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Chapter Two- Something's Not Right, but I can't put my Finger on It

     Ryan didn’t know exactly how he was going to explain it to the others.  It was not going to be a popular decision, but he had to get the financing somewhere.  He walked the halls quickly, dress shoes clicking on the floor.  Part way down the hall, he finally got to the office they had designated as Michael’s.  Knocking, Michael quickly answered, “Come in.”

            Taking a deep breath, Ryan ran over his cover story once more in his head before walking into Michael’s office.  “Hey Michael.  Can I talk to you?”

            Putting his pen down and looking up at Ryan, Michael smiled and replied, “Hey Ryan, yeah.”

            Ryan sat down in a chair across from Michael.  “I just talked to the President.  He has a mission he is requiring us to do.”

            Rolling his eyes, Michael replied, “That’s great.  What are we talking about?”

            “A mission to London.” Ryan explained.  “There is an organization that has been fronting weapons to Ryan Cabers, one of the dirty thirty.  We need to infiltrate them, find Ryan and capture or kill him.”

            Michael raised an eyebrow.  Normally Ryan would not suggest murder, but Michael just took it as stress-slip of the tongue.  Only Ryan knew the true goal of the mission- to kill the weapons group.  He was right.  It was a little surprising that he was being so deceptive to the others, but he just kept justifying it as the only option to get the funding they needed.  Michael distracted him by asking, “Why does the government care about sending us on a dirty thirty mission?”

            Shrugging, Ryan replied, “I’m not sure.”

            Again Michael shrugged.  “Well, we will have to discuss it with the others but it is a pretty cut and dry.  Shouldn’t be an issue.”

            “Thanks for listening.” Ryan stood up and headed back to his office.

            Working on paperwork, Ryan opened the binder of Percy’s information.  The first page was titled, “Operation Weapons Cache.” Word-by-word it described the plan that Ryan had just put into place.  As he read through it to make sure he had his plan straight, the door opened suddenly and Ryan threw the binder under his desk.  He looked up to see Birkhoff, eyeing him curiously, then saying, “I hear you have orders from the President.  As there anything, any prep  you need me to do?” Birkhoff questioned.

            “Just the customary prep work.  Get our eyes in the skies.” Ryan told him, then looked down to sign some of his paperwork.

            Why are you acting so casual about this?” Birkhoff suddenly questioned him.

            “I’m not.” Ryan looked up to Birkhoff in reply.  “I’m doing what I have to for Division to keep us doing what we need to be doing to eventually get our lives back.”

            “But openly accepting we may need to kill someone?  Even Mikey was concerned.  You’ve never been so cavalier to just allow it, to not create a contingency plan.”

            Ryan began to panic.  Was Birkhoff going to accuse him of something?  “You know Birkhoff, sometimes I don’t have time to arrange contingencies for everything.  Besides, he’s a dirty thirty agent- does his life really matter all that much to us?”

            His mouth opened in shock, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.  “Ryan, what is going on?  Did you hit your head?  You’re starting to act like Percy.”