Immaculate Spirit 200 :

"Do you really think this is going to work?" A female voice asked.

"A little late to asked about that Ivania." Nathaniel answer in an amused tone.

"You know what I'm talking about." She respond, annoyed.

"I do but this is not on our hands anymore. We just have to wait and see what their reaction is going to be. Moreover this is not your concern anymore, your involvement in this whole affair just ended."

"What am I supposed to do now? Just hope that you will upheld our agreement and go back home waiting for my death?" She said, her hand grasping a gun behind her back.

She was expecting to be betrayed the second that they took care of the interrogation team send by Saudi Arabia but so far Nathaniel had not made a move in her direction which made her feels weird. He was not doing what she was expecting and that was a cause of concern considering that she always managed to guess what was in people mind and that was a huge reason why she was still breathing today. But now she was confronted to a kid half her age that she could not figure out and who had an uncomfortable hold on her life and her future today.

"Ivania, why in your opinion did I brought you to the bunker, why did I let you listen on our briefing for our next mission?"

"Because you are an arrogant moron?"

Nathaniel finally stop looking at the dot of light in the sky and face her, patiently waiting for her to say something more. Face with that look, she start thinking deeper at the meaning of what he did. It took her a minute to figure it out and when she does she could not contain her surprise.

"You… you give me something that I could use against you to give me power over you. You knew I would never accept being controlled by someone else and so you made sure that we could stand as equal, you create a situation of mutual destruction if one of us go against the other." She said, a hint of awe creeping in her voice.

"Indeed."

"You know, you remind me a lot about him. Marc. Not physically of course, you look nothing like him but you have a lot of his mannerism and expression. Even the way you fight look a lot like his. You have a fighting experience beyond your years." She add, looking intensely at him.

"I'm not really surprised, Marc was a good men and if it was not for him, I wouldn't be here right now. I owe him a lot." Nathaniel said honestly.

"That sound like an interesting story."

"It is, I will tell you about it someday."

"Anyway, what are you trying to do with that team of yours? An excuse to found an harem full of beautiful girl?" She asked with a cheeky smile.

"An harem? Where is that coming from? No, I just wanted people with specific skill and with potential. I didn't care about their gender to be honest with you." Nathaniel laughed.

"So that's just a coincidence that the four womens in your team are all hot? Even the computer girl is kinda cute."

"Kinda yeah."

"Well, we will see how it goes for you but you realize that the most likely outcome of your little team is that you will end up all dead. You know that, right?" She said, lifting an eyebrow.

"I know the risk and I know the odds are against us but it never stop me before and it will not stop me now."

"You are a fool but after all you are an american, your country was essentially builded by fools. I still hope you come back alive though, you are entertaining and you are a puzzle I can't wait to crack." She said, giving him a predatory smile that give him the chill.

"Don't fret about it, I'm way too stubborn to die. I'm trusting you to achieve the last part of the mission alone?" He ask.

"I was already doing this when you were still sucking on your mother t.i.ts, you should start treating me with more respect."

"Yeaahhhh in the future, a simple yes will suffice Ivania. Until then, stay out of trouble. We will see each other again when I come back."

Ivania was going to strip him a new one for the way that he was talking to her when a sudden noise made her turn her head away. Focusing her attention in the direction where the noise came from, she finally conclude that there was nothing. Turning back to Nathaniel, she quickly found out that he was not longer there and no sign of him could be found to determine where he was.

"I can't believe I fall for that." She whispered quietly, shaking her head. "You better live you fu**ing brat, I'm not done with you!" She shout to the darkness before walking away.

Hearing her shout, Nathaniel let out a chuckle from where he was before continuing to run to the hangar where his team was currently embarking into a military plane. Seeing someone coming, Scott flanked by Camilla put their hands on their guns before putting them away after recognizing that it was him.

"Everything is ready guys?"

"Yes, everything is loaded and our flight plan have been validated. We're ready to go." Camille answers succinctly.

"Did the pilot ask anything suspicious about us?" Nathaniel inquired.

"No, they are professionals and they received strict orders to drop us off where we need to go and then forget our existence entirely." Scott respond.

"Good but secrecy is always a double edged sword. We will have anonymity but we will also be alone, there will be no rescue mission, no negotiation for our release and no support from anyone beside ourselves. Let's go." Nathaniel said.

"We know that. Put this on before we go inside the plane." Scott said before giving to Nathaniel a hood and a face mask.

Contrary to the others, Nathaniel had a very recognizable face and could not be seen by everyone here tonight. Even if the pilots were trustworthy, they would still become curious when they will see the young pop star and actor Nathaniel Lyndon using a military plane to go on the other side of the Earth in what appears to be a cla.s.sified mission.

"Thanks Scott." Nathaniel said before putting on the hood and the black face mask. "Lead the way."

Upon entering in the cargo bay, the pilot eyes flicker to him for a second before going back doing his preflight check, seemingly unconcerned. Nodding to his team, he took place in one of the seat and strap himself, the door of the hold slowly closing after Scott tell the pilot that they were ready to go. Fifteen minutes later when the plane was leaving behind New-York, Nathaniel closed his eyes.

