, comprised of a mix of photographs and videos taken in a preliminary sweep of the local area, as a precaution in case counter-intelligence was operating. On the wall, a large map of the nation and a second map of the capital city were hung with paper labels attached, notifying points of interest each operative team would be working in the next day. Two pairs working out on the streets, and another two pairs working back at the embassy, doing both the work they were doing as cover and the matter of the monitoring at this listening post.
A meeting had just started between the entire group as she entered: with the proximity sensors on the doors to the underground garage and on the driveway showing clear, they knew nobody was down in this area save her.

"Now that Se'la is here, we can begin the summarising of what we will be
doing tomorrow. The footage we have gathered today so far suggests that counter-intelligence here is not present, though we must still exercise caution, especially with the targets that we will have tomorrow.
Team Alpha, you will have the objective of planting surveillance equipment within the senate buildings, and not in the public areas. For this you will be using the following items."
The person reached into a small metal tin, taking out a Smarties tube. Tipping the open lid, he revealed a bundle of tiny black units and a small unit similar in proportions and shape to a 35mm film canister. Alongside it was a mobile phone-sized unit.

"You've got three listening bugs, three camera bugs and two phone tap units. The camera ones have two ridges, whilst the others have one. The canister here is the solid-state memory unit for the recorded data streamed from the sensor, which can be connected inside a power socket to utilise the building power systems. You will also need to connect this bridging unit in the building ancillary area from the power control unit to the fibre optic data cables connecting it to the local telephonic network, and thus to us. The unit can be separated into parts here, using wireless to connect. You should be able to collect the correct tools from the embassy workshop and tools storage, in the box marked "Tango".

Your cover will be as electricians working for the company hired with the building. You will enter the building as civilians with day sacks, holding your clothing. The tools will be left in the sewerage conduit linked to the building, accessible from inside the building. Inside the building, you will change into overalls along with false ID cards, before moving to your locations. We will need listening in the office of Senator Lewis, in the office of Senator Bates, alongside the phone taps in both their offices. The others can be installed at your discretion.
Exfiltration will be via the sewerage conduit in which the tools will be left, exiting at a point marked in chalk, which should lead to a manhole in a back alley. From there you will proceed by foot to the embassy.

Team Bravo, you will act as surveillance upon the senate, keeping in contact in both the public galleries and in a café across the plaza outside. You will escort Alpha team after exfiltration, as well as acting as cover to our operation in the senate itself.

Weaponry and equipment... Alpha team will be provided with two TASERNET units with their tools, as a last resort. Each will have a Level II Stun cartridge, so one shot to knock the target out. Bravo team, we will provide you with similar weaponry, but with four Level II cartridges and a Level III cartridge, should lethal force be required. All teams will be provided with inner ear comms implants, which will be fitted after this meeting. We will also provide secondary mobile phones on secure mesolite lines, so they will not be monitored, so that you can communicate with us should there be any problem.

Back here, we will begin hacking into the senate computer system this evening, so we can intercept any messages that could be a sign of militant action of either party. They will also act as emergency cover should your cover be blown: they will send a signal to trip the building fire alarms or other alarms, depending on the severity of the nature: if the building has a biohazard alarm, we will use it should the situation merit it. We will also launch a DDOS from the Alfegan systems under government control, should you need cover to hack into the building fibre optics.

Any questions?"

"If Senator Lewis' position gains traction; the worst case scenario is a civil war. More likely at this time, it'll lead to a political row, maybe even Monavian isolation. It is my recommendation that we send some LIA agents undercover into Monavia in order to keep an eye on proceedings there." The Lamonian Foreign Minister, Tanya Ley; was speaking. She had already given a briefing on what was known on the incident, and she had just given here opinion.

OOC:

To Lamoni:

Senator Lewis is currently in a state of diminished capacity, that is, he is partially incapacitated. His position is unlikely to improve for the next week or two, or until he recovers enough to retaliate in some way.

ooc:Tag for later post (Gataway was an FU member, seeing as Gataway is now assimilated into the Unkerlanti Reich I run the show there too)

To Unkerlantum:

While Gataway was an FU member, I never had so much as an embassy or diplomatic exchange with him/her. Try to RP some way of getting involved.

A large blue crate sat in one of the parking bays of the embassy underground car park. The surface showed itself to be manufactured from lightened steel, support struts crossing the corrugated surface. Next to it stood the official delivery to the embassy: a Gecko Fast Attack Vehicle, a dune buggy designed for high speed patrolling around the embassy grounds, as well as any heavy response to intruders. The paint gleamed a deep black, an orange palm along with the symbol of the Foreign Ministry emblazoned on the side.

What the interest of the scene was though were the lights that occasionally flickered from underneath the doors on the crate, along with a thick bundle of cables trailing from the end nearest the wall. Pacing over, a woman crossed the concrete floor, tapping five times on the door of the container before waiting. Inside came a grating noise, followed by the opening of the door. Inside was revealed an LED lamp hanging from the ceiling of the crate, behind a barrier of empty wooden crates. Slipping through the gap, the woman found herself in the nexus of the operation: two computer terminals sat showing the progress of a data transferral back to the Intelligence Department of the War Ministry, comprised of a mix of photographs and videos taken in a preliminary sweep of the local area, as a precaution in case counter-intelligence was operating. On the wall, a large map of the nation and a second map of the capital city were hung with paper labels attached, notifying points of interest each operative team would be working in the next day.

To Alfegos:

A few pointers about Monavian border security.

Getting a container with a surveillance station inside it through the border would be almost impossible without illiciting suspicions form security forces there. You would have to fly it in via government terminal at the airport to avoid this.

Sending signals from the embassy would also draw attention if they were found to be coming from the container. Internal security in the country and various alerts have been elevated, so expect to use a transmission system that cannot be inadvertantly picked up by outside recievers.

"Now that Se'la is here, we can begin the summarising of what we will be
doing tomorrow. The footage we have gathered today so far suggests that counter-intelligence here is not present, though we must still exercise caution, especially with the targets that we will have tomorrow.
Team Alpha, you will have the objective of planting surveillance equipment within the senate buildings, and not in the public areas. For this you will be using the following items."
The person reached into a small metal tin, taking out a Smarties tube. Tipping the open lid, he revealed a bundle of tiny black units and a small unit similar in proportions and shape to a 35mm film canister. Alongside it was a mobile phone-sized unit.

Getting into the Senate chamber would be difficult during business hours, and the chamber is open for a few hours on weekends for public viewing. When the Senate is not in session, or there are no public viewings, there will be a period of about half an hour when the place is still open for cleaning and being locked up for the night. There is one window in the morning and one in the evening.

Cleaning crews will be of trouble to this plan. So will surveillance cameras in the chamber, which are kept active around the clock and have backup power supples which are actived in the event of a power outage, to ensure that bombs and poisions cannot be planted in the rooms. (For that matter, a repeat of the RL anthrax attacks in the U.S. Capitol after 9/11 is the type of thing that is supposed to be prevented, by keeping the area under constant watch.)

"You've got three listening bugs, three camera bugs and two phone tap units. The camera ones have two ridges, whilst the others have one. The canister here is the solid-state memory unit for the recorded data streamed from the sensor, which can be connected inside a power socket to utilise the building power systems. You will also need to connect this bridging unit in the building ancillary area from the power control unit to the fibre optic data cables connecting it to the local telephonic network, and thus to us. The unit can be separated into parts here, using wireless to connect. You should be able to collect the correct tools from the embassy workshop and tools storage, in the box marked "Tango".

The main power control is in the basement, in a place that is not easily accessed by the public. Your best bet would be to disguise the devices as technical equipment and place them in plain view, as if they were a part of the usual broadcast setup. No one would suspect that. Plugging it into a wall socket would aid in disguising them, since it makes them look less like bugs.

Your cover will be as electricians working for the company hired with the building. You will enter the building as civilians with day sacks, holding your clothing. The tools will be left in the sewerage conduit linked to the building, accessible from inside the building. Inside the building, you will change into overalls along with false ID cards, before moving to your locations.

The sewage conduit is linked to a outbuilding. The secondary conduits which attach to the bathroom plumbing and so on are too samll to crawl through. Again, it's easier to use a maintainence access hallway to the basement, and then go up to the lobby to plant the devices.

We will need listening in the office of Senator Lewis, in the office of Senator Bates, alongside the phone taps in both their offices. The others can be installed at your discretion.

Their private offices are located in buildings sed by the political parties. Most offices only have one or two sets of keys, usually in the possession of their occupants. Using the rise of being a repair crew tasked with replacing or repairing the locks is the best way to gain entry.

Exfiltration will be via the sewerage conduit in which the tools will be left, exiting at a point marked in chalk, which should lead to a manhole in a back alley. From there you will proceed by foot to the embassy.

The building is surrounded by a vast lawn and parks (again, like the U.S. Capitol). The nearest alleyways are in the residential neighborhoods.

Back here, we will begin hacking into the senate computer system this evening, so we can intercept any messages that could be a sign of militant action of either party. They will also act as emergency cover should your cover be blown: they will send a signal to trip the building fire alarms or other alarms, depending on the severity of the nature: if the building has a biohazard alarm, we will use it should the situation merit it.

The Senate uses a computer system for things such as speed voting, but the actual correspondance between party members is routed throught their headquarters in the city. The actual security systems are grossly overengineered so hacking is a long-term project. Finally, the alarms are all run separately. You will have to trip each one individually.

I don't mean to mangle or tear apart your post, (it was in fact, quite brilliantly written), it's just that I was at fault for not including the relevant details for you to use. If you want to know more about how to infiltrate the building, just TG me about it and I will give you further details.

IC:

FROM: Charles Villa, Foreign Minister
TO: The Right Honorable Frank Carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs

We are saddened by this information, but politics without passion is not politics at all. We trust the stability of the Monavian Government and will back you in all your needs.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/8/1/149955/Flag%20of%20Monavia2.png

OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

To Charles Villa, Foreign Minister of Mokastana,

Mr. Villa:

Your support of my government and loyalty to our mutual friendship brings me much consolation. Thank you for your prudent efforts.

Sincerely,

The Right Honorable Frank Carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs

About five days after the preliminary investigation had begun, surveillance evidence was being taken to the Supreme Court Building for examination. When the police picked up the films and other relevant evidence, and drove away to take it to its destination, they came upon a small crowd gathering near the Parliament Building. The crowds were of no immediate consequence, but a few held up signs, mostly calling for the investigation to finish.

The evidence made it unscathed to the courtroom, so that it could be processed for information that was needed to get to the bottom of this scandal. It would take days to sift through all of the data abnd tapes, but it would continue to turn the proverbial wheels of justice that Mr. Carter had written about earlier in his correspondence with the Lamonians.

By about four o'clock in the afternoon, the crowd outside the fence surrounding the grounds had grown to include about 200 people. Most were peaceful demonstrators, who had replaced the srowd from earlier, but a few upset radicals began to incite acts of violence. About a dozen people extracted bottles of alcohol from their coats, along with rags and matches. They lit the devices and threw them onto the neatly mowed lawn, setting the grass on fire and filling the area with black smoke.

Most of the crowd dispersed, beign bothered much by the heat and smoke in the wake of the fires, but a few remained. Within five minutes, the city fire department had arrived and put out the blaze, and police arrested the rioters. Grounds keepers now had the task of cleaning up all of the shards of broken galss and burnt rags, which would take the next several hours. By nightfall, the area had been rake over and cleaned up, with the notable exception of the burnt grass, which would take weeks to grow back. For now, the area was to be covered in mulch and fresh soil.

News of the riot was aired on televisions throughout the evening, and the early morning programs picked up the story the next day. Public opinion polling would later show an overwhelmingly negative view of the vandalism committed on that day, but for now, other events entered the media circus.

The tabloids, which were usually regulated to minimise the amount of smut that made its way into their stories, soon filled with columns about the story. The earliest tabloid stories would not hit the shelves for a week, but it surely was good for increasing sales revenue and circulation.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

If anyone is intereste in discussing the OOC aspects of this thread, please say so. I will make an OOC thead to serve that need.

(OOC: TG me your MSN details if you want to talk more - this could be quite an RP if I get it right. On that subject, should I start up a new thread to do with espionage and counter-espionage within the two nations?
Plus thanks for the pointers: I was assuming that the sewerage system would be linked to the ancillary area, and that the senate was similar to governmental buildings in European cities, my stomping ground. I was also assuming that the senate would hold offices for the heads of major parties in the building: if, however, that is not the case, then I will have to organise further missions!
Finally, the container itself (which I should've mentioned) held the Gecko FAV for the security at the embassy alongside unassuming crates of 'parts' for the Gecko, holding all the appropriate equipment. I was also assuming that the workers at wherever the airship terminal is would not want to deal with the red tape of opening a container bound for an embassy.

(OOC: TG me your MSN details if you want to talk more - this could be quite an RP if I get it right. On that subject, should I start up a new thread to do with espionage and counter-espionage within the two nations?

A new thread for spying and such is a good idea. Just provide the hyperlink. An OOC thread will be up shortly. Also, by MSN details, are you talking about an E-mail address or an IM connection?

Plus thanks for the pointers: I was assuming that the sewerage system would be linked to the ancillary area, and that the senate was similar to governmental buildings in European cities, my stomping ground.

The underground systems connected to most of the government buildings were dug up or replaced in the late twentieth century. Chalcedon may be an ancient city that has been around for some time, but its infrastructure is constantly being improved in soem way or another. The sewer system was changed as a part of this.

I was also assuming that the senate would hold offices for the heads of major parties in the building: if, however, that is not the case, then I will have to organise further missions!

There are some offices, but generally, most of them are for other employees. Senate pages, cleaning staff, and groundskeepers, just to name a few, use these offices. Most offices are private, and in toher buildings. The extra missions will be a lot of fun.

Finally, the container itself (which I should've mentioned) held the Gecko FAV for the security at the embassy alongside unassuming crates of 'parts' for the Gecko, holding all the appropriate equipment. I was also assuming that the workers at wherever the airship terminal is would not want to deal with the red tape of opening a container bound for an embassy.

I stand corrected on the contents. Also, you did assume correctly about the container. Flying it in for embassy use makes it easy to bypass red tape.

(IM will be best. Plus here's the thread -HERE (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=14236917#post14236917) - note I'll post once we agree all details about the building(s).)

(IM will be best. Plus here's the thread -HERE (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=14236917#post14236917) - note I'll post once we agree all details about the building(s).)

I checked the post. I will be putting up some details later, once I can draw out the plans to use for this.

OOC:

Bump for interest. The thread created by Alfegos shall temporarily be appropriated for all OOC commentary and planning.

The Lamonian LIA operatives had all cleared the abbreviated customs procedure for diplomatic arrivals, and had taken up their duties at the Lamonian embassy. They hadn't been foolish enough to carry anything that might be incriminating. After all that's what the diplomatic bag was for.

The first thing for the Lamonian ambassador to Monavia to do was to request to attend a session of the Monavian Senate. As long as there wasn't anything classified being discussed, the ambassador thought that there shouldn't be much of a problem with his request being granted. This would allow the ambassador to gain a first impression on the state of the Monavian Senate after the incident, which would of course be cabled back to Lamoni when the ambassador returned to the embassy.

The day after the firebombing of the Parliament lawn, there were no incidents of violence. Things had appeared to have cooled off. The day after that, when the Lamonian agents had arrived at the embassy, a wave a cool weather blew in, bringing the prewinter temperatures down from the northern coast. A cold front moved in, and rain also fell upon the capital. An attempt by a lone rioter to set a newspaper office on fire was foiled by the slow drizzle.

The Senate had still remained affected by the incident over a week prior, with some members still bearing grudges and hard feelings toward their political opponents. These were kept under wraps for the present time, and there were almost no outward indications of any anger, save an occasional sneer between rivals in heated discussion.

That day, Senator Bates' term of house arrest was set to expire. The court met again that day, voting again, this time unanimously to extend the house arrest for another week. Bates had not even left the building, and by all accounts provided by his neighbors, some concerned for him, he was never even seen. His curtains were always shut, and his mail was picked up by his butler.

Senator Lewis had begun to regain his stamina and conciousness. The bone splinter was removed from his brain with little complication, and his shoulders were splinted. At the moment, the broken ribs were being treated by the doctors.

Late that afternoon, a courier arrived at Bates' house to deliver the notice of the extension passed by the court that day. His butler took it inside and gave it to him. Bates then wrote a short note for the courier, which was to be delivered to the court.

To the Secretary of the Supreme Court of the Monavian Empire,

Mr. Secretary:

I await the court's summons when they have completed their investigation. I will also present evidence that may shed light on some unclear facets of this whole fiasco.

Sincerely,

The Right Honorable Senator Bruce Bates

The courier left and made the delivery, arriving at about six o'clock, shortly before the court was to close. During that day, they had also examined a portion of the video evidence and a few written statements by "witnesses". They would conclude the preliminary investigation in a few days.

OOC:

The first thing for the Lamonian ambassador to Monavia to do was to request to attend a session of the Monavian Senate. As long as there wasn't anything classified being discussed, the ambassador thought that there shouldn't be much of a problem with his request being granted. This would allow the ambassador to gain a first impression on the state of the Monavian Senate after the incident, which would of course be cabled back to Lamoni when the ambassador returned to the embassy.

All session requests should be sent to the Senate Secretary or Mr. Carter. Either way, it will be forwarded to Chancellor Hanover, who will make the decision on the issue.

Bump. I have frozen the storyline for more posts.

OOC:

NEW UPDATES!!!

IC:

The preliminary investigation was completed by November 28, nearly two weeks after the violent debacle which occured in the Senate. The court was ready to release the documents and results to the press. Copies of the official report for the newspapers were distributed among deliverymen, who took them to the newspaper offices.

New press releases by the papers and magizines would take some time to prepare, since the editors and print staff would have to sift through all of the information and put together their articles.

The court, however, decided to permit interviews in order to provide updates to the general public. Justices were seen speaking on televisions throughout the country, and the interviews were boradcast on radios and computers everywhere.

After he had received a briefing from his liaison to the court, Mr. Carter made a public statement on national news, before writing a letter to all parties involved.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/8/1/149955/Flag%20of%20Monavia2.png

OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

To Tanya Ley, Foreign Minister of Lamoni, Charles Villa, Foreign Minister of Mokastana, Marius Stee, Foreign Minister of Zaheran, and the Alfegan Foreign Minister:

The preliminary investigation has concluded, and the results are being processed and released by the press. The current results of the investigation appear to show Senator Bates as being responsible for beating Senator Lewis severely, and also shows him as the only one responsible for directly committing this act of violence.

The investigation has also concluded that other members of the Senate supported his conduct, as evidenced by their willingness to defend his actions. No charges are pending against them, and the current tangled morass of intrigue is still being sorted out.

Senator Bates shall be placed on trial by the court, to determine his guilt or innocence, not only for the current incident, but for other possible charges as well. Once the verdict of the court has been decided, the Senate shall determine the penalties for whatever crimes he has been convicted of.

Senator Lewis appears to be making a successful recovey, and he has announced in a written statement that he will be returning to his duties in late December.

Sincerely,

The Right Honorable Frank carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs

OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

To Tanya Ley, Foreign Minister of Lamoni, Charles Villa, Foreign Minister of Mokastana, Marius Stee, Foreign Minister of Zaheran, and the Alfegan Foreign Minister:

The preliminary investigation has concluded, and the results are being processed and released by the press. The current results of the investigation appear to show Senator Bates as being responsible for beating Senator Lewis severely, and also shows him as the only one responsible for directly committing this act of violence.

The investigation has also concluded that other members of the Senate supported his conduct, as evidenced by their willingness to defend his actions. No charges are pending against them, and the current tangled morass of intrigue is still being sorted out.

Senator Bates shall be placed on trial by the court, to determine his guilt or innocence, not only for the current incident, but for other possible charges as well. Once the verdict of the court has been decided, the Senate shall determine the penalties for whatever crimes he has been convicted of.

Senator Lewis appears to be making a successful recovery, and he has announced in a written statement that he will be returning to his duties in late December.

Sincerely,

The Right Honorable Frank carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs

Foreign Ministry of the Free Republic of Lamoni

To: The Right Honorable Frank carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Monavia

We are pleased that the wheels of justice are turning so efficiently in our ally. As you know, the Free Republic has taken a keen interest in this turn of events.

Hopefully, an incident like this will never occur again.

Signed,

Tanya Ley
Foreign Minister

Foreign Ministry of the Free Republic of Lamoni

To: The Right Honorable Frank carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Monavia

We are pleased that the wheels of justice are turning so efficiently in our ally. As you know, the Free Republic has taken a keen interest in this turn of events.

Hopefully, an incident like this will never occur again.

Signed,

Tanya Ley
Foreign Minister

Mr. Carter was quite pleased to receive such a supportive reply from the Lamonian foreign minister. He had expected that reactions were going to be positive, but he had not heard from all parties involved yet.

Two days later, the court prepared to conduct its proceedings. The justices approached the bench, ascending its steps as they looked around the room, and were soon seated. The court was called to order.

The court took only fifteen minutes to formally set a trial date. In three days, Senator Bates would find himself in the defendant's chair.

OOC:

There will be more coming soon.

EDIT:

I have added yet another update on December 18.

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/1717/sealxr7.gif
The Holy Empire of Zaheran
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Official Communique


To: Frank Carter, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Monavia

We are pleased that the investigation regarding Senator Bates has been progressing so efficiently. We hope that it will mean the end to this unfortunate conflict. Hopefully, similar events can be avoided in the future.

Yours sincerely,

Marius Stee
Minister of Foreign Affairs

The trial date drew nearer. Senator Lewis had been released from the hospital, being told that he was recovering faster than he had anticipated. He was driven home, where he rested and then ate lunch in the early afternoon, sharing some quiet moments with a few well-wishing guests.

The unassuming and normal appearence of the situation continued into the evening, until Lewis walked down to his basement. He descended along a worn brick staircase into an old room with walls built from aging clay bricks, not unlike the kind used for building old farmhouses. Some of the bricks had cracks and holes in them, but no one would think that the building would collapse.

Lewis now opened the door to a closet, pulling down on a long piece of string, turning on an overhead light. It revealed a small, cramped room, lined with plywood shelves supported by steel brackets, and filled with old boxes. He turned to his left and pulled a small wooden box off of the shelf, which was gathering much dust. The box, however, was clearly clean, as if it had been used recently, but it still was covered with a thin film of dust and smelt of stale air. Opening it up, he removed a brass key, and replaced the box, before turning out the lights and shutting the door, carefully listening for anyone who might be too close by.

He now walked across the side of the room, to a doorway, where he walked into a storage room. In days past, it was used as a private bar and gambling hall, but now served as a storage room for dusty furnature and old books. Bookcases and credenzas lined the walls on the far side of the room, and old, battered furnature filled up most of the remaining portions of the room. Lewis p[assed all of these things, and headed for an open space next to the wall.

In the floor, there were two large grooves, each containign a track with several wheels. Lewis grabbed the bookcase to the left of the tracks, and pulled it to the right, so that it rolled on the wheeles, which were set slightly higher than the floor. Behind the bookcase, there was a door, Lewis unlocked with his brass key, before pocketing it and turning on the lights.

The light revealed another staircase, and a second switch adjacent to the first one. He shut the door behind him, and then flipped the second switch, which began to turn the wheels, rolling the bookcase back into its original position. He now walked down the staircase, turned to his left as he reached the base, and then walked through a short, narrow corridor to yet another door. He unlocked it as well, and entered an old room beneath the house.

He quickly strode over to a computer on a desk at the far end, flanked by a television screen and a series of elaborate machines. The rest of the room was adorned by paintings of famous members of the PLDP, again propaganda posters, and copies of various documents and political treatises. The room had all of the trappings of a socialist organization headquarters.

Lewis turned on his devices, waiting for everything to be fully active, glancing from one wall to another as he admired the way in which the room was decorated. He soon received a short message on his computer screen.

"Hello Darius."

He replied. "It is so wonderful to be able to speak with you, Hannibal."

"The pleasure is all mine. Do please tell me what has been going on?"

"I will, but it will take some time to explain. I will prepare a video uplink."

Within a few minutes, the television screen displayed Lewis to the other person, and Lewis resumed his conversation. "Now, as we were."

The television screen showed a hooded man, seated in the shadows of a darkened room, clad in an old coat and reclining back in a large, carved, oaken chair. "I hear that Senaotr Bates will stand trial in two more days." the hooded man said.

"He indeed will, and will also likely be convicted of several felonies which will tarnish his honor and that of the Royalists for years to come."

"So," the hooded man replied, "will you give only a written statement?"

"No, I have sent a message to the court today, expressing that I will be there in person."

"The riots from last week have failed to destabilize the government at all. This will do more than all of them combined, however, and will trigger even more ones. The Royalists will charge that sedition has taken place, but ythey will be powerless to stop it."

"Did I ever say that I will bring up other charges against that meddlesome Bates? He will only appear as a deceiver when I expose the affair that his neice had with--" he said, maliciously smiling, "you know who I speak about."

The man on the other side cackled with laughter, swaying in his seat. He spoke again, after taking some time to recover. "Bates will be well defended, and he will not allow us to do much. Besides, as long as he can assign blame for any future mishaps to revolutionaries, we cannot split apart the union between the National Republicans and the Royalists. We must find someone to use as our tool. Perhaps--"

"Not now, we must get Bates out of the way. We will recruit our new followers later. I must leave soon."

"Very well, I bid you good night, Darius, and remember to communicate with me whenever you may find the opportunity to do so."

Lewis now turned off all of the devices, left the room, and ascended the staircase. He soon found himself in the ground floor of his house.

(OOC: Sod it - I'll start the espionage now. Assume that the people changed their mind about bugging the senate house, and are now focusing their efforts at hacking into the computer systems within the senate, to allow them access to the security footage)

In the shipping crate, the people had assembled again, ready for a new day's work. Developments had meant that many things had to change, the first of which being the tracking of the two heads of this sorry affair: Senator Lewis and Senator Bates. The four agents sat as they were wired up by the technicians, listening to their new brief.

"Since the development that Bates and Lewis are going to court over this argument, the stakes have been raised - tensions are likely to be building. As such, we need to be there when things boil over, so will need to keep track of the two wherever possible. We will be bugging them and keeping a watch on them twenty-four hours a day, so that we can see what they're getting up to. Spot whether either is doing anything that could be seen as revolutionary."
There was a click as one of the hidden microphones was tested behind an agent's ear, followed by a short tapping. A few seconds later, this was repeated in the man's earpiece, a small speaker hidden deep in the man's ear.
"We will have the two teams here following either agent: Alpha team, you will be tracking Lewis. You will need more mobility, since he is giving evidence at the trial, and during the trial will need to keep an eye on him when he is outside of the court room. Since it is unlikely you will be allowed in these areas, you will be observing him from the nearest adjacent building with a clear view on the court rooms. It isn't ideal, but will do for now. Which is why you will try and bug him. You will start by placing a tracking unit on his car, so that we can see if he drives anywhere he shouldn't."

A technician took from a small open box in the corner a round disk, a shiny magnet visible on the one side and the other painted a dull brown with fake dirt and grit attached, placing it in a small empty case.

"Once he has left his house, you will need to infiltrate the house and plant tracking devices in his clothing and the like, so we can follow him. We have five small bugs that can be implanted into clothing etc., proving both microphonic and tracking qualities, streamed direct to anyone with the receiver within a range of two hundred metres.
With that done, make sure you make the place look like there was a break-in: smash a window, set off the alarm once you're outside, and steal his computer. We 'll want a look at that.

Then, you are to follow him everywhere he goes afterwards. You have a LASER microphone you can use, and we have a nice selection of lenses to allow for visual surveillance of the place via your provided camera. Alright?"

-----------------------------------------------------

A few hours later, a tatty hired car drove down the street, the two people inside dressed in overalls. A mechanic and his girlfriend, a toolbox on the back seat. What any observers couldn't see were the two F1 pistols hidden underneath their clothing, or the numerous pieces of espionage and sabotage equipment hidden in the toolbox. Pulling up, the man took out a newspaper and began reading, whilst the girlfriend started texting. Across the street, still lit by streetlamps at this early time, the dwelling place of their target. From here, the two occasionally glanced up, noting the layout of the building and any security. Inside the newspaper, the man had drawn a sketch of the building by the crossword, marking in the locations of important features. He watched as lights flickered on, the household waking up to the new morning.

A few hours later, a tatty hired car drove down the street, the two people inside dressed in overalls. A mechanic and his girlfriend, a toolbox on the back seat. What any observers couldn't see were the two F1 pistols hidden underneath their clothing, or the numerous pieces of espionage and sabotage equipment hidden in the toolbox. Pulling up, the man took out a newspaper and began reading, whilst the girlfriend started texting. Across the street, still lit by streetlamps at this early time, the dwelling place of their target. From here, the two occasionally glanced up, noting the layout of the building and any security. Inside the newspaper, the man had drawn a sketch of the building by the crossword, marking in the locations of important features. He watched as lights flickered on, the household waking up to the new morning.

The household was slow to awake, since the trial was not for another day and Lewis had decided to show up for work in the afternoon, still recovering from his surgery.

Entering the house would be tricky, but not impossible. Lewis' wife was going to leave for the suburbs outside the capital, so that she may visit her sister for the day. Lewis was going to leave for another location later that day.

It isn't ideal, but will do for now. Which is why you will try and bug him. You will start by placing a tracking unit on his car, so that we can see if he drives anywhere he shouldn't."

A technician took from a small open box in the corner a round disk, a shiny magnet visible on the one side and the other painted a dull brown with fake dirt and grit attached, placing it in a small empty case.

The Alfegans had no trouble accessing Lewis' car, which had sat in the driveway, and planting the tracking device on it.

"Once he has left his house, you will need to infiltrate the house and plant tracking devices in his clothing and the like, so we can follow him. We have five small bugs that can be implanted into clothing etc., proving both microphonic and tracking qualities, streamed direct to anyone with the receiver within a range of two hundred metres.


