Chapter 24: Briefing

Carol took us into a dining room and motioned for a waiter bring us food and drink.

"I am assigned to brief you on your mission." She smiles at all of us around the table. "For the past several months we have had a mole planted in the Russian Kremlin. Turn of events, he is a double agent. He planted moles in the Pentagon and the White House before we knew it. Not to mention S.P.E.A.R. main logistics base, the CIA, and the FBI."

"What do you want us to do about it?" Bea intterupts. "You obviously think five young adults can do something, otherwise you wouldn't have called us here."

Honey gets excited "Were there a lot of moles? How many? I met a mole once, he was sent from my father into the town me and my mother lived at. He was very friendly. Listened to me talk to him about anything."

I roll my eyes.

"Honey, that's what a mole is supposed to do. You played right into his hand."

Carol intrudes on our conversation.

"Yes Honey, there were a lot of moles. In fact a group of them stole some very important, very dangerous tech. Tech that can be used to destroy an entire country. We need your expertise to get it back. The five of you are well trained, but still children."

I grown at the insult "children" we're in highschool!

"They will be looking for retired superheroes and federal agents to stop them. Not five teenagers." Nicholas assumes.

"Exactly, but they won't be looking for a group of powered students. You will slip right under their radar. The Kremlin doesn't have knowledge of any of your existence. As far as they know your nonexistent, keep it that way." Carol makes eye contact with each one of us individually.

"You five will go in with a school group of kids touring the Kremlin." Waving her hand over the table as she says this a 3d map of the Kremlin appears in the midst of the table." Now, you won't be able to get into the administrative buildings, much less the fortified bunker beneath it with just a student ticket. But we will provide means for you to slip away from your group and infiltrate both the administrative building and the tech bunker beneath it. There you will swap the original, dangerous piece of tech with a harmless, 3D printed one. It will seem like a dud to them." She shows us the bunker on the map and points to three places.

"We know of three security checkpoints here, here, and here. We can get you past them but if you run into any more trouble it's up to you, that's why there's five of you instead of one. You all will need to work as a team with your combined abilities.

"Why don't we just destroy the tech?" Bea asks. "Then we wouldn't have to bring it back and risk getting caught."

"If you did they would just steal another, but if it seems like there was a failure in our design, then they would just trash it and move on. None of them the wiser. The Intel they have is that it is a working piece. They are scared of it not in their control."

I look at Nicholas, he looks at Bea, Bea glances at Honey, Honey eyes Conn, Conn just stares at Carol and swallows. We were all thinking the same thing 'we have to infiltrate the Kremlin.'

"I trust we have a clear understanding." Carol doesn't stop to take in our surprised faces. I'm kind of glad.

"Good! Oh, and you will be referred to by codenames with your positions as well. Conn, is captain of the mission and codenamed Patriot. Bea will become Morph, they eyes of the team. Honey, yours is Blaze, the protector of the team. Finally Nicholas is codenamed Fury, he will be the logistics and mapping guy of the team, and Tony yours is MetalKid, hacker and code breaker of the team. You are going to be deployed in a few hours, good luck!" She turns and walks out the door.

Really? MetalKid? I reason with myself. There must be some kind of error. My eyes sweep the table looking at each of my team members and hearing them use their new codenames. Nicholas is the only one not looking or talking. He is playing Angry Birds on his watch.

I will be bringing this to Carol's attention before I depart.