Re: Contact in Russia

A  trainee- not even a qualified staff member yet- was supposed to handle documents and paperwork; certainly not bomb threats. Paul fumbled with the printout as the silent machine spat it out.

"Greeth, this just in for you, sir." Paul said, his hands shaking as he handed the slip of paper to the commanding agent.

"Who sent it?" Mr Greeth snapped, uncharacteristically irritable.

"Agent Rebecca." Paul gasped. "Just now. Seconds ago." His voice shook in disbelief. "It has a class five priority!"

"There's no reason it should be any higher than a class two, at the most." Greeth said, snatching the printout from Paul's hand. He paused, skimming the short missive before crumpling it with a tight expression and throwing it at the tiled wall. "Alert all of team C2," he instructed. "Now!" he shouted.

Paul scurried back to his tiny desk in order to alert the others, wondering what exactly this meant for the team.

Meanwhile, Greeth threw himself into his chair and spun to log into the secure networks in order to check Rebecca and Samuel's locations. He turned to face the room at large again. "They need to be ready at a moment's notice!" he added, knowing that Paul would hear him. "It had to be a public bus..." he groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

***

"Rebecca! I've made contact with our friend in Russia." Samuel said, keeping his excitement in check once he boarded the city's reserved bus.  "You've got to see the information that she pulled up."  He added, digging a thick manila envelope from his computer bag.

"That's great, Samuel but-." The young woman broke off with a groan as her partner sat down. She turned to face him over the back of her own seat. She was careful to move only her upper body before whispering. "Whatever you do, don't stand up. Don't move from that seat."

"Don't stand up? What for?" Samuel asked craning his head to look around the small bus. He lowered his voice then repeated, "Why 'don't stand up'?"

"Because," Rebecca hissed, barely audible over the rumbling of the bus's engine, "There's a bomb under it that will go off should you decide to."

"Wait, a bomb?" Samuel repeated in shock, this time careful to keep his voice equally low.  "What kind? Do you know how much time we have?"

Rebecca glanced at her watch, and the replied "I'm positive it's a TQ-094, and we have to deal with it before the next bus stop. I'm not sure if the breaking motion will trigger it or not, and I'm not about to find out if we're wrong."

"A TQ-094? You know I can't do those! You're the only one on the team who does that kind of work, let alone TQ's!"

"You're about to learn how- I can't diffuse this one. I've already tried, believe me. It's intentionally at the wrong angle for me to reach." Rebecca paused, glancing nervously at her watch. "Once we get that one done, then I'll need to disable the one you're sitting on. I hope it's a similar make...we need to hurry though!"

"Great," Samuel said nervously, fully aware that he could jeopardize their task with the slightest mistake. "Tell me what to do."

"You'll have to actually diffuse it, so do precisely as I say. Before you do anything, there's a red knob, it'll appear as part of the seat… do you see it?"

"Yes."

"Whatever you do, don't touch that. It'll set the bomb off immediately."

Samuel swallowed audibly. "Right. "

"There's a lever slightly to the right, you'll need to pull that to the left, and then down."

"Tell me you're kidding me… there's no way I'm going to be able to get around that knob."

""When it comes to my job, I don't kid." Rebecca said curtly. "I suggest you think of something, and quickly. Take off your shoes or something, I don't care.  Just do it!"

Samuel paused, then wriggled his shoe off of his right foot, then stretched his foot under the worn seat, curling his toes to avoid prematurely setting off the bomb as he reached for the lever. "Alright… done. Now what?"

Rebecca allowed herself a breath of relief before continuing her directions.  "That was the easy part. There's a pressure button on the opposite side. You'll need to depress it, and then turn it ninety degrees to the left."

Tense silence followed for a long moment.  "Rebecca? How much time do we have?  We might have a problem..."

"What!?" The question shot through the air. Several of the other passengers on
the bus looked up in curiosity. The tense woman grimaced, and then lowered her voice as everyone returned to what they had been doing before. She whispered, though the tone was just as forceful. "What do you mean?"

"My foot's completely jammed." He paused, blindly attempting to free his foot without touching anything underneath the seat. "As in, completely stuck."

"Please tell me you're kidding." J. replied, barely suppressing a groan of dismay.

"Dead serious. There's a huge wad of some kid's fresh gum wedged under there as well."

"You have exactly ninety-three seconds to get your foot unstuck and that button turned." Rebecca growled, reaching under the seat. "You'll have to do something, there's absolutely nothing I can do from this position."

"Way to put the pressure on." M muttered darkly under his breath as he kicked off his other shoe.  "Where's your kit? The one with all of your tools and things?"

"Just do it! You forget; I'll still have to diffuse yours as well!" J hissed sharply. "I have my regular kit, but the tools I'd need for this is back at headquarters."

Twenty long seconds passed before either spoke again.  "Done, and I have one heck of a foot cramp."

Rebecca closed her eyes, sighed in relief, and turned to face Samuel. "Can you see a red light flashing?"

"Yes." Samuel replied, his voice suddenly taut. "I don't know where I could have gone wrong… I swear I didn't touch that knob." He glanced at Rebecca's relieved expression in confusion. "Surely that's not a good thing?"

"That's precisely what you're meant to think." Rebecca replied. "That's one of the more... pleasant features of the TQ-094's. I'm not going to tell you the rest….

You're really better off not knowing, trust me."

She stood then, her expression clearly stating that she half expected the bomb to go off as she slid into the seat behind him. "Just sit tight," she murmured, her head already half under it.

"We have less then ninety three seconds before a bomb could go off under my seat, and you tell me to sit tight."

"Shut it," Rebecca replied, her voice muffled. "You want to live or not?"

"Understood."

Just as the bus screeched to a halt at the corner, Rebecca emerged from under the seat, her hair speckled with dust, and her hand bleeding from a deep scratch. "That was close… even for my liking."

Samuel nodded, breathing deeply. "If that was close for you… I'm not going to even guess at just how close that was."

Rebecca smiled wryly, pulling out a handheld device. "There's a message; convenient timing…" she muttered under her breath. She opened the message, and then paled drastically. "We've got a massive problem."