Later that day, the Alfegan agents were able to gain entry to Lewis' house, being able to enter easily and look around. His basement was too large to search at the time. Lewis had been overheard by them talking into his cell phone quite loudly, telling his contact that he would have to return home in two hours. The basement, being filled with old and dusty furnature, was a stuffy and dark place, and quite possibly the ugliest room in the house.

With that done, make sure you make the place look like there was a break-in: smash a window, set off the alarm once you're outside, and steal his computer. We 'll want a look at that.

His computer was located in an office on the second floor. Entering the office was not a problem, but the lock on the door needed picking. Lewis, being a somewhat cautious man, had fitted his computer with an electronic lock, hidden in a compartment in the processor case. It had now triggered a silent alarm, being sent to the location where his contact had been.

OOC:

Lewis owns two computers: the one underground, and the one in his regular home office. The one downstairs would not be easy to steal, since the door to the room is like that of a safe or bank vault. The upstairs one will play a part shortly...

(OOC: ...I guess that works)

The men grabbed the computer and quickly rushed down the stairs, trailing power cables and anything else they could see of importance. Coming to the window, through which they had entered via the use of a brick, the one man climbed out and started taking the objects to the hire car. To ensure the burglars looked authentic, they took the television and any jewellery they could find lying about, before clambering out and leaving.

Quarter of an hour later, the computer sat in the shipping crate, disembowelled with the many various parts strewn across the top of a wooden box.
"Looks like you lot need to be more careful next time: have a look at this."
The technician pointed to a small disk secured tightly to the side of the casing, which he prised off with a large knife before attacking with a power drill.
"A silent alarm - that'll have attracted the attention of whoever had it locked. I'll have a look at it, but be more careful next time - I don't want anyone finding out our location."

Placing the piece to one side, he extracted the computer hard discs, before attaching the wires to a small laptop. Accessing a small utility programme, he began exploring the discs.
"At least the senator was being slightly more careful than you: most of the disc is encrypted. It shouldn't take too long to get what we want from it, but in the mean time you two should be keeping an eye on him."
The stolen TV sat in the corner, run off the mains electric with another cable trailing into one of the large computer units. On it, a map of the city was shown with the location of the five planted bugs in the clothing and jewellery of the Senator, and the location of his car: at work.

Another of the technicians sat nearby, working at the falsifying of a request to the phone operators - to track all his mobile phone calls. He had left a hacking programme to continue to try and gain access to the senate and work office building security network. All the surveillance was coming together on Senator Lewis.

___________________________________

In the upstairs part of a café opposite the dwelling place of Senator Bates, a young couple sat drinking coffee, chatting to each other in English as glanced down at the house nearby. In the street, they could see the Police surveillance unit, an ugly van with false panels indicating that it was some sort of electricians. Opposite, they watched the house of the senator, the open window being necessary by them though it made the surroundings cold: a small LASER microphone sat pointed at the windows where they could see evidence of activity, the recording passing into a small MP3 player and relaying into the woman's headphones.
"Not much really going on at Bate's place is there? I would've thought there'd be more activity after that fiasco."
"Well, I think it was good on Bates for standing up for his views - that Lewis is a nasty piece of work. Still, I hope they manage to settle this down: those fire bombings weren't good at all. To think some people would do that over something like this. Anyway..."

The couple glanced away, the small unit concealed in a sleeve as the waitress came over to take their empty cups.
"I'll have another please."

The men grabbed the computer and quickly rushed down the stairs, trailing power cables and anything else they could see of importance. Coming to the window, through which they had entered via the use of a brick, the one man climbed out and started taking the objects to the hire car. To ensure the burglars looked authentic, they took the television and any jewellery they could find lying about, before clambering out and leaving.

Quarter of an hour later, the computer sat in the shipping crate, disembowelled with the many various parts strewn across the top of a wooden box.
"Looks like you lot need to be more careful next time: have a look at this."
The technician pointed to a small disk secured tightly to the side of the casing, which he prised off with a large knife before attacking with a power drill.
"A silent alarm - that'll have attracted the attention of whoever had it locked. I'll have a look at it, but be more careful next time - I don't want anyone finding out our location."

Placing the piece to one side, he extracted the computer hard discs, before attaching the wires to a small laptop. Accessing a small utility programme, he began exploring the discs.
"At least the senator was being slightly more careful than you: most of the disc is encrypted. It shouldn't take too long to get what we want from it, but in the mean time you two should be keeping an eye on him."
The stolen TV sat in the corner, run off the mains electric with another cable trailing into one of the large computer units. On it, a map of the city was shown with the location of the five planted bugs in the clothing and jewellery of the Senator, and the location of his car: at work.

Another of the technicians sat nearby, working at the falsifying of a request to the phone operators - to track all his mobile phone calls. He had left a hacking programme to continue to try and gain access to the senate and work office building security network. All the surveillance was coming together on Senator Lewis.

Senator Lewis returned home in the afternoon, having changed his plans in the middle of the day, when he had found out that his attorney had to be somewhere else, thus requiring him to cancel his appointment. He instead showed up early for work, quietly watching the legislation being modified and debated, and occasionally making a comment on the wording of a particular piece or casting a preliminary vote on some obscure provision or another.

When he had arrived hoem, he found the site of the "burglery", and spoke with police officers later as they investigated the crime scene. Lewis was distraught, as he had personal and financial information on his hard drive, but was confident that he would not be scammed, since the local task force dedicated to stopping identity theft and fraud was now already in action. He went back to the basement and hour later, after his window was boarded up and the police had left. Pulling aside the bookcase in the adjoining room, and proceeding as usual down the stairs, he unlocked the thick steel door to his secret opffice and contacted the mysterious Hannibal.

Soon, he was discussing the burglery and possible losses with him, and was notified that the silent alram had been successfully triggered. Several files, containing duplicate information to what he had stored downstairs had been erased automatically. They were no more than planned propaganda posters and possible arguments which he would give at debates, but still, such things had streaks of his darker personality woven into them, things which he would not want to have disclosed to the general public.

"Hannibal, my computer was stolen, along with a television set and several other articles. The secret information contained on its hard drive, however, should be gone by now, and we should not be compomised. Still, we must be careful. I will put the next part of my plan into action."

"Darius, you really outdo yourself. What did you have in mind?"

"I will recruit the porter of a local synagogue to fire off a gun as my 'motorcade' passes by on the way to the courthouse tomorrow. Then, when the 'assassination' has been foiled, I will blame a nonexistant Jewish sect on the matter. This will divide the Royalists, sowing dissent among them."

"You are indeed a well-bred political assassin. The monarchy will find itself under attack, and public approval will begin to decline."

"Whoever is responsible, they are experienced at stealing things. We must investigate."

"Not now, I have other work to do. Wait, I think I hear something. I must leave."

The screen went blank and Lewis began to shut down his other computer and the related equipment. He soon went back upstairs, and enjoyed some time to eat his dinner, contemplating how he would finish the work that he had set out to do.

In the upstairs part of a café opposite the dwelling place of Senator Bates, a young couple sat drinking coffee, chatting to each other in English as glanced down at the house nearby. In the street, they could see the Police surveillance unit, an ugly van with false panels indicating that it was some sort of electricians. Opposite, they watched the house of the senator, the open window being necessary by them though it made the surroundings cold: a small LASER microphone sat pointed at the windows where they could see evidence of activity, the recording passing into a small MP3 player and relaying into the woman's headphones.
"Not much really going on at Bate's place is there? I would've thought there'd be more activity after that fiasco."
"Well, I think it was good on Bates for standing up for his views - that Lewis is a nasty piece of work. Still, I hope they manage to settle this down: those fire bombings weren't good at all. To think some people would do that over something like this. Anyway..."

The couple glanced away, the small unit concealed in a sleeve as the waitress came over to take their empty cups.
"I'll have another please."

Bates, who lived in an uptown district of the capital, was busy meeting with his attorney. Bates and his attorney walked up to his second floor office, overlooking the charming streets running through his neighborhood, which was dotted with parks and small shops. His office had become stuffy and hot, since he needed it that way to satisfy his picky uncle, who was visiting early for Christmas, but had not yet cooled it down after he left. He opened up both of its windows before the attorney had arrived. Now, with the cool air flooding in, and his conversation about to begin, the Alfegans had much to listen to.

In the shipping crate, a picture of the Army Intelligence General appeared on the screen, coming through on the embassy's own encrypted channel to be with them.
"The Ministry Advisory council of the War Ministry have met up and done some talking. We've been through the hard drive remnants, and found in the deletion logs multiple files that were deleted when that alarm unit was activated. As of yet, we've been unable to reconstruct the files, but from it we can see that he was obviously hiding something, and that something well.

As such, we've decided to raise the stakes a little. We need to get him completely under surveillance, and the use of a landline bug in the phone is unlikely to work - he must already be suspicious. He'll also have guessed by now that we're tracking all his mobile phone calls via a false request from the Police, so will be reverting to the internet and landlines. Therefore, you two tasked with Senator Lewis will be doing some unscheduled maintenance on the local telephone exchange. You'll be implanting a fibre-optic tap into the signal lines, to pick up everything going in and out of his home. Landlines, any computers you missed... if he's hiding something, we'll be picking up on it.
The unit acts as a standard relay unit, which a casual tap scan will pick up as said unit: the reflections will hint at nothing suspicious.
There are no scheduled checkups on that unit either within the next six months, meaning we are perfectly safe to assume it will be undetected. The unit will stream via a bridge onto the embassy line to us here, meaning we will have to find some excuse for the increased traffic. But, that should give us some insight.

In the mean time, keep a weapon with you at all times: the Foreign Travel Advisory Office is discussing whether to increase the advisory to 'Essential Travel Only' to the capital and major cities. That should hopefully put some pressure on the Monavian senate to try and sort this mess out, and maybe get the local intelligence offices to pull their fingers out. We will drop them a line if we need to, due to our level of co-operation from them being a fellow Union member. But until then, they aren't your friends and they will likely assume that you are hostiles. Best of luck."

_________________________

The battered second-hand car again stood parked outside a building: the District Telephone exchange. The two people inside the car were dressed in much smarter suits, and both had official documents printed in the name of Fegonet Telecom. Both had been briefed to be interested parties from the company, performing a surprise visit to look upon the operations of the exchange in light of them being known in the financial markets to be considering a deal with the Monavian governments in terms of introducing the country to Ultra-high Speed Mesolite Broadband and Telemetry. To add authenticity, anyone checking would be redirected on behalf of the War Ministry to the Intelligence Department, where they would be able to confirm the company indeed had spent the two representatives.

The two figures left the vehicle, before proceeding over to the building entrance. Entering in the foyer, they walked over to the reception area before introducing themselves.
"Good day. I am Xha'hai, and this is my collegue Hei'dai Yui'soim, and we are here on behalf of Fegonet Telecommunications International. We are sorry for the lack of notification, but would it be possible for us to have a look around the exchange?"

In the shipping crate, a picture of the Army Intelligence General appeared on the screen, coming through on the embassy's own encrypted channel to be with them.
"The Ministry Advisory council of the War Ministry have met up and done some talking. We've been through the hard drive remnants, and found in the deletion logs multiple files that were deleted when that alarm unit was activated. As of yet, we've been unable to reconstruct the files, but from it we can see that he was obviously hiding something, and that something well.

Two hours later, as the computer analysts continued to examine the encrypted and deleted files, they came across a deletion code, which was able to be rewritten so that one of the files could be restored. What they found was no more than a series of degraded images and some text, but it contained several propaganda messages and poster designs. They were still under construction and being edited when they were deleted, as evidenced by comments and notes that Lewis had left attached, indicating that he had needed to improve them.

Even as the night hours had worn on, however, the majority of the files couln not be salvaged or reconstructed. There was a deletion feedback system, which further degraded and deleted the data, sometimes purging it from the system altogether, with every individual attempt to recopnstruct some of the files. In some cases, nothing was left by the time the codes were broken.

In the mean time, keep a weapon with you at all times: the Foreign Travel Advisory Office is discussing whether to increase the advisory to 'Essential Travel Only' to the capital and major cities. That should hopefully put some pressure on the Monavian senate to try and sort this mess out, and maybe get the local intelligence offices to pull their fingers out. We will drop them a line if we need to, due to our level of co-operation from them being a fellow Union member. But until then, they aren't your friends and they will likely assume that you are hostiles. Best of luck."

After the break-in, the MNIA (Monavian National Intelligence Administration) was sent some messages from the local police headquarters. They stated their suspicions in the messages, saying that the break-in was a possible sign that outside forces or revolutionaries may be involved. This was the cue that they had been waiting for. In the early morning, they would send a team of operatives to investigate any possible activity.

Late that night, around 2:00, a general statement was sent to all intelligence sharing networks. It was expected that the night shift personnel would sort it out and present it to their superiors later.

The statement read:

TO ALL FEGOSIAN UNION AND DELIAN LEAGUE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES:

STATUS: CONFIDENTIAL

It has come to the attention of the MNIA that there might be a possible underground or criminal operation taking place in the inner districts of the capital. A recent break-in has occurred at the private residence of Senator Lewis, which was accompanied by the theft of a computer and several other pieces of property.

While we do not believe entirely that it may be politically motivated, the incident has exacerbated the current situation, since rival factions within the government will be fighting over how to assign responsibility for the act and determine the identity of the offending individuals.

Due to the possibility that foreign agents and other such extraneous people may be involved, counterespionage units are being activated. If any other agencies have any information that may be of possible benefit to out current investigation, we require that is it sent to us at the soonest appropriate time.

OOC:

Expect some more detail on the thread Of State Interest.

Union Operations
Espionage Division
Joint Intelligence Office
New Zevkhay, Alfegos

The head of the operation in Monavia was facing a dilemma quite like the may others he had had to face in his career. Only this time, much more at stake with either option. He re-read the forwarded telegram from the Joint Intelligence Command Bureau, a piece of paper in front of him scribbled with his own notes as to what to do. He finally made up his mind, rolling in his chair from his desk to a small safe, opening it with an iris scan to allow access to his secure laptop and operational documents. First was to write a message to the Monavians, to be broadcast on the Fegosian Union VLF encrypted radio channel.

---------------------

FOR THE EYES OF MONAVIAN INTELLIGENCE CHIEF(S) ONLY

STATUS: MOST CONFIDENTIAL

On the subject of the involvement of foreign forces in the breaking and entering of the Senator Lewis's accommodation, we are able to impart information as to the nationality and purpose of these forces.
To ensure such information is kept between those necessary, due to its sensitivity, we will arrange a meeting in your nation for such to be discussed.

Please dispatch the relevant Intelligence Chief to the Alfegos Embassy in the Monavian capital, where intelligence officials will be able to discuss the aforementioned information.

---------------------

A microwave hummed in the corner of the room, a bagged meal being heated in the product that had previously spent its life serving the household of Senator Lewis. Next to it, the television screen showing the position of the tracking bugs planted on both the senator's car and in his personal items flickered as a message started streaming. Flicking a switch at one of the computer desks, one of the technicians turned to see their operational head onscreen

"I'll make this brief. The Monavians suspect foul play by a foreign or paramilitary organisation in the case of Senator Lewis's house, and it'll be likely a short time till they start pointing fingers. As such, we've organised a meeting for you to tell them the whole truth. Don't give away anything on our current active surveillance, but tell them what our purpose is. I'm gambling on this giving us more in the way of co-operation from their intelligence services, so we need not bug so much government property, and not the alternative.
Their intelligence officials will be arriving at the embassy, so ensure the field head is there, along with another of you to act as backup in case things get physical. I've already messaged the embassy to direct them to the conference room, where you will talk. Make sure you run a bug scan beforehand, and activate an audio or radio jammer during the meeting to stop anyone picking up anything they shouldn't. Make sure you draw the curtains as well, so they can't LASER mike you.
Anything from you?"
"Sir, this is unexpected. I won't question your judgement, but it is a risky plan. Will you be present by video link?"
"No. I will be present in person: I'm actually in a ministry jet at this moment, and should be arriving in a few hours."
"Thank you sir. Another point is that the information on the hard disc that was deleted has been partially recovered: a nice little programme had been put on there corrupting the files with each attempt, so we've only been partially successful. We might send the discs back for full analysis, but that's likely not to have any point.
What was on the discs is interesting. I'm sending to your laptop now the reconstructed files: they're mostly incomplete propaganda posters and images. Whilst they're not hard proof that Lewis is up to something, I do believe it is enough to shift all our attention on to Lewis - he might be plotting some kind of coup."
"I'll decide. Make sure you have those images at hand to present to the party they send to show our breaking and entering was not all pointless. And I'll try and make sure you can get some satellite feed."

That morning, MNIA Director James Cheney arrived at his normal workplace, where he was given the message from the Alfegan intelligence offices. He read through the transcript as he contemplated how he would respond. Once he had finished, he took a few minutes to down a cup of coffee and prepare for the meeting. He would depart in half an hour.

Cheney soon made his way down to the front parking lot, where he got into his jet black sedan and drove away surreptitiously from the complex. He stopped only to pass the guard at the front gate and at two intersections, where the lights had turned red.

After a short, quiet commute, Cheney arrived at the Alfegan Embassy, where he showed his clearance card and drove into the parking garage. He then strode over to the main entrance, his graying hair being blown aside in the soft breeze that was blowing through the city.

Cheney, a man of about fifty or so, had spent much of his time as an analyst, and later, as an operative. He soon found himself in various administrative positions, before being appointed to the directorship. His narrow figure cast a long shadow at the entrance as he approached the front doors, as the rising sun behind him seemed to leave a halo enveloping his head.

After entering the lobby, he sat in one of the chairs near the entrance, as he waited for his contact to arrive.

---------------------

The Alfegan team was eventually able to recover several damaged files relating to Senator Lewis' plans for his work in the Senate. One of them in particualr caught their interest, as the others were normal political wrangling. It read much like a diary entry.

MAY 4, 2008

Vote against the latest appropriations bill, which allows for a collective monetary fund to be established. It's a [censored] abomination which will allow anyone to draw money out, provided that they will pay it back within three months. What the [censored] happened to good old-fashioned earmarking! Bates and his Royalist cronies are probavly behind this.

MAY 5, 2008

The bill passed by a narrow margin, mainly on partisan lines, but it will not deter me. Several Ropyalists voted against it, and Bates, being the primary sponsor, has recentl;y lost some of his popularity. His approval ratings are down. I will unseat him in the next election, even if it means burying some skeletons in his closet thta are not his.

---------------------

Meanwhile, at the house of Senator Bates, the stuffy office was being opened up as Bates opened several windows to let out the hot air. One of them allowed the laser microphone to pick up on his conversation.

"Mr. Blair, you do know that Lewis has the advantage in this contest. At least for now, as the court date is the day after tomorrow."

"I do, Senator, but let's be reasonable. Lewis has nothing on you besides the violent incident in the Senate Chamber."

"I am referring to something more secret, something that is not widely known."

"What could that possibly be?" asked the lawyer. "I'm shocked to hear that anything could exist which can ruin you in court."

"It's that affair I am referring to...the one between my neice and--"

"It's only a rumor, isn't it?" Blair asked, his voice rising in pitch as his face grew worried.

"No, I am afraid not. She was not havin any old affair. She was having one of a more...illicit kind."

"What, if I may ask?" the lawyer inquired sheepishly.

"She...knew somebody else. Somebody who, if discovered, would make cries of political treason fly across the country." he stammered.

"Who?"

"She is 'in love', or more like infatuated beyond measure, with a PLDP member. One who I cannot discuss here. This location is not secure enough to do that safely."

"I can understand your deep concerns. After what has been going on with Senator Lewis and the break-in at his house, he will be quite suspicious of anything that may happen."

"That is why I will have to keep my property under watch. My land lines are being secured by MNIA agents at the District Telephone Exchange, so that they cannot be tampered with. I am also having my cellular network being policed by a private security contractor.

"This should ensure some degree of security. Yet, no system is perfect. Now, as for the charges?"

"The charge about misusing public funds was filed by some PLDP big wigs, who badly want you gone, and besides, they were trumped up, as best as I can understand. Their whole argument revolves around your withdrawal of monies from that communal fund you sponsored. You paid those back, just without any interest."

"The interest was not required. They can pull any stunt that they wish."

"Well then, if you will excuse me, I will get some coffee downstairs."

The lawyer left for Bates' kitchen, returning a few minutes later.

---------------------

Senator Lewis continued to grow suspicious as evening approached. He ate dinner as usual, and then spent some time lying on his couch, as he watched the evening news. His interest soon waned, as there was little in the way of any changes in the locale where he lived. He soon traversed the distance between the living room and his hidden "office" underground.

He was soon speaking with his contact, mostly about trial strategies and the like. However, he was soon interrupted.

"By the way, what news do you have about the porter who ids to take part in our little escapade tomorrow?"

"He could not handle the difficulty of the assignment. He 'chickened out' as you would say."

"We will have to explore some alternative." the hooded man said, his voice growing irritated.

"I will find what we need. A public statement will help. I will, however, wait for the best moment to deliver my next attack."

From the shipping crate, the operations head watched through a tiny gap in the door as a car pulled up, at the time they had expected. A camera clicked quietly as they took stills of the man's head, before running them into the computer. A few seconds later, with data flicked to and from the Intelligence Department, they had their result.
"We have confirmation that your contact is valid. So, how are you going to play this?"
One of the technicians had turned around, a worried look on his face. All now stood frozen to see what their head's response would be, the three awake technicians turned to face him, whilst the team assigned to Lewis paused in the midst of cleaning their already-gleaming sidearms.
"I'll tell him the truth. As I was told. Once you finish those printouts of the documents off the captured hard drives, I'll be off to talk to him. Since you lot are all meant to be as busy as nobody's business, I'm off by myself to do this. I'll talk to him for an hour tops. If you see me leave the embassy or I'm not back, assume the entire mission has been compromised, and clear up shop."

A few minutes later, the receptionist in the embassy foyer left the front desk to walk over to the seated man who had arrived previously, and unlike the previous visitor who had been here on a matter of a visa, seemed to have no business of that matter. She had been warned of a 'special' visitor in advance, one of the occasional people she was told not to record in the entry logs, and who never appeared on security footage.
"Sir, if you could please follow me to the conference room. He is waiting for you there."
The receptionist quickly paced across the granite entrance hall to a glass side door, leading to a further network of tiled corridors, walled with light hard-woods imported from Alfegos and lit by LED lights. At the end, a carved door stood with a small metal plaque as an indication of it being the destination. The women used a thumb print on the scanner by its side to gain access, a small green light shining above the door as it slid open.

Inside, a man stood at the end of the table, a large metal construction in the centre of the stone floor. Small fold-out panels built into the surface at twenty points marked places around the oval, truncated at the two head places. Light came in through a wall-length glass window, tinted to stop anyone on the outside from seeing within. Even so, the man drew the blinds across the window, before turning on the warming lighting around the room. The final preparation he made was to place a small dark pebble in the centre of the table, as the secretary left hurriedly, the door locking behind her.

"Good day to you, Mr Cheney. I have not been allowed to divulge my true name for personal security purposes, so will use the alias Tai Kha'no. As you are aware, Alfegos has information very relevant to the current mess involving both Senator Lewis and Bates.
Before we get to business, I wish to ask you whether you have any devices you should not have on you, both of the bugging variety and of the offensive variety. Whilst I have a jamming unit scrambling any electronic signals leaving this room, and the room is secure from a previous run over, I would like to ensure that whatever is said in this room will stay in this room. Then I would like your permission to scan you for any such devices you may unwittingly have on your person to make sure. After that, some coffee, and then to what we need to discuss.

I am a field head, with my operational head currently in transit to the embassy. Whilst he will not be here for a while, I am able at any time on your request to put in a secure line to both him and, if you are still not satisfied, to the Overseas Intelligence Office head for any questions you wish to pose."

He smiled briefly before he removed a small handheld EMF detector from an inside pocket and extended the aerial.

A few minutes later, the receptionist in the embassy foyer left the front desk to walk over to the seated man who had arrived previously, and unlike the previous visitor who had been here on a matter of a visa, seemed to have no business of that matter. She had been warned of a 'special' visitor in advance, one of the occasional people she was told not to record in the entry logs, and who never appeared on security footage.
"Sir, if you could please follow me to the conference room. He is waiting for you there."
The receptionist quickly paced across the granite entrance hall to a glass side door, leading to a further network of tiled corridors, walled with light hard-woods imported from Alfegos and lit by LED lights. At the end, a carved door stood with a small metal plaque as an indication of it being the destination. The women used a thumb print on the scanner by its side to gain access, a small green light shining above the door as it slid open.

Inside, a man stood at the end of the table, a large metal construction in the centre of the stone floor. Small fold-out panels built into the surface at twenty points marked places around the oval, truncated at the two head places. Light came in through a wall-length glass window, tinted to stop anyone on the outside from seeing within. Even so, the man drew the blinds across the window, before turning on the warming lighting around the room. The final preparation he made was to place a small dark pebble in the centre of the table, as the secretary left hurriedly, the door locking behind her.

Mr. Cheney had waited for all of a few minutes before he was brought down the hall to the meeting room by the receptionist. He glanced rapidly at the architectural and decorative scheme of the hallway as he proceeded down towards the door. Upon entering, he walked beside the metal table, its surface reflecting the ceiling and laid out in a somewhat unusual fashion in comparison to what he had seen previously.

"Good day to you, Mr Cheney. I have not been allowed to divulge my true name for personal security purposes, so will use the alias Tai Kha'no. As you are aware, Alfegos has information very relevant to the current mess involving both Senator Lewis and Bates.

"I bid you a good day as well, sir. Mr. Tai Kha'no, I was sent to receive this information because of the sensitivity of the situation concerning Senator Lewis and the burglery at his residence." he said.

Before we get to business, I wish to ask you whether you have any devices you should not have on you, both of the bugging variety and of the offensive variety. Whilst I have a jamming unit scrambling any electronic signals leaving this room, and the room is secure from a previous run over, I would like to ensure that whatever is said in this room will stay in this room. Then I would like your permission to scan you for any such devices you may unwittingly have on your person to make sure. After that, some coffee, and then to what we need to discuss.

"Sir, I have no objection to your security measues thus far. Invading the privacy of an embassy would be a severe breach of diplomatic protocol and a violation of the trust which was gained through so much effort in signing the recent Fegosian Union Charter.

"I can personally assure you that I possess no such devices at this time, and would not plan on doing so. Still, I would rather p5rotect the information disclosed to me here than be made into a bafoon for inadvertantly permitting it to leave this place." He removed his coat and lain it on one of the chairs as thw room began to warm.

I am a field head, with my operational head currently in transit to the embassy. Whilst he will not be here for a while, I am able at any time on your request to put in a secure line to both him and, if you are still not satisfied, to the Overseas Intelligence Office head for any questions you wish to pose."


"Your offer is most generous, and I will make use of its services whenever it is necessary, though such should not be the case if we are fortunate. Since you have gone through the trouble of coming here and delivering this intelligence, I can only assume that its importance is sufficient to warrant a briefing under these conditions." he said as his eye glanced at the pebble on the table. Something about was significant, otherwise it would not occupy such a central position within the confines of the room, or for that matter, be displayed in plain view.

He smiled briefly before he removed a small handheld EMF detector from an inside pocket and extended the aerial.

Mr. Cheney turned himself a small degree, perhaps enough to be noticable from a short distance, but not so much as to be noticed by anyone across the room.

The agent in the room quickly ran the aerial over the man's front and back, checking the small dial on it as it searched for electromagnetic fields. When satisfied, he closed the aerial and replaced the unit, before gesturing to a seat.
"Please sit down. But, I will get straight to the business at hand."

He reached into a small case, before removing an envelope marked "LEWIS". Inside were the paper copies of the documents found on Senator Lewis's computer, each marked on the obverse with the text 'Alpha-04'. He pushed the papers across the table to the Monavian, before tapping the pebble idly.
"Those sheets are copies of documents we were able to recover from the hard drive of Senator Lewis. I hope you are able to make light of them in the same way that we did. Especially if you read the notes found attached to each file as well.
You will ask me how we got that, of course. As I said, I am a field head, in charge of a field operation. In this case, it is the investigation into the arguments that Bates and Lewis hold, and into anything sinister arising from it. In this case, I believe that this is at least enough information to continue our operation here.
We do apologise to your government for the furore that we may have stirred up from the collection of data from the senator's place of residence, but the evidence we have gathered means that we have means to believe that he is up to something."

He picked up the pebble and squeezed it nervously in his hand, waiting for the reaction of the man in front of him, the object not even deforming slightly in his damp palms.

OOC:

Please excuse my recent two week absence. I have had a hard drive crash which resulted in me being cut off from the Internet for some time.

IC:

The agent in the room quickly ran the aerial over the man's front and back, checking the small dial on it as it searched for electromagnetic fields. When satisfied, he closed the aerial and replaced the unit, before gesturing to a seat.
"Please sit down. But, I will get straight to the business at hand."

"Very well, you may continue."

He reached into a small case, before removing an envelope marked "LEWIS". Inside were the paper copies of the documents found on Senator Lewis's computer, each marked on the obverse with the text 'Alpha-04'. He pushed the papers across the table to the Monavian, before tapping the pebble idly.

Cheney was somewhat unnerved by what he saw. "This is unusual...I would have never expected there to be any operations going on here."

"Those sheets are copies of documents we were able to recover from the hard drive of Senator Lewis. I hope you are able to make light of them in the same way that we did. Especially if you read the notes found attached to each file as well.
You will ask me how we got that, of course. As I said, I am a field head, in charge of a field operation. In this case, it is the investigation into the arguments that Bates and Lewis hold, and into anything sinister arising from it. In this case, I believe that this is at least enough information to continue our operation here.
We do apologise to your government for the furore that we may have stirred up from the collection of data from the senator's place of residence, but the evidence we have gathered means that we have means to believe that he is up to something."

"So, your government had ordered the search because of your suspicions. Are there any other agencies cooperating in this operation, or are the Alfegans the only ones involved?"

He briefly paused, growing slightly irritated. "I have had, for some time, my personal suspicions of Senator Lewis. I could never prove anything illegal, however, and no operations were really planned until rumors of a secret underground organization, to which Senator Lewis had possible ties began to arise."

