Season 1, Episode 4: Ice Ice Baby
Part 3 of 5
The
rest of the drive went pretty smoothly for both agents. Nick focused on the
road, and Brian tried to ignore his snide comments, giving his attention to the
arid lands and his Blackberry. When Nick finally came to a halt in front of the
CIA branch located in LA, it was the CIA agent’s turn to brag on. Noticing the
small plaudit in 008’s face, a proud smile dispersed on Brian’s face.
“Welcome
to the CIA, Agent 008.” He got out of the car and started walking towards the
big, creamy white building, leaving a surprised agent behind, knowing full well
that he would be soon following him.
No
matter how much he despised the American government and all of its departments,
mainly CIA, Nick had to admire the work of art and the air that captured him
the minute he walked inside the agency’s building. After all, to quote
“Agent,
my ass,” he muttered under his breath as he followed Brian, who was giving him
a small tour of the building, through the main hall.
“And
as you can see, this is our memorial wall on your left, every star representing
an agent who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country,” Brian continued,
showing the white wall with 87 stars on it. On top of it, Nick glanced at the
inscription, which read, “In honor of
those members of the Central Intelligence Agency who gave their lives in the
service of their country.”
What about the innocent lives
it took? Nick
thought inwardly, almost unable to hold his tongue from saying it out loud.
Gritting his teeth, his mind went back to that day, the day when his hatred
towards the
No,
now was not a good time to start dwelling on the past. He couldn’t do it, not
when they still had a lot to do with the stolen weapon. “Move on, Littrell,” he
spoke seriously. “We don’t have time to honor your great, glorious past.”
Jolted
by the serious tone of the younger agent’s voice, but getting irritated by yet
another snide comment nonetheless, Brian’s jaw clenched, his hands balled into
fists, and he stepped in Nick’s way. His glare, two deep blue eyes, meeting
Nick’s, he spoke softly, but still threateningly enough to get Nick to back
off.
“Look,
you sorry ass of an agent, we are on my
turf now, and you better act cooperative, or I call this mission off. I guess
you wouldn’t want to be labeled a failure again now, would you? I don’t care
what got stuck up your ass by the government before, but I can’t say I enjoy
your presence either. So we can get on with it, or you can walk back to your
shiny car, for all I care.”
A
flash of anger and hatred passed through Nick’s eyes during Brian’s speech, and
though he wanted Brian to meet his fist more than anything at the moment, he
kept his desire to himself, knowing full well that they wouldn’t get anywhere
if they went on with this. “Fine,” he just said, even calmer than he imagined
he would be. “Now show me where this very precious and talented cryptographer
of yours is.”
Sighing,
Brian turned around and continued walking, and he didn’t say a word again till
they reached the office where the certain cryptographer was. Through the glass doors,
Nick could only see a woman with dark hair sitting with her back to him,
working behind a computer with many screens.
“I
already informed her about our coming,” Brian spoke, his eyes softening when he
saw his dear agent. “I better go inside and let her know we are here. Mind
staying here for a sec?”
Shaking
his head, Nick watched Brian go through the glass doors and touch the woman’s
shoulder. The woman looked up, and her face literally beamed when she saw whom
it was. Getting up from her seat, she gave a sincere hug to Brian, and at that
moment, Nick could finally get a full visual of her face.
“Well,
well, aren’t you a piece of art?” he murmured, as a smile spread across his
face. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea at all to work with CIA. She wasn’t actually
what he’d go for, normally, but with her long, dark hair and big, green eyes –
he guessed they were green, as much as he could tell from that distance, and he
had good vision – she had a totally different air than the blonde women he
preferred. Not skinny, not chubby, but with a healthy figure, this CIA woman
was just… a perfect appetizer. Suddenly, he noticed the weird hand motions of
the pair, who were smiling and constantly moving their hands in a way of…
Sign language? What the hell?
Why do they talk in sign language? He was seriously confused now, and before he had any time to
process what was going on, they came out of the office and approached him.
“Well,
Agent 008, let me introduce you to our very talented cryptographer, Ashavari
Desai, also known as Opal to us.” Smiling broadly, Opal shook Nick’s hand and
let it go again to do some more signs with her hands.
“She
says, ‘It’s very nice to meet you’,” Brian translated, grinning from ear to
ear. His small plan to make fun of this agent was going incredibly well. Oh,
what he wouldn’t give to Kodak the stupid look on his face. Noticing Opal was
continuing with her hand gestures, he quickly added, “Oh, and she says that she
is very pleased to work with you to decode the weapon.”
Still
baffled, but too experienced with every kind of woman to miss the opportunity,
Nick gently took Opal’s small hand and brought it to his lips, trying not to
break the eye contact. With a flash of his ever-charming smile, he spoke
carefully, making sure she could read his lips.
