A year after being established, A.E.G.I.S. Headquarters was a hive of activity. Located not far from the Avengers facility in upstate New York, the HQ was the heart of the new international intelligence service, playing a support role to the more overt enhanced teams that did the visible work out in the world. Not to say that the superheroes couldn't do covert work, but for every one operation they went on, six were performed in the shadows by ordinary members of their own intelligence community. And among the most senior of those AEGIS intelligence officers were Agents Doyle and Miller, whose initial investigation into Hydra within the CIA and MI6 had first alerted Captain America and his team to the danger of such a largely unregulated network of informers.
AJ and Meg headed teams of their own now, still working closely together much of the time, and it was not unusual to see one or other of them entering their counterpart's office, file in hand. Today, it was Meg's turn to knock and wait to be invited in, mildly curious concern painted between her brows.
"Come in!" Agent Doyle called, his voice slightly muffled by the door Agent Miller had just knocked on. Inside, the man could be found sipping what was likely his umpteenth cup of coffee and looking over some report or other.
Opening, the door, Meg stepped inside, closing it firmly behind her. "Am I interrupting anything particularly world-shaping?" she asked, moving to set her own file down on his desk before pouring herself a cup of coffee from his pot. It wasn't like he didn't do the same thing in her office, after all. Office gossip had so far failed to throw up a winner in the pool on when these two agents were finally going to get engaged, much less married.
AJ closed the folder on his desk and looked up with the barest hint of a smirk on his face, looking almost relieved to have had his reading interrupted, especially by such a pretty visitor. Keeping their relationship, as well as their living arrangements, private had proved futile, but they usually managed to keep their interactions professional while at the office.
"Not really. Nothing exciting anyway. Just routine stuff." He nodded his head toward the file in her hand. "What about you?"
"Well, you'll be delighted to learn that I finally broke the coded message we recieved," she told him, moving to sit down as she pushed the file toward him. "But I need to run it by you before I take it to Croft. You're the one with the sleeper agents embedded in Hydra, after all."
He arched a dark brow, impressed by her accomplishment, but not really surprised by it. He had known it would only be a matter of time before she broke the code. "Okay," he said, as he snagged the file and opened it. He was silent a moment as his eyes skimmed its contents. "Extraction, huh?" he asked, though the question didn't really require an answer. "Russia. Who are you thinking of sending?"
Meg shrugged. "Uncle?" she suggested. "He's stationed in Murmansk, he should have access to the facility. It's about time we followed through on the promise of extraction for him, and it sounds like she has pretty vital information, not to mention skills we could make use of. Here's the snag, though ....she doesn't know that she's in Hydra. We wouldn't know she was in Hydra if we hadn't already picked up on Project Overmind, whatever it is. But that's what she's working on, and that's the information she's bartering for extraction and protection. Getting her out isn't for the faint-hearted. She hasn't been seen above-ground for almost four months, not since her brother died. Last remaining family member gone, and suddenly a high-ranking engineer is all about work." She glanced down at the file. "She seems to think something dark is happening to her colleagues as they complete the tasks they're assigned. If Uncle can extract her to a rendezvous point safely, we can get them both out."
"If she doesn't like working for Russian Intelligence, she's gonna like working for Hydra even less," AJ pointed out, tapping a finger against the file on his desk. "We'll have to alert the sleepers, so they know what?s going on."
"That's the thing," Meg said warily. "She was loyal until her colleagues started disappearing. We can make a good guess that they're being disposed of so that information doesn't leak out, but she doesn't seem willing to make that connection herself. How many sleepers do you think we should tap for this" We can only extract one or two at a time, or Hydra will suspect."
"Uncle is going to need some help from the inside if he's going to get her out of there safely," AJ said, though it was hard to say how much help without more information. "How did she manage to get in touch with us?" he asked curiously.
"Machine code in binary, believe it or not, via low-frequency radio that got picked up by an agent in Moscow," she told him, mildly impressed. "That was a good call, by the way, to have them check all frequencies once a day."
"Hmm," he murmured in thought. It was unlikely they'd be sending a message back the same way. "If it's my blessing you want, you've got it. Sounds like whatever information she has is worth the risk. We can contact one of our sleeper agents to pass a message along, once we've made the necessary arrangements, but it's Croft's okay you need more than mine."
"I wanted to run it by you first, in case he asks for a second opinion," she pointed out, finishing the coffee in her cup. A flash of a grin crossed her face. "Think we could talk him into letting us make the pick up in person?"
AJ snorted and smirked. "Only if your Russian is substantially better than your French," he teased, remembering the day they'd first met in Paris. It was far more likely that she'd been faking the bad French accent, but that had never stopped him from teasing her about it.
She laughed, picking up the file to hit him with it lightly. "You are hardly one to talk," she countered. "Evchenko has to speak slowly just so you understand him when he's speaking English!"
"That leaves us out. What about sending Thorn and Ghost?" he asked. Both were fluent in Russian - mostly because they'd been born there - but both were probably also on Russia's most wanted list.
"Do you think that's wise?" she countered. "Last time they were in Russia, they got made and nearly got themselves blown up. Anyway, their deployment is Cap's call, not Croft's."
"Fair enough," he replied, closing the folder and folding his hands atop it. "What do you have in mind?" he asked, knowing she wouldn't have come to him without a plan, and assuming that plan had something to do with them.