He picked up the pebble and squeezed it nervously in his hand, waiting for the reaction of the man in front of him, the object not even deforming slightly in his damp palms.

Cheney eyed the pebble suspiciously. This was not an ordinary rock to him, and somehow it was important.

"I must know if there is anything else you can tell me about the search which you are conducting."

For now, it seemed, the Alfegan operation was off the hook. The man surveyed the reactions of his counterpart, before placing the pebble carefully down on the table, letting it spin for a moment as it landed on the metal surface. For anyone paying very close attention, the pebble seemed to hover for a moment before hitting the table, making a quiet clang out of place with the way he had placed it down, and with its apparent weight.

"As far as I am aware, sir, there are none of our operations within Monavia which have been, will be or are presently being assisted by foreign operatives, save from your nation and mine, depending upon your viewpoint of foreign.
As for what we have been doing, I have been given permission to inform you of all current operations run by our team here. Before you ask, I do not know of the existence of any other Alfegan operations save our own in your nation, from which you can draw your own conclusions."

He paused for a moment as he racked his mind, before speaking, ensuring he had remembered all of them.

"In addition to the raid and installation of bugging equipment in Lewis's house, clothing and vehicle, we also have Senator Bates under constant surveillance by a team. Furthermore, we have a remote system hack in place of the government buildings and of Senator Lewis's office, allowing us to view CCTV footage from the buildings whenever is necessary, and are currently attempting to install a hack into Lewis's residential area telephone lines at the telephone exchange, so that we can monitor his every call.

I know that the majority of these operations count as espionage, which means that me and my team could quite rightfully be executed by your nation, or at least imprisoned for a long length of time. I have a few reasons though to urge you to otherwise not do so. The first is that we are working for a common cause - to solve a potential problem that will affect both of our nations. The second is that we have tried at every stage not to infringe more than is necessary upon your national security, so meaning that anything we have done is merely superficial, especially in light of attempting to preserve your national security.

Thus, I propose that, since we are unlikely to get anything done by working against each other, would it be possible for our two services to co-operate? You have the domestic information that would enable you to track and pin down any further anomalies, and we have the men on the ground and the budget to perform the more physical operations. As well as the 'tools'."

He took a sidewards glance at the pebble, before picking it up and passing it over to the man.

"Just as a taster of what we are able to bring down if we need to on any civil uprisings, as well as a gesture of good will. I've seen you looking at it for most of the meeting, and I guess you realise it isn't any ordinary pebble. It is, in a way, the reason why the room is so secure, both for us and the information we are exchanging. I guess you will want to know what it is. I will let your technical staff work out its function, but I would strongly suggest that you keep it at least a metre away from any sensitive electrical devices, such as a laptop. Tell them that it is more a device of sabotage rather than espionage."

The pebble was curiously heavy, with a strange attraction towards the steel table, even though it was a few feet away. Its entire surface was as one piece, polished smooth as if by a river and with no signs to the visible eye of anything out of place.

"Enjoy it. Just try not to drop it. Your technical staff will figure that one out."

For now, it seemed, the Alfegan operation was off the hook. The man surveyed the reactions of his counterpart, before placing the pebble carefully down on the table, letting it spin for a moment as it landed on the metal surface. For anyone paying very close attention, the pebble seemed to hover for a moment before hitting the table, making a quiet clang out of place with the way he had placed it down, and with its apparent weight.

"As far as I am aware, sir, there are none of our operations within Monavia which have been, will be or are presently being assisted by foreign operatives, save from your nation and mine, depending upon your viewpoint of foreign.
As for what we have been doing, I have been given permission to inform you of all current operations run by our team here. Before you ask, I do not know of the existence of any other Alfegan operations save our own in your nation, from which you can draw your own conclusions."

"This is good. I would expect other nations, such as Zaheran or Lamoni to send operatives as well, knowing how close their ties with us are and our involvement with their alliances, or, for that matter, any other members of the Delian League or Fegosian Union.

He carefully examined the documents that were found inside of the computer. "Senator Lewis was a bit of a radical, in some capacities, yet he was never known for wanting to incite revolution. This appears suspicious, but is barely circumstancial." He then noticed the small amount of what was actually collected. "Is this all you could find? I find it odd that you could not recover much more information than this."

He paused for a moment as he racked his mind, before speaking, ensuring he had remembered all of them.

"In addition to the raid and installation of bugging equipment in Lewis's house, clothing and vehicle, we also have Senator Bates under constant surveillance by a team. Furthermore, we have a remote system hack in place of the government buildings and of Senator Lewis's office, allowing us to view CCTV footage from the buildings whenever is necessary, and are currently attempting to install a hack into Lewis's residential area telephone lines at the telephone exchange, so that we can monitor his every call.

"This soounds almost like a standard police investigation. I am surprised that they did not do any of this. Obviously, this latest incident of violence caused some trouble, but still, nothing illicit was suspected about either party."

I know that the majority of these operations count as espionage, which means that me and my team could quite rightfully be executed by your nation, or at least imprisoned for a long length of time. I have a few reasons though to urge you to otherwise not do so. The first is that we are working for a common cause - to solve a potential problem that will affect both of our nations. The second is that we have tried at every stage not to infringe more than is necessary upon your national security, so meaning that anything we have done is merely superficial, especially in light of attempting to preserve your national security.

Thus, I propose that, since we are unlikely to get anything done by working against each other, would it be possible for our two services to co-operate? You have the domestic information that would enable you to track and pin down any further anomalies, and we have the men on the ground and the budget to perform the more physical operations. As well as the 'tools'."

"While these operations are most certainly illegal, in many more ways than I could probably name at the present, at least without consulting a legal guide, your motives must force me to relocate my sympathies on this matter. Should this become a subject at a trial in a court of law, the best defense would be to claim that your leadership believed that our government was compromised, and that as allies, you were ordered to carry out these operations in order to preserve the integrity of the Empire and its security.

"Also, given what you have told me, I can now shed new light upon this otherwise shrouded conundrum. Being in my position, I can safely cover up this series of investigation, and keep counterintelligence operatives out, until I can arrange a guise that you were called in later. Still, there may be some questions about this, which is why I must give you these instructions.

"As soon as the trial is over, or your operations are complete, whichever comes first, you are advised to finish it and leave with your personnel and equipment, preferably as soon as necessary. You should not expand your investigations, but rather retain what current operations within as they are, unless you are advised by me to do otherwise."

He took a sidewards glance at the pebble, before picking it up and passing it over to the man.

"Just as a taster of what we are able to bring down if we need to on any civil uprisings, as well as a gesture of good will. I've seen you looking at it for most of the meeting, and I guess you realise it isn't any ordinary pebble. It is, in a way, the reason why the room is so secure, both for us and the information we are exchanging. I guess you will want to know what it is. I will let your technical staff work out its function, but I would strongly suggest that you keep it at least a metre away from any sensitive electrical devices, such as a laptop. Tell them that it is more a device of sabotage rather than espionage."

The pebble was curiously heavy, with a strange attraction towards the steel table, even though it was a few feet away. Its entire surface was as one piece, polished smooth as if by a river and with no signs to the visible eye of anything out of place.

"Enjoy it. Just try not to drop it. Your technical staff will figure that one out."

"I would believe that it is just as likely to be natural as it is to be made synthetically."

The man stood in thought for a brief moment, before speaking.
"Your restrictions on the scope of our operations, whilst well-founded, may compromise the current investigation if we are unable to pursue leads on the character of Senator Lewis, our man of the moment. We will of course inform you if we are carrying out any operations beyond the current scope of investigation, especially if it leads to something such as sabotage.

As you can guess, we have tried to keep ourselves below public view, though our removal of the computer from the Senator's house may have been difficult. I am sure that your government could put a spin on it for now - if you want, we have sufficient loose ends that we could manufacture for the police and other branches of the intelligence agencies to pursue ad infinitum.

The operations we will continue on Lewis will, as you can assume, be more extensive. Whilst we would be suspicious of such information that we actually recovered, when we removed the computer we found that the majority of files had been corrupted, and of the files we could assemble none of them seemed of gross importance. Therefore, we must assume at the existence of other computers in which data is concealed. As such an operation would involve much more stealthy insertion into the house of Senator Lewis, we would like to request either for a joint team of Alfegan and Monavian operatives to search his home, and try recover any more media devices. Since you could arrange this, a police operation as cover would be sufficient.
I have a hunch that the Senator is hiding something. If you can get us the Police operation cover, I can guarantee you that we will get you results."

Cheney looked at the documents again. "Typical," he said, "Lewis misspells things when he is furious about something. The whole basis for the charges of misuse of public funds is tied into the collective fund which Senator Bates had sponsored. Lewis is hoping to convict him on that, but it will not work. I hear that those charges may be dropped."

Taking a moment to think, he then issued a correction. "Actually, they may not be dropped. I thought so at first, but now I believe that he may try to pursue them, in order to cast a shadow upon Bates' character."

"Your restrictions on the scope of our operations, whilst well-founded, may compromise the current investigation if we are unable to pursue leads on the character of Senator Lewis, our man of the moment. We will of course inform you if we are carrying out any operations beyond the current scope of investigation, especially if it leads to something such as sabotage.

As you can guess, we have tried to keep ourselves below public view, though our removal of the computer from the Senator's house may have been difficult. I am sure that your government could put a spin on it for now - if you want, we have sufficient loose ends that we could manufacture for the police and other branches of the intelligence agencies to pursue ad infinitum.

"I understand your prediciment, but I cannot be any more lenient about these restrictions for a while, as public interest is still too strong. Scrutiny by the populace must die down some more if your operations can be safely expanded without any interference.

"The removal of the computer can be disguised. The police are stumped, and I can drop them a brief communication through a secure line about where to pursue a possible lead elsewhere, which shall turn up dead. I must, however, obtain access to the parts of the computer, in order to plant it elsewhere."

The operations we will continue on Lewis will, as you can assume, be more extensive. Whilst we would be suspicious of such information that we actually recovered, when we removed the computer we found that the majority of files had been corrupted, and of the files we could assemble none of them seemed of gross importance. Therefore, we must assume at the existence of other computers in which data is concealed.

"I find it highly suspicious that the files had been corrupted. I would never have expected that. Did you damage the computer as you removed it?" He paused to think again, concentrating on finding out how this could happen. "I should probably take a look at the computer before planting it in a good location," he said.

As such an operation would involve much more stealthy insertion into the house of Senator Lewis, we would like to request either for a joint team of Alfegan and Monavian operatives to search his home, and try recover any more media devices. Since you could arrange this, a police operation as cover would be sufficient.
I have a hunch that the Senator is hiding something. If you can get us the Police operation cover, I can guarantee you that we will get you results."

"I can provide you with such cover, but the search can also be classified as a training exercise and so forth, with additional reasons being added on as needed."

Cheney was momentarily lost in thought. "Tomorrow morning, bring yourself and one of your superiors, if possible, to the MNIA Headquarters. I may have something you should hear about."

"I guess then that we have an agreement. I will accept your compromised deal, since I guess that's the best that could reasonably be expected. We will inform you of course whether we have anything that we wish to do, so that we don't move ourselves further into the predicament we are in.

So, tomorrow, you wish to see me at your intelligence headquarters? Since you were generous enough to agree to this meeting, we will reciprocate that by coming as you said. My superior, who as I said is flying into Monavia, will also be present, though he may want to ask similar questions to you as I have already. We will bring the computer with you - as you can assume, us keeping the precise whereabouts of our operations secret is critical to our success, so that we don't end up with your police on our backs. I hope that you can enlighten us tomorrow as you have this morning.

Now, if you would excuse me, unless we have any other matters at hand then I must say my farewells and make an important phonecall - as I am sure you would understand. As a final word of advice, remember what I said about that pebble - don't put it near anything electric, and don't drop it."

"I would be pleased to oblige. Unless you possess any further business, I must take my leave. There are some loose ends which I must tie up." He rose from his seat with the pebble in his front pocket, and exited the room, soon finding himself in the parking lot.

He departed about five minutes later, having stowed the pebble in a lead-lined box, made for carrying small amounts of radioactive material. He had acquired the box at a branch office, and was taking it with him en route to another facility. Since it was not urgently needed, he had left it inside of his car, deciding to deliver it later, after the meeting had concluded. He now took advantage of the box, using it to safely carry the black pebble back to his headquarters.

After the Monavian official left the room, the Alfegan Operative gave a sigh of relief. The meeting had definitely gone better than he had planned, albeit with a few hitches. After doing a final bug sweep of the room, he left, quickly pacing out down the corridor to the reception. He nodded at the receptionist, before leaving the embassy building. Outside, he paced around the gardens as he took out his mobile phone, attaching an earpiece as he typed in a series of numbers on the glowing keypad. His walk took him through a plant-covered tunnel, vines bearing beautiful sub-tropical Alfegan flowers even during the current season drooping down into the pathway. Ahead was a small structure, the grounds store hut, currently shut tight with a series of padlocks. Behind it, the embassy outer wall towered up, a concrete construction covered with thorny creepers and topped with a tight coil of razor wire. A quiet enough place for his telephone call.

The line rang for a moment, before an automated voice requested that he input a numerical code. After a quick series of six numbers was input, he finally was rewarded with his superior's voice.
"Good day to you, sir. I've just concluded the meeting with the Monavian."
"You'll have to be quick - we're just about to come in to land."
"Alright. The meeting went according to plan, albeit with some restrictions to us. We have been asked to reciprocate by meeting up at their headquarters tomorrow morning."
"An interesting development - their co-operation would be excellent. Did you give them the package?"
"I did. Hopefully it won't come to that, but I think that will at least unnerve them once they disassemble it."
"Indeed. I will be off now. Meet me in the embassy foyer in an hour, and I will fully debrief you."

________________________________

The next morning, a taxi drew up outside the Monavian Intelligence Headquarters, or rather the facade that hid the headquarters. From the vehicle disembarked a group of three people, all wearing similarly inconspicuous clothing so that one would immediately assume they were tourists or foreigners, not an unusual sight in the city. However, all three carried concealed pistols underneath their jackets, Ev'ko 2 service sidearms loaded and ready for near immediate use should the need arise. They quickly paced through into the reception of the building, having tipped the taxi driver, before waiting inside for whoever they were meeting to greet them and guide them the correct way.

Mohammed had just returned to his desk, sixth cup of coffee in hand, when he heard the knock on the office door. Without waiting for a reply Asad - his supervisor - was inside the doorway.

"Minute of your time please. You should have just gotten a copy of a report forwarded to us by the Monavian intelligence service."

I did...? Mohammed glanced at his box, picked up a sheet of paper. Still warm off the printer. Oh...

"Just seeing it now." He quickly scanned, then looked back up at Asad. "Lewis. That's the man who got nearly killed last week by another Senator."

"I know." Not surprising that he did, that particular incident had led to some raised eyebrows in Manthian political circles. "You're our lead man on Monavian politics, they've mentioned potential underground political activity. And a leading leftist politician gets nearly murdered and then robbed in what looks like a political job."

"You want a briefing?"

"Not me, CCX. Working with the President's office on this."

Asad saw Mohammed's expression and nodded.

"Yeah, that high up. We have a couple people on this now, CCX wants the works tomorrow. I need you to make up a paper covering what we know about Lewis, Bates, the robbery and scenarios for the impact on the broader political situation. You'll do those for CCX tomorrow morning, no time set yet so send out the paper before you leave today."

"End of today. Sure."

"Good, I'll put you in touch with CCX over this."


******


...and the League's image is delicate domestically. The situations in Vetaka and Barronia are a drain on public opinion and the growing number of piratical incidents in Eastern Nova provide another potential source of negative opinion about the League and its effectiveness. Therefore CCX has concluded this is a particularly important moment to be involved in supporting public stability and above all non-eventful peace in other League member-states...

It was true enough. The League had been a sea change in Manthian politics, but not everybody, as it were, was steering with the new wind... Sixty years ago Manthian ships had been bombarding Damiran troops at Lanpao, or Damiran pilots had been strafing the armored advance across the Kadar. Ten years ago the two nations had been fighting by proxy in the Halakan wilderness. And now, the alliance, as the CCX background paper so tastefully put it, was delicate.

Mohammed sighed, turning back to his own paper which was blinking insistently at him from the monitor. He read back his last few lines.

...the cleanest scenario is that in which the burglars are found and identified to be simple robbers. However news sources have reported no leads, and in the absence of a smoking gun the evidence, as well as public speculation is pointing towards a politically motivated burglary. Lewis is already playing with a strong political hand after Senator Bates' attack, and even if he is not able to definitively link the theft to anyone in particular...

Mohammed rubbed his eyes, too a sup from the ninth mug of coffee, and started writing again.

...particular, he will quite likely attempt to link the robbery to the attack, and more broadly to his political opponents, in the court of public opinion. The political situation seems ripe for him to succeed in that, barring any unshakable proof emerging to the contrary...

Mohammed reached for the coffee, and found that more was needed. He would stop by Hayat's office on his way for more, her thoughts would be good in predicting what the broader ramifications of such a claim might be.

Upon arriving at the building, Cheney exited his car and removed the box from the back seat, carrying it toward another building. The complex spanned several large plots of land, including parking lots and grounds. Among the facilities, there was a technical research center, separated from the main building.

Mr. Cheney was within the building, greeted with the usual polite nods and smiles of the workers there. He dropped off the box at one of the laboratories in the rear of the building, before asking where one of the analysts was who dealt with unusual devices.

Ten minutes later, he explained his observations of the pebble in detail, as well as the warning given to him by the Alfegan operative. He then left it behind, confident that the right precautions would be taken with analyzing the device.

-----------------------------

In the basement of Lewis' house, a pair of figures was conversing, seated in the dimly lit sitting room that was used for storage. They were seated in a pair of aging leather chairs, the surfaces of which were cracked and weathered with dryness and age. Their battered appearance was concealed partly by the poor lighting in the room, but it did not stop Lewis from conversing with his confederate.

The man across from Lewis was fairly tall and thin, perhaps too much so, and appeared to be withered with age, much like the chair which he was sitting in. He was, at the moment, busying with the slow process of smoking a cigar, while Lewis was nervously adjusting his lapels.

"Senator, a victory for the PLDP in removing that thorn, the ever-persistent Bruce Bates, from our side will serve us well. There is no evidence to exonerate him as of the present, is there?"

"I would hope not, yet I fear that he has more confidence than I would be willing to admit observing. The man is resolved to defend himself. I doubt that he will deny the charges that are more recent, but right now, only the court has power in the matter. The Party is unable to--"

"Forget the Party for a moment. They will not be important until it is time to decide on how to punish him. At the least, he can receive multiple censures or be stripped of his position in the Foreign Relations Committee. At the most..." The shadowy figure now began to laugh as if his nose had been tickled by a feather. He was silenced an instant later, as he coughed loudly in the dusty room.

"You could have chosen a better place to converse, especially one that a man can smoke in without suffocating."

"A wise piece of advice. I will see to it that a better place is found, but this is perhaps the most private at the moment, save for the lower room."

"Why not use it then, Senator?"

"The ventilation is worse down there. The narrow ducts are in need of cleaning and the one grate has to get repaired."

----------------------------

Mohammed had just returned to his desk, sixth cup of coffee in hand, when he heard the knock on the office door. Without waiting for a reply Asad - his supervisor - was inside the doorway.

"Minute of your time please. You should have just gotten a copy of a report forwarded to us by the Monavian intelligence service."

I did...? Mohammed glanced at his box, picked up a sheet of paper. Still warm off the printer. Oh...

"Just seeing it now." He quickly scanned, then looked back up at Asad. "Lewis. That's the man who got nearly killed last week by another Senator."

OOC:

The assault on Lewis took place about two or three weeks ago in the storyline. The morning of the meeting at MNIA Headquarters is the first day of the trial, which I will get to later.

Back to IC:

That evening, the police investigation of the burglery was concluded. News programs announced that no leads were found in the break-in itself, as the perpitrators had apparently left no evidence. It was, however, suspected that soon someone might be caught.

Poll numbers indicated that only thirty-nine percent of responders believed that political motivations existed in connection to the robbery, yet it was unknown why it even happened.

The next morning, a letter arrived at one of the news centers. It was from Mr. Cheney. Within was a brief statement, saying that "details of the break-in were known to the MNIA, but could not be released for security reasons, until a separate investigation by the MNIA was concluded."

--------------------------

At MNIA Headquarters, Mr. Cheney waited in the lobby of the main administration building. Beyone the lobby were myriad offices, yet these were not an immediate destination for Cheney of his guests.

As the Algegan operatives apporached, a security guard asked them to come closer to be searched for possible weapons, due to security restrictions. Mr. Cheney, however, was standing nearby, and told the man to deal with another visitor, as he was expecting these people. He then gestured for them to follow along.

In the laboratory, the pebble and its temporary storage case was locked away in a vault. It was shelved there after a cursory examination by the technical expert produced few results. Items of more pressing importance were being dealt with, and the pebble might languish for a day or two until it was ever examined more closely.

The three men stood waiting for a few moments, before the Field Head recognised the man he had seen the day before approaching them. Before he moved to follow though, he was confronted by a security guard. With hands reaching inside jackets in anticipation of handing the pistols to the guard, they were interrupted by Cheney diverting the guard's attention. Without a word, they quickly withdrew their hands and carried on after Cheney, into the honeycomb of offices and rooms inside the building.

_______________________

Back at the Alfegos Overseas Intelligence Bureau, the Bureau High Commander sat reading a report from the desk of the Monavian Operations Head, one which he had made a priority to read yet had had difficulty in receiving. The copy that he read now, written the day previous, was one that did not best please him. Whilst all appeared to be going as to plan, albeit with errors, there was one detail he saw that produced a strongly negative reaction from him. He coughed as he read the end of the text, regarding the negotiations with Monavian Intelligence Services. Within a minute, he was on a telephone line to the AOIB Research Division, and within ten minutes of a shouted request, he received a secure digital copy of the file he had requested.

Within half an hour, and further frantic phone calls, the High Commander found himself being connected to his counterparts in Monavia, on a secure line.
"Good Morning to you there - this is the AOIB Bureau High Commander. I need to talk to the person in charge of your R&D division immediately, concerning an item that may have been received about twenty-four hours ago."

The High Commander soon received a reply from a woman answering the phone. "Sir, can you please provide a description of the item in question?"

Mr. Cheney escorted the three Alfegans through various parts of the building, eventually arriving at the end of a corridor, where there was an elevator. He then took them up four floors, where his office was located. He then proceeded to take them there.

ooc: I'm being a bit fluid with the time here still, assume this is still sometime in the past compared to Alfegos's plot but I'll leave open exactly when. I do intend to catch up soon

"... and our intelligence assets in Monavia remain weak. The majority of our people are not insiders in the Monavian government but rather connected to League operations in the country. However we will continue to analyze what intelligence we receive."

Mohammed stood to give his own briefing as the CID woman finished giving her rather short summation of Manthian intelligence capabilities in Monavia.

"You all should have received a detail paper yesterday afternoon." he began, casting his gaze around the room. There were a surprising amount of people here, CCX, CID, and even MID men were present, and the local chief of intelligence for Delian League assets had even showed his face personally.

"There are several basic potential outcomes of the Lewis-Bates affair; I'll be going over projected political ramifications of the more likely scenarios in order of the most probable, as far as we can determine with the information on hand at the moment. This ranking may change as more information becomes available. First scenario, Bates is convicted of assault and censured by the Senate but not destroyed politically..."

The briefing went on along those lines for several minutes, often interruped by the questions from senior staff which were the purpose of these meetings. All the basic information was in the briefing they had already received, after all. Ideas on whether the roughly 40% of Monavians who seemed to believe the robbery politically motivated would be outvoted by the remainder who did not or weren't sure: projections of the impact should it turn out to be an ordinary burglary or indeed a politically motivated attack: analysis of the effects of a potential conviction or acquittal for Bates.

"... to end, an update on new information which has come in this morning. The MNIA has made a public announcement that it knows who was responsible for the break-in and is conducting its own investigation. From an intelligence standpoint this does not settle the question for us of whether there is some political motive behind the burglary - that might be the focus of the Monavian investigation - but it does seem probable that if MNIA knows the details and is declining to release them, it may have been a politically motivated job.

My Department's formal conclusion is that political stability is broadly more likely to be maintained if Bates and his party remain in control, whilst if Lewis and his party gain the government a greater degree of political discord is likely. The Department recommends this information be taken into consideration when considering future actions."

Mohammed paused to see if there were any more questions; there weren't. He yielded to another CID man who began to discuss the potential for increasing intelligence presence in Monavia, only tuning in when he was back seated. Field operations were not his area of work.

"... the establishment of a formal embassy offers the potential to dramatically expand activities in Monavia, carrying along with it the natural suspicion that embassy personnel generally draw, and MID recommends that direct of the Embassy itself be kept to a minimum, and Embassy personnel instead mainly be used to support third parties..."

A CID man interrupted to ask a question, it was answered, the briefing went on. These meetings were far more bureaucratic than a comparable military agency's, but it could be said of them that they were thorough; the wheels ground fine.

While Cheney and the Alfegans were busy with the more covert aspects of uncovering what was going on in the hidden world of political intrigue, a more public drama was playing out. A grand pagentry of trial and decision was to unfold later that day.

At roughly 10:00, Senator Bates departed his place of residence and was driven towards the Supreme Court building. The trip there took little time, though a sojourn of a few miles seemed to take shorter than expected when the traffic was clear, and longer than expected when the vehicle had to stop for pedestrians or pass by an occasional reporter.

Bates exited shortly thereafter, having to ascend the steps as a windy breeze blew past him, nearly knocking off his hat and blowing about his graying hair. The dull, gray rainclouds that passed overhead almost reflected the senator's mood, and the cold air, broken by a slow drizzle every now and then, only seemed to serve as a way to dim the countenance of this otherwise successful public servant.

Bates, proceeded by his attorney, filed his way past the spectators, preparing to enter the building. He halted to turn and look upon the scenery surrounding him, perhaps to appreciate the beauty of the city which ruled over the proud people he served, and perhaps to observe the actions of those nearby, but his attentions were soon drawn away, as he looked upon a sight that left many a sagacious onlooker baffled at determining its purpose. It wasn't so much what he saw as what he heard that now appeared to rekindle a firey spirit in him, for he now saw yet another example of what Lewis and his supporters stood for.

Several Lewis supporters were lined up along the sidewalk, chanting slogans that reflected his usual political rhetoric and waving large signs in the faces of passers-by. Lewis was now approaching them, attired in a manner similar to Bates, though less formal and appering with the confidence of a gambler who wins his every bet. He met up with them, and borrowed a megaphone, so that he might broadcast his message to anyone who was listening.

"This trial shall serve to clear up the corrupt and decadent forces which conspire to trample on our most cherished values. We will prevail, as I personally have, and with succeed in overthrowing an agent of the old regime, so outdated and inefficient and unwilling to meet the needs of every person under its rule!"

A number of cheers eminated from the crowd, but most bystanders were silent, choosing to judge ideas by their merits and wait for history to happen before arriving at an appropriate conclusion. Meanwhile, Lewis continued to insinuate the Royalists.

"If this trial does not proceed as I would expect of a fair judicial system, then I shall be sure that the injustice is the result of a massive conspiracy between the--"

A burst of thunder, far off in another part of the city, where the rain had intensified and began to pour more aggressivley, cut him off, silencing him momentarily.

"...The monarchy and its narrow-minded sopporters, the religious fanatics who use this idea of legislated morality and dogmatic precepts against us, but it will not stand much longer."

He avoided employing language that was any harsher, as he did not possess any desire to risk another attack by a Royalist supporter.

OOC:

Lewis is a member of the PLDP (People's Liberal Democratic Party), a somewhat leftist political party, which is mostly either simply politically leftist or actually socialistic, depending on the particular leanings of any individual member. Most of his rhetoric exists to counter the majority that is shared by the Royalists, who are conservative and mostly religious, and the National Republicans, a more democratic and center-right party that is economically capitalist.

I will post the proceedings of the trial as time goes by. Feel free to have any number of your operatives attend or have news coverage from embassy-approved sources. (Embassy approved referrs to news organizations that are used offficially by your embassy in Monavia.) Please make sure that they were already present at the time IC-wise, since most RP threads I have read are cluttered with reporters who just happen to show up undercover without any RPing of how they even got into the country.

Finally, the violent incident is not the only charge being tried in the court, you will soon hear of others, but I will not wish to spill the beans.

The OOC Thread is here:Of State Interest (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=14236917#post14236917)

ooc: we are up to about two days ago now. next post will be caught up to the present woo

Αέρας Κυρηναϊκή
πτήση 1730

Certain pieces of embassy equipment were too heavy or too inconvenient to travel in the holds of a civilian aircraft - staff cars and helicopter amongst them - and a very few had been deemed too sensitive to be traveling in amongst everyone's personal luggage and the more basic furnishings. Not even embassy staffers and door guards should know everything about what went on inside, after all... Those items were being shipped by sea and had left some time earlier, along with a few advance personnel to get the embassy building ready for occupation.

Nevertheless the majority of staffers and personnel were aboard the Αέρας Κυρηναϊκή R830, which had been chartered for the purpose by the Denomination of Foreign Diplomacy. Most of the party were already well familiar with Monavia and several had visited or studied the country in particular - thus their postings - but still a constant low level of conversation was going on regarding all aspects of Monavian life: culture, politics, food, places to visit.

The future Embassy Security were lounging towards the back of the plane, enjoying the extra legroom provided by the removal of about 2/3 of the R830's seats. A jug of black wine had made the rounds, and towards this end of the plane laughter and jokes dominated any quiet discussions that might have been running.

In what had been first class cabin however neither topic dominated discussion as the plane started final descent. Instead Dimitris Markides, the Union's ambassador to Monavia and head of the diplomatic party, was reviewing a few documents. Recent information on a few of the people whom he might meet in the next few weeks, Denomination profiles on some of his own new staff, a brief on current hot topics in Monavia... intelligence materials...