“Pleasure
is all mine, milady.”
Trying
hard to hold his laughter and wishing he had his camera with him once again,
Brian tried to keep a straight face as much as he could, making a mental note
to take Opal out to dinner for agreeing to do this.
“Let’s
get going, shall we?” He broke Nick’s inefficacious Romeo gestures and motioned
to go inside the office, adding a couple of weak hand movements just to make
sure Nick wouldn’t get suspicious. Opal smiled broadly and nodded. Her big, green eyes were showing how much fun
she was having, and, of course, only Brian could understand that.
“She
likes me,” Nick stated, as both agents followed her inside, his eyes not
leaving Opal’s rear for a second. He heard Brian scoff, loud enough for him to
understand that he thought else. “So you say she’s deaf?” Nick questioned
Brian, as Opal seated herself in her remaining position and the two agents
stood behind her. The last thing on his mind now was the stolen weapon.
“Hearing
impaired, we like to call it, Carter. We, as polite people,” Brian retorted.
The game was fun, but it was starting to bother him that Nick was actually
paying so much attention to her. She was Opal, for God’s sake, HIS Opal.
Desperate to change the subject, he cleared his throat. “I believe Opal can
hack into the Russian system quickly and will be able to tell us what this
weapon is all about.”
“Man,
you got yourself a winner here. Never know CIA was employing such babes.” Nick
grinned, not even showing one sign of interest in their mission. “How do you
learn this sign language stuff, by the way? Can she read lips?” Glancing at the
woman who showed no sign of understanding, he looked back at Brian. “Well she
can kiss my lips instead of reading, but…”
Now Brian
was having enough of it already. “Look, man, she won’t be interested in
you, take my word. She knows better than to date stupid agents.”
“Ha,
I can sense she doesn’t give you the time of the day, but who can blame her,
eh?”
“Oh,
shut up, you two.” The voice that came beside Nick startled him, and suddenly –
as quick as the red color spreading inch by inch over his face – he realized
how they’d gotten him.
“Oh
yeah, man, we got you bad.” Brian’s annoying laugh was topped off with a
high-five from Opal.
“Sorry,
Agent Carter, but I just couldn’t resist the urge,” Opal spoke with her calm,
soothing voice. “But I’d like to take your words about me as compliments. So,
thank you.”
Her
smile was contagious. “You’re welcome, Opal,” Nick said with a small smile,
still not able to shake off his embarrassment. “And call me 00Carter,
please. Or Nick.” His tone was still
flirty. I think I hang out with Diamond too much, he thought, when he
noticed it.
“Don’t
you learn from experience, or are you too stupid to notice she doesn’t give a
damn about you-?”
“Guys!”
Both agents turned their attention back to Opal, who was looking between two
screens and continuously typing on the keyboard. For the next couple of
seconds, the only sound was the aggressive click of the keys. When she spoke
again, only three words left her beautiful lips. “Oh my God.”
“What?
What’s wrong? What’s the weapon about?” Nick bombarded the questions, his eyes
darting from one screen to the other in order to understand what this
complicated weapon was about. Opal typed some more, and this time the image of
the weapon appeared in front of them. Not a photo of what the weapon really
looked like, but a blueprint of it.
“From
what I can understand, this weapon is a type of a laser,” Opal informed them,
her eyes reading quickly the imprints and additional information written on the
blueprint. “A type of laser that melts ice, huge amounts of ice. Like icebergs
and polar ice caps. And…”
“And?
There’s more?” Brian questioned, confused with the information he’d just
learned. What could possibly be done with such a weapon?
“And
it can evaporate large amounts of water, namely oceans, if it’s used with the
right kind of power source. But in order to do this, you need a high amount of
energy, and I have no idea where you can get it. Almost close to impossible,
when you consider the fact that such evaporation would cause climate changes,
not to mention the death of thousands of species. It would basically bring the end of the
world.”
“It’s
like playing with the world’s buttons,” Nick spoke slowly. The ocean was a weak spot of his; he was
always fond of being out in the ocean, whenever he could.
“What
could possibly be done with such a weapon?” Brian folded his arms across his
chest grimly. This situation was far
worse than he expected. And how could he succeed in this mission with this
highly incapable Himitsu Takana agent?
“Well,
that’s what you are qualified for, Agents,” Opal stated and handed the
printouts to the agents. “I think you’ve got yourself one hell of a mission.”
Both
agents glanced each other. Didn’t they
know it.
± ± ±
“
“Shitballs?”
repeated Brian in amusement, momentarily forgetting his dislike for his new
“partner.”
