Zachary - Chapter 2

            Three o’clock came too early for Zachary. He had packed everything the night before and gone over the plan a dozen times. Still, he couldn’t shake the overarching worry he had about this mission. Slowly, he pushed himself out of bed and changed. He grabbed everything he needed and tossed it into his Toyota Camry then slid behind the wheel. Zachary was saddened that he wouldn’t be able to see the sunrise before he left but he had to get to the Base of Operations on time. 

            He arrived fifteen minutes before four A.M., Jack was already there sitting inside the lobby near the entrance, a cup of coffee in his hand.  

            “Coffee’s on the counter.” Jack said as he sipped from his mug. 

            “Thanks.” Zach walked over to the counter, poured himself a full mug and sat down on one of the couches. 

            “Nervous?” Jack asked.

            Zachary thought for a moment, then looked Jack in the eye. “Terrified.”

            Jack nodded, “we all are, every single mission. The feeling never goes away.”

            “You would know wouldn’t you.” Zachary chuckled. “You’ve been in this business longer than I have.”

            “True.”

            “Do you ever regret it?”

            Jack pondered his question, then answered slowly. “Sometimes, but I think the pros out way the cons. I spend less time with my wife than I would like but I’m helping our country.” He shrugged, “there are different ways to look at it.”

            Gabe entered and sat on the same couch as Zachary. 

            “No coffee Lion?” Zachary asked.

            Gabe shook his head. “Come on Zack you know I can’t stand the stuff.”

            Jack scoffed, “you’re missing out on a lot here Lion.”

            Gabe rolled his eyes. “Are we really going to go through this again? Every single time someone has coffee we talk about this. Back me up Zack.”

            “It’s true,” Zachary answered. “But we can’t really poke fun at you about anything else.” He chuckled. “Be a good sport and let us have a laugh.”

            Gabe snorted. “Maybe you laugh too much.”

            “In our line of work we need to laugh about something.” Jack said with a lowered voice.

            The three of them were silent for a moment after that remark. It was true. All of them had seen some pretty dark things and sometimes you needed something to help you forget, to keep your mind off of it. 

            Amanda and Elise both walked in together and stopped when they saw their three solemn faces. 

            Amanda smiled. “Cheer up boys, it’s not the end of the world yet.”

            “Just when we were having some good gloom atmosphere.” Jack mumbled into his cup.

            Amanda glared at him.

            “Were you able to go over the plans I sent you?” Zachary asked Elise as she sat on the couch.

            “Yes, I was, and they all looked pretty good to me. I only have one question.”

            “Oh?”

            “Why didn’t you send me your back up plans?”

            Zachary frowned. “I did.”

            “Well, I sure didn’t get them.”

            “Let me go get my computer and I can double check.”

            As Zachary went out to grab a backpack from his car, Gabe whispered to Jack. “That’s bad isn’t it, Zack never forgets anything.”

            “Yes, but there is the slight possibility that in the nervousness of our upcoming assignment he’s a little scatterbrained.”

            Gabe snorted at this.

            “I did say slight.” Jack added.

            Zachary sat back down on the couch and pulled the computer out of his backpack. He took in a couple of things on the screen and swallowed. “It’s not here.”

            Amanda jumped to her feet from where she’d sat in a lounge chair. “What!? Give that to me.”

            Zachary handed her his computer and she scanned through it, then looked up at Zachary. “Zack where have you been with this computer?”

            “All I did was stop at a coffee shop on the way home to work on a couple of things.”

            “Zack!”

            “What!?”

            “Someone hacked into your computer!”

            “How? I didn’t even connect to the coffee shop’s network!”

            “Well hacked may be a bit of an overstatement but still! Did you leave your computer to do something for any reason?”

            Zachary looked down at his hands. “I may have left it open when I went to the restroom. But there was no way anyone could have had time to sift through my computer!”

            “You’re right, but they could sift through the information you were creating. Were you finished with your back up plans when you left?”

            “Yes, I had just sent them to Lizzy.”

            “That’s how they did it. They knew they wouldn’t have time to look for any pertinent information, so they took the first thing they could get their hands on.”

            “But there’s no way they can read it. Everything I had was in code.”

            “Codes can be cracked Zack.” Amanda glared at him. 

            “There is no way,” Zachary shook his head. “I wasn’t even gone for two minutes. How would anyone know I would be there anyways? To the rest of the world, I’m a nobody.”

            “Unless someone leaked information.” Elise said slowly.

            All eyes turned to her.

            Jack hissed. “This situation is even more delicate than we thought. Zack, did your backup plans specify what time things were going down?”

            “No, I never put the date or time in my notes.”