From what the Denomination was telling him intelligence would start to operate out of his embassy very soon after arrival. The Denomination was either more hostile to or more concerned about the Monavian People's Liberal Democratic Party than he had expected. Possibly both. And while even he didn't get every little detail of the intelligence operations, he could tell from what was not said that some of the proposed operations would definitely need to be kept not only from the public but also from the Monavian government.

Dimitris sighed and pinched his nose as the captain's voice came on, informing all that landing would be in twenty minutes.

The President could have a sense of humor sometimes, like when asked for a 'quiet posting.'

The sight of Lewis and his supporters on the sidewalks had done nothing to ease the troubles that had taken up residence in Bates' mind. He turned around and continued on his way toward the building. Within seconds, he had made his way up the steps and under the overhanging roof of the front portico, just in time to avoid being drenched with a sudden burst of rain. The storm had intensified, and the wind had blown aside his umbrella. The roof alone stopped the rain from hitting him.

A porter opened the door for him and his attorney. He nodded in approval, silently walking into the lobby as he folded up his unbrella. There was a throng of people there, milling about and waiting for the trial to begin, which was to happen in ten minutes. Outside, a different scene was playing out.

Lewis had walked under the portico, looking about at the passers-by who lined the sidewalks. The tall, thin figure of a man in black approached. He carried what appeared to be a cigar in his pocket, and asked for a lighter. Lewis handed it to him as he coughed loudly. The chilly air had not done much good for his breathing.

"Thank you. It has been a while." the tall man replied. "I cannot say much here, but I will caution you that Bates may suspect something foul is afoot. It would be unwise to permit him any advantage which he could use too effectively against us. Also, above all, do not permit the secrecy of our operations to be compromised."

"I believe that I can manage that fine without any assistance. What else do you need?"

"I can tell you something of great importnace, which I am sure you will want to know. I cannot remain much longer, but I will tell our contact the news. I have done some investigating into the MNIA, in the form of watching from a house across the street. I saw a truck from them drive up, and a pair of agents emerge. They took a look around, and then left. They seemed to be looking for something. One of them had an unusual device with him."

"That wil do. I must go inside now."

"I will meet with you this evening."

The pair parted, the man to his own destination, and Senator Lewis to the lobby, where he sat down at one end of the room. Bates had exited and stood under the portico.

The man dropped his cigar into the trash bin, since the rain had wetted its tip and ruined it, extinguishing it.

On the phone-line, the man paused as he fished through details, before finding an image of the device in question.
"It's probably in the form of a stone of some sort, of a dark colouration. It'd be about fifteen to twenty centimetres long, similar pattern all over, and would weigh a surprisingly large amount. Do you have such an item in your department?"

______________________________________

The Alfegan agents followed blindly through the corridors, making mental notes of the structure they moved through. It was a typical Monavian development, modern architecture meeting bureaucracy in a perfect tangle of corridors without any form of distinguishing landmarks to aid navigation. It was an absolute nightmare in terms of being a structure to escape from, not that the Alfegan agents were planning to. After passing through an elevator, the men finally found themselves nearing their journeys end, entering the office of their Monavian counterpart and preparing for the meeting they were to have.

On the phone-line, the man paused as he fished through details, before finding an image of the device in question.
"It's probably in the form of a stone of some sort, of a dark colouration. It'd be about fifteen to twenty centimetres long, similar pattern all over, and would weigh a surprisingly large amount. Do you have such an item in your department?"

"I believe that such a stone exists. I can attempt to retrieve it, however, I am uncertain as to its purpose. Could you wait for one moment?"

"Alright. I'll wait - but make sure you do hurry a bit - I don't want to sit here all day."
The man sat listening, awaiting a response, whilst moving over to read the documentation again.

The woman replied, "I will look for the item." A minute later, she then added, "I have one item that fits such a description in the documentation log. I will inform my boss about it and he will retrieve it shortly."

OOC:

The trial is about to begin; there will be some major action happening. I am still waiting for Alfegos to help me resolve the RP part about the black stone.

New Manth, you are welcome to continue your posting. All people playing in this thread are welcome to RP sending observers to the trial.

ooc: Sounds good, I will keep an eye on this. I'm currently planning to begin intelligence involvement during or after the trial.

OOC:

Just remember, the MNIA will be watching (not intensely, though) since they have found out about Alfegos. They will be looking for other operatives, and then try to make contact with their superiors, so as to inform them that they can provide assistance. The MNIA likes to work with allied agencies, and thus will say that they had been receiving outside assistance from their neighbors as a part of international cooperation.

The MNIA is suspicious about Lewis for a number of reasons, some of which personally affect their Director, James Cheney. I will add the next IC post continuing the trial once I get some more IC action out of Alfegos. Speaking of IC action (attention Zaheran, Lamoni!), there has been little for me to reply to.

(OOC - I haven't really replied because anything I write, due to the response I last got, would be a one-liner. If you could quickly do a post about what your guy wants to do with my men inside the agency (i.e. A meeting with a briefing about the trial and all that), and maybe do something more detailed, I'll be able to post one of my beefy replies. Thanks!)

OOC:

I understand. One more mea culpa for me.

BACK TO IC:

Cheney reached his office. "I will be in there only a minute before meeting with you. I need to put a few things in order first." He unlocked the polished metal doors of the office, which shone much like mirrors. The bright color was a pale shade of gray, resembling silver, but was slightly darker. The Alfegans soon noticed their reflections before them. Cheney emerged a minute later.

"Pardon me for holding you up, I had a mess of papers which had been left by some of my subordinates on my desk and it was an unsightly morass in need of removal. In addition, I needed to pull out this." He held a short stack of papers with details about the trial. "A list of charges against Senator Bates is detailed here, as well as several details about the nature of the evidence which has been viewed by the court. You may read it once I make sure all of the pages are here." He led them into the office.

The interior was richly panelled with stone tiles and ornate marble friezes running arount the ceiling. Paintings, hanging from the walls, graced the spacious room, and enhanced the effect provided by the immense colossus of white oak that was Cheney's desk. The desk itself was large enough to serve as a dining table for six people, being a yard wide and over a fathom in length. Upon it sat a number of personal mementos, such as a pen set, photographs, a stapler, and other ordinary objects. Among the assemblage of devices was a typewriter, old yet maintained well, with paper mounted in its rack. It was not, however, the primary source of Cheney's documents.

On a table adjacent to the massive desk was his computer, and to the other side was the typewriter. Adjacent to it was a bronze sculpture of a horse in full gallop, a gift from the Minister of Defense, Carl Blake. Cheney sat down and thumbed through the pages.

The Alfegan delegation walked into his office after the Monavian intelligence chief had ordered his affairs, quietly and professionally noting the interior decor. The man that sat before them took a different view in their eyes, as they surveyed the desk - a man, it appeared, who went for grandeur. Whilst the desk initially caught their eye, the large bronze statue took the focus of their attention, followed by the typewriter. The head of the group smiled as he looked about, before speaking.
"I see you are one, like myself, to hang onto the memories of times gone past. Pray, may I take a look?"

The man was intrigued, having never seen an English typewriter before - in his office, he had when he first joined the agency have his secretary utilise the equivalent of four typewriters to write out messages in simplified Fegosian, the entire page angled to allow for the vertical nature of the script. Those had been phased out within a year of him joining, replaced by an Aerlingish keyboard for his liaisons with freelance airship traders his department had used during the times of unrest. He looked over the layout, keeping his hands a polite distance away, before turning back.
"You said that there are a significant number of charges to be levelled against Bates. However, as I'm sure you are aware, there are two sides to any case. What dirt do you have on Lewis, apart from the current documents we have retrieved from his computer?"

"My issues with Senator Lewis begin with another generation. His father was not always the mopst scrupulous man, and it was said that Lewis' mother lived loosely. That was forty years ago, however, and my personal mistrusts of him go back to that time. He was never the most honest student at the school I attended with him and was known to have secret meetings with his 'club' of friends.

"Lewis was not engaged in any illegal activity, to my knowledge, at least at that time. His staunch, anti-Royalist viwes on politics garnered him much attention in the public square when he moved to another province and ran for office, promising vague progress and so forth. He really did not define his positions on issues with much precision, which is why he lost the election to the Senate on his first attempt." Cheney looked at the papers nervously for a moment. He had forgotton where he placed the documents he kept secret in his office on the matterwith Lewis. "Excuse me, I must find some papers which may shed some light on your query."

Cheney arose and walked over to a filing cabinet, and began to turn a combination wheel, in addition to needing a key to unlock it. After releasing the doors, he pulled out a drawer filled with files about individuals who Cheney considered suspicious. Cheney kept tabs on people who he personally mistrusted, and had a whole cabinet devoted to them, thus he had to dig through the thousands of documents before finding what he wanted.

"I have here some collected information on Lewis. It includes surveillance, correspondence, and a few other things." Cheney sat back down and pulled out a few sheets to show to the Alfegans. The first was a report about a mysterious man who kept showing up at Lewis' house, and it was clear that his identity had yet to be discovered. Cheney pointed out photographs and diagrams which he had included as he explained a few details from the files. "The stranger had a penchant for smoking cigars, and often spent hours over at the house before leaving. He always showed up in the evening, or late at night, and left at odd hours. Finally, he raised my suspicions by appearing to aviod appearing in public much and not showing his face whenever he went near the house."

"This next file is about an unusual signal which was recorded when construction work was done near the house. During a road construction project, in which a new sewer line, some cables, telephone lines, and water pipes were added before the pavement was replaced, the communications companies recorded a signal coming from an electrical box. The signal did not belong to any of the wires, so the workmen sent out by the company to conduct maintainence on the box investigated the signal, tracing it to Lewis' house. They could not identify why it existed, as they were told to ignore it later.

"Curiously enough, the foreman who directed the inspection and maintainence on the box worked was told by his superiors to leave it alone. One of the company workers who held this power was later convicted of taking bribes from others to keep secrets under wraps, and conspiring with organized crime. I believe that he may have been connected to Lewis, and was bribed to keep the signal hidden.

"We dispatched a pair of agents to search for the signal a day ago, but they found very little. They detected a very weak electrical flow underground, but they could not pick up much else. We will send them out again today, with more powerful equipment." Cheney seemed to have run out of breath, as he had said so much.

"Lewis must be communicating with someone through a secure and covert network, separate from the public terminals. We could not secure a warrant for searching these things yet, as we were quite close to doing so when the violent assault on Lewis took place, and the media firestorm had broken out just in time to make it impractical. The warrant will have to wait.

"Right now, I will need to have a way to keep Lewis busy so that he doesn't get more suspicious. He appears to know how to avoid surveillance, which complicates matters. The data corruption system made a mess of things. I will need to have the technical files on the system, as well as all data retrieved from his computer. I have reason to believe that he used an MNIA-based program to delete and corrupt his files, as the program you described sounds vaguely familiar. If he had access to it, then it means that he is connected to someone who can steal our information and provide it to him."

The Alfegans party head quickly scribbled down some notes as he listened, summarising the points that the Monavians had brought up about Lewis. He paused halfway through, before finishing off.
"You said that there was a stranger who appeared at Lewis's place of residence? From what we know so far, there has been no stranger appear yet at his house, since we put the watch on the house. I've got two agents over there at the moment keeping an eye on it, whilst I believe I still have two agents trying to put a bug on Lewis's phone line in his district telephone exchange, after yesterday's failed attempt.
But, to this stranger - does he visit at regular times? Or does he come alongside specific events? It would be useful if we could catch sight of this stranger, so we could track him."

He thought for a few moments, looking over his notes, before making up his mind.
"From what you said about Lewis apparently having a knowledge of your agency's modus operandi, I would think that it would necessitate the intervention of a foreign agency. With all respect, whilst what you have done so far has been extremely useful, you are still restricted as you said by legal paperwork and the like. Our team doesn't exist, so would be able to possibly launch a second raid on Lewis's place of residence. We have terrorist groups back in Alfegos who could be blamed for this much more thorough search, especially if you provide exclusion to the area by a police response unit..."

At such a moment, a lightbulb would have appeared over his head as he was hit by a brilliant idea.
"Right then, here's the plan for getting hold of what you want in a search. We will break into the place, in full body kit so that we don't leave any forensic evidence. We'll conduct a more thorough search this time, once we've disabled the security systems in the place, which should be easy - you still have that pebble, don't you?"
He smiled, before continuing.
"This time, we'll bring in a RADAR surveillance tool, and check out the place. With hope, that will bring up any false compartments or secret rooms his house may have. By that time, we'll transmit a fake emergency call, stating that the people in the house are armed. Being the house of Senator Lewis, you'll send in your Secret Service cavalry, who will exclude all people from nearby whilst surrounding the house. By that time, about fifteen minutes, we should have had enough time to search any places we didn't before, and liberate any more evidence. We'll signal your forces to move in by firing off a shot into the air. Your forces come in, make a big noise and hopefully clean up any trace we left with their muddy boots and that. When they get to us, we don't mind them making a show of arresting us, possibly with a faked gunfight, before dragging us and our equipment out in rucksacks. You put us in the back of the vans, drive us off to your specialist terrorist interrogation facility, and swap us with the people who'll be taking the blame. We'll ship in some terrorists we have in unofficial holding centres to stand for the trial, alongside DNA and hair samples to plant at the scene. Then, you can either have the furore of them being put for trial in our place, whilst looking over what will be extremely interesting items liberated from his house, or we can stage a faked escape.

It's a raw plan, I know, but one which can be worked on. I'll have our team currently following Lewis about keep an eye out for this stranger, and see whether our team at the telephone exchange can get on to the power company.
What do you think?"

He sat, anticipating the other man's response.

Cheney paused to think. He was perplexed by the idea of staging an attempted break-in by having the Alfegans enter and gather up evidence, and then arresting them in order to get them out, and then substituting them with captured terrorists. "Considering the amount of time that the trial is expected to take, we can wait on that for a few days until reaching a decision. Lewis, being the kind of paranoid man he is, will likely station some type of operative of his to moniter anyone who is entering or leaving his property. During this time, you can formulate a more complex and fine-tuned plan to use in case we cannot find what we are looking for.

"The stranger is tall, almost two meters in height and often wears dark colors. He typically comes after 5:00 P.M. and smokes a cigar while waiting if Lewis is not home. That is all I can disclose about him, as there is little else that can be noted." Cheney was cut off by the sound of his desk telephone ringing.

"This is Director Cheney speaking."

"Director, you wanted me to inform you of any sightings of an unidentified man standing well over six feet in height and wearing black," answered a voice on the other end of the line.

"Where was this man sighted?" he inquired almost excitedly.

"The stranger was seen entering Senator Lewis' house. He had a large package with him, the contents of which could not be identified."

Almost instantly, Cheney responded. "When was this?"

"Yesterday evening, around 6:30. He entered the house and left three hours later. He walked down the street for some distance before entering his vehicle."

"Thank you. Goodbye."

"Gentlemen, I believe that our stranger has been sighted. He was seen yesterday entering Lewis' house at around 6:30 and left about three hours later."

The team leader nodded in understanding.
"It was, as you can guess, a spur of the moment idea, which didn't have too much merit. I'm sure that I can come up with something better, or you can, between now and when the information is needed. But in that time, we can try using ground RADAR in the local area around his house, under the guise of an electricity company, and see whether there is anything below the house that could be of interest."

He was cut off as the phone rang, before listening intently once the phone call had ended.
"What vehicle was this man using? It might be possible to put a name to that man."

"My secretary did not say. I will call her and find out. He pushed a few buttons on his office telephone and was soon conversing over the line.

"I have a question about the vehicle which the unidentified stranger was seen driving through the neighborhood where Senator Lewis currently resides."

"It was a sedan, dark in color. It was parked in one of the few dimly lit areas in the neighborhood, and the bystander who sighted it did not get a good look at it. Judging from the silhouette of the vehicle, it was an older sedan, probably built twenty or thirty years ago. The subject entered it quickly and drove off in a hurry, as if he knew he had been spotted."

"That will do."

Cheney had enabled a speaker phone control, in order to allow the Alfegans to listen to the conversation. "There is not much else that can be done in identifying the subject, but I think that the information provided to you may be of assistance."

Cheney looked at his files on Lewis again. "Interestingly, Lewis had been a member of a fraternity in college which later became involved in a financial scandal after they covered up a bankruptcy and cooked some of the books. Supposedly, Lewis had provided them with extensive amounts of funds, and had even offered suggestions about managing their expenses. Correspondence which was submitted as court evidence and tax records confirm this, but when large amounts of money disappeared, Lewis was suspected of being involved in the removal of the money. It was never proven."

"So he's a dark character? In that case, as you said, he'll likely have covered his tracks. But this car... it would help if we could find it. What sort of airborne surveillance do you have in the city? Or CCTV? If you couldn't divert resources, especially with the potential for riots, would it be possible to draft in an Alfegan airborne surveillance vehicle to try search for it?"

"I have several resources at my disposal. I currently have a satellite moving into position, though it will be several more hours before it aligns perfectly with the property. I also have several airborne units being diverted from surveillance elsewhere, and they will be able to begin operations in a few more hours. Other suspicious characters are being dealt with, and Lewis has moved down on the list of priorities." Cheney then closed the folder and walked over to the cabinet, filing it away. He then locked the cabinet and opened up a drawer in his gigantic desk, and removed another folder.

"Apart from my own suspicions and a murky history, I cannot prove that Lewis is directly involved in anything yet. The reason for asking to have his computer and its associated components was so that the programs and data could be examined. I believe that there may be a way to find out more about Lewis by recovering some more information, especially if the deletion loop can be stopped.

"I am sure that you are satisfied with what I have to say about Senator Lewis, but before I leave for the courthouse, in order to watch the trial, which will begin in about two hours, I will tell you both more about the charges against Senator Bates."

The Alfegan operatives nodded their acceptance of the offer.
"We have had a team following Bates on occasion, though nothing significant has yet to be reported. Do you have anything on him as well that would make him a possible suspicious character, excluding of course the incident in the Monavian Senate.
If necessary, to spare resources so that you can keep an eye on the trial proper, we can order in an airship-based surveillance from the Alfegan mainland, which'd take about... twenty hours with current weather conditions. Of course, that would require permission for the air vehicle to enter areas of sky above the capital, though under the cover of either a Police or Intelligence Agency tester of the craft, it'd be perfectly possible to bring in ultra-high definition photographs, much better than satellites, with a stable platform of observation.
We wouldn't want, on account of this debacle with Lewis, for security to be deprived from the main centre of the show."

"The courtrom is quite large and it is unlikely that either of the two will be able to make any kind of contact. Security will be increased in the courthouse proper, and the grounds will be watched more closely than usual. Somehow I doubt that there will be any incursions." He then thought about the Alfegan offer.

"Twenty hours is too long to wait if surveillance becomes an issue. I can have an airship of some sort placed there within less than hal;f of that time, although I will need to have the necessary equipment loaded onto it. I don't think that we will need that large of a airship to carry what we need, unless you had something better in mind.

"Now, I suppose that you would like to know more about the charges against Senator Bates," he said, pulling out a list. "He has several counts of misuse of public funds, three of bribery, for which there does not appear to be much evidence, although Lewis seems to be holding something up his sleeve. He has filed a single count of illegal wiretapping on his telephone. That is odd."

He seemed to be unnerved. "I have not personally authorized any wiretaps, and yours doesn't seem to be ready yet. Lewis must think that someone is watching him, but it is neither of us. There must be a reason behind this. Bates is also charged with the crime of disturbing the peace when he started the whole mess in the Senate Chamber, and of course the assault on Lewis."

"We were thinking of bringing along our own airship along with more operatives, to help you with your covering of this. Maybe a couple snipers aboard our observation airship as well, to cover the courthouse and the two senators?

Anyhow, we will be sure to keep a watch on proceedings. So, our objectives for now will be to try and get a search on the ground around Lewis's house and a tap on those suspicious wires, and to cover Bates? I think that will be perfect.
With the issue of the wire tap, I guess we will have to wait for that to come out in the trial."

He smiled, quickly re-reading his notes.

"Unless there is anything else you wish to discuss, I think we can call it a day. I'll go through our channels of operation to get ourselves a maintenance permit on his cables, and I'm sure our other two can blend in as body guards.
I know it's strictly against operating procedure, but most of our operation was focused on Lewis because of my gut feeling - something is most definitely not right about him."

_______________________________________

The line cut out on the Operations head as he waited on hold with the Monavian Intelligence Agency. Swearing as the lights flickered, he put down the phone, and began writing an email.

"I will approve of your airship deployment. Do what you must and I will do what I can to add my own surveillance to the operation. Expect to have two craft in the area by this time tomorrow.

"On the matter of your participation, which some will construe as espionage, there will be no problem. I can deal with that with little trouble, mainly by declaring this a joint intelligence operation as provided for in the Fegosian Union Charter and other relevant documents. No one will think that your operations here since the break-in will be unsanctioned, at least not officially. All documentation of our investigation in parallel to the police investigation of the break-in will be sealed or discarded," he said.

Cheney added softly, "All evidence that Alfegans were involved without our consent will probably be destroyed, as an act of good faith towards your government. I will let whoever is the chief administrator of your intelligence services know about this."

Cheney then got a call from one of the offices in another building.

"Who do I owe the pleasure of conversation to?" he inquired.

"Why, no one of any real importance," a voice sarcastically answered. Just your technical staff director."

"I take it that something has happened?"

"One of my storage and maintainence personnel informed me of a caller on the line with an accent. He wanted to know about some odd black stone we had in our possession."

"What happened next?"

"The line went dead. Our telephone line has a tracker which automatically traces the phone it is a restricted or unlisted number so we can call back. We will attempt to make a return call."

"Thank you."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, the director called back the operations head on the land line, using the number that the machine gave him. It did not reveal the location of the call or the identity of the man on the other side, only the number.

"Sir, my apologies, we had a technical difficulty. Our landline had encountered interference for some recent construction, and we were cut off. My subordinate, who you were talking to earlier, is removing the stone from its storage location and is preparing to load it for transport if necessary."

"Excellent. I must thank you greatly for the moves your agency have made in terms of co-operating with us. I'm sure that the appropriate agency heads will be satisfied greatly.

Anyhow, if we may, we will leave now to get things organised. Of course you are a busy man, so we will see that we don't disrupt your good work too greatly."

The party stood, shaking hands with the Monavian Intelligence Chief once he had finished his phone call, before leaving the room to make their way back to their small operations post.

__________________________________________

Out at sea, a small I-class Aero-patrolcraft sat drifting on the winds, patrolling one of the many air lanes. Aboard, its five crew members sat idle, watching a film on one of the many screens that festooned the bridge of the airship. Ahead of them, a much larger cargo airship cruised along, which the crew man on the camera assembly was meant to be watching. Instead, he sat transfixed by the TV screen, station unmonitered. The only person pre-occupied with any task was the pilot, busy listening through his headset.

The TV flickered off as an urgent call came in on the radios. Switching off all non-essential systems, to the dismay of the rest of the crew, the pilot listened in attentively.
"Sierra India Two Two, this is Operator Five One. Long message, over?"
"Operator Five One, acknowledged, over."
The pilot took out a paper pad, and began scribbling with a biro.
"Sierra India Two Two, you are to cancel current mission and proceed immediately at highest reasonable speed to Monavia City. There, you are to use whatever airship pad is free to land and take on fuel. You will discharge your current two observers, and take on two fresh observers, along with two special passengers. On landing, you will be given your full brief and new mission plan by Alfegan Operatives. Do you understand, over?"
"Operator Five one, wilco. Out."
The pilot flicked a series of switches, disengaging from autopilot. A small alarm started, which he silenced, before moving his hands to the altitude settings.
"Hang on everyone, we're going to move to five thousand metres."
Using a small lever, he disengaged the safety ballast, two tanks of sand emptying from beneath him. The airship started rising rapidly, the pilot scrambling at controls to distribute the lifting gas. As the craft began to level out, he upped the throttle to cruise speed notch, before checking a small map. With the "sierra india" military call sign, he could fly wherever he wanted in international waters, and used this to his advantage in setting them for a direct route to Monavia.
"Operator Five One, this is Sierra India Two Two. We are engaged on new heading, at stated speed. ETA of One Six hours. Out."

________________________________________

The intelligence head, having had more time to ponder the predicament of the stone device, had made up his mind by the time he received the phone call again from the Monavians.
"Hello again. I'm sorry to have got you worried down there, but there's no problem with it for the moment. Just make sure that they keep it in a safe place for the time being.
Sorry having bothered you again."

His train of thought had led him away from the initial purpose of using the device to blackmail the Monavians, should they turn against them - rather, they could use the Monavians to deliver it to wherever it was needed, should that scenario arise.

OOC:

I thought that I could give you some background before proceeding with any more operations. Cheney's generosity is due to the unpleasant fact that having any word of the break-in being conducted by foreign operatives under the MNIA's nose would be an embarrassment of epic proportions. He does not wan to risk a public-relations disaster at this time, nor does he want sign of political motivation to be constructed by his opponents.

Cheney is a Royalist who is quite friendly with the monarchy. Any report to the public which discloses his complicity with your agents would look like a monarchist plot to protect Bates from PLDP supporters (and by their accusations, justice). Furthermore, the monarchy has been instrumental in joining the Fegosian Union and having other FU operatives involved would look like the monarchy was somehow connected or even orchestrating it (conspiracy theorists will make up whatever loony ideas they can to mess around, especially if they are PLDP supporters).

IC:

Cheney said his goodbyes and locked the doors. He made a number of telephone calls to other administrative officials in the area about his attendance at the trial and then called up a security station in another city. He made the needed arrangements and soon had his wishes.

Within half an hour, Cheney was on his way to the courthouse.

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"That will be done. I will have it safely stored away."

In the storage facility, the technicians were busily at work with their normal duties. The one who dealt with the stone took the precautions which Cheney had warned her about and transferred the stone into a lead-lined box, before taking it into an EMP shielded elevator. She pressed a button to go down several floors, and upon completion of her descent, she opened up a vault and placed the box on a table inside the room.

She soon returned to her normal work.

Later that day, an aircraft came in to land at the main Monavian airport. Operated by Jetstream airways, the craft had the ability to supercruise at Mach 2, cutting journey times to Alfegos from ten hours to three. Whilst such flights flew relatively rarely, even to the most active of airports, they were a premium service to many business travellers. Used most often by government personnel and businessmen, the daily flight to the central Monavia was highly popular. The government normally had four seats and space in the cargo hold reserved on the flights, in this case used up fully. The diplomatic parcel in the cargo hold of the plane was loaded with specialist equipment, whilst the passenger seats in business class were taken up by four men.

Of them, the most senior was one of the two special observers. Trained by the air fleet, he had been pulled from his aeromarine attachment along with a colleague to take part in this mission. His brief sat in a thick envelope on his lap, which he had memorised. The two men sitting across the aisle to him, who had introduced themselves as aeromarine snipers, sat with similar briefs, albeit slightly thicker. With a fast-track diplomatic visa tucked inside his passport, he was able one terminal side to do whatever he pleased for a month. Though he didn't intend to go terminal side - a series of documents meant that he could go to the transit flight, along with the diplomatic parcel, without having to pass through immigration.

After leaving the plane, he followed the queue to the immigration checkpoint. Due to his status as a Fegosian Union member, he could easily get through customs on his Alfegan passport. However, so he didn't have to go through the metal detectors, once they reached the border point he presented the papers.
The woman in the booth looked critically at the paperwork for a moment, before contacting security. A couple guards arrived, looking at the documents, making calls in Monavian, English and disjointed Alfegan. The man looked on with confidence, until they finally came to an agreement. Taking his passport, they scanned it, before nodding. The two security guards escorted them through a side door, saying nothing, before leaving them at one of the airship pads.

Next to the landing pad, a small van sat parked the back open and taken up with a large wooden crate marked "ALFEGOS EMBASSY". A plethora of warning stamps told all those looking at it that opening it would tangle them in a sea of red tape and near endless legalities. Inside the van, a single man sat, who gestured for them to come over. The man inside was one of the technicians, sent out almost immediately after their meeting with the MNIA head.
"Afternoon. You got your briefs, I take it?"
"Of course we did. A rather good read, to be honest."
"Indeed. Now I'd like them back thankyou."
He took in the briefs, before putting them in the van glovebox. The opened compartment briefly revealed a small pistol, which was quickly hidden.
"Now then, a quick overview of your assignments. For the purposes of this, the two observers of you will be named Hawk 1 and Hawk 2, and the two aeromarines Reach 1 and Reach 2. Hawk 1, you will officially take command of the airship and crew. Your brief is to use airship camera systems to cover the courthouse area, and to follow both senators and any suspicious characters. As a failsafe, should something severe happen, Reach 1 and Reach 2 will act to provide rapid precision strikes against threats, as well as pinning down targets should that be necessary, whilst providing further surveillance.
You must provide status updates every fifteen minutes, and whenever suspicious or major occurs. You only have permission to fire on confirmation from Operator One or any identified MNIA officials.
Understood?"
"Yep. Got you."

The man took out the crate, before levering off the lid. He took out a small permit card from his pocket, before walking away.
"The van's yours. Enjoy the diplomatic parcel."
When he had left, the man designated as Reach 1 peered into the crate. A series of smaller boxes sat inside. They quickly carted the boxes into the back of the van, before closing the doors whilst inside. The two longer boxes, when opened, revealed a pair of Eri'kho Type 44 rifles, sniper rifles chambered for 7.62mm rounds. Alongside them, a small tin of 500 hollow-tip match ammunition sat with bulky high-powered scopes for spotting and rifle mounting. The rifles were quickly assembled, placed back in the box along with tripods. Ranging calculators were also visible in the mix of items, efficiently assembled. In the front of the van, a radio crackled.
"This is Operator One, calling all units. Radio check, over."
"Alpha One, ok."
"Alpha Two, difficult but workable."
"Bravo One, ok."
"Bravo Two, ok."
"Hawk One, Ok."
The radio crackled to a halt, the net awaiting whatever the next message was.
"Hawk One, Sierra India Two Two has ETA of Time 22:00, over."
"Operator One, understood. Anything necessary in meantime, over?"
"Hawk One, send Reach Two and Hawk Two through to hub. Items will need to be collected, over."
"Operator One, understood, out."