Nick
didn’t even crack a smile. His eyes,
steely and serious, were still fixed on his wristwatch, which was not, Brian
had learned, a watch at all; in fact, it appeared to do everything but tell time. At the moment, he had used it to get in touch
with Professor Pearl back at the HimTak headquarters; she was looking into the
plans for the weapon Opal had decoded, trying to uncover any information she could
about its existence or whereabouts.
“What’d
she say?” Brian probed, curious as to what
Nick’s
eyes scanned the text message again. “A
few things. She hacked the Russian
system again and found classified surveillance photos of a ship that left a
Russian port on the night the weapon went missing. It was flying the Russian flag and looked
like a military ship, which is probably how it managed to depart without too
many questions, but on closer inspection, the ship didn’t belong to the
military.” He pressed a few buttons on
his watch, then held his wrist out to Brian, tilting it so he could see the
image he had pulled up in the tiny window.
Brian
squinted. “What are those letters on the
side? Just some kind of identification?”
“
Brian
nodded. “So… where does
“
“But
why would the ship be going to Russian territory? If it’s carrying the weapon they stole from
the Russian government, you’d think they’d want to avoid Russian territory.”
“
Brian
nodded slowly, the wheels in his mind turning, processing all that he had been
told so far. “
“‘Like
icebergs and polar ice caps,’” Nick added.
“Right. And if they’ve taken it
to
“Hard
to believe they transported that huge weapon all the way to
“Well,
duh – ‘cause it’s much closer. If you
steal something, do you hang right around the corner with it? Hell no!
You run like hell and get it as far away as you can. In this case, the other end of the world.”
Brian
arched an eyebrow. “Shoplift much as a
kid?” He smirked. He was only teasing, but Nick’s face
reddened.
“No!”
he shot back defensively. “It’s just
common sense.”
“Right. So… the weapon’s most likely somewhere in
“Yep. And guess where we get to go to try and track
it down?”
Now
Brian understood. “Shitballs.”
A
fleeting smile passed over Nick’s face, quickly transforming into a scowl. “God damn, are they fucking insane? They want us to go to
“Don’t
like the cold, do you?”
“Are
you kidding? Hell no! I grew up in
“Well,
look on the bright side – it’ll be a nice change of scenery for you,” Brian
replied pleasantly. He was uncomfortable
with all of Nick’s swearing and taking the Lord’s name in vain, though he’d
certainly heard worse from the people he dealt with. He didn’t dare comment on that – he wasn’t that righteous – but it amused him to
see the look of disgust on Nick’s face when he combated the man’s rage with
pure positivity. Passive payback, Brian
liked to call it.
“Scenery…
psh. What is there in
“Perfect
place to smuggle a stolen, top-secret, ice-melting laser, huh?” Brian grinned.
“You
better stop smiling like that, or I’m gonna push you off an iceberg when we get
there. You’re creeping me out,” Nick
fumed.
Brian
continued to smile. Nick may have gotten
the better of him with that car of his, but now Brian knew just how to push his
buttons. Not exactly top secret
information, the way Nick showed all of his emotions on his face, but Brian
coveted it anyway. Now whenever Nick
started trashing the government, Brian could do what he did best: annoy the hell out of him.
± ± ±
The
bickering continued over the next two days, as the unlikely partners geared up
for their mission to the South Pole.
Armed with weapons, supplies, and information, they boarded a plane to
They
spent the next few days scouting the area, talking to the scientists and few
residents who lived in McMurdo and venturing outside its borders on their own,
on the lookout for any suspicious findings.
At first, there was nothing, and then, little by little, the missing
pieces started to come together. Several
people reported seeing a ship in the distance, a ship whose vague description
led Brian and Nick to believe it could be the same one from the surveillance
photos. A scientist remarked that on a
recent expedition, his party had noticed strange behavior from some of the
penguins who lived on the
Nick
sent the reports back to
“Look
at this,” Brian said, attracting Nick’s attention to the laptop computer he had
brought. “This looks like an iceberg or
something, right off the coast of the ice shelf. But what’s this dark spot next to it. Could it be a ship?”
Nick
squinted over his shoulder at the blurry image on the screen. A slow smile spread across his face. “Could be.”
“If
it is, it’s pretty darn close to that berg.
Why would it sail so close?”
“Yeah,
didn’t they see Titanic?” Nick joked,
chuckle.
Brian
smiled, but didn’t laugh. “It’s hard to
tell in a still picture, but maybe it wasn’t moving. Maybe it was docked there. But why would a ship try to dock at an
iceberg?”
Nick’s
own grin grew even wider. “Because it’s
not really an iceberg.”
± ± ±