-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2031/166/1755 - EYES ONLY
(TS) DEEP COVER AGENT ALICIA INGERSOLL DISAPPEARED ON [CLASSIFIED] WHEN SHE AND HER PARTNER [NAME REDACTED] ENTERED CANADA FOR THE PURPOSE OF AN INTELLIGENCE GATHERING EXERCISE. THEIR CONTACT/EVALUATOR [NAME REDACTED] ARRIVED AT THE PRE-ARRANGED MEETING POINT AND THE AGENTS NEVER ARRIVED. THE AGENCY IS DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO ESTABLISH THEIR WHEREABOUTS.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
US Senator Amos Nourse slammed the folder marked Top Secret closed, "So what?" he demanded with an angry scowl. "You have two agents that failed an evaluation, give them a spanking and get back to business. What does that have to do with me?"
The messenger cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable; his driver stood at the door impatiently. The senator was giving a late-night speech on the senate floor, and he had kept this messenger and his driver waiting but the senator had a standing rule, business first, bullshit second. His constituents' interests were business, everything else was Washington bullshit. It's a good rule, it's kept him in office for three terms. "There's reasons we can't go into at this time sir," the messenger said. Normally this meant that this bullshit was going to blow up at any moment and you don't want to get any on you.
"Then what the hell is all this classified and redacted crap? I'm the chairman of the goddamn senate intelligence committee!"
The Agency messenger looked upset but kept his cool. "Two reasons, sir. The first being that this is an ongoing investigation into Agency malfeasance, and we don't want to compromise the investigation, not with the election being just a few months away."
"And I suppose the other is that "plausible deniability" bullshit?"
"Exactly sir."
The senator took a cigar out of the humidor on his desk and fiddled with it. He took a nickel-plated cutter and expertly snipped the cap from the $50 cigar then toasted the foot with his five-jet cigar lighter. He then puffed the cigar leisurely, making sure he got a good, even burn. The Agency messenger was going to remind the senator that smoking was not allowed in these offices, but he's seen worse being smoked, snorted, and fucked in these government offices. For his part, the senator didn't particularly want to smoke a cigar, but he needed a pause to think. Lighting his cigar gave him that pause. Satisfied that his cigar was burning properly, Senator Nourse returned his attention to the messenger. "Why are you bringing this to me son? We must have a dozen agents disappear every week, why are you bringing me this report?"
"Well sir, she
is
your niece..."
"She's my wife's cousin's niece, and my wife spoke to her week before last at a family barbeque up in Poughkeepsie, so Alicia has only been missing ten days tops, normal procedure is to notify the immediate family, not some fat cat cousin..." the senator counted on his fingers, "fifth cousin." He was lying to the messenger, he was closer to Alicia than familial relation indicated,
much closer
. After her father died in Afghanistan, he helped raise her. He got her an appointment to Annapolis and was there for her first salute as a newly minted Ensign, he was also there as she graduated from Seal training. He was there for her when an IED ended her Navy career, and he was there when she changed her name from Abilene Irons to her paternal grandmother's name to continue to honor her daddy, Alicia Ingersoll, when she became a full-fledged investigator for The Agency.
"Sir," the messenger looked even more uncomfortable. He sucked up some courage and said, "we believe that Agent Ingersoll has been turned."
The senator looked stricken, Agent Ingersoll was a top-level operative of an intelligence service so secret, so black that it doesn't just absorb light, light avoids it completely. Alicia is a member of the seal team of intelligence collection, nothing she touches will be declassified this century, even her favorite brand of fabric softener is classified. "Is this based on anything solid?"
The messenger merely nodded.
"Find her," rumbled the senator. "Find her right fucking now. I don't care what it takes, just find her and bring her here to me. If you can't bring her in, fucking kill yourself and have someone bring your body in and explain to me how you failed." He impatiently waved the messenger on his way and slumped back on his chair. Damn it! He loved that girl, what the hell had she gotten herself into?
*~~~~*~~~~⁰~~~~*~~~~*
Alicia Ingersoll gave up on counting the damage that the thugs had inflicted on her. The endless beatings and torture were bad enough, but when they started slashing her breasts and breaking her fingers, she gave up hope of getting out of this alive. It was only after they took a power drill to her kneecaps that she gave them everything, which wasn't much. They weren't looking for information, they just wanted to hear her cry.
According to her orders she was sent in by the US government on behalf of
many
governments to find out what was going on in Canada. Being originally from Ft. Erie, Ontario she was the natural choice to cross the border, collect the information, and make her way back to the free world with word of what was going on in what was once a very nice place. Ever since Canada went silent and erected their "Ice Wall" and closed their borders to everyone except Russia and China, the world was terrified. No NATO ally has ever jumped to "the other side" in the history of the alliance, and the idea that it could have been Canada was terrifying to all of Canada's former allies.
Not very long ago, Alicia had been isolated for 30 days of R&R, completely shut off from the entire world following a particularly ugly mission. She was sipping sweet rum drinks and napping on the beach of an Agency owned tropical atoll that the world thinks was nuked into glowing dust particles in the 1950s. To Agency personnel this little slice of heaven was known as Romeo 3. In truth it was an Agency PRC (Personnel Recovery Center), a tropical atoll containing a small hospital, psychiatric clinic, several bars, and the nicest 9-hole golf course in the South Pacific. An Island Paradise for stressed agents to unwind and prepare to go out and save the world once again. No news, no radio, no tv, no phones. Life is better that way.