He turned around.
"You heard the man - get down there now."

________________________________________________

Meanwhile, operatives Bravo One and Bravo Two mingled with the crowd outside the central courthouse. One held a camera, taking the occasional picture. Whilst it didn't look it, the lens on the camera was very powerful, and had anti-shake technology to allow a still image even if standing on a pneumatic drill. The pictures coming in were of general things - the guards around the courthouse and the like. All the while, the other was on the lookout as they slowly moved towards the main gate. Whilst unable to sit in on the trial, they hoped to get in via other means on the next day. Giving up in the end, they moved back to a cafe, from where the could watch the building.

________________________________________________

Alpha One and Two sat in a small rented apartment they had bought, as a change to the embassy rooms. It also allowed them an excellent view from the roof, them renting the penthouse at no small cost. The view was particularly good over the house of Senator Lewis, on which a small video camera was permanently focused, streaming data to a laptop. Always on the lookout, the penthouse door had been locked tightly and stun grenade traps had been rigged throughout the floor.
On a balcony, offering slightly less in the way of views, Alpha One sat with his colleague as they drank coffee, watching over. His colleague tapped away at a second laptop as they sat, looking at a utility map of the area, to try and locate the cables. It had been hard to find it, but a bit of persuasion by one of the technicians had let the city utility companies spill information from temporarily-unprotected servers. Once they had negotiated false documents and a cover, they would start drilling through the street to try and find the mysterious cable.

An hour later, Cheney had arrived at the courthouse. He drove into a small parking garage, where his car would not be affected by the rain while parked, and then walked for several minutes around the grounds. He observed several mounted police patrolling the area, and several more officers were present at the entrances.

Slowly walking up the steps, he glanced to either side. He noticed little suspicious activity, and upon a brief observation of the skies, he spotted no aircraft or balloons. The Alfegan craft would not arrive for a few more hours yet, and the Monavian surveillance craft was still making its way through the gray clouds, which ominously hung over the city, still drizzling. There was a flash in the distance, and the dull, muted rumble of distant thunder echoed across the sky.

Confident that all was well, with the exception of the small crowd which was listening to Lewis shout tirades with an almost delusional level of excitement. He cared little for fringe liberals, especially those who hated the recent forays into Nova by the present administration. He ascended the white granite steps in front, and stared out from his vantage point on the space under the portico. The towering edifice provided a welcome shelter from the rain, and most of the people outside were filing into the building. Cheney entered as well, and sat down in the lobby.

Outside of the courtroom, in the richly furnished hallways, small crowds lingered as other people filed into the chamber. While the building itself was quite large in scale, many observers were still interested in speaking their minds and conversing about mundane topics that came up in the normal course of socializing. Those who entered the actual courtroom were seated in almost undisturbed silence, broken only by an occasional whisper, faint enough to be heard only by the intended recipient. Those outside were able to speak more freely, being unencumbered by the need for a quiet space.

General Director Cheney briskly made his way through the scattered throngs in the corridors and found himself in the more obscure portions of the building. He accosted a guard who was patrolling the area and was almost instantly recognized. "What is it that you require, Director?"

"I need to find the cloakroom in the back. Can you point me in the correct direction?"

"It is down this way and through the doors. Please bear in mind that the justices are preparing to open the session in only a few minutes." He gave some brief directions and then returned to making his rounds.

Cheney arrived at the doors to the cloakroom. He was able to hear faint mumblings from within, and softly knocked on the walnut doors that led into the room proper. Seconds later, it opened to reveal the justices vesting themselves with their judicial robes, and, in one particular case, stacking a few papers to take into the chamber. Cheney walked in.

"Is Justice Franklin here?" he queried.

"I'm behind the partition," a voice answered from a obscured position, located behind a screen which was placed in front of where Justice Franklin was busy adjusting some buttons.

"I'm here on business which concerns our security."

Justice Franklin stepped out to greet Cheney, who had removed a small object from his coat pocket. He held out his hand to shake Justice Franklin's, and in doing so, passed the object to him. "Open it here. I must now leave."

Justice Franklin examined the object. It was a silver cylinder, about the size of a wine cork, with an end which could be screwed on or off. The judge opened it and felt inside. A small piece of paper lay inside. Taking a moment to unroll it, he paused to gather his thoughts.

We are being watched from the skies, and there is a chance we will be watched from the inside. Be wary.

The judge placed the note in the silver cylinder, rescrewed the top, and placed it in his pocket. He then looked to see the doors closed. Cheney had made his exit.

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Upon studying the schematics that were able to be retrieved from the computer systems, the Alfegans found a series of layered utility lines; water, sewer, cable, telephone, fiber optics...all that could possibly be seen. Yet, their searches were becoming difficult, due to the mass of underground networks which had to be studied. Evening was approaching and a few pages remained to study. Towards the lowest level of the systems, a series of tunnels which were used to run communications lines was being checked. If Senator Lewis was to hide any lines beneath the streets, it was in here. The tunnels were extensive, being wide and tall enough to accommodate workers quite easily. There was only one problem: the tunnels were nearly eighty feet below ground.

OOC:

Please note that the weather is rainy at this time in the storyline, and the tunnels in question are linked directly to the hidden rooms. IU will RP the details and set up the system in the OOC thread when I get a chance. For now, I will need to give this a rest as it is 10:25 P.M. in my time zone.

At the airship landing pad, the van sat in the drizzle, rain clattering down on the outside. Hawk One sat in the front with a sketchbook, drawing, as the occasional message came over the radio. For the most part, they were merely just radio checks, ensuring everyone was still on the net. Evening was approaching, and the weather obscured the runway, with only the numerous lights providing any sign of the landing areas. His compatriot was busy reading through the rifle manual, making notes with the rifle in front of him. Occasionally, conversation flared up.
"So, any idea what we're looking out for?"
"Standard surveillance operation, I hope. The others should be back soon with the documents."
Every now and then, Reach One would take parts to set up and change. One of the interesting devices was the gyroscopic mount, compensating for any single move that the airship could make to ensure that the target would be hit, even at long range.

It was 2000 hours when there finally came the sound of the door on the building opening, dislodging a drift of water and clattering against the wall. Hawk One calmly opened the glove compartment, revealing a revolver inside. He moved it to conceal it, as the people moved across the concrete. He put it back when he saw that it was his two compatriots. They entered through the back of the van, closing the doors before revealing another envelope.

"Right, here's the score. We're watching two targets - one is Senator Lewis, and the other Senator Bates. Both, as you know, are at odds with each other, to the point of events leading to the current trial. The threat comes from two directions. The first is that discontent civilians, on either supporting side, will launch attacks against the other. The normal police force should help with that. The other is that either of the two could launch attacks against each other.
We are to monitor the two, in terms of everywhere they go to. There is a team watching his house, and a team watching the courthouse where the two are. However, you need to watch for any suspicious activity as well, including rooftop snipers, possible suicide attackers, suspicious characters around buildings and vehicles, and all that sort. In particular, there is a single character who will need to be observed."

He took out from the envelope three A4 pictures. Two were recent press pictures of the two characters. The third was a sketch of a character, with no face and just as a form. A page of notes was attached.
"We also need to memorise these."
He took out a few laminated maps and satellite photos, with key locations marked on them.

Hawk One looked at the pictures, nodding.
"Excellent. Any ETA on the airship coming in?"
"They're coming in at around 2220. The two existing observers will be going off and taking a flight back home. You'll still be working with their onboard pilot, co-pilot and engineer. The latter hopefully won't be needed, unless things go tits up. Which they shouldn't."
"Brilliant. And I guess there aren't enough bunks either?"
"Nope. Someone will have to share bunks."
"We'll sort that out when they arrive then."

Hawk One took out a pack of playing cards, dealing everyone in for a game of Hearts.
"We wait then."

_______________________________________

Sitting inside now out of the rain, the camera still provided the necessary feed whilst Alpha Two spoke her mind. One page of documentation was the report on which the strange cable signal had been found. From this, she was able to deduce the sector and level of cables that would have to be checked. However, the difficulty of access was where things came in to play.
"Well, there are three methods of entry I reckon we could try. There's currently a team working down town on the same cable level downtown, at one of the few access points. If we can use our passes to get down into the tunnels with the necessary equipment, I think we should be able to navigate to the point where the signals were found. Whilst the easiest solution in terms of access, it will take time to walk the few miles of tunnel to get to our location.
The second one is to use a nearer access point, which requires only a few hundred metres of walking. However, as you can guess, we'll need to wrangle out more of a cover story. And finally, there's the brute force option."

Alpha One looked at her for a moment, nodding.
"I think the first option is the best. If we bring down mopeds, that would make equipment movement all the more easy in the tunnels, even if that means risking head banging.
Anyhow, the passes will be arriving tomorrow morning. The courier company had a bit of a delay."
Alpha Two grimaced.
"We may have been compromised, so it'll be necessary once we've got everything to pay up the rent and leave. Another site will be necessary, with similar views. However, what did arrive was this."
He took out a small padded briefcase, which when opened revealed a tangle of equipment, and an instruction manual similar to a telephone directory.
"It should hopefully be able to bypass any detection system, save if the cheeky bastard's using quantum encryption. The problem is access to this tap. Thus, we'll also need to bore up for an antenna."
Another long crate held a much larger set of interesting things. Ninety feet of pole and a small blowtorch sat alongside five thermic lances and a reel of cable.
"We'll bore up to the water pipes directly above, and stick the antenna there. We should be able to pick up the signal at that level."
Alpha Two nodded, before turning back to the camera view on her laptop.

About five minutes remained until the trial commenced. The corridors were being vacated as more people filed into the courtroom from both within the building and from outside. The room still had adequate space to seat a larger audience, but there were already about 800 people in the chamber, and more were coming.

Senator Lewis was escorted into a room that was adjacent ot one of the corridors that ran parallel to the front side of the courtroom. On the opposite side, another room was set aside for Senator Bates. The two parties were separated enough that neither was aware of where the other was located.

Cheney walked up the aisle which divided the courtroom in two. He sat down towards the front, in an area which was filled with more prominent members of society. Members of the Senate and Representative Assembly were present, and so were a number of wealthy citizens from around the city. The courtroom was a spectacle that undeniably carried with it much fanfare, and tensions were thick enough to be felt throughout the vast interior space.

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The operatives spent much time looking at the files and plans of the tunnels. Upon more detailed examination of the tunnels which connected to the general area near Senator Lewis' residence, they located an access point about 200 meters away, in a nearby utility station. The tunnels were reached by an elevator, and the key to entering was to negotiate entrance into the utility station.

At MNIA Headquarters, the Monavian operatives reported their findings to their superiors. They had located a signal underneath the street where Senator Lewis lived, but it was still quite weak. The amount of soil was too much for even the strongest equipment to penetrate easily.

The operatives surmised that it had to be buried deep, and soon proposed their supposition to the Assistant Technical Operations Director. They were authorized to meet with the utility company's personnel later that night. Around 8:00, they arrived at the utility station. They approached a counter, and then showed their identifications, as well as a letter from their superior with an official seal. Thye found themselves in an elevator in about five minutes.

The elevator descended eight stories into the ground, and came to a stop at the tunnels. They walked through the long corridors to where they thought they would find access to where the signal was. The soon had to consult maps, and then came across a doorway that was oddly marked on the map. It was noted with an asterisk which led to a footnote, which said that it was not officially registered in the city's records as being built on orders of city officials, like the rest of the network.

They left a small tracking beacon there, hiding it next to some pipes. They would return tomorrow.

OOC:

Check the OOC Thread for tunnel details.

There came a knocking on the door of the apartment. Alpha one whipped around, drawing his pistol, whilst Alpha slowly closed the laptops and moved towards the door. Once by the door, she looked through the peephole, before giving a thumbs up. She unbolted the door, slowly swinging it open. Outside, a man in couriers uniform was standing, with a small parcel.
"Good evening ma'am. A delivery for you."
She took the parcel, before signing the documents with her false passport name.
"Thankyou ma'am. Have a pleasant evening."

She slammed the door shut on the man, before taking the parcel to the desk. She carefully examined, the outside, before taking a knife to the packaging material, deliberately avoiding the normal entry routes to a package. Taking a look inside, she carefully opened the parcel, prepared to spring back in case there was a bomb inside. Finally, she ripped off the package, to reveal a pair of wooden crates. Using a small knife, she levered the lid off the two, to reveal their contents. One held a wad of paperwork and passes, whilst the other held a series of vicious-looking tools.

"This is Alpha Two to Operator One. Message, over."
"Alpha Two, go ahead, over."
"Operator One, all kit from courier received. Position of wires plotted. Target is not expected back for hours yet, and you have live feed from our position. Requesting permission to begin tap, over."
"Alpha Two, permission granted. You have a window of three hours. Be out before midnight, over."
"Operator One, wilco. Out."

She smiled, turning to her partner.
"Let's get this going." She hefted one of the large crates, before hefting it into a shopping trolley. The other crates soon followed, along with a length of rope. They pushed the trolley out, before security checking the room. Hairs were placed on the gaps on cupboards, doors and windows, and talcum powder on strategic surfaces. The door was locked tight, and then deadlocked.

Minutes later, they presented themselves at the utility station. With two official passes from Fegonet Communications, and a wad of documents, they only took ten minutes to get in, leaving the documents behind to be checked. The cargo elevator took them down to the tunnel level. The shopping trolley rattled across the floor, the path lit up by a small spotlight. With a map, Alpha One slowly paced out the route to where the suspect wire was. Once they were next to where a thick bunch of wires was held to the wall, they began to start looking for the wire. A small printout showed the colour coding for each wire, along with numbers. In line with standard copper telephone wires, each cable was actually a holder of eight smaller subcables, making it even more difficult to find the right cable.
"It was purple cable 3A. Any ideas on numbers?"
The wires weren't numbered. Thus, they followed the wires down towards Lewis's home, hoping to reach one of the communications hub areas. What they did see was a surprise. Set into the wall, with a bundle of wires passing across, a large steel door sat in the wall. There were no gaps around the sides, making it impossible to see what was behind. They began writing down notes, as well as adding it to the map - right next to Lewis's home.
"Some sort of government bunker?"
"I don't know. We'll have a look later."
What they did notice was the wire coming out from the wall next to the door, entering the thick bundle. They followed it back to the site, before getting to work on it. With a series of tools, they made two cuts in the wire sheath, before mounting onto the wire the clamp-like unit. When a small light flicked up to show it had power, the long box was opened, to reveal the thermic lances. Alpha One lit the lance before flicking darkened goggles over his eyes. A white-hot light filled the passage, sparks showering down as he pushed the rod upwards. His collegue passed him rod after rod, fitting the ends on the lance to continue pushing it upwards. Every twenty feet, the lance was changed, the near-molten previous lance dropped to earth for collection. At around seventy five feet, almost an hour after starting, the hole was at a level where the antenna could be placed in. A long length of wire attached to a metal antenna tip was raised up the wide hole, from which sparks still occasionally dripped. When it was secured at the top of the hole, the wire was plugged into the tap.

The mission was complete, apparantly. But, with time to spare, Alpha One move to check on the strange door, whilst Alpha Two set up the laptop to check for signals.
"It's not active, like the other wires - there's just the occasional ping going down the wire. Since it's a private network, any addresses won't help at all. We'll have to leave the hub to do its work on the signals."
At the door, the man noticed a whole bundle of cables coming out from the metal door. Intrigued, he called over to his collegue. For they still had a thermic lance left. Putting his goggles back on, and wincing at the mild burns on his hands where the gloves hadn't protected him, he lit the lance before slowly pushing it into the concrete floor at the base of the door. Curving the passage to ensure he did no visible damage to the door, he waited until the rod gave a sudden lack of resistance - he had hit the other side. Bending down, he retracted the rod, before going back at the hole to allow him a clear line of sight to the other side. When he had finished, he left the rod to burn out in the floor, leaving a clean hole. Taking off his goggles, he cautiously looked through the holes, using a small spotlight to light up the other side. Inside, all he could see was a thick bundle of cables, ten or so, leading away from a series of doors at the end. He noticed by the main door that there was no keycard slot on the inside, as befitted the normal doors.

He moved back as the heat started to become unbearable, before drawing the warm lance out of the two-foot deep hole it had cut into the floor, about an inch wide at the top yet three inches in the cavity it had melted underneath. Gingerly grabbing the cold end of it, he dragged it back to the crate, where he realised the problem - the lances were still very hot. He didn't want to set the crate on fire, so came to a decision - to leave it down in the tunnel. Concealed in a drainage channel in the floor, the only sight of them for the moment was the occasional puff of steam. The tunnel stank of burning metal, another problem he had failed to consider, but one which the ventilation systems should deal with in hours, along with the sweltering heat produced.

They hauled the rest of the equipment back to the elevator, collecting their documents as they left the utility station, before returning back to their apartment. There, they gave their status report to the operating crate at the embassy, along with the news of the underground bunker.

The Alfegans had not counted on Lewis to plant a booby trap on the door to detect any external tampering. A heat-sensitive strip was attached to the door in a concealed position. When the thermic lances were activated, the strip was able to pick up their extensive heat signature within seconds as the air near the door and the wires grew hotter. The strip, although placed there to detect attempts at using torches to breach the door itself, was still sensitive enough to pick up the lances from a distance of up to four meters, and triggered a silent alarm.

A command prompt was brought up, asking for an override code, which would ensure that if anyone was using the system while it was "under attack," they could abort the transfer while they used it--or deleted its contents. After a minute counted down, and no code was entered, the process automatically began.

All of the data on Senator Lewis' computers in the hidden room was now being removed and sent into a secure server elsewhere, hidden in a secret annex that was attached to the bunker. The main computers--all that would be seized by investigators--were transferring their contents there, where the data would be safely stored.

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A signal was detected shortly after arriving back at the apartment. It seemed to arrive suddenly, and was determined to be outgoing. The signal itself lasted for only a few seconds, and consisted of an alphanumeric code. It would take but minutes to decipher, yet it could not make sense. The message simply read, "EHJLP ORDGL QJGDW DLPWR HPHUJ HQFBV WRUDJ H.VHF XULWB EUHDF K.000"

After analyzing the encryption protocols, they were able to obtain the following message, although the process took half an hour.

"EHJLP ORDGLQJ GDWD LPWR HPHUJHQFB VWRUDJH. VHFXULWB EUHDFK." (The zeros were nulls.)

Thirty minutes later, a second signal arrived, that simply said, "WUDQV IHUFR PSOHW H.000"

After breaking through the first layer, of encryption, it read, "WUDQVIHU FRPSOHWH."

The two messages would soon be deciphered as "Begin loading data into emergency storage. Security breach." and "Transfer complete."

At the hub, the messages blipped up on screen. With the encryption, it took a while to decypher, the message slowly interpreted as a field cracking programme got to work. Finally, when the message came through, the operation commander swore.
"This is Operator One to Alpha One - you set off some sort of silent alarm. You've completely buggered that one up, over."
"Operator One, what happened, over?"
"Alpha One. Long Message. The system alerted a security breach, followed by some sort of file upload protocol. Whatever was being uploaded either took a different route, so we don't have a clue where that's gone, or went to some form of secure storage inside his little hidey-hole. Whatever happened, he'll know that there's someone onto him. Over."
"Operator One, what is our new course of action, over?"
"Alpha One, Message. Find out where that cable physically goes, and see who he was sending that signal to. If necessary, we'll send you a plasma arc lance to blast any bunker doors down. I'll get onto the MNIA as soon as I can, and see if we can get some backup. Out"

___________________________________________

The call to the MNIA, through the secure telephone line in the embassy, was one that he was dreading to make.
"Hello, this is Alfegos Head of Field Operations. I'll make this brief - we've tripped some kind of alarm on a little hidey-hole we think Lewis was using. We're tracking signals out of the bunker, so the next course of action is to find who he's chatting to. Since it's going to take time to get through those blast doors you've got down there, we need a couple supporting engineers to help us vaporise our way into anywhere. Can you help us at all?"

___________________________________________

At the airship pad, the men in the back of the van finished another round of hearts, once again a closely contested match. And yet, the rain was continuing, rolling down all around them. The radio crackled to life occasionally, the drama with the Alpha operative team coming over the net. Finally, a signal came in which they were expecting, causing them to jump up alert.
"This is Sierra India Two Two, calling Operator One. We're on approach, and preparing to land at the designated pad."
The surrounding area came alive as lights began pulsing, guiding the airship in. Around them, from the shelter of airport vehicles, technicians prepared to receive the inbound airship. A heavy-duty fuelling vehicle sat to one side, whilst tow and resupply vehicles sat ready, along with a small car from customs. When it finally came, the relatively small airship took up a small area of the concrete landing area, cables launched up at it used to lash it to the ground. The gondola side door opened, allowing the pilot to rush out with a poncho over his head to meet the customs officials. After sheaths of paperwork had been exchanged, including some with official Monavian Intelligence Agency seals, the customs officials withdrew, allowing the airship to be fuelled up and ready. A pair of airship structural engineers clambered inside the framework to give a brief check of the craft's structure, whilst the two crew members to be exchanged left the gondola. They were escorted away by security guards, as the four newcomers approached the airship. Once inside, they shook off their wet clothing, before greeting the pilot.

"Evening my friend. As I am sure you are aware, we are here on a special mission tasked by high authorities. Do you understand?"
"Yes I do." The man was unhappy about being moved from his position of being in charge.
"I am now in charge of this airship. You will do as I say, as if I were the equivalent rank of Air Taskforce Commander. On that note, some reading for you to do."
He handed him a wad of papers, to read through.
"We'll kip out in the van tonight. Come talk to me if you have any questions with that paperwork. Otherwise, get some shuteye. We're up at 0500 hours tomorrow morning to get some work done."

OOC:

I will postpone RPing the trial until I can get OOC messages back from the other participants via Telegram.

IC:

The call from the Head of Field Operations was sent to Cheney's Internal Security Director for the City of Chalcedon. The Internal Security Director, or ISD as he was often referred to, was absolutely stunned. What the Hell is happening down there!? All he could think about now is how to deal with the situation, which was growing worse with every passing second. He was out of his office in less than five minutes.

He took out his cell phone and began to make several frantic calls to the operatives that had been down earlier that evening, and soon had them all at the utility station in half an hour, as several of the agents had gone to bed and had to be woken by loud calls on their residential land lines.

The utility station was now occupied by the night shift crew, which was only partly aware of what operations the MNIA and Alfegan intelligence services were conducting in their facilities. The ISD ran through the front doors of the low building and was at the front desk in seconds. "I need to know what is going on here!" he exclaimed.

"I don't know what you are talking about, sir." The clerk's voice was strained and her face grew pale.

"Someone tampered with the communications lines down there, and things are not looking good at all."

"You are with the MNIA, right?" the astonished clerk timidly asked.

"I am, and I need to get down to the tunnels immediately. Have the elevator ready in two minutes, while I get my men in here!"

In those two minutes, eight agents showed up, along with several metal cases of equipment and weapons. A tactical unit was on its way, in the form of an armored van with advanced equipment that could be used to make a forced entry possible.

The Monavians were joined by their Alfegan counterparts in the service room from which the elevator would descend. The ISD led the way, pushing on the down button. The doors would not open.

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Lewis was awoken by the silent alarm, which had sent a call to his cell phone. He recognized the false number of the alarm that appeared on the caller ID screen. Minutes ;later, he was dressed and making his way downstairs.

In his basement, he slid back the bookcase, and unlocked the door that was concealed behind it, and bolted down the stairs, hastily pushing the button to roll back the bookcase. He was in his bunker shortly thereafter.

Using a security camera which he planted in the tunnel, he was able to see the tampering that had been done to the wire and the door. "Good," he muttered angrily, "they will not be able to get in."

He soon began to clean up shop. It would be at least fifteen minutes before the elevator would be functional again. Lewis had seen to it that the alarm would cut power to the elevator and send a surge to trip the circuit breakers in the utility station. In addition, it would take an hour or so to get through each of the three doors leading to the bunker.

Senator Lewis, always secretive, began to remove discs and data storage devices that could be fitted into a suitcase. He placed a number of documents in the suitcase as well, and then began to shred documents. He was not a tidy man, and as a consequence, he had mountains of old paperwork which should have been shredded anyway. Anything that was needed would be sorted to the side.

Lewis then began to secure the server, downloading the continuous deletion program onto the server, which was a mammoth bank of hard drives. If anyone tampered with it, the data would be lost. Lewis needed another way out. He began to set up another connection...

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The elevator was not functional due to the loss of power. In a minute or so, the clerk had returned from the breaker box. "The circuit breaker was tripped and we had a blown fuse. I had to change the fuse and flip back the breaker."

The elevator was still not working, and she had to run a computer diagnostic check to locate the cut in the power. A wire had been fried.

The ISD soon pulled the fried wire out from a wall panel and cut it out. He had a new one spliced into its place, exercising the deft precision of a factory machine that assembled computer parts.

"The elevator will now work. Let's get down there now!"

Five minutes later, both teams and the tactical unit were eight stories below ground and were approaching the door. The ISD spotted the burned hole under the door and the cuts in the wire casings. "This will cost the taxpayer a good deal of money to fix," he mused.

He then began to inspect the door. He looked at the assembly of the outer steel plating, which made the door so durable. He noticed an unusual feature in the assembly, and then closely examined the edge. A narrow metal strip with a wire running through it was barely visible.

"Lewis is one clever SOB!" the ISD roared. "That slimy hag has got us again!"

He began to make observations about the door's construction. "It looks like it requires a pass code to open up." He eyed a number panel on the wall. "This cannot be hacked easily," he said, noting how strong the cover plate for the panel was.

He picked up a screwdriver, and began to try turning the screws, only to realize that the screws being used were security screws, which can be put in but not taken out. He demanded a hacksaw, which he began using to cut grooves in the screws, so that he could use the screwdriver.

"Don't bother with trying to cut through the door," he said. "You'll leave a mess of molten metal behind which will take hours to cool. If he is as well protected as it seems he is, he could be gone before we know it."

Meanwhile, Lewis merrily shredded more documents. "Ooh, old receipts. I wonder why I put them here?" He opened up a box of checks. These should have been disposed of years ago. Look, old mortgage payments!"

Lewis seemed to be sarcastic and even bordered on sadistic in his snide remarks to himself. He knew that he had plenty of time...

In the tunnel, the ISD tried to radio for backup. The device did not work. It was not the stories of rock and earth, but rather an active signal jammer. He then dispatched one of his men to the elevator, to go up and make the call. He wanted Lewis' house surrounded so that he could not escape.

Lewis saw all that was happening. He had turned on a stereo that was playing all manner of unusual music, which he used as his "theme" as he watched the two groups attempt to enter his bunker. He was busy deactivating some computer systems and downloading all of the data from the server onto a compact storage system, capable of holding nearly one terabyte of information. He could take the portable device with him.

He returned to watching his surveillance camera. The ISD had already cut grooves in the screws with the hacksaw, and was now unscrewing the panel. When he opened it up, he began to deal with the wiring. Lewis realized that it was time to act again. He cut power to the elevator, and began to use an illicit back door protocol to lower two blast doors in the main tunnels. On one side, where the main hub and terminals were located, about a hundred feet or so away, he lowered one. About 100 yards down the tunnel, on the other side, he lowered another. The two eight-inch-thick titanium blast doors sealed the tunnel. Finally, Lewis shut down the lights. It seemed as if he had complete control.

Once they had finally got down in the tunnels, the large unit that the Alfegos had brought down with them started roaring to life. What looked like a commercial transformer unit was connected up to a backpack holding a cylinder, and a long cutting arm. With power linked up to power cables, the lights in the street above dimmed slightly as the device came to life.
"I wasn't intending to wait for the metal to cool."

The plasma arc cutter came to life with a brilliant bolt of lightning jumping between the two terminals, an intense light produced.
"They use this to vaporise waste back home, and the military use it to breech bunkers. I somehow don't think a mere blast door like this can be that much of a problem. Just don't touch the door, or you'll fry."

He came into contact with the door, starting the arc again. There came a deafening roar, as if a tornado's winds were blowing, as a hole lept into the metal. Slowly cruising along, molten metal began condensing around the blast site, as a gaping hole appeared. It took half a minute to cut along the top, leaving everyone's ears ringing. The concrete above the door had turned to glass, whilst on top there was a cavity a couple inches wide. The bright white light of the plasma arc lit up the entire tunnel, dazzling anyone looking towards it.

"It's only got the bolts on two sides I reckon - we can cut the other bolts off, and kick it down."

He got to work again, clouds of smoke rolling from the cutting site as he cut through the bolts. He finished, the door clanging as it fell down into the gap created. He darted back as it began leaning, running further down the tunnel as it crashed to the ground. At that moment, the lights went out, and the two blast doors began locking down. The man swore as the cutter died down, power lost.
"You get to work on the second door - it looks like that's the only way out of here!"
He took out a pack of four glowsticks, snapping them to illuminate the surrounding tunnel. In the murky distance, he could see the two blast doors had closed, cutting off electricity to his cutter and trapping them. At this point, he hoped that the ventilation system was still active. At his feet, the roughly cut edges of blast door glowed an evil red, along with the rent ends of the bolts on either side. Stepping through the gap hastily, he found himself on the other side. Another blast door confronted him.
"I hope they've got backup coming on the surface."

_______________________________________

At the airport, the airship crew got a rude awakening. Within minutes, they had been cleared for takeoff, flying a couple hundred metres above the city, the airship engines roaring as they moved over the district Lewis was in. The night-time IR cameras sat tracked on the residence of Lewis. With the ability to zoom in to easily recognise a person's face in daytime, by night they were reduced to watching mere IR signatures of people, made more difficult in the rain. The pilot finally set the airship to hover with all lights a couple hundred metres away from Lewis's house. At the door, Reach One de-activated the automatic door sequence, opening it to expose him to the wind and rain. Lying just inside, he set up the sniper rifle, slowly adjusting the tripod to allow him view of Lewis's house. He centred the crosshairs on Lewis's front door, and waited.