"I think ....I think this is the perfect opportunity to test the Railroad," Meg said thoughtfully. That, too, was a code-name - the designation given to the network of safehouses, agents, and transportation they had been building for the last year, for just this sort of situation. "Look, the closest border is Finland; they don't officially have ties to Hydra or A.E.G.I.S., but incline more to our side. If Uncle can get himself and the engineer across the border and into Finland, we can make a safer pick up from there while Russia wrangles with Finland for permission to cross the border legally themselves."
AJ and Meg headed teams of their own now, still working closely together much of the time, and it was not unusual to see one or other of them entering their counterpart's office, file in hand. Today, it was Meg's turn to knock and wait to be invited in, mildly curious concern painted between her brows.
"Come in!" Agent Doyle called, his voice slightly muffled by the door Agent Miller had just knocked on. Inside, the man could be found sipping what was likely his umpteenth cup of coffee and looking over some report or other.
Opening, the door, Meg stepped inside, closing it firmly behind her. "Am I interrupting anything particularly world-shaping?" she asked, moving to set her own file down on his desk before pouring herself a cup of coffee from his pot. It wasn't like he didn't do the same thing in her office, after all. Office gossip had so far failed to throw up a winner in the pool on when these two agents were finally going to get engaged, much less married.
AJ closed the folder on his desk and looked up with the barest hint of a smirk on his face, looking almost relieved to have had his reading interrupted, especially by such a pretty visitor. Keeping their relationship, as well as their living arrangements, private had proved futile, but they usually managed to keep their interactions professional while at the office.
"Not really. Nothing exciting anyway. Just routine stuff." He nodded his head toward the file in her hand. "What about you?"
"Well, you'll be delighted to learn that I finally broke the coded message we recieved," she told him, moving to sit down as she pushed the file toward him. "But I need to run it by you before I take it to Croft. You're the one with the sleeper agents embedded in Hydra, after all."
He arched a dark brow, impressed by her accomplishment, but not really surprised by it. He had known it would only be a matter of time before she broke the code. "Okay," he said, as he snagged the file and opened it. He was silent a moment as his eyes skimmed its contents. "Extraction, huh?" he asked, though the question didn't really require an answer. "Russia. Who are you thinking of sending?"
Meg shrugged. "Uncle?" she suggested. "He's stationed in Murmansk, he should have access to the facility. It's about time we followed through on the promise of extraction for him, and it sounds like she has pretty vital information, not to mention skills we could make use of. Here's the snag, though ....she doesn't know that she's in Hydra. We wouldn't know she was in Hydra if we hadn't already picked up on Project Overmind, whatever it is. But that's what she's working on, and that's the information she's bartering for extraction and protection. Getting her out isn't for the faint-hearted. She hasn't been seen above-ground for almost four months, not since her brother died. Last remaining family member gone, and suddenly a high-ranking engineer is all about work." She glanced down at the file. "She seems to think something dark is happening to her colleagues as they complete the tasks they're assigned. If Uncle can extract her to a rendezvous point safely, we can get them both out."
"If she doesn't like working for Russian Intelligence, she's gonna like working for Hydra even less," AJ pointed out, tapping a finger against the file on his desk. "We'll have to alert the sleepers, so they know what?s going on."
"That's the thing," Meg said warily. "She was loyal until her colleagues started disappearing. We can make a good guess that they're being disposed of so that information doesn't leak out, but she doesn't seem willing to make that connection herself. How many sleepers do you think we should tap for this" We can only extract one or two at a time, or Hydra will suspect."
"Uncle is going to need some help from the inside if he's going to get her out of there safely," AJ said, though it was hard to say how much help without more information. "How did she manage to get in touch with us?" he asked curiously.
"Machine code in binary, believe it or not, via low-frequency radio that got picked up by an agent in Moscow," she told him, mildly impressed. "That was a good call, by the way, to have them check all frequencies once a day."
"Hmm," he murmured in thought. It was unlikely they'd be sending a message back the same way. "If it's my blessing you want, you've got it. Sounds like whatever information she has is worth the risk. We can contact one of our sleeper agents to pass a message along, once we've made the necessary arrangements, but it's Croft's okay you need more than mine."
"I wanted to run it by you first, in case he asks for a second opinion," she pointed out, finishing the coffee in her cup. A flash of a grin crossed her face. "Think we could talk him into letting us make the pick up in person?"
AJ snorted and smirked. "Only if your Russian is substantially better than your French," he teased, remembering the day they'd first met in Paris. It was far more likely that she'd been faking the bad French accent, but that had never stopped him from teasing her about it.
She laughed, picking up the file to hit him with it lightly. "You are hardly one to talk," she countered. "Evchenko has to speak slowly just so you understand him when he's speaking English!"
"That leaves us out. What about sending Thorn and Ghost?" he asked. Both were fluent in Russian - mostly because they'd been born there - but both were probably also on Russia's most wanted list.
"Do you think that's wise?" she countered. "Last time they were in Russia, they got made and nearly got themselves blown up. Anyway, their deployment is Cap's call, not Croft's."
"Fair enough," he replied, closing the folder and folding his hands atop it. "What do you have in mind?" he asked, knowing she wouldn't have come to him without a plan, and assuming that plan had something to do with them.
"I think ....I think this is the perfect opportunity to test the Railroad," Meg said thoughtfully. That, too, was a code-name - the designation given to the network of safehouses, agents, and transportation they had been building for the last year, for just this sort of situation. "Look, the closest border is Finland; they don't officially have ties to Hydra or A.E.G.I.S., but incline more to our side. If Uncle can get himself and the engineer across the border and into Finland, we can make a safer pick up from there while Russia wrangles with Finland for permission to cross the border legally themselves."