Red Operation

XXI: Progress

Twenty-one: Progress

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May 29th

Mikhail had spent the entire weekend planning how to get to the documents. He had had very little time in Montgomery's room to have a clear idea of what was there. He had seen the camera and he knew the documents were in a drawer, but he did not know, for example, if that drawer was locked or not. Ideally, what he needed was another moment in the room, but the opportunity of going there once took nearly a month to happen, so how much more time would it take for him to get a second chance?

No, he had to take a different approach and he knew exactly what it was. He did not need to go to his room; he just needed eyes in it, which is exactly what cameras are for.

Although he had built trust - and something else - with Stephen in the past days, it was hardly strong enough to resist a revelation the size of Mikhail's, let alone getting him to work as an informer. No, Stephen had played his part in Mikhail's plan and there was nothing else for which he could be needed.

Still, if he was no longer necessary, why did Mikhail still want to be with him? Why did he feel like having him close? Why, all weekend long, whenever there was some free room in his mind for anything other than work, did he think of him?

Surely, one would easily call that "affection", but Mikhail was always very careful about how he introduced his feelings into his job and it would not be that lovely, caring, kind, southern boy who would ruin that for him. Not when he was so close to getting those documents.

When he got to the Pentagon during his shift, he went to his room, closed it, and grabbed a blueprint of the building he had found among the pile of files he organized every day. He opened it on a table and looked for the security rooms.

They were across the building, which could raise some suspicion, so it was best if he had an excuse to go there. He looked for further information on the map and found out that Lieutenant Lowes's office was near it, which rang a bell in his head.

Among the documents he had last organized, Lieutenant Lowes's name had appeared at least two times. He did not know if those documents were new or not or even if they were to be delivered to Lowes, but at least it was an excuse for him to go there.

He put both documents under his arm and walked to the east side of the building, where the security room was. There were multiple security rooms, in fact, as all rooms and corridors had cameras in them and it was impossible to connect them all to a single room, so what they did was separate the building into sections and the section that covered Montgomery's room was the one Mikhail was going to, according to the information shown on the blueprint he had.

Getting close to it, he began noticing that every single person he saw there was completely unknown to him, almost as if different sides of the building had their own little worlds inside of them. He spotted Lowes's room and the security room, which was his priority, from a distance.

He entered the security room, finding only one man watching over the cameras. The man turned his head to Mikhail and asked, possibly mad: "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, my mistake, I thought this was Lieutenant Lowes's room. You see, I didn't bring my glasses today but I have these papers to deliver," he said, pointing to his eyes.

He had to admit, that excuse was almost too good to be believable, which was clearly noticed by the fact that the man in front of the cameras actually believed it.

"No. Lowes's room is two doors down the hallway."

"Thank you very much."

Mikhail left the room. He had seen what he wanted, there was only one person in front of the cameras. Now, he just needed a way to get some time in there by himself.