________________________________________

At the 'hub', Operator One (the lead of the Alfegan Field Party) sat fretting as he listened to radio reports. On one of the screens, the airship view of the house was present, as both observers focused in using camera pods. Turning to one of his technicians, he made up his mind.
He himself got on the radio, before making a call.
"Operator One to Bravo One - do you read me, over?"
"Operator One, I read you, over."
"Bravo One, long message. You are to go with Bravo Two from your present location to Lewis's house. At the location, make as much confusion as possible, and get all the emergency services in. We want to let Lewis escape, so we can capture him in a more controlled environment. We'll send a technician around to relieve your watch on Bates. Over."
"Operator One, wilco. ETA of five minutes. Out."

A technician sat up, a smile on his face.
"I've got into the utility company system. Just a few minutes until I can find where our friends underground are stuck."

_________________________________________

What was the best way to cause people to start phoning the emergency services, and cause general chaos? On foot to facilitate an easier escape, the two operatives walked down the street wearing balaclavas and carrying tracsuit bags. With little time to prepare, their method was very crude. In the middle of the street, they opened the bag, before throwing bricks through car windows, and through the front windows of houses. Then, with a petrol bomb, they set a car alight, before drawing their pistols and firing shots into the air. One man let off a firework, shooting up into the sky before exploding in a blast of sparks. Then, they ran away, hearing the sirens in the distance, to hide in a front garden so that they could follow Lewis when he made his escape.

High above, the observer watched, using a visual camera now to track the emergency services as they rushed into the area. Since any MNIA operatives would be side-tracked, that would allow Lewis to make good his getaway.

Down in his bunker, Senator Lewis continued to shred old documents. He had three active shredders running, each made for industrial-sized jobs. He had received one form his wife, who grew tired of all of his paper clutter upstairs, and had borrowed a second one from work. The third was one he bought for this bunker office, although he had neglected to use it.

He ran one for ten minutes, cooling it with a fan as it went. After those ten minutes, he switched to the second, and then to the third after ten more minutes. He rotated the fan to blow on whichever one was running, allowing them to remain cool. He emptied bag after bag of old shreddings into plastic garbage bags. He would use the paper as confetti the next time he attended a parade, so that he would not have to clog up his trash cans that were used to hold recyclable refuse.

He turned off the stereo, as the music was no longer interesting. Two doors and a good deal of space meant that the music could not be heard in the tunnel.

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In the tunnel, the ISD stepped back as the plasma cutter began to melt a hole in the door. He had his men step back as well, dispatching them to deal with other things. He hoped that it would work, but the loss of power was causing major problems. He had emergency lights positioned around the tunnel, in the form of portable, battery-powered lamps.

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Lewis watched from the security camera he had placed in the tunnel. He was not amused by the rate at which the cutter was working. He then pulled out his next ace in the hole. Taking a moment to activate a program on the server, which had been transferred there, he remotly detonated a small explosive charge farther down the tunnel, beyond the blast door at the one end. The power supply was cut off as a charge cut all of the wires. Now the cutter would have no power, and the doors would lose all ability to be raised until power was restored.

They are not getting in. I will be sure of it. He continued to shred papers, and had now accumulated several plastic bags of shreddings. He was halfway done with his papers in half an hour.

Lewis then allowed the shredders to cool as he activated a long-range radio, and began broadcasting on an obscurely low frequency, one which was not used by civilians much or was considered standard for the military either. He began transmitting a message and heavily encrypting it.

"This is the Chalcedon base. I am being attacked and this place may be compromised shortly. I have taken most of the emergency measures needed."

He knew that even if the Alfegans or Monavian had the slightest chance of picking up the transmission, they would take days to decode it, especially if he used 512 bit encryption. [OOC: I assume that 512 bit (2^9) is a real level of software/message encoding.] He received a reply.

"What is going on?" a cold, throaty voice on the other end replied.

"The MNIA is trying to bust in. I have cut off their lighting and power supply, but it will only be a matter of hours before they get in. I will be gone by then."

"How could they find the bunker!?"

"I don't know, but I will have all of the computerized data gone by the time they arrive. I also have a nasty surprise planned for them."

"I take it that the teams are in the tunnels?"

"They are. Do you suppose that they have backup?"

"Always bet that your enemies will have assistance somewhere."

"I will check outside."

Lewis brought a security program online in the bunker, and checked his home surveillance cameras, to deter burglars. He noticed what looked like a burning car and several broken windows outside. Lewis learned hacking from his fraternity mates in college, the same people who now resided in prisons, thanks to local police and the MNIA. He did not want to join them.

Because of this, he began to attack the utility company's security system, jamming power in other tunnels and shutting down elevators. As no one else was needing to enter or leave other tunnels, no one from the company knew what was going on. Night shift employees were busy with less boring activities to pass the time.

Without any nearby elevators that could function at the other stations, any backup units would have to take detours for miles to find usable routes down into the tunnels and then locate the area that had been sealed off. Meanwhile, Lewis began to shut down the ventilation system. The air would take hours to grow stagnant and thick, but it would not be toxic. It would just become unbearably hot.

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The airship arrived overhead in about ten minutes, having to negotiate its way through the rain, which still drenched the landscape. Local emergency services began to flood the neighborhood, searching every street. Nearly a dozen police cruisers and a number of fire engines began to line the streets as the burning car was extinguished. The ends of the roads were blocked off as officers began to advance from either end. The Alfegans needed to make their getaway immediately, or they would be captured, and their plan could fall apart.

Lewis could see the police approaching. He figured that they were called in for a riot, and was now concerned that the rioters, wherever they were, would damage his property, and maybe make escape impossible. However, he soon realized that the MNIA and the Alfegans would pick apart what was down here, so he figured that casualties were inevitable.

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The computer monitor displayed the message "Download: 48% complete." Every minute or so added a percentage point to two, and although 840 gigabytes was a lot to carry around, it was better than leaving so much as one shred of electronic information for the MNIA to find. He began loading a few more documents into the shredders, and even ran all three at once as they ate up ten page packets, staples and all.

The two suitcases were almost completely loaded, except for the one which had room for the data storage device. Lewis left to go to a safe, where he removed a case containing nearly 150,000 thalers in cash. This would serve as evidence against him and he would have to get rid of it. [OOC: He is not going to shred the money.] He took the briefcase and placed it with his other luggage.

Down in the tunnel, the Monavians had finished setting up the lights and had used a metal rod to push the door out of the way. The hot metal needed to dragged away from the opening to let the plasma cutter through, but the tunnel was not well lit by the portable lights. The darkness, which seemed to grow more cramped and stuffy as the air thickened and the tunnel grew hotter, felt as if it was a force of evil malice, closing in upon the trapped operatives.

OOC:

I owe you a little more background on Lewis. In college, Lewis and his fraternity buddies were often pursuing unusual activities. Hazing, illegal rituals, and crazy, often illicit dares were common, but they later got involved in shady business deals and scams. Lewis learned to hack systems from some of his old dormitory mates, and that is why he has control over so many technical aspects of the complex. He can close blast doors, cut power, shut down lights, and stop elevators. He had a radio jammer installed inside to prevent nosy police or utility workers from reporting what they saw, if they ever wanted to investigate his door and the tunnel beyond, and also had a charge attached to some wires, which he could remotely detonate to permanently cut power to the area for a short time.

He is controlling the complex from his storage server, which he is emptying into a portable data storage device which he can walk off with. As he set off "traps", he automatically deletes the hacking programs so that he cannot be caught with them. His computer is blank, and he isn't taking any of his back door hacking programs with him, so they will be erased instead of copies to the portable data storage device.

Down in the tunnel, Alpha One kicked the transformer unit, as he tried to come up with an idea. The power cut meant that the door control slots would be deactivated. The doors would not come unlocked, unless they had enough power. What they needed was a car battery or something with a good amount of energy to provide, which he didn't see anyone carrying. They'd need someone from the outside to get them out now, which he didn't see happening in the near future. Taking out his phone, a mesolitic communicator, he used a knife to scrape the insulation from the top of the aerial, before moving over to where the wire tap was. He knew that the jammer that others seemed to be experiencing would likely not extend through the seventy feet of ground to his own antenna. He was right, the signal bar jumping to full as the wire was secured around the antenna. He quickly dialled in a number, before speaking.

In the background, he could hear the sound of his collegue with a lighter, trying to light one of the thermic lances they had discarded down here. Picking up the four other lances, she had used a knife to prise any unreacted thermite rods from the bases of the other rods, giving her enough fuel for a one minute burn. She gave up, before shouting over to the Monavians.
"Anyone here got a blowtorch, or something hot? I'll need some help from anyone here with knowledge of these doors - I've got enough fuel in this for a minute of cutting."

Alpha One heard the dialling tone, before a voice came on the line.
"Alpha One, what the hell's going on down there? The Monavians were yelling down the line about some power cut."
"I think Lewis has been a sneaky bastard, and got into the systems. We're locked in, the ventilation has come to a standstill, lighting's gone and the power's gone. There's little chance of us getting out of here by ourselves."
"Brilliant. Just what I didn't want to hear. Look, I might be able to coax your Monavian friends to send down some sort of a rescue party from another direction. Unless I can get through a few suitcases of paperwork in the next minute, there aren't going to be any re-enforcements. And the people in the embassy are likely going to be pissed off knowing you're stuck down there with their plasma cutter."
"Just rub it in why don't you?"
There came a small explosion as his colleague tried lighting a load of lighter fuel she had poured onto the rod, failing to produce the heat needed for ignition.
"Look, get something out of the hat as soon as you can. You've got some breaching charges, haven't you?"
"Yeah, but nobody to send them. I'm down to the one technician - the other guy's got have at least some shuteye."
"I don't care. Give some caffeine tablets or something, and have him come down at another of the stations."
"It'll take ten minutes for him to get there. Is there any point in him coming?"
"Yeah - send him with the breeching charges, and a petrol generator. There's one in the embassy maintenance stores, for running the arc generator and for machinery in gardens. If not, just commandeer one from the utility station - we don't have time to muck around."
"Alright. He'll be there soon."

__________________________

A minute later at the hub, a bleary-eyed man sat downing a series of stimulant tablets, as he was given a rucksack.
"You've got 4x 4kg shaped anti-vehicle charges in there. If they can blast their way through a tank, I'm sure you can use them to blast the bolts out. When you're down there, you should be able to hear the people on the other side of the door, who'll guide you through where the charges need placing. If you can't blast through the bolts with three charges, use the fourth one to place a hole through the door."
He passed him another thing to place in the rucksack - a long reel of thick cable.
"If you can get a hole either by the side of the door or in the door, you can run them a cable from a working power source. A generator or just a power point which hasn't been shut down. Then they can cut their way out."

_____________________

The man was underground quickly, barging through the security checkpoint at the downtown utility station, leaving his pass there. With half a mile of tunnel to navigate to get to the stranded operatives, it was most definitely a hike. He ran most of the way, collapsing exhausted against the door with a clang. Banging the door with a small metal bar, he began yelling.
"Oi you lot - where are the bolts on the door? I've got some blasting charges to try get you out of there."
He took out three of the four charges, unpacking them to reveal the concave blasting side. THIS WAY TOWARDS ENEMY. Oh the irony. Placing them where he was told, he used the built-in magnetic clamps to lock them in place, before taping them on with some electricians tape. Unreeling the detonators, he peeled off the insulation to reveal the exposed wire, before tying the cables together. With the two ends exposed, he wrapped one end around the terminal of a 9V battery, before taking the other.
"Get into cover all of you! Firing in twenty seconds."
He moved to the door, pulling out the safety pins, before running back twenty metres.
"Blasting in 3...2...1..."
There came a deafening blast as he tapped the terminal, enough to deafen him even with earplugs in. The tunnel was filled with a massive cloud of dust and smoke, along with the sound of collapsing debris. At this point, he realised that the explosives could've caused the roof of the tunnel to collapse. Swearing profusely, he ran over, unable to see as he hammered on the door.
"Are you OK! Someone speak to me!"

____________________________

On the surface, the two operatives crawled through the undergrowth of front gardens, staying out of sight of the police, until they were near the end of the street. At that point, one of them made a radio message.
"Sierra India Two Two, this is Bravo One. Requesting fire for diversion, over."
"Bravo One, how the hell do you expect us to do that, over?"
"Use whatever you have to, but fast. Out."

15 seconds later, there came a brilliant flash of light that lit up the entire neighbourhood, even through the drizzle. Above them, the airship had just deployed decoy flares and a deafening charge, part of its countermeasure system. The deafening charge was designed to cause a brief period of deafness, to stop people on the ground from shooting at the craft in combat whilst it made a getaway to a safe altitude. In this case, the ear plugs the two people had fitted as part of their expecting a firefight meant that they had their wits about them as they casually walked out from the garden they were in, before turning the street corner and speeding up their pace. Once they were a couple hundreds metres away, they came up to a small greasy spoon cafe, where they entered to take cover, having removed their balaclavas and dirty coats.

Whilst sipping disgusting cups of coffee, Bravo One spoke quietly over his radio, cupping it as if it were a mobile phone.
"Operator One, this is Bravo One. Message, over."
"Bravo One, go ahead, over."
"Operator one, we are currently stationed at a public cafe location, out of range of ground units. Requesting current status of investigation, over."
"Bravo One, long message. They think it was some hooligans. They've got the fire put out, but haven't moved yet because of the show the airship put on. The pilot's been told that they fired off the countermeasures because the airship came under fire from a firearm. The police are pretty pissed off at that, but that's meant they're stuck there on the lookout. Hopefully, the confusion means that Lewis will make his escape sometime. I'll tell you when we get word from the airship, so you can go and corner him. He'll make his escape on foot, so much easier for you. I'm also hoping the police corden they're now setting up means that the MNIA don't get in, or at least are delayed as long as possible, so he doesn't get spooked and stay locked in his bunker. We need to get him in a place where we don't get stumped by any more booby traps. Over."
"Operator One, Right you are. Quit hogging the radio now, will you, over?"
"Bravo One, wilco. Out."

__________________________

In the airship, the radio scanner that one of the two observers was running picked up a message on an unused frequency. The radio scanner was used to intercept military messages, yet was normally used to sweep all frequencies to try and spot any civilian terrorists. When active, it logged all messages, scanning for suspicious phrases or military callsigns, and alerted the user. If the signal was encrypted past the stage it could easily crack, it similarly alerted it. When a 512 bit encrypted signal came over the radio, it was flagged immediately, before being played out loud. The stream of gibberish was stopped mid-flow, as the computer triangulated the source.
"That signal was from Lewis's street. The police wouldn't send a message with that level of encryption - probably some paranoid bloke not wanting it to be cracked. I'll send it to the hub, and see what they make of it."

At the hub, the technician who received it immediately got an error message as the computer tried to crack the encryption - with the system only able to deal with encryption up to 32-bit, the system was stopped in its tracks to prevent it cooking itself. The file was sent off back to Alfegos, where the Joint Intelligence Computer would have a go at cracking it, when a slot came available.

The ISD fumbled through a trunk of equipment, searching for a blowtorch. He found a case that contained one in the next trunk he searched, five minutes later. Despite the frantic pace of the operatives, time seemed to pass at an uncomfortably slow rate. The stranded agents grew impatient.

He handed it over to another agent, who began to attach the fuel tank to the torch assembly. When all was said and done, they prepared to fire it up. Just then, they were interrupted.

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Through the hidden camera, Lewis could see the Monavians trying to light a blowtorch to bring about the ignition of the thermic lance. He had deleted several hacking programs, which speeded up the download process. The monitor read "Download: 58% complete." He began to use an automated valve to release cable coolant into the tunnel. The myriad cable lines, running parallel with pipes and other types of infrastructure, sometimes generated excessive heat. An emergency cooling line was added to prevent overheating, a line which now was being opened. A valve suddenly clicked open, releasing a hissing stream of coolant, which formed a translucent fog in the tunnel. It slowly spread out from the pipe, but took minutes to reach the operatives. By then, it had substantially thinned out, but still hampered their view. It was not toxic, but it still smelled unpleasant.

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The Alfegan technician ran through the section of tunnel that came from the nearest elevator. Senator Lewis had failed to lock down the elevator at a service station that was three quarters of a mile down the street, and thus the Alfegan had a shortcut to the blast door. In the commotion of lighting the blowtorch and getting the lance to light, the Monavians could not hear the knocking and banging for nearly a minute. When they did, the ISD ran down the dark tunnel towards the door, before he began speaking with the technician.

"I don't know if these blast doors have bolts or if they are gravity sealed, but try placing one on each side and the bottom."

The charges were placed where the ISD directed and were soon detonated, by which time he had fought his way through the foggy tunnel to the area where he was continuing to work with the Alfegans. In the environment, the Monavian agents were unable to light the blowtorch with a simple lighter, as the air in the room disrupted the flow of the gas in the torch. They would have to turn up the pressure to a level that would become dangerous if not properly managed, in order to leave a coherent stream of gas to light the thermic lance. Meanwhile, as they were about to light the blowtorch, the ISD called a halt.

"Hold off on lighting the torch! The door is about to be blown!"

An explosion rocked the tunnel as the three charges detonated. The titanium blast door violently shuddered, rattling against the walls as the charges nicked and twisted the edges. Pieces of concrete fragmented on the roof and crashed down on the ground, some weighing as much as bowling balls. Cracks flowed in the walls around the blast sites. Then, after maybe ten seconds of mayhem and the sound of clattering concrete chips, the smoke had to clear.

After a minute or so, when the dust settled down, the technician way as well have fallen to his knees in disbelief. The ISD, technician, and indeed everyone, would have thought that the door would give way. "I could swear that the charges could breach the door! The damn thing can't be as thick as I think it is!"

He ran towards the door. It was partly been at its base, and the concrete on the other side was cracked and splintered, yet the door held firm. DAMN IT! The door is gravity sealed! The ISD stared aghast at the wall of metal, still immovable.

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Lewis felt the rumble of the blast doors shaking. Cursing under his breath, he feverishly glanced at the monitor. "Download: 63% complete." flashed across the otherwise blank monitor. He picked up his radio receiver. "I need to have you dispatch a one of your milk cows."

"What?" said the voice over the radio. "Milk cow?"

"That is right—a black and white animal that can get its way around anywhere."

"Now I understand."

Moments later, one of Lewis' confederates, using a police car which he had built to masquerade as the real thing, down to the last detail, began to make its way toward Lewis' residence. Lewis would have a use for the vehicle, but it was not escape...

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After the barrage of noise and chaos that had been brought about by the attempt to breach the blast door, the ISD returned to the work site. The Monavians had just lit the torch and were preparing to light the thermic lance, if they could get the plan to work. He then had a brilliant idea.

He pulled a steel crowbar out one of the containers and ran back to the blast door. He began to hammer at the damaged concrete at the edge. Maybe, just maybe, he could make a hole next to the door that was large enough to pass a cable through. He began to chisel away, when he realized that the technician may still be equipped. "Sir, do you have any more charges?" he asked. Upon confirmation that he did, he asked to have the charge planted to blow a hole in the concrete.

In the tunnel, the man swore as he saw the door had not given, instead deforming around the blast sites. He banged his head against the door, kicking it furiously, before calming himself down. He took out the fourth charge, listening as the man inside directed him.
"Right. I'll put the charge at an angle, to try and blast away at the concrete. Let's hope this works, and we don't collapse the tunnel."
He flipped the cover off the charge and prepared it, before going through his bag for detonators. He finally found an electric time delay fuse, setting it to ten seconds.
"Another ten second countdown. Fire in the hole!"
He plugged in the detonator, before ripping out the safety pin. He sprinted down the tunnel, hitting the ground and shoving his fingers in his ears. The blast this time was louder, with less of the door in the way to take the blast. More dust was thrown up, but this time he realised he had had success. Rushing back through the dust, he saw that a good sized hole had been cut through it.
"I'll just go plug in the cable. I think you're going to be back in business in a moment."

As the thermic lance lit, showering sparks as it belched flame like a dragon, the plasma arc cutter began to power up. The system slowly built up charge, charging a capacitor bank to provide the initial lighting pulse. The one Alfegan operative ran over to the blasted door that still sealed them in, whilst the other lit the plasma arc torch. This time, he adjusted the handle settings, changing it from "cut" to "blast".
"If Lewis is on the other side of this door, he's going to wet himself."
He moved the end of the plasma lance towards the doors, flicking down his goggles.
"Get ready for some noise people!"

There came an explosion of metal as the torch made contact. The amount of power now travelling through the electrode on the end was enough to make parts of the lance glow from the heat, the operator thankful for the coolant discharged earlier in the tunnel. A cloud of smoke and dust came from the cutting site, obscuring the person's vision as he cut, surprisingly rapidly. After half a minute of cutting, he turned off the lance, holding it at a distance to his body, whilst stepping back as the door collapsed. The heat produced at the cutting site was enough to cut straight through the thick door, leaving it hanging a couple of inches above the ground. On the other side, scorch marks in the concrete showed the penetration of the plasma burst. All around it, the molten edges slowly glowed, as he stepped through. On the other side of this door, he could see three separate smaller doors, all apparently normal.
"We get all this way for this? I think you can go clear the rooms people."

________________________________________

In the airship, Hawk Two watched the scene below him, chuckling as he saw some of the touches his colleagues had gone to. They'd graffitied lewd messages across the street during the time of attracting attention, and he even spraypainted a dog. The owner was busy yelling at the Police, as they continued to search. He watched as a police car approached the scene, zooming in on its numberplate. The system automatically logged it, before sending off an identity request to check that it was all that it seemed. He didn't want the MNIA creeping in too soon - he had seen their angry operatives circling the streets physically blocked off by police cars, riot vehicles and fire engines.
"Registration of vehicle valid - registered to ...."
He listened in, realising that the car was not police. And since it was registered to a person, it was not likely to be MNIA. He zoomed out to follow the vehicle, giving a shout to the others.
"Keep an eye on that police car that just came in - be ready to slot him, should he start interfering."

Seeing that the charge was being planted at the side, the ISD ran for cover down the tunnel. He ordered his men to begin taking shelter from potential shrapnel in the tunnel which they had uncovered. The edges of the door which had been cut still remained hotter than the room, but it was safe in the dim tunnel. Moments later, another loud explosion shook the tunnel.

To one side of the blast door, a hole measuring two feet wide was blown into the concrete. The jagged edges of the material jutted out as deformed and shredded rebar formed a twisted mass in the middle of the hole. The ISD picked up his crowbar and began to pry at the rebar, moving it out of the way so that the cable could be passed through. He also chipped away at any loose concrete and blunted the edges, so that the cable would not be damaged.

Minutes later, he was pulling lengths of cable through and coiling them on the ground on the other side. When he had about 150 feet of the cable, he began unwinding the coil, having other operatives carry it through the tunnel to prevent it from suffering entanglements. Shards of cement and metal which were blown out of the hole littered the floor, and a cut in the cable would derail their plans.

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OOC:

Which blast door did you RP cutting? The tunnel Lewis added has one door at the end, and ends with three doors, on the end and sides. If you are describing the titanium blast door at the end of the main tunnel, where the technician is, then you will have to move the plasma cutter over there to blast through it.

BACK TO IC:

The ISD ran down the tunnel which Lewis had added. Looking around at the walls, he saw how well the place was constructed. This slimy old man really knows his stuff! He reached the end and pointed his flashlight at the three doors as the Alfegans followed him in.

"We get all this way for this? I think you can go clear the rooms people."

"Let's go get him." He prepared to kick down one of the doors, and rammed his foot into the bottom, hoping to knock it in. The door did not budge, but his foot did. Screaming, he fell back and was caught by one of his operatives. "Dammit! Damn it all!"

The door was cold steel.

"Can you wheel the plasma cutter in here? We need to get through these doors."

Just then, Lewis released a coolant valve in the narrow tunnel, flooding the space with another fog. This time, it was much denser, as it was confined in a tighter space.

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As the ISD was busy adding to his medical bills, the Alfegans waited for the vehicle registration to come back. The fake officer had not changed the plate, an act which proved to be a major mistake.

The man exited his vehicle and began to converse with some other officers.

"What brings you here?" one asked. "I don't recognize you in this part of the city."

"I was reassigned from another precinct a week ago. What, you haven't seen me here?"

"Just curious, I suppose. I just haven't seen any new faces in a while."

"Well don't worry yourself. I just came to see what the commotion was."

The officer took the man around and showed him what had been happening.

"Here, you can see some spray painted messages, here is what remains of a car after someone set it on fire..." he trailed off, pointing out what they had found so far.

"Well, have you caught the folks who were in here?"

"No. We hope to soon."

"I noticed some odd-looking vehicles outside," he said, referring to the MNIA backup unit which had been sent down to assist.

"Those are government folks, probably federal." The officer seemed gruff about having to deal with them at this hour.

"What should we tell them about the riot?"

"Riot? Oh that's right, that what several callers called it," the officer said.

"Well, what?"

"Ask what they're doing in this place."

The man who was impersonating an officer was clearly doing well at his job, and soon arrived at the edge of the street cordon.

"Who would you folks be?" he asked.

"Never mind that. It isn't for you to concern yourself with."

"Ah, I see. You have interests to deal with."

"That's enough speculation. You go do your job, and we will finish ours."

The impersonator went back to the officer which had showed him the scene. "Say, would you mind if I came back shortly to assist? I need to return to the station."

"That's fine, seeing how I will be leaving anyway. I am needed on patrol, and the other officers tell me that they can handle it."

The two shook hands and parted. The impersonator drove back to the police station, where he could finish his plan.

Back at the station, he parked his fake car and walked into the station, before picking up a telephone and dialing a line out to an unknown location. Another officer asked how long he would be using it, and he simply said, "Two minutes."

"Who is calling me at this hour?" came from a voice on the other end.

"You need not have me answer that."

Recognizing the voice, he simply got the reply, "It's been a long time. What do you need?"

"Get down to the house of Senator Lewis. There has been a riot in the neighborhood and the MNIA seems to be trying to get in."

"Getting them in will be easy," the voice responded.

Little did General Director Cheney, the ISD, or anyone else know that they had a mole, and he was coming to botch up their plans.

"One more thing…I noticed a large airborne craft nearby. An airship, perhaps?"

"Only Alfegans use those things. Something is not right." The line clicked off.

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Lewis could hear more of the commotion through the speakers on his hidden camera. He looked again at his computer screen. "Download: 67% complete." He figured that with two more doors and a staircase separating him from the agents, he was still safe. They will never be able to lug that contraption up thirty feet of stairs.

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A lone black car began to approach the police cordon as the plasma cutter was being tekn tghrough the tunnel to be used on the doors. It arrived where the MNIA agents were waiting. "I take it that the cops don't like us here."

"Need we answer that?" came a sarcastic reply.

"I can get us in."

He approached the police barricade. "Officers, I have an order to enter the area and search for some suspects. The MNIA has interests in catching some fugitives which we believe are in this area."

The officers nodded and opened the barricade. A minute later, the MNIA agents were driving past the senator's residence. They were after a different destination, however.

They were approaching the utility station where the Alfegan technician had entered. The black car peeled off and turned around. He had unfinished business with Lewis, and he was about to carry it out.

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Lewis watched as the screen went from 69% complete to 70% complete. He was pleased with his pace, although he wished it was faster. The agent was still minutes away. Lewis has uses for him.

OOC: It was second blast door - you said there were two blast doors, before the three doors at the end of the corridor? Once they get to the three doors at the end, I have a cunning plan to get the cutter up the stairs. I think Lewis is gonna end up wetting himself, unless he gets out.

_________________________________

IC
Down in the tunnel, the two Alfegans hefted the transformer unit across the floor, the small wheels cutting through dust as they moved to the end where the three doors were. Alpha One concealed a grin as he watched one of the Monavians break his foot on one of the doors, wiping beads of sweat from his brow as he felt the heat radiating from the cutter. He swore that the air around it was pulsating with waves of heat. The electrode, made from a rare-earth metal ceramic, was already starting to degrade from the sheer amount of use, giving him concern over replacing it. If he wanted to do that, he'd have to wait hours until he could touch it with even gloved hands.

His desire for coolant came with the burst of a freezing gas from a nearby pipe, flooding the tunnel with a fog of condensing water vapour. A small explosion of steam burst from the electrode, followed by a thunderclap as the man fired up the cutter again. The bright white ball of plasma cleared out a pathway in the fog, instantly boiling anything off. Coughing a little, he stripped off his t-shirt to get the full cooling effect, before starting on the middle door at the tunnel end. The steel on the door had a much lower melting point, shown as he adjusted the power level down, not needing the sheer amount of energy he was pumping into the metal. Within fifteen seconds, he had cut a man-sized hole in the first door, before proceeding to start on the left door, and then the right. The fog slowly cleared, allowing him to see himself fully - covered in grime, dust and sweat. A nice impression to make on others as he continued working, cutting the remains of doors down to allow equipment through the doors.

He heard a shout as his colleague, who had been standing back and was much cleaner, peered through one of the glowing rents in one of the doors. Behind it, there was a stairwell, with a distant locked door visible at the top. Swearing, he went over to the transformer, powering it down. The unit weighed in at nearly fifty kilos, a difficult lift even by two people, made all the more difficult by its awkward shape. Being in an intelligence agency, he had to be able to think outside the box. Which was why, a couple seconds later, he gave a shout down the tunnel to where his colleague had minutes before enlarged the hole through which the cable was running, enough for a person to crawl through.
"Hey, can you get me some more cable? 120 amp preferably, though I think we can risk a lower power cable for a short period of time. I'm going to see if we can extend the cable from the transformer to the cutter, so we can get up the stairs."
He took off his backpack, checking the regulator on the oxygen canister. According to it, he had enough for another cut.
"Can you go and see after that if there's another oxygen canister somewhere? I need pure oxygen, otherwise it don't work."

The man disappeared off for a few minutes, before coming back with more wire.
"I got some 120 amp cable - about a hundred foot."
He passed the cable through, which was used to replace the existing armoured cable from the transformer. He had his doubts - normal 120A cable probably couldn't handle the current used in the device, which would likely melt the cable if used for too long. If Lewis had something behind the door, he would be ballistic. Moving up the stairs, he started the cutter on the final door. Deciding to be reckless, he switched the cutter once again to its maximum setting. If there was anything of value behind what appeared to be the final door, there would be a fire extinguishing system as well. With blackened goggles on, he started cutting at the top of the door, ensuring that he didn't miss any locking bolts and that the door was well and truly cut from its mountings.

