Infected

6: ☣The Call☣

THE Montagne Sainte-Victoire was looking rather pristine with its limestone-white appearance in Vauvenargues, Southern France, just after dawn as it always had for the past few days or so that Alex Brenton had been waking up to and doing jogging rounds in his plain grey Hannover sweatshirt and slacks.

He felt the cold morning air beat against his face and sift through his short dark sweat-soaked hair that clasped back onto his skull. Surely, nothing could ruin such a day-he thought-just like he had always thought for the past two weeks during his stay in France.

Well, that immediately seemed to not be the case when he finally got back to his hotel room at the Best Western Le Galice Aix Centre-Ville in Aix-en-Provence that offered terraced dining, a bar and a seasonal outdoor pool as well as cathedral views.

At forty, he towered over just past six feet and his routine cardio over the years had clearly worked well for his lean physique, not to mention having served in the US military for seven years before acquiring an honorable discharge following a tragic incident that had left a permanent mark on him but not enough to stop him from getting back in the action, though not in the army but a rather more "grounded" world. A world that was about to cut short his vacation.

Alex Brenton walked into his three-roomed hotel and found the fridge where he took out a bottle of water. He was chugging it halfway when he heard his phone ringing from across the bedside table next to the neon-blue glowing lava lamp.

He frowned upon noticing the caller-ID. It was his boss.

"You know I'm on vacation," he lamented.

'I know, I know. But I wouldn't be callin' you, Brenton, if this wasn't important. And given your tone, I guess you haven't heard the news yet.'

"What news?"

A link appeared in his inbox, bearing the news of the WHO incident.

"I don't understand, sir," Brenton said, "what's a crime scene got to do with the CIA?"

'It's not about the crime scene. It's about the events leading up to it.'

"Assassination?"

'Not just that. The incident happened much too close to the ongoing controversy surrounding the WHO's latest reform of the use of vaccination bracelets and the tensions between the organization and several international governments; the United States included.'

"A matter of international security then?" Brenton asked.

'Exactly,' his boss replied, 'the WHO director has been on our radar for a while now and the death of the scientist has sparked a lot of conflicting interests.'

"So what do you need me to do? I can't just show up and take over an active crime scene in a foreign country-"

'Everything has been taken care of. We need you first on the scene before any other party arrives as they have all already been making calls; the likes of the MI6, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the Mossad, or even your current location. . .'

"The French Foreign Intelligence Service," Brenton finished. "What's really going on, sir?"

'That is what I need you to go find out. I've already sent you all the necessary credentials. You will reprise your role as a CIA covert agent posing as a scientific expert and consultant with full access to the crime scene, the entire organization and arranged talks with all of the WHO officials. You leave for Geneva first thing tomorrow. Any questions?'

"Just one, is the room service better or should I be worried?"

The line went dead and Brenton's lip curled as he set down his phone before looking over his bed and to the wardrobe, silently cursing that his vacation had to come to an end, though not at all shocked by any of it. This was his life now, or, at least had been for the last five years or so and come to think of it, he had done some pretty crazier stuff other than infiltrating an international organization in order to gather intelligence.

The call, however, bothered him a little. How the agency's Directorate of Operations had been so quick to respond that they chose him due to his close proximity to the nation of interest which led him to believe that the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, his boss, had not been entirely forthcoming.

He would have sat there, trying to go through all the potential variables but the urgency of the matter forbid him to do so.

All the answers would have to come from the operation itself like they had done countless times before. He thought, stroking the vaccination bracelet around his left wrist.