Spy School At Work

Chapter 1 - The Mission

CIA Headquarters

July 24

800 hours

I entered my cramped cubicle expecting another terrible and dull day, but my attitude changed the moment I saw a manila envelope on my desk covered with 'highly classified' and 'for your eyes only' stamps. It was a sunny morning, perfect for a morning jog, beautiful beams of sunlight lit up the office – at least the CIA had invested in some nice windows for grumbling analysts like me.

Only if I had woken up a little bit earlier to go outside and enjoy this beautiful morning. Rather, I had to rush to work because my job is somehow "a nature of national security" despite me doing almost nothing there.

But that didn't matter anymore as all my attention was focused on the envelope. With bated breath, I ripped open the envelope. I had expected a thick wad of paper detailing my long-awaited field operation, but instead, there was a single sheet of paper that was somehow still warm from the printer.

Dear valued agent,

After long consideration and discussion, we have come to the conclusion that you will be activated for a field operation. Operation Fluttering Tortillas will commence as soon as you read, memorize, and destroy this letter. Since the destruction of SPYDER, we have carefully monitored the families of each organization member. Despite our defeat of SPYDER, Ms. E, and Joshua Hallal, we were never able to recover SPYDER's stolen resources and funds. It has come to our attention that Joshua Hallal has a brother named Carl Hallal who has been in a coma ever since the age of 12. He came out of his coma two days ago, at the age of twenty-three, unaware of the death of his brother and parents. Although the standard operating procedure does not allow a patient to be kept for over 6 months at the Sibley Memorial Hospital, Carl has been kept under intensive care for 11 years with all bills paid for. We believe this is Joshua's doing, and a further investigation may lead us to SPYDER's stolen funds. However, as Joshua's death was confidential due to the unethical methods and strategies used during the missions (and seeing they were unsanctioned in the first place), there is no reason for us to be investigating a random civilian - even inside the agency itself. We believe you are perfect for Operation Fluttering Tortillas due to your previous experiences with SPYDER.

Your mission:

Investigate Carl Hallal and his spending using any method you see fit in order to prove his funds were stolen by Joshua. With enough evidence, we may lawfully seize his assets without alerting anyone of the truth.

You will not receive any help from the CIA in any way, shape or form, whether that be in the embodiment of gadgets, funds, or analysts due to the confidential nature of this mission. Any team or budget must be put together on your own accord in a secretive manner.

Best of luck,

CIA Director of Operations

My heart was beating at unprecedented rates by the end of the letter.

This was it! I was finally going to be sent out into the field after all these years!

After my initial excitement wore off, thoughts began swirling through my head. Did Joshua really have a brother? How come I never knew? How did react when he found out his entire family was dead? But most importantly, after all these years, would my first mission really be as simple as it seemed? The letter only ordered me to conduct a few simple investigations on Carl in order to produce sufficient evidence to seize his assets. However, my missions never turn out the way I expect them to.

I had several more rounds of disturbing thoughts. Snap out of it Ben! Don't worry so much! It's your first mission in years, celebrate a little! I grabbed the letter from my desk and then rushed to the incinerator room used for all physical communications in the office.

The incinerator room was a closed room with no windows, it was split into a control room for viewing the fiery death of anything ranging from highly classified information to sticky notes and a room for the destruction of the information itself. I opened the door that led into the destruction room from the control room and walked in, only briefly pausing to notice the stark difference between the pristine white of the control room walls and the blackened ones of the destruction room.

I placed the letter on what was essentially a metal table and walked back into the control room. I set the system to its lowest setting, since I was burning only one sheet of paper, then pressed the on button.

Fwoom!

Through the windows, I could see how the flames roared for a moment, then stopped. Where the paper once lay was a small pile of ash. I pressed another button, and a fan blew the ash into a chute that would take the remains to an undisclosed location, probably to be even further destroyed.

I practically ran out of the incinerator room to prepare for my mission. In my excitement, I bumped into one of my co-workers.

"Oh! Sophia, I am so sorry," I said as the heavy stack of documents fell from her arms.

"No worries," she mumbled and stooped down to pick up the fallen documents. Her blond hair formed a little curtain around her head as she did so, blocking her expression from me. I followed suit to help her clean up the mess that I had caused.

Sophia pulled her hair back behind her ear to look at me eye-to-eye. I avoided her gaze, but not long enough to avoid noticing her green eyes- a stark contrast to Erica's arctic blue. She temporarily broke eye contact to look around us and made sure no one was listening in on our conversation.

"So Ben, I heard you're being sent out into the field again," she whispered.

"Um, I'm not." I swallowed.

"You don't have to lie. I know I shouldn't know, but I just couldn't help overhearing one of the meetings the higher-ups were having. You know how bad the sound insulation is here."

"It's not me, I swear, it's probably another Ben," I said, holding up my hands with open palms to show my innocence. I was intimidated, even though I was probably over a foot taller than her.

She frowned. "I heard them mention your full name many times."

I sighed in annoyance. They could not have just used my code name, Tartarus, or maybe spoken in a place that had thicker walls without any potential bored eavesdroppers like Sophia?

"Fine, I'm going on a mission," I admitted.

"Can I be your analyst for the mission? I haven't been able to do anything useful for the past 6 months, and they never assigned anything to do with the field. I'm sick of delivering huge stacks of papers day after day, knowing other people are risking their lives out there for this country. I'm basically a glorified secretary."

I handed her the last document on the ground. "I'm sorry, I can't. The CIA doesn't want anything to do with this mission, they don't think the director would approve. In fact, they won't even let me use any of their equipment."

She frowned, but a second later her eyes shone with excitement, "Oooohh, a secret mission inside the CIA! You know," she glanced around us again to ensure that everyone was minding their own business, "if they don't let you use any equipment, we could 'commandeer' it. I could help you since I have higher security clearance than you, but under one condition: you let me help you on this mission."

Did any of you notice Ben's code name had the word "Stuart" in it? I wanted it to be Tartus, but it sounded like Tartarus already so Tehimpossible suggested that and we went with that instead. But the anagram was my idea because Tehimpossible never has any fun reference ideas like these :)