            “Good, we need to get on our flights as soon as possible, we haven’t botched this mission yet. Everybody grab your things and lets go, now.”

            Everyone quickly gathered their things and packed into Jack’s car.

            Jack glanced back at them from the driver’s seat. “Now, someone knows that Zack is on this mission, we have no reason to doubt that we could be being watched at this very moment. There is a mole in our base of operations, if anyone gets separated do not, I repeat do not come back here. We go forwards with the plan and meet up with Liu in China. You all know the drill be aware of your surroundings and don’t trust anyone but this team. As soon as we get to the airport everyone will go their separate ways until we meet up in Yichang China. Be extra careful.”

            They all nodded, Jack started the car and they headed down the mountains towards the airport. No one said anything, silence had settled over them like a thick cloud. Zachary was running through everything in his mind. This was his fault, and he knew it. He shouldn’t have gone to a public place right before a mission. He’s grown comfortable with his safety in Colorado and had not been diligent in his awareness. 

            Looking back on last night he remembered that someone in the coffee shop had been watching him. They were well trained for Zachary not to have noticed them immediately. He didn’t remember who they were, but something had happened that nagged at him. He ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit, and stared at his feet in the back of the car. 

            “It’s not your fault Zack.” Elise whispered quietly from where she sat beside him. “How were you to know that someone was keeping tabs on you?”

            “I should have been paying attention.” Zachary grimaced.

            “What’s done is done Zack. Don’t beat yourself up about it. The best thing you can do now is press forward and complete the mission.”

            “What if the mission is compromised?”

            “They, whoever they are, only got the backup plans. As long as everything goes well, we have nothing to worry about. There is also no way that they know what our target is, you know that we’re always careful to keep the place and the time out of our planning in case something like this happens. Chin up, we can do this.”

            “I’ve let you all down.”

            Gabe sitting on Zachary’s left smacked his leg. “Quit beating yourself up Zack, we don’t blame you. We know you would never do anything like this on purpose. Let it go.”

            Zachary took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Alright, let’s do this.”

Zachary - Chapter 1

Zachary took off his sunglasses and sighed as he stepped into the big building. Zeb was approaching him, and he didn’t look happy. 

            Zeb pointed at him. “You, briefing room, now.” He then turned and walked further into the building. 

            Zachary jogged a bit and caught up to him. “What do we got this time Zeb?”

            Zeb just shook his head. “Briefing room.”

            Zachary put up his hands. “Alright fine, I’m just gonna learn about in a minute or two anyways.” He smiled.

            Zeb was not amused and kept walking at his brisk pace. Shrugging Zachary followed at a slow walk and ran his hand through his red hair. They walked down a long hallway, passing various people along the way. Zachary remembered when he had first started working here when he was twenty-five years old. He had gotten lost every day for a week before he had memorized the layout. The building wasn’t really much to look at with its gray interior but the drive to get there was breath taking. One of the perks to having your workplace in the Colorado Mountains was the beautiful views you could see. 

            Zeb opened a door on his left and went inside as Zachary hurried to follow. He entered the briefing room and sat down at one of the chairs surrounding the big round table in the middle of the room. Several other people were already there waiting. Amanda Perks was there sitting a couple of chairs away from him, as well as Jack Forman, Gabe Lyon, and Elise Stanford.

            Amanda (or Perky as they called her) was the electronic expert among them, though they all had their basic understanding of electronics as was required. Jack (or J-Four) was their supplies guy, he made sure they had everything they needed. Gabe (Lion) was the man that got things done, and Elise (Lizzy) was Zachary’s partner in planning. Her job was to analyze his plans and tell them where they wouldn’t work and come up with a solution to the problem. They all worked well together as a team and had done so for three years now. So far, they had never failed a mission. 

            Jack leaned back in his chair and put his arms behind his head. “Alright Zeb, why did you call disrupting all our vacations. It’s only been a couple of days since our last mission. We need some down time.”

            Zeb sighed. “I know you all do but this is important. We needed the best we have on this.”

            “I’m sure we’re all very flattered.” Jack smirked. “What’s going on?”

            “We’ve intercepted some concerning chatter overseas. We don’t know if it’s true or not and we’re sending you to find out.”

            “A simple reconnaissance mission?” Scoffed Gabe, “Surely another team can do so.”

            “Oh, hush Lion.” Amanda said rolling her eyes. “Let him finish before you pass judgement.”

            “Thank you, Amanda.” Zeb glared at Gabe. “To answer your question, no. This is not just a simple reconnaissance mission. The chatter that we intercepted has made us come to believe that China has been building nuclear defense system and that they will be ready to launch it by the end of the month. The chatter we picked up did not specifically mention a nuclear defense system, however China has been launching unusual satellites in strange patterns.”

