Episode 4: Ice Ice Baby
Part 3
The rest of the drive went pretty smoothly for both agents. Nick focused on the road, and Brian tried to ignore his snide comments, focusing on 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 officer’s turn to brag. Brian smiled with pride when he noticed Nick staring up at the big, creamy white building. “Welcome to the CIA, Agent 008.” He got out of the car and started walking towards it, leaving the surprised agent behind.
No matter how much he despised the American government and all of its departments, Nick had to admire the architecture as he walked inside the agency’s building. Like Pearl said, we’re working towards the same goal with different ideas, he reminded himself as he followed Brian through the main hall.
“This is our memorial wall on your left. Every star represents an officer who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country,” Brian said, showing the white wall with 87 stars on it. Nick glanced at the inscription above it, 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, 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 U.S. government had started…
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 snapped. “We don’t have time to honor your great, glorious past.”
Brian glared at him, his jaw clenching as his hands balled into fists. “Look, you sorry ass of an agent,” he said, taking a step toward Nick. “We are on my turf now.” Nick was a head taller than him, but Brian didn’t back down. “You better cooperate, 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. 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 said, even calmer than he imagined he would be. “Now show me where this cryptographer of yours is.”
Sighing, Brian turned around and continued walking. He didn’t say a word until they reached the cryptographer’s office. Through the glass doors, Nick could only see a woman with dark hair working behind a computer with many screens.
“I already informed her that we were coming,” Brian said, his eyes softening when he saw her. “I better go inside and let her know we’re 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, beaming when she saw who it was. She got up to hug Brian, giving Nick a full view of her face.
“Well, well, aren’t you a work of art?” he murmured as a smile spread across his face. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea at all to work with the CIA. She wasn’t actually what he’d go for, normally; with her long, dark hair and big, green eyes, she had a totally different look than the blonde women he preferred. Suddenly, he noticed the way her hands moved, her fingers forming different shapes as she smiled at Brian. He was smiling back, his own hands waving around as he spoke to her in… “Sign language? What the hell? Why are they using sign language?”
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.”
Smiling broadly, Opal shook Nick’s hand and let it go again to make more gestures 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 Nick was going incredibly well. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to record the stupid look on Nick’s face. Noticing Opal continuing to sign, he quickly added, “Oh, and she says that she is very pleased to work with you to decode the weapon.”
While Nick remained baffled, he never missed the opportunity with a new woman. He gently took Opal’s small hand and brought it to his lips, trying not to break 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.”
Brian rolled his eyes at Nick’s Romeo routine. Fighting to keep a straight face, he made a mental note to take Opal out to dinner for agreeing to do this.
“Let’s get going, shall we?” Brian 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 showed how much fun she was having at Nick’s expense.
“She likes me,” Nick stated, staring at Opal’s ass as he and Brian followed her inside. He heard Brian scoff, indicating that he thought otherwise. “Why didn’t you tell me she was deaf?” Nick asked as Opal sat back down at her desk. The stolen weapon was the last thing on his mind now.
“Hearing impaired, we polite people call it, Carter,” 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 knew the CIA was employing such babes.” Nick grinned, not showing one sign of interest in their mission. “How do you learn this sign language stuff, by the way? Can she read lips?” After 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–”
Brian had had enough. “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 day, but who can blame her, eh?”
“Oh, shut up, you two.” The female voice that came from the desk startled Nick. Suddenly — as quickly as the red color was spreading across his face — he realized how they had fooled 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 said sheepishly. “But I’ll 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!” They turned their attention back to Opal, who looked between two screens and simultaneously typed 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 lips: “Oh my God.”
“What? What’s wrong? What’d you find out about the weapon?” Nick bombarded her with questions, his eyes darting from one screen to the other to understand the complicated text. After a few more keystrokes, a blueprint of the weapon popped up on one of her screens.
“From what I can understand, this weapon is some type of a laser,” Opal informed them as she deciphered the notes written in Russian in the blueprint’s margins. “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 by the information he’d just learned. What could it possibly be for?
“And it can evaporate large amounts of water, like entire oceans, if it’s used with the right kind of power source. But in order to do that, 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 said slowly. The ocean was a passion of his; he loved being out on the water whenever he could.
“What would someone want with a weapon like that?” 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 two are going to figure out,” Opal stated, handing the printouts to the agents. “I think you’ve got yourself one hell of a mission.”
Both men glanced at each other. Didn’t they know it.
***
“Antarctica?!” Nick screeched. “Shitballs… she has got to be fucking kidding.”
“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 Brian had learned was not 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 Pearl back at the HimTak headquarters; she cross-checked the plans for the weapon Opal had decoded, trying to uncover any information about its existence or whereabouts.
“What’d she say?” Brian asked, wondering what Antarctica had to do with the stolen Russian weapon.
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?”
“Pearl says it’s not. The letters are t.A.T.u. No idea what that means.”
Brian nodded. “So… where does Antarctica come in? Is that where the ship went?”
“Pearl dug a little deeper and intercepted a report from the New Zealand navy. Their Defence Force has been tracking an unidentified ship they picked up on radar. It was headed towards Len- Lenin… god damn it, hang on.” Nick fiddled with his watch some more, returning to the text Pearl had sent. “Lenin… grad… skaya?” he sounded out awkwardly. “Leningradskaya. It’s a Russian territory on the coast of Antarctica.”
“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.”
“She doesn’t think the ship went there at all. But the New Zealanders would assume that’s where it was heading since it was flying the Russian flag. That’s the only Russian territory in that part of the continent. But they don’t know about the stolen weapon. We’re the only ones who have all the information and can put it together,” Nick explained.
Brian nodded slowly, the wheels in his mind turning, processing all the information so far. “Antarctica…” he murmured. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? Remember what Opal said — this laser could be powerful enough to melt ice… ‘huge amounts of ice.’”
“‘Like icebergs and polar ice caps,’” Nick added. “Right. And if they’ve taken it to Antarctica, it sounds like that’s exactly what they want to use it for.”
“Hard to believe they transported that huge weapon all the way to Antarctica without being caught. I wonder why they didn’t go to the Arctic instead. It’s much closer to Russia,” contemplated Brian, frowning.
“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 Antarctica.”
“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 Antarctica? How are we s’posed to get there? How are we s’posed to find the damn thing once we get there? Antarctica’s the fucking South Pole! It’s fucking freezing there!”
“Don’t like the cold, do you?”
“Are you kidding? Hell no! I grew up in Florida! I live in the middle of a fucking desert, for God’s sake! You think I like the cold?”
“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 Antarctica besides ice and snow? And… and fucking penguins!”
“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 South Pole mission. Armed with weapons, supplies, and information, they boarded a plane to Argentina. At first, they decided it was best to ignore each other for the long flight, but the sniping soon picked back up again. It carried over to the helicopter that took them from Cape Horn to McMurdo Station, a science research center owned by the U.S. and situated on the southern tip of Ross Island, off the coast of Antarctica.
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, whose vague description led Brian and Nick to believe it could be the same one from the surveillance photos. A scientist remarked that his party had noticed strange behavior from some of the penguins who lived on the Ross ice shelf on a recent expedition.
Nick sent the reports back to Pearl, who worked from the HimTak headquarters to get them as much information as possible. Soon, they had satellite photos taken over the last few days. They scoured the satellite images, looking for anything that appeared out of the ordinary. The good thing about Antarctica was that anything not made of snow or ice stood out in a world of white.
“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 chuckled.
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.”
***