Betrayed...but by who

[Lady Jenn]

"Oh, I know what you mean," Tom said, a grim look crossing his face. "I'll debrief you in our operations room. Follow me." He led them past an array of APCs and helicopters which covered the courtyard of the base, the occasional tank and jet fighter visible among the other vehicles. "We aren't quite as high-tech as we might look," he said with a laugh. "The Raptors are our fanciest kit, they were US prototypes but the man who created them defected to us so we have the only Raptors in the world." There were men and women of every age imaginable, a variety of accents and lnguages audible among the other noises. "Do either of you have any idea who might've been resposible for your attack?"

[Animegurl5]

"The Captain has a few ideas bordering on treason, but I fear that he may be correct." She stopped for a moment, taking a deep breath before clenching her fists into even tighter fists. "We believe our attackers to be our higher ups." She half growled the words in her disgust at such a thought. "So far they have been the only ones able to pull off such a feat. They chose our landing point and our craft was rigged, we had little to no chance of survival. Lucky for us they miscalculated our speed and skills."

[Lady Jenn]

"I think I know how they knew when to set it off," Morrison said. "It can't have been on a timer because they'd have had no way to be sure when to set the bomb off. Just before it exploded though I told the pilot to radio Orion Base. If they had a mole or were listening on our frequency..."

"Don't blame yourself Rick," Tom said. "You couldn't have known that was what was about to happen. I think I know who the traitor is, you're not the first team he's tried to assassinate, you're the first team who's managed to survive one of his attempts though."

[Animegurl5]

"Well lucky us. I'm a survivor of a plot that no one has survived before, and I can't even return home to see my family because I am supposed to be DEAD! They don't even have a body to bury, this is total bull..." She cut her little rant off as soon as she realized what path she was taking with it. "Sorry, I'm a little touchy at the moment. I blame it on lack of sleep from trama." She hissed under her breath as she shut her mouth tight.

[Lady Jenn]

"Don't worry, I share your hate for the guy," Tom said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a photo of a beautiful young woman which he handed to Skylar. "My fiancee, Tara Peterson. She was due to quit the Navy SEALS but the last mission she went on was to take out a powerful ally of our traitor. The ally had a quiet word with him and he ensured the team were heading into a perfectly set ambush. Their pilot managed one desperate plea for aid which one of my organisation caught by chance but...by the time we realised what was happening it was too late." Tom shook slightly with barely contained rage as he spoke."

[Animegurl5]

"Oh, I'm sorry. And here I am complaining about people who I can always contact at a later time..." She felt guilty now, knowing that her whining was pitiful compared to the loss that he had faced. "She really was beautiful though, and I find myself starting to envy her for it." She laughed slightly but it was much too stiff to be actual humor. Her words were true though, she suddenly felt very self-concious about herself, which is something she hadn't felt since before joining the army.

[Lady Jenn]

"Well you look beautiful yourself," Morrison almost before he had even thought about it, blushing slightly, which seemed to greatly amuse Tom. "Why don't you show us your file on this traitor then?" he said as they walked into a room dominated by a central map covered in a wide variety of pins and the occasional plastic representation of a soldier or vehicle.

"Well, technically there's more than one of them," Tom replied. "They have a sort of inner circle of their organisation. The guy probably responsible for the attack on you is this man though," Tom said, pressing a button under the table which caused the image of a rather unpleasant looking man with a vicious scar over one eye to appear on a screen on one wall. "He goes by two names: his alias is Snake, but his real name is Alexey Simitrovich, a Serbian-born, American raised, far-right extremist bomb maker. While the rest of the inner circle have various economic, diplomatic or military skills Alexey is there for when they need to deal with things in a less subtle but more surgical way."

[Animegurl5]

Completely lost in her own world she missed Morrison's comment about her but she was brought back to the real world by the image of 'Snake'. She nearly jumped fifty feet in the air having been caught by surprise, but now she studied his face a little closer. "So you mean to say this guy is the one the others go to when they need a little fat trimmed?" Something about him caught her eye and tugged at her memory. "He looks familiar but I can't quite place my finger on it..."

