Cleo Hart: Intelligence by Default

Surprise

Luke stepped back as he opened the door, shocked to see Jason pacing up and down the floor.

"Where have you been? Mr. Forn wants us." He sounded worried, twiddling his fingers at his sides. I glanced to Luke, who shrugged.

"Cleo too? It's 4am..."

"Yes Cleo, and I know the time, Luke."

Luke frowned, beginning to look concerned. He walked through the kitchen and into his room, returning shortly after with a jacket on.

"Okay, let's go."

I grabbed a hoodie, and followed Luke and Jason out of the door, feeling panic in the pit of my stomach.

Alec seemed less than pleased to see us. He sat at his desk, massaging his temples, a vein popping out of his head from stress.

"Nice of you three to show up, half an hour late I might add. Cleo get that hoodie off."

Luke glanced at me, alarmed. Apparently he hadn't noticed my dress code breach. Sighing, I pulled the hoodie off, and stared at Alec impatiently.

"Sit down." He snapped. "This is important."

The boys took the two outer seats, leaving me the one in the middle. I sat down clumsily, confused and tired. Mr. Forn pulled three brown files from a drawer on his left, and handed us one each.

Beside me, Jason's jaw dropped. Luke tensed immediately, his polite, attentive stare quickly turning into a scowl.

"Sir, Cleo has been training with me for one day. There is no way she can be ready for this." Luke said, his voice steady and firm.

"I agree with Luke sir," Jason uttered, "it's against protocol."

Alec gave Jason a stare which made him shrink in his seat, attempting to get the same reaction from Luke, but looking away when he saw the glare Luke was giving him.

"Protocol doesn't matter here, Cleo's parents have been training her since she learnt to walk. This is an important mission, and you three are the only ones in the right age group for this task. A particular gang has recently been growing, putting more pressure on us to act. And two of our undercover agents on the job have just had to pull out, as they were in danger of being compromised."

"What's going on?" I asked, feeling hopeless and slightly irritated.

Luke turned to me with a look of anger. "Alec is giving us a mission."

It took me a moment to process, but once I did, I found myself with a mixture of the expressions held by the two boys beside me. I gulped, and apprehensively opened the file, flicking through the pages and pictures.

"You'll read these through once you get there, you need to go and prepare. Luke, you will be Jason's brother, Cleo, Jason's girlfriend."
Luke tensed, Making me frown.

"For convenience, you're keeping your first names. Cleo, I need you to befriend the daughter of the leader of a huge criminal organisation. I'd love to give you a name, but they don't have one. Pride isn't part of their game, which is what's making it difficult for us to find them out. We nicknamed them 'Gang B', catchy I know. We need to take down the leader as soon as possible, as we believe he is planning something huge, and his organisation is becoming known for horrible crimes, like trafficking. This is no longer a drug bust. It's incredibly important." I nodded, my brows furrowing as I processed his words.

"Jason, Luke, fit in, see if you can get into some of the low level dealing going on, find out something from your boss, okay?"

They nodded apprehensively, clearly still not happy with the situation. I wasn't sure I was either.
As they began talking things over, I focused on my folder, trying to understand what I was getting into. I'd been in sticky situations before, and learnt things from my parents, but this was more than jumping in at the deep end. This felt reckless and dangerous.

I was herded through various preparations, my hair was dyed even darker, I was given a new wardrobe, and tested on my new personality. But after an hour, we were in the car, on our way to the mission.

I plugged in my iPod and started listening to Coldplay, trying to zone out and have a few minutes of musical relief. Ten minutes later there was a yank as Luke took an earphone and tucked it into his ear. He quirked an eyebrow as if asking if it was okay, and I shrugged. I didn't mind.

After a while the panic dulled, and I was able to drift off to sleep, still half thinking about how I was going to survive this.

We arrived at our new apartment, on the third floor of a big block overlooking the city, at about ten in the morning. I stumbled groggily from the door to the room Luke said was mine, and pushed through the door, crashing on the bed and drifting back to sleep.

When I woke, I took the time to get accustomed with my new room. It definitely had more personality than my old one, with blue walls and white, translucent curtains. I emerged from my room, moving to sit next to Luke, who sat at the kitchen table playing cards with Jason. I felt weirdly jet lagged, and weird being around Luke.
They laughed and talked with each other, and I allowed myself to relax slightly as I played with them.

After a while, we stopped, and the files were handed back out. I skim read mine a few times, getting accustomed to the undercover me. The girl I had to befriend was called Alice, she was blonde and pretty,and worked in a coffee shop a few streets from the apartment. From the pictures of her, she looked like her head was in the clouds. I doubted she knew anything about her dad's line of work, but I tried to keep an open mind. I memorised my personality, before shoving the file back on the table and engaging in conversation once again.