OOC:

While you were posting your OOC reply, I was editing my post to fix some errors and add to it. Sorry about the doors, I thought that I had only three doors to go through. The one on either side before the staircase, at the end of the tunnel, lead to empty rooms, but IC-wise, no one knows that.

(OOC - Gotcha)

The observer in the airship followed the vehicle as it pulled up at the Police station, and the man went in. Zooming in, the controller used the airship camera to take a series of pictures, showing the man's face in high quality. He then relayed them to the MNIA HQ.
"Sierra India Two Two to Mike November India Alpha Operator - requesting an ident on these photos."
Hawk One turned to one of the two snipers, watching the area. Hawk Two had followed in another vehicle, talking.
"Bloody hell, the MNIA have got in now. Looks like the shits about to hit the... hang on a moment. What's going on here."
He watched as a load of operatives entered the utility station, before the car drove over to Lewis's house.
"Mind asking the MNIA what they're playing at?"

The ISD had to be helped out of the tunnel by one of the other operatives, as his foot had nearly been fractured. He could not hobble out like he would have wanted to, and thus had to be given a seat on top of some boxes in the main tunnel. Meanwhile, the plasma cutter was being carried into position to cut through the three doors at the end of the tunnel.

Cutting through three more doors seemed to heat the tunnel beyond what was bearable for several of the agents who were in there. A few used the coolant to keep themselves from becoming dehydrated, but they had to leave. Only a few remained in the sweltering tunnel.

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In his office Senator Lewis was shredding more papers and loading the pieces into bags. He had not been able to load them all into the closet, yet it mattered little ot him. The papers were old and the bags had been sitting there for some time. He figured that it would appear as if there had been little activity going on anytime recently.

He could hear the rumblings of the plasma cutter in the tunnel as it got closer. Frustrated, he gathered up the remaining papers and threw them into a pile on an empty table in another part of the room. He figured that they would not draw much attention.

Lewis glanced at his monitor. "Download: 75% complete." flashed across the screen. He then wondered how he could stop or slow the advancing agents.

His eyes turned to some wires, batteries, magnets, and other similar parts used in making electrical machinery. He had some for repairing or replacing pieces of his computers, or for emergencies, but now was a time to use them.

Senator Lewis attached some wiring and magnets to the last door, the one leading to his bunker. He turned on some batteries and a small motor. The door soon became charged. He had a plan, but it was doubtful that it would work. Still, he remained hopeful.

By the time he finished, the new 120 Ampere cable had been attached to the plasma cutter. Lewis had finished his setup, and he looked at his monitor. "Download: 79% complete." He then began searching for a way to keep them out, even if the operatives wanted to enter the bunker very much. He would give them a surprise.

The plasma cutter fired up, sending its arc of electricity into the metal of the door. The charges in the door made contact with the arc in an instant, and then---the unthinkable happened.

With a tremendous bang, the cutter head shorted out, and the machine itself seemed to leap back, dangerously recoiling. The charged door had short-circuited the motor and wiring, and the cable could not handle the strain. Its core was very hot, and a spot at the top of the door where the arc had hit seemed to glow faintly with heat. The Monavian operatives who remained in the stairwell helped to remove the damaged cutter and carefully remove the cable. They were now impatient beyond measure.

The damaged cutter and cable were soon removed from the tunnel, while one of the Monavians brought in a cutting torch. Not knowing how to deal with the door properly, as it might be braced from behind; they began to fire it up anyway, as they surmised that they could break through in only minutes more. They would get through that door, sooner or later.

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Senator Lewis could see through a small camera hidden in the wall that his plan to charge the door had worked in defeating the plasma cutter. It could not, however, stop a cutting torch.

The message of "Download: 82% complete." was interrupted by another message which read "Visiter at the door." and a camera image of a man he recognized. It was the mole in the MNIA.

Realizing that the door could be broken through at any time, Lewis barricaded it with a brass curtain rod which he had in storage. Placing it between two brackets, he then added a heavy box in front of the door and added several more. The Monavians would have to force the door in.

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On the surface, the MNIA agents entered the utility station, and began to descend down into the tunnels. One of them heard some questions over the radio he carried.

After hearing the Alfegan operatives ask him some questions, he answered with, "My team is here to help deal with the stranded agents in one of the tunnels. What do you need?"

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The mole had slunk through the shadows, away from the focus of the airship team as they watched for the MNIA agents entering the utility station. Moments later, Lewis was in his basement, making his way to his front door, when he made it there, he unlocked it and said, "Get in now." The mole and Lewis locked the door and went back down the stairs.

The mole soon grabbed the briefcase filled with money and one of the two large suitcases, and went back upstairs with them. He went into Lewis' garage and placed them in the trunk of his car.

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Down in the bunker, Senator Lewis piled several more boxes in front of the door. The heat from the cutting torch, which had finished with the top side of the door, had begun to make the boxes hot, and they began to smolder. Lewis cared little, as a far worse thing than smoke awaited both Alfegan and Monavian agents alike.

Lewis looked back at his screen. "Download: 84% complete." Frantically, he began to look for something that he could use. He found it moments later.

Taking a cylindrical canister from his closet, he began setting it up on a table near his computers. He has shut down most of them and had emptied the hard drives, taking care not to disturb the fine layer of dust which covered some of the parts. He would rather make the place look as if it had not been in use for a while, but he knew it would not work. Still, anything was better than nothing.

Thin wisps of smoke began to form in the bunker. They were not enough to cause breathing problems, but the smoke stank of burnt wood. Lewis saw as the thin stream of light produced by the cutting torch had rounded one corner and was moving around one side. The door had bolts on all sides, like some safes, and a full go-around would be needed. This, however, could result in damaging the hinges, which meant that it would be hard to open the door without the possibly of breaking it off. A heavy metal door with hot edges would be about the worst thing to have tumbling down a set of stairs in a dark, heated tunnel, the agent knew it.

Moments later, Lewis had placed his suitcase near the data storage device. He placed the device in the suitcase, where it would continue to receive data until it was finished. Only 15% remained to be downloaded, and Senator Lewis knew that this was a race down to the wire.

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Upstairs, the mole had finished loading the “luggage” into the senator’s car.

In the airship, Hawk One watched amused as a man darted into the residence of Senator Lewis. Who was he? With not enough time for a photo ident, he switched to infra-red, trying to find the man inside the house. He had already disappeared from view, making him think over for a moment. The car outside proved it wasn't a trick of the eyes, the very same one that the MNIA had used to enter the utility station. Extremely suspicious
"Reach One, keep your eye on the subject that entered Lewis's house - if he tries to drive off with Lewis, immobilise the car and then slot the bastard. Try not to blow his face off though - we want to see his pretty features."
Hawk One was acting outside his remit, but with hub busy on the radio, he decided to take the liberty of giving the orders. Switching to the Monavian channel, he began speaking.
"Right you are down there - I was rather talking about your friend who just went into Lewis's house, in terms of what he was doing. Just so we know whether to shoot his legs off, or lobotomise him."
He heard the sound of the man cocking the rifle, drawing back the cocking handle on the side and releasing it in a crisp movement.

____________________________

Down in the tunnel, the plasma cutter operator yelled out in pain as the electrode shattered, heated to a couple hundred thousand degrees as it was short circuited. Pieces of white hot tungsten embedded themselves in the door, and in the operator's arm. Dropping the lance, he smelt the burning of flesh where three shards had entered his arm, mostly protruding from the surface. He quickly shook them out, gritting his teeth as he examined the wounds. The pieces had burnt down through his skin, forming a pair of nasty burnt craters, cauterised by the heat. Quickly moving down the stairs to where the coolant pipe was, he winced as he held the wounds under the jet of cooling gas, pain coming back before slowly subsiding. Ripping his t-shirt, he bound up the wounds, before calming himself down. Helping unravel the burnt-out cable, he checked over the unit, grimacing.
"Even if I could cool it down enough to refit the electrode, the fuses have melted out here and probably down at the utility station. And the transformer's near overheating. Bastard."

He helped move the unit out of the way, as he made up his mind. The door seemed likely to be the final one of this paranoid maniac's maze. Thus, Lewis was likely right behind it. Cutting a door open at the top of a flight of stairs was almost insane, though was likely the only way of getting in. At fifty feet below the surface, it was unlikely they could drill down. Getting blasting charges would likely damage the inside of the bunker, and would take time. And cutting the door down would take time. He examined the door, thinking for a while, before making up his mind.
"I need a pneumatic drill or sledgehammer, right now!"
Hefting a sledgehammer, he took a swing, the heavy head slamming into the wall. The entire room echoed, dust drifting from the ceiling, as one of the charges had gone off. Whilst the doors were made of thick, hardened steel alloys, the walls were made of mere concrete. And this being an internal door to another room, the wall would likely not have an earth core, meaning it would lead directly to the other room. He swung the hammer again, chunks of concrete falling down to the floor below. If he could make a hole small enough to see through, they could assess the situation inside.

Further down, where the MNIA agents were by the door trapping them in, the other Alfegan agent had thrown down the thermic lance, having a brief rest.
"It'd be very nice if you could get a cutting torch down here and cut us out."

OOC:

I will add to this later, as I will need to be leaving soon. I will be back to add more to this post later tonight or tomorrow.

IC:

The Monavian agent in charge of the unit that had been dispatched to break out the trapped agents responded. "One of our men? That must be agent Blackbird. He said that he used to know Lewis years back and that Lewis dopes not know that he works for us.

"I was told that he was going to try getting the senator to think that he was safe and then arrest him for us."

On the other end, agent Blackbird sent a brief message. "I'm in the house and looking for Lewis. I should find him momentarily."

Little did his fellow agents know that he was decieving them...

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Down in the tunnel, the Monavian had been cutting through the side of the door as another looked for a sledgehammer. When he arrived, he found the Alfegan binding up his injured arm. The Alfegan had to wait for a moment as the Monavian agent who was cutting the door turned off his cutting torch and moved away. Once the area was open, the Alfegan began to make a hole in the concrete.

After breaking down several inches of the wall, he saw something unpleasant. A thin layer of chicken wire was laid into the wall, probably to strenghten it diring construction. After freeing up enough of the wire, some quick snips by wire cutters had left a hole that was large enough to begin breaking through.

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Lewis has stopped shredding papers, and was uncertain of what he could do. He heard the sound of breaking concrete. Tracing the sound to the side of the door, he began piling some more wooden boxes in front of the area. He cared little if the boxes burned when the cutting torch was used again to cut through the door, and his only objective was escape.

The canister on the table was labelled "CMX Blood Sarin," a deadly substance that had only been recently encountered by Monavians. The horrific effects of the gas were worse than anyone in the MNIA had been privy to witness in a long time, and they were not about to risk anything happening. Still, the canister was still in the room, and Senator Lewis was going to leave it there to be found.

The senator looked behind him at the monitor. Eighty-seven percent of the data had been downloaded.

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The Monavian operative in the stairwell, aware that his Alfegan counterpart was growing weary from his work after minuted of repeated pounding against the concrete, volunteered to take over. Quickly working to let the other man rest, he laid blow upon blow against the wall, breaking down several more inches of the material. It was unusually hard, probably due to the need to support fifty feet of earth, but it was not unbreakable. The pounding grew more intense in the bunker, as Lewis, much annoyed, listened for the sound of his companion coming down the stairs.

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In the main part of the house, the mole began speaking through his radio to the other MNIA operatives in the main tunnel. "I'm searching for Lewis, but I haven't founbd him yet," he whispered.

Continuing down the hallways and searching rooms, as if to carry out an authentic-looking search, he soon arrived in the basement.

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Lewis went to his radio and removed the encryption drive, placing it into the suitcase. He did the same for his signal line, effectively leaving all future messages in plain form. He cared little for it now, as his position was compromised. The news on his computer monitor offered some consolation, as eighty-nine percent was downloaded. It seemed as if a psychological barrier fell as the numbers showed a download progress of ninety percent.

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In the main tunnel, the agents began examining the door, trying to find a way to open it. The edges were bent and damaged, and the damage to the wall on the one side rendered a proper opening impossible. Restoring power to the elevator which led into the sealed off section would make it possible to use the control panels to open up the other door, which had not been damaged by attempts to breach it.

The team moved back to the elevator, and would drive back to the other utility station, where they would try to restore power. The signal jammer no longer hindered communication, and Lewis had shut down his hidden camera, as it was of little use.

In the stairwell, the Monavian had an eight inch deep hole in the concrete. He doubted that it would be reinforced much more, but knowing how Lewis had been already, he soon had his doubts disappear when he saw what looked like rebar in the wall. He broke off more concrete to expose a long enough section of the rebar, and fired up his cutting torch. He would need to cut through to break the concrete on the other side, as the rebar was spaced too closely together to make the sledgehammer effective.

On the other side, the few remaining inches of concrete were beginning to heat up as the torch did its work. Senator Lewis hoped that the wall would hold long enough to avoid being seen, but the wall was cracking on the other side. It least there were boxes stacked in front in obscure the view of the opeartives. Anyone wanting to look through the hole would need to push the boxes out of the way, if they even could. He peered at the monitor. Ninety-one percent of the data was downloaded.

A moment later, the Monavian asked for a chisel, in order to free up some concrete near one of the pieces of rebar, in order to make cutting it easier. He soon had the chisel, and proceeded to make quick work of the small piece of concrete that was keeping the rebar protected. A sledgehammer is just not as precise as we want it to be at times...

OOC:

CMX Blood Sarin is an exceedingly nasty substance, the effects of which can be found in this post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14296850&postcount=93).

The Alfegan toiled away, until he was physically unable to continue. Lactic acid build-up in his muscles meant the sharp aches now dominated the continued pains of the wounds on his arm, as he sat down for a breather. He could now see they had almost cut through the wall. Dust and concrete shards littered the area, a large crater in the concrete now focused around a gap maybe half a foot across, where the main work was taking place. The rebars acting to re-enforce the wall meant he had time out, as the Monavians took to removing the bars.

Soon, there came the clatter of metal, the bar out of place. Ignoring the advice of his Monavian counterparts, he stood up and took the sledgehammer again, this time a blind fury taking over his senses. He let out a yell, a primal battlecry, before slamming the heavy weight into the concrete. This time, the force was enough to shame the wall - he was truly putting all his effort into break through. He knew now that Lewis could hear everything, with only fractions of inches to go until he broke through. He swung the hammer again, this time feeling it jerk as it passed through into the other side, part of the head crashing into one of the boxes.
"Oh Lewis! Where are you?!"
He shouted out in an almost comedical voice of rage, as he slammed the hammer into the hole again, this time dislodging a massive chunk of concrete on the other side. Using the shaft of the hammer, he slammed it into the nearest box, sending it sliding out of the way of his view. In that second, he looked into the room on the other side, though a thin layer of dust. The first thing he saw was a running computer monitor, a light in the gloom. Sihlouetted against it, a briefcase on the table, amongst other objects scattered around. Was it his imagination, or was a shadow which was slightly out of place the senator? He shouted down to his colleague.

"Get me my coat! It's got a camera in it."
Seconds later, he had a camera in his hands, which he used to take pictures first of the door, and then of the bunker interior. He then turned the unit to a video mode, handing it to one of the Monavians.
"Make sure you film this - we want evidence against the slimy bastard!"
He lifted up the sledgehammer again, smashing it into the wall to widen the hole. It occurred to him that there must be some other traps in there - he had covered his back so much in the tunnels below that this could not be merely the ending. Still, if he so much as tried to use such force against him or the Monavians, they'd be able to arrest him officially. A second blow widened the hole further. By now, he was sure that a thin person could crawl through. But would they risk it?
"Get the tactical assault team here - they're the ones after all who should be going in!"
Another slam, this time dislodging a chunk of concrete from the ceiling. Cracks now ran up the wall in places, from the splintering wall. He took one more swing, before sitting down for a breather, passing the hammer over. His burst of rage had gone, leaving him in an adrenaline low. The strain on his arms had meant the blisters formed in his burns had burst, oozing a sickly yellow fluid into the bindings around his arms. He was going to need to see a doctor after this.

__________________________________

Up above the surface, Hawk One was suffering from one of his gut feelings. The man that had gone into the building was doing so in a most unprofessional manner - if he had half a sense, there would be surface units backing him up, who would arrest him as soon as he was coaxed out of his bunker hiding hole. Was this guy really a loyal MNIA officer? He made up his mind, ringing in to the MNIA headquarters.
"This is Hawk One to Monavian Head Operator - long message. Requesting background check on MNIA operative Bravo Lemur Alpha Charlie Kilo Bravo India Romeo Delta, 'Blackbird', in relation to Senator Lewis, over."

He gave Reach One a kick, as he stared out of the open airship door.
"Keep your eye on anything that comes out of that building. If that Monavian's a mole, then..."
It suddenly all clicked. The false police car at the police station... the dodgy MNIA operative leading him 'to be arrested'. The sneaky bastard had had this planned all along. He then heard an order on his radio.
"Hawk One, this Operator One. Critical order. Once evidence has been secured to prove that Lewis is beyond doubt a threat, you are to immobilise him by any means necessary. Do you understand, over?"
"Operator one, wilco. Out."
He turned around.
"You heard the man. Get ready to shoot the pack's legs off on my order. That'll stop him in his tracks."

The Alfegan toiled away, until he was physically unable to continue. Lactic acid build-up in his muscles meant the sharp aches now dominated the continued pains of the wounds on his arm, as he sat down for a breather. He could now see they had almost cut through the wall. Dust and concrete shards littered the area, a large crater in the concrete now focused around a gap maybe half a foot across, where the main work was taking place. The rebars acting to re-enforce the wall meant he had time out, as the Monavians took to removing the bars.

It seemed as if hours passed by in the tense moments that were now passing. The Monavian operative cut his way through several bars, his cutting torch leaving the ends read hot and radiating a faint heat from the glowing ends. His breathing became labored and his blood pressure seemed to rise as he anticipated what would be on the other side. The hot concrete behind the missing bars had cracked somewhat under the strain of the heat from the torch, which expanded it, and then was fractured further as it cooled and shrank.

On the other side of the wall, Senator Lewis was planning a final act of deception, one that would seem to exceed the others in dramatic passion, until the canister was revealed. He saw the shadow of "Blackbird" descending thedimly-lit stairwell. Attempting to make the act appear authentic, Lewis produced a semiautomatic pistol and placed it in hios pocket, preparing to draw it at a moment's notice.

Blackbird descended the staircase, entering the bunker with his gun drawn. He silently stepped down onto the floor, and then clicked on his radio. "I found Lewis!"

The senator faked a preoccupation with watching the monitor, observing the message that flashed actoss it. Despite having a full ninety-three percent of the data on the device, he could not hold out much longer to download all of it. This act might be his last chance to buy additional time. "Don't bother trying!"

"Senator I am here to place you under arrest for certain illicit acts against the government of--"

"I have done nothing of the sort! This 'investigation' of yours is illegal in its own right and you have no business entering my residence. Trying to trick me with your ploy of entering will not work!" Senator Lewis' face was flushed with red as he seemed to let his temper get the better of him. Although he was aware that the agent was really a mole in the MNIA, the man acted as if he was really loyal to the organization.

"I would have thought that we had once been friends."

"Friends don't betray their own," Lewis snapped.

The agent looked feverishly at Lewis, as if he was sizing him up. He noticed the screen behind him read "Download: 94% complete." as he attempted to figure out how to stage a mock arrest of Lewis.

"If you fire that gun," Lewis growled, "this canister will be unsealed, and thbis entire complex will be flooded with a deadly gas. No one, and I do indeed mean no one, will leave this place alive!"

"Just put down the gun, and I will holster mine. Like it or not, I doubt that this canister contains any gas. I call your bluff."

"Why don't you just look at it before you make a judgement," Lewis sneered. He strode over several paces towards the canister and then grabbed the top, turning it around. Even the mole was stunned by what he saw.

"How? How could you know about thi--"

"I know many things, things which you will never fathom."

Outside the room, the Monavian could hear as he finished cutting through another bar. I will get that bastard, even if Blackbird gets to him as well.

Moments later, Blackbird made another move. Peering through the space of the dark room, he could see the computer count down the time remaining until the data was fully downloaded. Ninety-five percent was downloaded, and every passing moment left additional data streaming into the device. "I might not know how you got that, but I still stand resolved to bring abouyt the execution of justice. Senator Lewis, put down the gun or I will have to disarm you the hard way. I'm not afraid to shoot."

"Just try me."

Seconds later, a shot rang out. There was an oath and a scream, and the sound of a thud against the floor, which was muffled by the wall being broken down. This unfolding drama incited the Alfegan to action once again, thus he resumed his assault on the wall with renewed strength.

Soon, there came the clatter of metal, the bar out of place. Ignoring the advice of his Monavian counterparts, he stood up and took the sledgehammer again, this time a blind fury taking over his senses. He let out a yell, a primal battlecry, before slamming the heavy weight into the concrete. This time, the force was enough to shame the wall - he was truly putting all his effort into break through. He knew now that Lewis could hear everything, with only fractions of inches to go until he broke through. He swung the hammer again, this time feeling it jerk as it passed through into the other side, part of the head crashing into one of the boxes.
"Oh Lewis! Where are you?!"
He shouted out in an almost comedical voice of rage, as he slammed the hammer into the hole again, this time dislodging a massive chunk of concrete on the other side. Using the shaft of the hammer, he slammed it into the nearest box, sending it sliding out of the way of his view.

After breaking through the wall, a wooden mass seemed to block his view. Figuring that it nwas a box or crate of some sort, he began to pund away at it, knocking it away from the wall. Another one landed on top of the box below it, as it slid out from between the one above and the one below. Perched right in front of his view, a final set of blows sent it off the top of the stack. The dusty air was now all that obscured his vision.

In that second, he looked into the room on the other side, though a thin layer of dust. The first thing he saw was a running computer monitor, a light in the gloom. Sihlouetted against it, a briefcase on the table, amongst other objects scattered around. Was it his imagination, or was a shadow which was slightly out of place the senator? He shouted down to his colleague.

Indeed there was a shadow being seen in the room, as there was somone there, or rather, two people. Blackbird had shot the gun out of Lewis' hands, and had pinned him on the floor, handcuffing him as he held the man down. Shouting to the agents on the other side, he exclaimed with triumph, "I got him!"

"Get me my coat! It's got a camera in it."
Seconds later, he had a camera in his hands, which he used to take pictures first of the door, and then of the bunker interior. He then turned the unit to a video mode, handing it to one of the Monavians.
"Make sure you film this - we want evidence against the slimy bastard!"

"Whatever you want! I think we got this one!" The Monavian began filming as Senator Lewis was lifted up by Blackbird and slowly brought to his feet. He radioed the incoming team of operatives. "We have the senator in custody--well, somewhat."

He lifted up the sledgehammer again, smashing it into the wall to widen the hole. It occurred to him that there must be some other traps in there - he had covered his back so much in the tunnels below that this could not be merely the ending. Still, if he so much as tried to use such force against him or the Monavians, they'd be able to arrest him officially. A second blow widened the hole further. By now, he was sure that a thin person could crawl through. But would they risk it?
"Get the tactical assault team here - they're the ones after all who should be going in!"
Another slam, this time dislodging a chunk of concrete from the ceiling. Cracks now ran up the wall in places, from the splintering wall. He took one more swing, before sitting down for a breather, passing the hammer over. His burst of rage had gone, leaving him in an adrenaline low. The strain on his arms had meant the blisters formed in his burns had burst, oozing a sickly yellow fluid into the bindings around his arms. He was going to need to see a doctor after this.

The Monavian continued to film the area, showing Lewis being escorted up the stairs and the layout of the room. He stood aside as his counterpart finished smashing away at the wall to widen the opening. When the Alfegan collapsed, he shouted down the tunnel to have some assistance in helping the injured agent out of the tunnel.



On the surface, the other team arrived to take away Lewis. They came down the street and began making their way into the house. Their progress, however, was interrupted b yh a voice on the radio.

"This is Hawk One to Monavian Head Operator - long message. Requesting background check on MNIA operative Bravo Lemur Alpha Charlie Kilo Bravo India Romeo Delta, 'Blackbird', in relation to Senator Lewis, over."

The ISD was finally able to exit the tunnel via the elevator, which was now working as power was restored. The lights still were not working, but the ventilation system was finally back in operation. Ascending the elevator shaft, the ISD got the message and responded. "I will have some information on 'Blackbird' for you shortly." He took out a PDA and began to search for files on the agent in question. It would take some time to find everything, but he soon had an answer.

"Blackbird has been in out service for the past six years, having carried out several successful arrests against suspected terrorists and completed missions to locate information vital to the security of the Monavian Empire."

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The Alfegan was carried out of the tunnel and was soon on his way back to the surface. He would not have to deal with Sentor Lewis for quite some time.

Blackbird had taken Lewis up to the basement, and had shut the bookcase behind him. He soon met up with the others on the ground floor. They would take Lewis away to place him in a cell in the MNIA brig.

Back in the tunnel, the Monavian operative pushed more boxes away and peered through the hole into the office. He could see a large variety of equipment, various materials that were apparently mundane in nature, such as rows of ordinary-looking books, and an open suitcase. He stopped cold, however, when he saw the canister of CMX Blood Sarin. "We need a hazardous materials unit down here immediately! This is not a drill!"

He ran down the stairwell, pushing his way past agents who were attempting to ascend the staris. "Don't enter the room! There is CMX Blood Sarin in there!"

"What?" on o=f the agents asked. "Did you just say--"

"Just get the Hell out!" he shouted. "If that goes off, we'll be piles of bloody jelly in seconds!"

The others moved out of the narrow tunnel and quickly made their way into the main tunnel. "We have to get out!" one shouted. "There's poison gas in there!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The strike team went down into the basement, still holding onto Lewis. They were shown the entrance to the stairs which led down to the bunker, hidden behind the bookcase. The field agents were impressed by what he had shown them, and one of them advised him to take a day off later that week. Lewis was being taken away as Blackbird stayed behind to takme a look aroiund at the basement. It reeked of tobacco smoke, still lingering form the visits by the mysterious man.

Down in the bunker, now vacant as the agents left to retreat away from the supposed gas canister, which was making then leery at best about entering without protective gear, Blackbird watched as the monitor read "Download: 99% complete." Satisfied with the progress, he prepared to pick up the suitcase. Moments later, the computer finished downloading the data and shut down.

Taking the suitcase, he closed it up and ran up the stairs into the house, soon sneaking into Lewis' garage and loading it into his car. Lewis was being walked out the front door of his house in handcuffs, while Blackbird radioed his fellow operatives. "We have Lewis outside, and I hear that we have video evidence against the slimy SOB." Then, he stepped out behind the operatives. One of them began speaking to Blackbird, and the Alfegans watched as the pair got in the car which Blackbird had driven to the house. Lewis was being placed in the back of the black van which the strike team had used to arrive at the scene.

Five minutes later, the van carrying Lewis and the strike team, followed by the car that Blackbird was driving, taking two other operatives as passengers, were leaving the neighborhood. Blackbird mused about how he would be recognized for "arresting" Lewis. Not to worry, I will finish the job later. One phase of his plan was over; another would soon begin.

OOC:

Some background is in order again. Blackbird is an MNIA agent who was "corrupted" by Lewis years earlier, after joining the agency. The two attended college together for a year, which is why they have some personal contact. The fake policeman is an impersonator who works for Lewis and his cohorts. I have uses for him later in this thread. Senator Lewis is not the "head of the snake" as some might believe, but rather has ties to something even more shadowy. The mysterious man who visits Lewis will play a role later as well.

I hope that I'm not going too far by RPing the storyline this far ahead with the arrest of Senator Lewis.

Finally, I haven't heard back from Damirez, and I have no new posts from Zaheran, Lamoni, or Etoile Arcture. I have gotton a go-ahead from them for RPing the trial, so expect the trial to begin later this week.

Once the Alfegan operatives knew that Lewis was secure, they decided to consolidate for a temporary rest. Alpha Two knew that her colleague was injured, his skin peppered with burns from the exploding welder head. Leaving the equipment down in the tunnel, she knew it would be collected later, even if there'd be a lot of explaining to the embassy staff as to why their plasma cutter had gone AWOL. They took the small video camera back up with them, helping the exhausted man up to the surface.

Out in the cold air, she began examining him, letting him rest as she called a taxi for him. Whilst he had just enough strength to walk, it would not be likely that he could walk all the way to the hospital. And anyhow, even if they were supposed to work as a team, she needed to stay back at Lewis's place to help collect evidence, and intelligence.

--------

Alpha One soon found himself at the emergency department, where he took a seat with all the other late-night injuries - drunks, junkies and those on the wrong end of a fight. He was used to such evenings, using the free seats to lie down and gain some rest. He smiled to himself as he reviewed his situation - multiple burns down his arm and front, sheer exhaustion, and of course the bruises from his rather physical exercise with the wall. He also now realised that he'd burnt his hands in places, making it difficult to clench them. He soon saw a doctor, who helped him into a cubicle to exam him.
"Good evening sir. I'm Samson, and you are..."
The Alfegan decided he didn't need to hang about. If he could get out of the hospital at a good speed, he'd be happy. He took out a small leather wallet, opening it to show an ID card, and a badge.
"Agent Sa'soa, Alfegos Joint Intelligence Agency, working over here as part of a Fegosian Union operation. Not often you treat our sort, is it?"
The doctor frowned as he checked the badge, before realising what it meant. The man did not want this to go down on a medical record, and since the badge looked legitimate, it seemed like it should be no questions asked. Save the vital ones.
"So, may I ask what happened, Sa'soa?"
"A plasma arc cutter shorted, and blew the tip up. I think I got most of the bits out, though I can't be sure - I just ache all over."