[Lady Jenn]

"The irony for a man being employed to take out...'inconvenient' obstacles in the US military is he's an ex-Navy SEAL himself," Tom said, handing over a file. "Officially the records of his time in the US military were 'lost' in a fire but we managed to salvage a copy. He was one of the best of his unit, got a whole lot of press attention for saving the lives of his entire unit when they came under Taliban attack. But sometime after that he went AWOL and next thing we know a man calling himself Snake who looked a lot like Alexey was turning up at black market weapons fairs."

[Animegurl5]

"I've heard of him, that much I know, but someone like that I highly doubt I would see under normal circumstances..... But I am almost positive I have seen him before, I just.... I just can't remember where or when." Her eyebrows furrowed in both concentration and frustration at her own little personal quest down memory lane. It nagged at her so much and she nearly shouted in anger at her inability to place it, for it just wasn't like her. "No matter, I'm sure after I get some rest I will remember him. Anything else we should know about our 'hero'?"

[Lady Jenn]

"He belongs to a group who don't just believe America needs 'resucing', they think the same about every country on the planet," Tom said. "If They get hold of the US Presidency they'd have the firepower to attack any target at will. Which I'm sure I don't need to tell you is a very bad thing."

"But that could trigger a nuclear war," Morrison said. "Why..He doesn't just deal in normal bombs does he?" he asked Tom. "If they were to detonate a nuke in America and could blame it on the Russians or North Korea then..."

"Then they'd have a mandate to take out any leader who refused to bow down to their show of force,"" Tom said with a grimace. "Exactly, luckily nuclear weapons aren't the kind of thing you can get your hands on easily, even for an organisation like them who've infilrated so many institutions across the globe."

[Animegurl5]

"What a brilliant plan! I mean, ofcourse it is terrible and completely wrong but just look at the mechanics of their plan. It's just beautiful! Wait a minute, do you have any ideas what he might do for a cover job of sorts. He has to be earning money on his own somehow. An out of pocket pay day from somebody else might raise a few unwanted flags."

[Lady Jenn]

"They've got a myriad of cover stories," Tom replied. "Every time anyone comes close to discovering who these people really are the person investigating them tends to disappear and any identities they were hiding behind vanish and are replaced by others. There is an advantage to you being considered dead though, we may have a way back into America without anyone noticing...if you wanted to go that is."

[Animegurl5]

"That would be extremely dangerous and completely rash but I'm in. Anything that helps bring this guy down is worth it. What exactly would you have us do? We can't just waltz in there dressed like this looking for work in specific places. We have to be careful not to be seen by anyone we know either... May I?" She made a gesture towards a computer asking permission to use it.

[Lady Jenn]

"Sure," Tom said. "Going straight after the Inner Circle would be too dangerous though, these guys have stayed hidden for so long by distrusting anyone who tries to get close to them suddenly. There are other people you can use to get to the inner circle though." He brought up a picture of a young man who looked similar to Alexey but minus the scar. "Alexey's younger brother Carlo, not a member of the same organisation but he regularly organises parties where the Inner Circle members visit. To those not in the know it just looks like an extravagant party thrown by a lot of people with more money than sense."

[Animegurl5]

"AAAAW! I love my friends, but sometimes I believe they are a little nutty. We might run into a little trouble though, come take a look." She was pointing at her Facebook page where many of her friends were either writing their condolences to my parents or on some rant about how they feel as if I'm not really gone. Even this one here about them not resting until they find the whole truth might raise a few warnings. If we are truly going to go back there, we can't go anywhere near people I know. If just one message hits the internet we are done." She said, her fingers typing furiously at the keyboard trying to search through all the messages about her, then doing a search on Morrison.

[Lady Jenn]

"Don't worry," Tom said, "we have ways around that. Arun, the guy you met, has officially been dead for four years. A bit of hair dye, a change of clothes, and even some make-up can fool some people. Besides, Carlo's house is on the other side of the country from where you live. I'd have thought its quite unlikely any of them will turn up on the other side of the country the same time you do," he said with a laugh. "You can take Petra with you though if you want extra security."

[Animegurl5]

"You have obviously never met my friends." She laughed as completed her search and signed off spinning around to face the group. The smile on her face was cheesier than that of an eight year old in a candy store, and it was quite comical to see but you could still feel her exhaustion seeping from her. "When do we start?"