            Zachary sucked in a breath. “That’s not good.”

            “No, it’s not.” Zeb eyed him. “This situation is not to be considered lightly. I don’t think I need to say this, but I’ll say it anyways. Everything that has been and will be said in this room is considered classified. There are several folders on the table, please take the one with your name on it and read through it. Then I will begin going over what you all need to do.”

            He gave them a minute until they all looked back up at him. “Liu Wang is our informant in China. Tomorrow morning you will all fly to a remote part of China and meet her. Your covers have already been created and you already have your codenames for each other. When you meet Liu she will provide you with the materials necessary to finish your mission. You will need to break into Admiral Chang Hushang’s office to confirm that this missile defense system is actually being built and where. If the building of the defense system is confirmed, from there you will need to steal it, and if that objective cannot be acquired you will need to destroy it at its base of operations.” Zeb paused. “There are many unknowns in this mission and many things that could go wrong.” He sighed. “As always if you are caught, we will deny all knowledge of you and your ties to the United States Government… Questions?”

            Elise spoke. “How much can we trust Liu Wang?”

            Zeb smiled. “I worked with Liu for seven years when I was an agent and not your boss, you can trust me that she can be trusted.”

            Elise nodded.

            Zachary frowned. “If there is no confirmation of the defense system being built, what then is our objective afterwards?”

            “If you can reach no confirmation of its construction, to be sure, you will seek to acquire information from someone higher up. I doubt there will be need for that, the construction of the defense system is fairly assured but there can be no action against it without proof.”

            “Who was responsible for intercepting the chatter?” Jack questioned.

            “Our very own transmission agency was able to intercept and decode the message. To where they were trying to send it is not clear. However, the message was sent from Admiral Chang Hushang’s office in the CMC General Office in Zhengzhou China.”

            Gabe whistled. “Zhengzhou huh, this is going to be difficult.”

            Zeb nodded. “Yes, it is, but we are willing to give you all the help we can to see this through to the end. If China is building a nuclear defense system… We need to know, and they need to be stopped.”

            The five of them nodded.

            “The General Office of the CMC is going to be difficult to hack without detection but I’m sure that I will be able to find a way in.” Amanda said. 

            Zachary nodded. “The hard part will be getting into the building, not even to mention Chang Hushang’s office. We’ll need to search his whole office without moving anything out of place as well as searching his computer files.” He looked over at Elise. “We’re going to need to do some serious planning on this one.”

            “I agree.”

            Gabe smirked. “Well, all of you can have fun doing that, just let me know when we go after the system itself.”

            “Nuh uh.” Jack shook his head. “We’ll need you on the first part as much as the second Lion, maybe even more. If we don’t get the confirmation, there won’t be any system to steal or sabotage.”

            Zeb cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you all to make plans. Be here by four o’clock tomorrow morning.” He opened the door to the hallway and paused. “Be careful out there, we can’t afford to lose any of you.”

            It hit Zachary then. Zeb was genuinely concerned that they wouldn’t make it back this time. It had never even occurred to him that they might not come back. Sure, there had been some rough spots on a couple of their different missions but they had always made it. Zachary looked over at Elise to see that she’d had the same thought. 

            “We need to be extra careful on this one Zack.” She whispered. 

            “I know.”

            Amanda looked back and forth between them. “What’s with all the doom and gloom in your voices? Everything is going to be fine, there’s nothing that we can’t handle.”

            Jack smiled at her. “Sure Perky. But this is just a little more stressful than our other missions. This building is in the middle of a big city, with all sorts of security measures that we probably haven’t even seen before.”

            She waved her hand. “Let me deal with the electronic security systems, by tonight I’ll know all the details of how they work and how to shut ‘em down.”

            “I’ll start working on how we pass the non-electronic security systems,” Elise mused.  “If anything, they’re probably going to be more difficult to sneak past.”

            “I’ll work with you on that Lizzy,” Jack said. “That way I know what gadgets we’ll need.”

            Gabe sighed in exasperation and stood up from his chair. “You all let me know what you need me to, and I’ll do it, but I’m not good at the planning part. So just give me a call if you need me.”

            “You got it Lion.” Zachary called as he left the room. “I’m gonna find a quiet place to think.” He said to the rest of them. Looking at Elise he said, “I’ll let you know if I need you to go over something with me.”

            She nodded and began conversing with Jack.

            Zachary left the room and stood in the hallway for a moment pondering where to go. After a moment he came to a decision and headed towards the entrance. He would go to his usual thinking spot about half a mile away from the building that looked out over the mountains. Zachary smiled. They could do this.