Alicia was lying naked on the beach, breathless from fucking some faceless Agency wannabe when a messenger interrupted their cuddling with the call to battle, "You have a mission." Four days later she was dropped off near the Canadian border in a barren wheat field north of Peerless Montana, nothing around but miles and miles of more miles. You would need a compass to tell what was Montana and what was Saskatchewan. The plan the Agency gave her was simple. Move straight north across open fields and your partner will be waiting for you in a vehicle on Coal Creek Road. Take that dirt track north until you hit pavement and it becomes S Hill Road. Not South Hill Road, any local would know that it's known to cartographers as S Hill, to everyone else it's Shit Hill Road. Take that to Highway 2, turn right and when you hit Rock Glen, pull into the Rock Glen Motel and check in, a room has been reserved for Wallace and Adrianna Ingle. Their contact will meet them there.
Alicia made good time hiking north, the US/Canadian border was unmarked and unguarded and she didn't realize she was in Canada until she doublechecked her position with GPS. When she reached the meet-up point she was stunned to find that the driver of the car was Sidney Irving, whom everyone called Sid. Alicia and Sid hadn't seen each other in over a year, not since their divorce was final. "Sid," Alicia said in an abbreviated greeting after getting in the car.
"Alice," he replied. Sid is the only one alive to call her Alice, and Alicia intends to keep it that way. They rode in silence for a long time, the only thing visible was the dirt road ahead, the land flat and the road was arrow straight. He finally broke the silence. "Nice tan."
"I was on Romeo 3 when they called me up, you?"
"Romeo 1," said Sid. So, he was on R&R also. Romeo 1, the Agency R&R villa was near a small village in Spain, it was party central, good food, pretty senoritas, and lots and lots of sangria. He was out of communication for a month also.
"What the fuck is going on Sid?" Alicia finally asked.
"I don't know, the world has gone crazy, I guess. One day I'm sipping sangria with a senorita on my lap, the next thing I'm HALO jumping into Saskatchewan." Sid shook his head; it was all too weird.
"Not the world," Alicia scoffed. "Fuck the world, I'm tired of them fucking everything up and asking us to bail them out. What the fuck is going on with
us
Sid?"
He looked down to see their fingers entwined, "I'm ready to chuck it," he said. "I really am."
"Me too," she whispered.
Sid smiled at her. "Let's finish this one up and put in our papers." Alicia's heart soared, they had promised each other that when it was time, they'd drop the Agency, find a nice house in a little town under assumed identities and remarry.
The sun was just coming up when they reached the motel, it would be hours before their contact would meet them. They checked into a nice little Mom and Pop motel that's seen better times and they were looking forward to some time together. Their divorce was merely to protect each other, the agency puts so much strain on a marriage, and they were looking forward to retiring and reuniting. The sweet old lady that managed the place led them to their room and unlocked the door for them, and as they stepped in the room, the sweet old lady pulled two tasers out of her apron pocket and put them both to the back of Alicia and Sids necks and they went down. That's when the goons waiting for them inside the room went to work on their immobile bodies.
Agent Alicia Ingersoll had been moved several times since then. She had no idea how long they held her, all she knew was that they never seemed to tire of hurting her, and she eventually gave them all the information they asked for. All she knew for certain was that Sid got it worse. At some point she was stuffed into a heavy canvas bag and was in some kind of vehicle. She heard muffled voices, but everything was muffled now, pistols held next to her ears were fired repeatedly which ended her once marvelous hearing. Her beautiful blue eyes were closed due to swelling from beatings, teeth smashed out, face beaten to a pulp, jaw and cheek bones broken, and now she's just praying for it to end. And the end came soon, the last thing she felt was another bullet slamming into her body as she was dumped out of a speeding van.
*~~~~*~~~~⁰~~~~*~~~~*
She slowly came to, and she could see blurry objects, everything was a blur, and she had a headache that seemed to encompass the universe. She heard a woman say, "She's awake doctor, her eyes are open."
A person moved into view, and he suddenly came into focus. He came in to focus fast, fast enough to cause a sharp spike of pain to pierce her brain and make the headache seem like a fond memory. "Owww," she winced, her voice sounded hoarse, and her throat ached.
"Relax, Agent Ingersoll," came the heavily accented voice. "I am Doctor Mikhail Tyurin, you're at the nanobot research wing of the Archuleta Mesa Medical Facility. We are going to conduct a debrief of your mission." He placed what looked like earmuffs on her temples as she considered his words.
'
Archuleta Mesa!
' thought Alicia. '
This place really exists? Conspiracy theory nuts claimed that a secret base named Dulce Base is here.
' The nuttier side of the dark web had long claimed that a secret base named Dulce Base was built under Archuleta Mesa, a mountain on the New Mexico/Colorado border. That's where the US supposedly experiments on captured aliens.
"You're right," said Doctor Tyurin, "Our conspiracy theory fans believe this facility is Dulce Base, our real name isn't as artistic as the name they chose, and the only aliens here are scientists from China and the former eastern bloc.
'
Holy shit!
' she thought, '