[Lady Jenn]

"Once you two have got some sleep," Tom said with a laugh. "If they haven't conquered the world yet they aren't likely to in the next 12 hours and you two will need all the energy you can get if you're going to infiltrate these guys." He went over to a cabinet and took out a set of keys which he threw to Morrison. "There are a set of private quarters just to the right of this building, there should be two rooms in there you two can take."

[Animegurl5]

"You never know. They might have that 12 hour countdown started on the wall of their evil lair. Haven't you watched the movies?" She sniffed with amusement before grabbing her key with a punctuated yawn. "I have always been one able to sleep on the go but beds have got to be the best." She was starting to sound like a teenager, though she wasn't that far off from the age. "If only I hadn't left my cell phone charger at home." She said absent mindedly stalking out the door towards the room.

[Lady Jenn]

"Are you alright?" Morrison asked as he caught up with her having stayed behind to have a short conversation with Tom. "Sorry, that's probably a stupid question considering the last few hours we've had." The building had two rooms, one large and expnesively furnished and the other which looked like it was intended more for a relatively light sleeper, barely furnished at all and with a bunk bed in one corner. "You can have the fancy room," he said to her. "I can sleep just about anywhere so I don't mind a dodgy bed." He headed towards his room, turning around before he entered it. "I guess I'll see you in the morning then." He wouldn't admit it to her but he found her quite attractive and part of him wanted to share her room with her but considering the night they'd had he didn't feel like throwing himself at her.

[Animegurl5]

"Don't worry about it, my father always told me there was no such thing as stupid questions. But I'm fine, really. Just a lot on my mind." She said pausing before her door. "You don't mind? Thanks, oh and good night to you too." She smiled before entering the room and falling straight onto the bed. Her mind was so full of thoughts that she didn't even have time to think about just one before she was out like a light. She hadn't even bothered to burrow under the covers but had placed her gun neatly in the corner. She knew it dangerous to fall asleep such but she didn't care and it wasn't long before she was drowning in frightful dreams of the day's events. Nothing made sense, but that wasn't the point of dreams was it? All she knew is that things were scary and people were trying to kill her, not much different from the real world.

((Sorry for the failure... a slight mental block.))

[Lady Jenn]

He had barely slept more than three hours that night, the image of what had happened playing on his mind as he tried to sleep. Finding a book on one of the shelves in the room he was sleeping in he went and sat on the doorstep to the building, surprised to see the base was quiet, or as quiet as the base ever got. Aside from the occasional patrol on the edges of the base there seemed to be little life stirring. Part of him wanted to go check on Skylar but especially not knowing how dressed she'd be he didn't want to stumble into her room unnanounced. He decided to sit reading until she was awake.

(that's okay, we all have writer's block sometime haha)

[Animegurl5]

All through out the night she tossed and turned but still Skylar couldn't get any relief. Images kept playing through her mind over and over again, ones that had happened to her and then something her mind made up. It was the scarred face man from before, "Snake". He had come to attack her personally and it was an aweful battle to the end. He gave her a cut just under her eye on her cheek and on her thigh, cutting through the fabric and leaving a gash there. Finally she had kicked him over and managed to kill him but then her eyes adjusted to the room in which she had fallen asleep in and the realization hit her. She had fallen on the floor, wrestling with a pillow that now had stuffing all over the place because of her knife. She touched a warm spot on her cheek where there was a cut and growled with frustration. She grabbed her gun and stormed out of her room next door. She listened carefully but heard no snores so she knocked loudly and rapidly with her knife in one hand, her gun in the other. Not to mention the pillow stuffing that clung to her hair and the blood that trickled down her cheek and leg. Add to that the bags under her eyes and you have the perfect moster with the maiden's name of Skylar.

[Lady Jenn]

He had been starting to doze off where he had been sat but the noise from inside woke him up again, bursting into the corridor outside and feeling a certain degree of relief that it was just Skylar and not anyone else. "Sorry, I couldn't sleep so I decided to get a bit of fresh air." He looked her up and down and sighed. "We had better take you to the medical wing, get your injuries checked over," he said, offering her his hand so she could lean against him as they walked, even though the medical wing wasn't that far from their dorm.