The doctor looked over the wounds, quickly assessing the full impact of the damage, before taking a closer look at the man's shoulder.
"Looks like you took eight fragments to your body. How many did you say you pulled out?"
"I think it was four or five."
"Yes, I think I can see that now. Your shoulder's burnt pretty bad. Not large mind you, but enough to warrant a bit of rest."
Taking a small pair of tweezers, he set up a magnifying lamp to look more closely, before removing the pieces metal still in his shoulder, dropping them into a bin, before cleaning the wounds out and tidying them up.
"You'll have to take it easy for a bit - those ones in your shoulder cut pretty deep, and did quite a bit of damage. Looks more like a .22 gunshot wound, to be honest."
Once finished with the wounds, he turned to the man's hands, looking slightly surprised, but suppressed his curiosity as he tidied them up, cleaning the burnt area of dead tissue before applying a salve and wrapping the wounds up. By now he was merely exhausted, something a good night of sleep could cure.
"As I said, take it easy for a couple of days, especially with those burns on your hands, which have been worsened considerably by whatever manual work you've done. You'll want to change the bandage every now and then, and make sure it stays clean. It should be fully healed in a week. As for painkillers, if you need them, go down to a pharmacy and see what they can offer you."
He let the man leave, walking somewhat pained as he thanked the doctor and left. Just to prove his point, as he rounded a corner, it was just possible to see a heavy pistol concealed under his jacket.

--------------------

Down in the tunnel, all hell had broken loose at the discovery of the gas canister. Knowing there was little she could do, she began radioing back to her commander.
"This is Alpha two, calling Operator One - urgent message, over."
"Go ahead Alpha two, over."
"Operator One, MNIA agents have uncovered a small chemical weapon canister - supposedly containing CMX Blood Sarin. I repeat, CMX Blood Sarin. Requesting orders, over."
"Alpha two, stay clear out of there, and watch from the sidelines until that stuff has been removed, and the area confirmed clear. I don't want to have the embassy panic because I've opened the emergency equipment room, so keep yourself out of harm's way. If you must, scrounge off MNIA. I'll see what I can find on your friend Blood Sarin. Over."
"Thankyou Operator One, wilco. Out."
Staying at the surface, she moved with the MNIA agents to a safe distance as emergency services evacuated the tunnels and locked them down, preparing for the worst eventuality.

------------------

Meanwhile, the Bravo team finished their cups of coffee, listening to the unfolding drama on their radios. Quietly talking, they stood out in being completely alone in the cafe, as the owner cleaned up for the coming morning. They had already got through a couple cups of the stuff, alongside a couple packets of crisps. Soon, they got an order.
"Bravo one, this is Operator One. Prepare to tail your target, and make sure you're armed if necessary. Use whatever transport you can acquire to try and follow our man, in case he decides to do a runner. Out."
The two men stood up, leaving the cafe. Though it'd take a while for them to get to their apartment, even if jogging, the hire car there would do for them whilst the airship continued tracking people.

----------------

In the airship, Hawk One had made up his mind. Lewis would definitely try to run now, since he was incriminated to such a level. With one camera operator following the suspicious man, albeit with less enthusiasm than before, the other one tracked the van that Lewis was being held in. Just in case he was busted out enroute to wherever he was headed.
"Tell you what, we don't need to keep that much of an eye on our friend Blackbird, since he's making off with the rest of the MNIA. They'd be able to spot out friend if it turns out he really is acting funny. Keep an eye on the general area instead."
Hawk One turned back, before taking out the radio again.
"Roger that MNIA - if possible, can you dig a little further? It's odd, I know, but you know what gut instinct is like. Thanks very much."

Down in the tunnel, all hell had broken loose at the discovery of the gas canister. Knowing there was little she could do, she began radioing back to her commander.
"This is Alpha two, calling Operator One - urgent message, over."
"Go ahead Alpha two, over."
"Operator One, MNIA agents have uncovered a small chemical weapon canister - supposedly containing CMX Blood Sarin. I repeat, CMX Blood Sarin. Requesting orders, over."
"Alpha two, stay clear out of there, and watch from the sidelines until that stuff has been removed, and the area confirmed clear. I don't want to have the embassy panic because I've opened the emergency equipment room, so keep yourself out of harm's way. If you must, scrounge off MNIA. I'll see what I can find on your friend Blood Sarin. Over."
"Thankyou Operator One, wilco. Out."
Staying at the surface, she moved with the MNIA agents to a safe distance as emergency services evacuated the tunnels and locked them down, preparing for the worst eventuality.

The ISD placed an urgent call to the administration's headquarters, and began describing the details of what had been discovered in the bunker. He was told that a hazardous materials unit woiuld be dispatched.

The operator asked, "Did the canister have a timer attached?"

"No, and it looked to be sealed. I think we are dealing with something that opens up if it's moved."

"A motion-sensative device, perhaps?"

"Most likely, but I can't be sure."

Ten minutes later, a hazardous materials unit arrived and began to make their approach to the bunker.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Out in the cold air, she began examining him, letting him rest as she called a taxi for him. Whilst he had just enough strength to walk, it would not be likely that he could walk all the way to the hospital. And anyhow, even if they were supposed to work as a team, she needed to stay back at Lewis's place to help collect evidence, and intelligence.

News of the CMX Blood Sarin meant that she would have to stay out of the bunker until the canister was properly disposed of, but it should not be more than a few hours until the place was all clear for investigation.

Later that day, teams would be able to begin their investigation of the residence. In addition to having several hours to rest, the Alfegan units would be able to comfortably wait as the ISD got General Director Cheney to secure that badly-needed search warrant...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, the Bravo team finished their cups of coffee, listening to the unfolding drama on their radios. Quietly talking, they stood out in being completely alone in the cafe, as the owner cleaned up for the coming morning. They had already got through a couple cups of the stuff, alongside a couple packets of crisps. Soon, they got an order.
"Bravo one, this is Operator One. Prepare to tail your target, and make sure you're armed if necessary. Use whatever transport you can acquire to try and follow our man, in case he decides to do a runner. Out."
The two men stood up, leaving the cafe. Though it'd take a while for them to get to their apartment, even if jogging, the hire car there would do for them whilst the airship continued tracking people.

----------------

In the airship, Hawk One had made up his mind. Lewis would definitely try to run now, since he was incriminated to such a level. With one camera operator following the suspicious man, albeit with less enthusiasm than before, the other one tracked the van that Lewis was being held in. Just in case he was busted out enroute to wherever he was headed.
"Tell you what, we don't need to keep that much of an eye on our friend Blackbird, since he's making off with the rest of the MNIA. They'd be able to spot out friend if it turns out he really is acting funny. Keep an eye on the general area instead."
Hawk One turned back, before taking out the radio again.
"Roger that MNIA - if possible, can you dig a little further? It's odd, I know, but you know what gut instinct is like. Thanks very much."

The two vehicles arrived, after about fifteen minutes, given the lack of traffic at that particular hour, at the parking lot outside the MNIA's headquarters. Blackbird and the tow other operatives then exited and spoke with the driver of the van about where they would park, and then drove off to park elsewhere. The van continued on its way to a secure location on the grounds where Lewis could be brought inside.

After a while, when Lewis had been taken through a number of corridors and rooms, he was taken into an elevator. Down it went as he was taken down several floors into an underground cellblock, used to temporaroily hold criminals. He would be kept there until he could be charged, if possible.

Two men with ifles stood guard at the entrance to one of the cellblocks. They were posted on either side of a pair of heavy metal doors, which were opened to reveal a short hallway with a row of cells on either side. Several were empty, and the senator was taken into one that was located at the end of the hall.

At the hub, the Alfegan Field Commander was busy on the phone to his superiors office, as the report he had quickly written was transferred via the military mesolite network. It seemed that the Lewis saga was not over yet - the CMX blood sarin meant that more nasties could be hiding for any teams searching the senator's house, meaning that it would take time for anything to be found to further incriminate Lewis. Or link him to anyone else. The other problem was, of course, finding out exactly what the bastard had committed, alongside his current charges and illegal possession of dangerous chemicals, the impedance of an MNIA investigation, and other such stuff. Once he had finished, he gave his MNIA colleague a ring.
"Sorry to bother you right now, but would it be possible for me to bring in another temporary team of agents, to help search the place? Or would you rather leave it in MNIA hands?"

__________________________

The Bravo team drove past the MNIA headquarters, watching as the two vehicles pulled in to park. Quickly making up their minds, they radioed back to the airship.
"I think it's your turn to keep watch on them. Since they're not going anywhere for a while yet, I think we can safely say that you can keep an eye posted at the MNIA centre, in case there's any problems. We're going back to our little house by the house of Senator Bates - both of us need to get some sleep.

_______________

Alpha One stumbled back into his apartment, collapsing on the bed once he made sure the room was still secure. All the little indicators of tampering he had set up, from hairs on doors to accidental powder spills over doorways and combination locks, were intact. Outside, the house of Lewis was surrounded by vehicles, the street blocked off meaning he had to rely on his ID card to get back to this rented apartment. Setting up the laptop to record video from the camera, he fell asleep.

The hazardous materials team cautiously entered the house and made their way down into the basemwnt, taking precise, complicated readings of the air and the immediate surroundings. It had taken themn some time to prepare their safety gear and equipment after arriving on scene, but now, nearly an hour after Lewis was arrested, they were down in the bunker.

Carefully inspecting the canister, it seemed to be constructed in a manner that was not compatible with a time release system, which was deduced by finding the lack of a timer, and there seemed to be no triggering mechanism or detonator. "This canister seems to be built in a fashion that is not useful for actually attacking somebody with poison gas. I'll check it out further."

After spending some more time inspecting the canister, she determined that it was safe to remove it from the table. Two assistants helped her lift it (although it was hardly heavy at all) into an airtight box for transpost to the headquarters, where it would be sent into the technical facility for study later that day.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upon receiving a call from his Alfegan counterpart, the ISD, who had taken command of the Monavian facet of the operation, responded. "You may send in a team, if you deem it necessary, but it seems that your officers have contributed much tonight and I personally don't want to give you any further trouble. In the morning, I will meet with the General Director and the judge who will be getting the warrant for the house and surrounding area. There, I will discuss charges to file."

He was interrupted by a call on his cell phone. Looking at the caller ID, he was caught off guard when he saw that Cheney was calling. Why would he be calling me at this hour? "General Director, I was wondering why you were calling me tonight."

"I was given an urgent call from my night secretary. She had said that you and others were needed to carry out some type of investigation connected to Senator Lewis, and that you had to leave in a hurry. This is true, I suppose?"

"It is. I was informed by Alfegan intelligence services, specifically, AJIA, that they had searched the utility tunnels in the neighborhood and uncovered an alteration to the structure. An extra door was added, one that was recorded on the plans with an unusual note."

"What did this note say?"

"The note on the map specifically said that the doorway was not added on orders from the utility companies or the city. I haven't found any references to it elsewhere, at least not yet."

"Now, why does this concern me?"

"The Alfegans installed a tap onto some wires that were also specially marked on the plans. It recorded some suspicious signals travelling down the line, the result of triggering a heat-sensitive strip on the door when they applied a thermic lance."

"A thermic lance? What the Hell were they thinking!?"

"That is irrelevant. The signals were picked up after the strip was triggered and so they had reason to open up the door."

"So, what happened after they forced their entry?"

"That's the problem. We were called in because of the signals and soon found ourselves dealing with malicious interference from Lewis."

"Him? Lewis? How did that go down?"

"It is my belief that he found us coming and cut power to the elevator in one of the utility stations, impeding our progress into the tunnels. I can't prove this yet, but I believe that proof will soon surface.

"After we made it down, we tried cutting the door down with a plasma arc cutter. The power in the tunnels, lights, and ventilation were shut down on us, and two blast doors were dropped to seal us in. We needed to set up emergency lighting. System coolant and other things were then being released on us, and at one point, I thought that I heard an explosion destroy some of the wiring that provided power in the tunnel to keep us cut off."

"This is unacceptable. How could Lewis, if anyone, have this kind of control?"

"I believe that he has cohorts working with him. After we got through thye first door, we had to cut down a second, and then we were confronted nby three at the end of the tunnel. Two of them, on either side, led to empty rooms, but the third one led to a staircase, which led to a final door. Breaking down the concrete on one side, as a blowtorch was insufficient, led us into his bunker, underneath his house. I was informed that a set of stairs led up from the room, but the operative who informed me fled aftyer he sighted a canister of CMX Blood Sarin."

"He had every reason to. That stuff is patently deadly."

"Regardless of how this progresses, I will keep you informed."

"That will do. I will speak with you in the morning."

Cheney hung up and retired back to bed.

Inside the house, the last of the hazardous materials unit prepared to depart, noting that nothing dangerous had been detected in the air or water. They also radioed the other units about the removal of the canister, and gave an all-clear to proceed with securing the site. Half an hour later, after the team left and the tactical unit had packed up and left, the remaining operatives wrapped police tape around the property and the damaged section of the tunnel. The damage was extensive, and the ISD would like to make a brief video for Cheney. He went into the utility station again, descending the elevator with a camcorder, and began to make a brief video of the damage and mess that was left behind. After recording a good five minutes of footage, he shut off the device and left. He needed to get some rest that night.

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Blackbird had left the facility to begin making his way home. He soon thought about how much he would need rest that night.

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Lewis was soon locked up in an underground cell, where he would stay for an indeterminate period of time. This amount of time, however, would not last long.

Three hours later, at New Zevkhay International Airport, a pair of aircraft began taxiing up the base of Runway 4, the STO/L Military runway. They were modified 'Sunbeam' Bombers, high speed bombing aircraft converted into tactical transports for equipment transfer. Whilst relatively small in size, the two aircraft each had enough space for either twelve men or a good amount of cargo, this time the two were carrying a team of eight men between them, along with large crates of supplies marked for the diplomatic mission. Which was relatively true, since the contents were designed to aid the host country, via the Alfegan embassy. The personnel onboard were mostly not field agents that Alfegos would send out on such overseas missions - rather, they were a mix of computer support technicians and forensics scene-of-crime investigators, to help on the case involving the slippery Senator Lewis. A pair of field agents had been provided to help support the two teams already in Monavia, in tracking both the Bates investigation and the Lewis investigation.

They soon took off, flam flickering from their afterburners as they sped up towards their target airport. Cruising at near-supersonic speeds, the aircraft banked to follow the main air route to Monavia, with an ETA scheduled for late morning in Monavia.

_____________________________________

The airship crew turned in for sleep, leaving Hawk Two on watch for a short period as the rest moved to the bunk beds. With the pilot starting to become fatigued, they made the decision to fly back to the airport, to resume the investigation the next morning.

_____________________________________

The next morning dawned miserably, the rain carrying over from the day before, pattering down on Alpha One's windowsill as he slowly woke up. Still tired from the day before, he had replanned his day so he could take cat-naps, allowing his collegue who had entered much later to catch up on sleep. Whilst his field medical kit included performance tablets allowing him to stay alert and awake for up to 72 hours straight, he was hesitant to use them due to their side effects on sleeping patterns.

Rolling out of bed, he winced from his wounds, before pulling himself together. Stumbling over to the kitchen, he made himself a coffee, before showering himself. At around 7am, he sat himself down for some breakfast, watching his colleage slumbering on the sofa in the room across from him. On the table, a small list he had made the night before of things they would do that day. The first one was to pack up all their kit in the apartment and move, not before meeting the delayed package from the courier. Then, they'd have to move their kit to the back of a hire van he had ordered, whilst keeping an eye on the investigation down in Lewis's house. Finally, the rest of the day would be helping out on investigating the senator's house.

A dreary morning dawned as the constant patter of rain landed on rooftops and streets over much of the city. The ground everywhere was damp, sometimes covered with standing water up to depths of two or three inches.

Shortly after the sun rose over the horizon, endowing the skies with a pale glow and softly lighting the city and its surroundings, a call came in from the technical center. Cheney, who had completed making himself breakfast only moments before, sauntered over to the telephone in his office. He picked up the receiver and was given the most unexpected news he could possibly receive at this hour.

"General Director, I am calling about the canister that was discovered in the basement of Senator Lewis' house. It's a dud."

"It's what? A dud?" Cheney said somewhat surprised. "The canister was fake?"

"I'm afraid that it is. It must have been planted there to scare off our officers."

"Why? Why would Lewis plant a false canister in his residence?"

"The canister itself isn't false, it was empty."

"Try to see if you can pick up any traces of the contents. Let's hope that it was not filled at one time."

"I will do that."

The caller hung up and Cheney went back to his breakfast.

An hour later, Cheney and the ISD were waiting in the lobby of a local courthouse for their chance to speak with the judge about the search warrant. Around 8:30, a balaiff approached them and called them back to the judge's office. Upon entering the room, they seated themselves in front of her desk.

Judge Rachel Parker, a younger woman of about thirty-five, entered with a stack of papers, setting them down on the edge of the desk. "What can I do for the two of you?" she asked.

"We are here on the matter of the search warrant for the residence of Senator Lewis. My Internal Security Director for the city had a harrowing night inside of some utility tunnels underneath the neighborhood."

"How is this relevant?"

"Senator Lewis was arrested last night by one of my operatives after he caused a number of problems." Cheney spoke briefly for a few minutes before allowing the ISD to recount the happenings of the night. Twenty minutes later, the judge nodded in agreement that a warrant was necessary, seeing how the senator had interfered with the MNIA investigation and had committed several other illicit acts.

Judge Parker took some forms out of her desk and filled in a few details, and then signed the papers. They had their warrant.

Around 9:15 that morning, Cheney and the ISD arrived to deliver the warrant to the agents who were keeping watch over the scene. After delivering the paperwork, Cheney went to his normal work, while the ISD conversed about a call he got from the airport about the arrival of "more Alfegan diplomatic personnel" that were expected in a few hours.

The search began soon thereafter, as the units began to process the grounds. They found nothing outside, except for signs of the Alfegan diversion to attract emergency services. A few spots of dead grass, now drenched, had been dried and charred by a piece of flaming debris from the car that had been set afire, and cracks in a window were found nearby in an adjacent lot, easily observable from Lewis' front lawn.

After entering, they noticed that Lewis was indeed quite a poor housekeeper in certain areas. There were tables littered with half-read magazines and books, piles of old "junk mail" that he had neglected to throw out, and pens that had dried out and no longer worked. This guy just doesn't throw away his trash as much as he should. Proceeding into the small room that served as a library, they found a number of books that detailed PLDP ideology and historical arguments for interventionist policies that had not been approved by Parliament. Lewis was certainly a reader with interests in politics, but that proved little.

The ground floor and first floor yielded little evidence of any kind. A search of his upstairs office, where his computer was stolen, revealed some signs of the break-in a while before, and a few chips of glass from the same operation were found in the carpet behind a counch that sat in front of one of the windows that had been borken to disguise the removal of the computer as a burglery.

The basement seemed suspicious to the agents who were searching it. The air smelled of old tobacco smoke, and it was known that Lewis was not a smoker. "He must have had some kind of meetings here, because I see no reason why he would host geuests in this dump. It's revolting to see this moth-eaten furniture and chewed-up trash," said one. "I must concur, only someone who was like-minded about sharing such a decrepit space could have a reason to meet with Lewis here."

The stench was one thing that suggested that someone else had been present. An ashtray was on a table, showing recent use and cleaning, as it had almost no dust on its surface. It was taken as evidence. The team moved on into the next room, noticing little else that was suspiucious, and then they began their search of the bunker.

Sliding the bookcase aside, they noticed the ingenious method of rolling it away and then rolling it back with a hidden motor which turned the wheels in the floor and pulled it back to cover the door, blocking the view of an observer. The door had been unlocked during the night by Blackbird, who had picked it in a few seconds to gain a quick surprise entry.

Descending the steps, they made their way down to the bunker.

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Blackbird awoke early and prepared for his normal duties. He stopped along the way to work at a pay phone, and called up one of his contacts. "We have a problem," he said. "The trap has been sprung. Now we need free the subject."

"Lewis is locked up, I take it?"

"He is. I know he is going to be transferred from his cell to another location to continue the trial. He has to be, as it is against procedure to keep him at headquarters."

"What do you need me to do?"

"Get some of your associates. I have an idea."

"Call me later when you have the details worked out."

"As you wish."

Blackbird dialed a different number and spoke with a second contact.

"We have ourselves a situation."

"What kind of situation?" The voice was cold and rough.

"Lewis has been arrested. We need to fix that."

"What will you have me do?"

"I will give you my plan soon. Expect me to call again."

Blackbird then drove off moments later, and went to his usual workplace.

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In the chambers of the Monavian Supreme Court, maintainence staff were at work preparing the building for the onslaught of spectators for the second day of the trial. In two hours, it would resume.

The Alfegan forensic team touched down at nine am, the aircraft skidding to a halt along the damp runway. The sleek shapes, that one could call beautiful, cruised along to the private parking area. The underside ramp of the aircraft opened, allowing the personnel aboard to exit through what was once the bomb bay doors onto Monavian soil. An operative looked around, wearing dark glasses despite the weather, before putting up his umbrella. Behind in, a pair of men carried out a large plastic crate, putting it down on a luggage trolley that had pulled up. Once again, they had paperwork that meant the could walk straight out of the airport, after a brief chat with customs. The white van that had met the airship and its crew drove over, allowing the team to load up all the equipment from both craft. The two pilots had left the confined cockipits, stretching their legs after ensuring the canopys were shut. It was a cold country, not to their liking, though it gave them a good wake-up.

After brief negotiations with customs and border control, the two aircraft were refuelled, before they taxied away in preparation to fly off back to Alfegos. The team of eight men piled into the back of the van, before the overloaded vehicle began to slowly drive out of the airport towards the main city.

---------------

Half an hour later, the team head had the vehicle radio on, listening to the briefing from the hub as they pulled in outside the crime scene cordon.
"We need whatever evidence we can find from our friend Lewis - so you'll want to do a very thorough search. Don't leave any stone unturned. Try to get along with the MNIA teams though please - we've got our reputation to uphold. You alright with everything, over?"
"Operator One, affirmative. Over."
"Excellent, Charlie One. Out."
The van came to a halt outside the cordon, the side doors opening to allow the five men in the back out. The pair of field operatives walked over to a van parked inconspicously nearby, banging on the back three times. The doors opened, Alpha One sitting inside with the equipment from the apartment. A laptop sat running on top of an empty crate, whilst his colleague lay curled up in a corner, fast asleep.

"Morning Charlie One. I was just listening to your little chat on the radio. So, I guess you want your warrants?"
He smiled, taking out an envelope, before passing it over to him. Inside were a wad of eight warrant documents, one for each man - exactly what had been ordered.
"You'll want to send a couple people down into the utility tunnels at least once to try and see what the bastard was doing down there. They're currently tracking the computer hack in the utility network that allowed Lewis to have such control at hub, so need to pop by the station. Oh, and go through the downtown entrance - the one near here got completely done over."
The Charlie team man scribbled down notes in a notebook, whilst the forensics team behind him started setting up their field laboratory.

A self-inflating laboratory structure had been dragged out to the cordon, where the two Alfegan forensic officers were busy in discussion with the cordon guards. Once allowed through, the dragged the bag was opened, the structure slowly pushing itself up as foam and poles inside it made the structure rigid. During the time the sobre orange structure erected, the men dragged out numerous crates of equipment, almost more than could seemingly fit inside the van, stacking them up against the side of the tent. Once it was erect, it was secured with a series of guy lines, hanging from the aero-fibre surface down to heavy weights placed in the roadway. Once satisfied it was erect, the forensic team leader opened the door flap, using it to provide a sheltered entranceway. The first crate of equipment to go in where the forensic overclothes, designed to prevent any kind of fibre or particle contamination from contaminating the investigation scene and the laboratory. A microscope unit, mobile mainframe computer, genetics sampler and spectrometer found themselves installed past the initial ante-chamber, in the sterile interior. A small plastic unit mounted inside provided a flow of filtered air, as three men set up the equipment. The other three donned their overclothes, before moving over to the house of Lewis with warrants in evidence.

Their first place of observation was the basement. Ensuring that only appropriately dressed CSI units came down was important for the securing of the crime scene. In the basement, the first port of call was to photograph the area, a pair of battery-powered bar lamps giving illumination for the basement. Mostly full of old junk, a thorough search was conducted through the entire room, looking under furniture and pillows, behind and inside books on the bookcase and even using a small metal detector to scan cushions for anything hidden inside. The next most important thing to check was the bookcase itself. A secret switch to open the bookcase, pointed out by an MNIA officer, was dusted for fingerprints, whilst the floor was checked for footprints. A further search for human cells around the area of the switch was made, to try and see if any DNA could be found to link other people to using the property.

--------------------

(OOC note - Here's a list of every Alfegan operating in the RP at the moment, so that you don't get confused:
Alpha One & Two - The ones who were in the tunnels. Field Operatives.
Bravo One & Two - The two currently following Bates, after their night of chaos around Lewis's house.
Charlie One & Two - Two field operatives just flown in, co-ordinating the investigation at Lewis's house in place of Alpha One and Two, to free them up.
Hawk One & Two - Posted up on the airship, currently watchin where Lewis is being held, and scanning the area for suspicious activity.
Reach One & Two - A pair of snipers helping out with observation, and to provide attack capability should it be necessary
Foxtrot Team - The six forensic officers now arrived.
Operator One - The Alfegos Field Head
Guru Team - Three technicians working back at the embassy with supply, communication and support.

Also, could you go easy on the hyphens in the divisions between parts? Thanks!)

The investigating officers had checked several areas of the basement, searching for evidence of illegal activity. The staircase became crowded as the investigators descended into the bunker that was far below, but was soon free enough for a check of the switchplate. The switches were too small to yield any significant prints, as they had been used multiple times in the last few weeks. The plate, however, had several clear prints on it, which were matched to Lewis.

The bunker smelled of stale air and smoke, produced by the poor ventilation inside and the smoke that was created when the boxes smoldered the night before. On one side was the door, partly cut open at its bolts, and a hole in the wall that appeared to have been smashed through recently. Broken concrete littered the floor in front of the hole, sitting beneath a number of overturned boxes. A brass curtain rod and several boxes blocked the door, some of them showing signs of charring.

On the wall opposite the door there was a pair of large desks, atop which were placed a large computer monitor and a printer, among other components and devices. To the right, a row of bookcases contained hunbdreds of aging, musty volumes, including documents of all varieties. The investigators entered through a door in at one end of the rear wall, against which there was a couch and a table. The table had some cracked vases and a stack of books sitting on it, and most unusually, an ashtray.

The ashtray could not have been used recently, as the table it was sitting on was covered in a substantial amount of dust. The computer table was recently used, as well as the endtable next to one of the desks. It was where thge canister had been placed. The overall decorum of the dreary room was complimented by a pair of massive paintings of PLDP founders that hung over the desks, and an old flag that hung onm the rear wall over the couch. The walls were concrete, plastered over and thinly painted, which showed through in cracks around the door to the tunnel.

The computer was soon taken off of the wall and removed, as well as a number of books that seemed to be of interest. Removing the curtain rod and pile of boxes was the only remaining task to clear the way for investigators into the tunnel.

Half an hour later, the bolts in the door ground open with the sound of rust and friction, as the door opened. The lock had been picked by the MNIA agent who was dealing with the mechanical aspects of the location, and began using a flashlight to light up the stairwell. Small pieces of the shattered plasma cutter head were scattered about at the bottom, and the edges of the doors which had been cut out still seemed to have been subjected to terrible damage. The empty rooms were photographed and thought to have been used to store something once, but they were squeaky clean with the exception of a layer of dust on the floors.

The utility tunnel was being cleaned up by maintainence crews as the officers entered. The broken concrete around the deformed blast door at the end was being shovelled into a wheelbarrow and the rebar pieces were being thown into a bucket. The door was unable to be moved at the moment, and would require major repairs to its surface, but it had held. The wires that had been blown were being replaced, and power would eventually be restored. Lewis had been slick enough to cut the emergency lines when he cut the main lines, andthe door could not be raised until power was back.

OOC:

I have a wide screen monitor, so I have room for a lot of hyphens. I will cut down on those, as they may be cramming up your screen.

As the men finished in the basement and bunker with taking photos, leaving the little yellow and red markers to indicate objects of interest and any items that had been removed, they took up the samples of hair and cut-out fabric from the chairs, in plastic bags, so that the hair could be analysed. It was important to know exactly who had been in the room, since they had established Senator Lewis had most definitely been using the room. The other item they took up was what they could of the computer systems, bags after bags of hard disc drives from the hard disc stack and anything that looked like it could have been used for memory purposes. The computer had also been dusted for fingerprints, to see whether Lewis or another person had used it.

The next stop, once the photos were uploaded, and the samples handed over to the technicians, was the vehicle garage in front of the house. Carefully opening the doors to the garage, the forensics team then set about checking over the vehicle inside. The vehicle was locked, understandably, so the men spent their time checking the rest of the garage for anything interesting, before using a crowbar to force the boot open. Inside, they could see some cases, which were quickly opened. The first briefcase was removed carefully, the lock and handle dusted for fingerprints before it was opened with care. Inside, stacks of money, which were photographed before removal and counting. A rather large amount of cash, which was kept in the briefcase whilst the Monavians were contacted. In the meantime, one of the suitcases in the back had been dusted for prints and unlocked, to reveal the contents. Amongst them, the mobile data storage device was found, and removed with great care, before immediate transferal into the forensics tent.

Inside, the other three team members were busy with the fingerprint samples. The one from the door to the bunker had been matched easily to Senator Lewis, whilst another man was busy scanning a matted wad of fabric that had been removed from one of the chairs inside the bunker. The third man had the hard discs linked up to the mobile computer, now streaming what data he could recover from the disc by mesolite to the Alfegos Intelligence Agency code-breaking computer network. In real-time he watched as the jumbled remains of files were sent back to him as they were reconstructed, very few documents that had been recovered from the drive able to read. Whilst the destruction programme had done its damage, this time measures had been taken to reduce corruption, numerous copies taken from the original to try and give them backups. The man invited in the head MNIA operatives, once they had clothed up for the sterile environment, along with Charlie Team as he analysed the document remains.
"What do you make of these then?"

OOC:

I'm reserving this for an IC post.

This thread is being temporarily shelved until I return from my vacation.