******

Saudi Arabia, Riyadh. 02/02/2013. 19:55.

located downtown, an old but well maintained five stories building was the siege of the Department of Agriculture, or so everyone thought. Even if the first two floors was indeed depending of the Agriculture department, the three top floors were not. In fact, they had nothing to do with Agriculture at all. These three floors and the two underground level that do not appears on any map were the unofficial Al-Istikhbārāt Al A'amah headquarter, the secret agency of Saudi Arabia.

Inside his office at the fifth floor of the building, the head of the organisation, Khan Al-Maslah, was busy reading situation report. Despite the era of internet, Khan was old school and so prefer to used hard paper to look at the ton of information coming to his desk every day. That was his job to know what was happening in the world for him to brief the king and the prince.

Contrary to his habits, the tv on the other side was broadcasting CNN. The reason why it was the case was simple. It was more than twenty hours since they lost contact with the interrogation team they send to the US and the freelance operative in charge of investigating the ties between the bombing in Riyadh last year and the Lyndon family. So far they had no information about what happen and that made him queasy. He even called his counterpart at the CIA for information and he had no information either even if it was possible he was just lying.

He had even hired someone to look at the warehouse where his agents were last stationed and the place was found empty and cleaned out completely. No trace could be found about his people, it was almost like they had vanished into thin air. Hearing something that spark his attention, Khan put down his report before taking the remote and upping the sound coming from the TV.

"Yes Chris. It is an extremely grim situation what happened here in New York this morning. The body of a woman was found this morning by a bodega worker in a dumpster on the corner of this street. The woman was so heavily mutilated that she was unrecognizable but so far the only thing we know about her was that she had mid shoulder brown hair and that she was around forty years old. I cannot stress you enough how gruesome the scene is. A significant number of her fingers and toes were cut off and she had burn on huge part of her body everything so far is pointing at the fact that she was tortured. This is an horrible hate crime that took place here Chris."

"A hate crime you say Susan?"

"Yes Chris, based on what the person that found the body say earlier, the flag of Saudi Arabia was cut into the woman forehead next to what's look like a bird. At this time, the Police refused to make a comment about the murder but they have made a…"

At that point, Khan had heard enough and turn the TV off. Even if his face was devoid of any emotion, his mind was reeling from the information he just got. The fact that the Lark had been found out was in accord with his own thinking, the torture was too but dumping the body where he could be easily found was baffling. The Lark skill and experience was almost unrivaled in their field, for being taken out, the person doing it would need a huge amount of time and resources. The easy culprit in the US would be the CIA but Khan seriously doubt that it was the case.

For starter, even if they had the mean to take her out, they would never have disposed of the body like that. That incident in itself was going to gather a lot of public attention and create a diplomatic incident between the two countries, something that they did not need at the moment. His thought process was interrupted when someone knocked on his door.

"Enter." Not bothering to ask who it was, only one person could knock on his door.

Entering his office, his most senior agent stop after closing the door and putting his hands behind his back in a sign of respect.

"Start talking."

"Sir, we found our interrogation team that we lost contact with in the US." He said succinctly.

"Where?" He ask, keeping his voice devoid of any emotions.

"Here, sir. They were found in the hold of the last plane coming from the US four hours ago."

"Four hours ago? Why are we knowing about this only now?" He ask, a hint of cold anger creeping to his voice now.

"They were found heavily sedated without any identification on them so they were brought to the hospital while the police took their time to run their fingerprint to the database which got our attention. I was the one who got to the hospital to make sure that it was indeed our team and to know what happens. I was not able to talk with them as they were still heavily sedated but the doctors told me that their body show sign of injury but nothing life threatening. Based by what I saw, they were knock down before being drugged, I let one of our men to let us know when they wake up."

"Good job, let me know when they wake up, I will debrief them myself." He said before frowning seeing his men still in his office. "Is there something else?"

"Yes, we found name wrote on our men bodies, one name each time at the same place, on their chest. I wrote them down for you before running them on our database." He said before taking a piece of paper and giving it to him.

The more that he read the names on the list, the more is expression became serious and grave. Every single name on that list was the real name of one of his undercover agents placed in various places in the Middle East. All extremely skilled agents and all personally placed by him under heavy secured ident.i.ty. The simple fact that someone knew about them all was baffling and surprising to say the least but everything about this situation was.

Falling into deep thought, he start reviewing that he just learn starting from the Lark. They had managed to capture her, torture her and then kill her before dumping the body at a place where she will be easily find. The marking on her body show that it was a message send specially for him, showing that they were ruthless and were not afraid to kill his people. The matter of his interrogation team mean something else entirely. They were returned to him drugged but otherwise unharmed, showing a desire to make peace. And now, the fact to give him the name of his own agents was a disguised threat and a promise all in one. The promise that if he wanted to keep investigating, he would pay it dearly.

Making a quick decision, he open his personal safe from his desk before fis.h.i.+ng the files of all his agents and giving them to his agent.

"This is our agents that were mentioned in the piece of paper you gave me and the way to get them out of their a.s.signed missions. I leave that to you, I need to speak with the King." He said, getting to his feet and leaving his office follow by his agent.