Zachary - Chapter 1

Zachary took off his sunglasses and sighed as he stepped into the big building. Zeb was approaching him, and he didn’t look happy. 

            Zeb pointed at him. “You, briefing room, now.” He then turned and walked further into the building. 

            Zachary jogged a bit and caught up to him. “What do we got this time Zeb?”

            Zeb just shook his head. “Briefing room.”

            Zachary put up his hands. “Alright fine, I’m just gonna learn about in a minute or two anyways.” He smiled.

            Zeb was not amused and kept walking at his brisk pace. Shrugging Zachary followed at a slow walk and ran his hand through his red hair. They walked down a long hallway, passing various people along the way. Zachary remembered when he had first started working here when he was twenty-five years old. He had gotten lost every day for a week before he had memorized the layout. The building wasn’t really much to look at with its gray interior but the drive to get there was breath taking. One of the perks to having your workplace in the Colorado Mountains was the beautiful views you could see. 

            Zeb opened a door on his left and went inside as Zachary hurried to follow. He entered the briefing room and sat down at one of the chairs surrounding the big round table in the middle of the room. Several other people were already there waiting. Amanda Perks was there sitting a couple of chairs away from him, as well as Jack Forman, Gabe Lyon, and Elise Stanford.

            Amanda (or Perky as they called her) was the electronic expert among them, though they all had their basic understanding of electronics as was required. Jack (or J-Four) was their supplies guy, he made sure they had everything they needed. Gabe (Lion) was the man that got things done, and Elise (Lizzy) was Zachary’s partner in planning. Her job was to analyze his plans and tell them where they wouldn’t work and come up with a solution to the problem. They all worked well together as a team and had done so for three years now. So far, they had never failed a mission. 

            Jack leaned back in his chair and put his arms behind his head. “Alright Zeb, why did you call disrupting all our vacations. It’s only been a couple of days since our last mission. We need some down time.”

            Zeb sighed. “I know you all do but this is important. We needed the best we have on this.”

            “I’m sure we’re all very flattered.” Jack smirked. “What’s going on?”

            “We’ve intercepted some concerning chatter overseas. We don’t know if it’s true or not and we’re sending you to find out.”

            “A simple reconnaissance mission?” Scoffed Gabe, “Surely another team can do so.”

            “Oh, hush Lion.” Amanda said rolling her eyes. “Let him finish before you pass judgement.”

            “Thank you, Amanda.” Zeb glared at Gabe. “To answer your question, no. This is not just a simple reconnaissance mission. The chatter that we intercepted has made us come to believe that China has been building nuclear defense system and that they will be ready to launch it by the end of the month. The chatter we picked up did not specifically mention a nuclear defense system, however China has been launching unusual satellites in strange patterns.”

            Zachary sucked in a breath. “That’s not good.”

            “No, it’s not.” Zeb eyed him. “This situation is not to be considered lightly. I don’t think I need to say this, but I’ll say it anyways. Everything that has been and will be said in this room is considered classified. There are several folders on the table, please take the one with your name on it and read through it. Then I will begin going over what you all need to do.”

            He gave them a minute until they all looked back up at him. “Liu Wang is our informant in China. Tomorrow morning you will all fly to a remote part of China and meet her. Your covers have already been created and you already have your codenames for each other. When you meet Liu she will provide you with the materials necessary to finish your mission. You will need to break into Admiral Chang Hushang’s office to confirm that this missile defense system is actually being built and where. If the building of the defense system is confirmed, from there you will need to steal it, and if that objective cannot be acquired you will need to destroy it at its base of operations.” Zeb paused. “There are many unknowns in this mission and many things that could go wrong.” He sighed. “As always if you are caught, we will deny all knowledge of you and your ties to the United States Government… Questions?”

            Elise spoke. “How much can we trust Liu Wang?”

            Zeb smiled. “I worked with Liu for seven years when I was an agent and not your boss, you can trust me that she can be trusted.”

            Elise nodded.

            Zachary frowned. “If there is no confirmation of the defense system being built, what then is our objective afterwards?”

            “If you can reach no confirmation of its construction, to be sure, you will seek to acquire information from someone higher up. I doubt there will be need for that, the construction of the defense system is fairly assured but there can be no action against it without proof.”

            “Who was responsible for intercepting the chatter?” Jack questioned.

            “Our very own transmission agency was able to intercept and decode the message. To where they were trying to send it is not clear. However, the message was sent from Admiral Chang Hushang’s office in the CMC General Office in Zhengzhou China.”

            Gabe whistled. “Zhengzhou huh, this is going to be difficult.”

            Zeb nodded. “Yes, it is, but we are willing to give you all the help we can to see this through to the end. If China is building a nuclear defense system… We need to know, and they need to be stopped.”

            The five of them nodded.

            “The General Office of the CMC is going to be difficult to hack without detection but I’m sure that I will be able to find a way in.” Amanda said. 

            Zachary nodded. “The hard part will be getting into the building, not even to mention Chang Hushang’s office. We’ll need to search his whole office without moving anything out of place as well as searching his computer files.” He looked over at Elise. “We’re going to need to do some serious planning on this one.”

            “I agree.”

            Gabe smirked. “Well, all of you can have fun doing that, just let me know when we go after the system itself.”

            “Nuh uh.” Jack shook his head. “We’ll need you on the first part as much as the second Lion, maybe even more. If we don’t get the confirmation, there won’t be any system to steal or sabotage.”

            Zeb cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you all to make plans. Be here by four o’clock tomorrow morning.” He opened the door to the hallway and paused. “Be careful out there, we can’t afford to lose any of you.”

            It hit Zachary then. Zeb was genuinely concerned that they wouldn’t make it back this time. It had never even occurred to him that they might not come back. Sure, there had been some rough spots on a couple of their different missions but they had always made it. Zachary looked over at Elise to see that she’d had the same thought. 

            “We need to be extra careful on this one Zack.” She whispered. 

            “I know.”

            Amanda looked back and forth between them. “What’s with all the doom and gloom in your voices? Everything is going to be fine, there’s nothing that we can’t handle.”

            Jack smiled at her. “Sure Perky. But this is just a little more stressful than our other missions. This building is in the middle of a big city, with all sorts of security measures that we probably haven’t even seen before.”

            She waved her hand. “Let me deal with the electronic security systems, by tonight I’ll know all the details of how they work and how to shut ‘em down.”

            “I’ll start working on how we pass the non-electronic security systems,” Elise mused.  “If anything, they’re probably going to be more difficult to sneak past.”

            “I’ll work with you on that Lizzy,” Jack said. “That way I know what gadgets we’ll need.”

            Gabe sighed in exasperation and stood up from his chair. “You all let me know what you need me to, and I’ll do it, but I’m not good at the planning part. So just give me a call if you need me.”

            “You got it Lion.” Zachary called as he left the room. “I’m gonna find a quiet place to think.” He said to the rest of them. Looking at Elise he said, “I’ll let you know if I need you to go over something with me.”

            She nodded and began conversing with Jack.

            Zachary left the room and stood in the hallway for a moment pondering where to go. After a moment he came to a decision and headed towards the entrance. He would go to his usual thinking spot about half a mile away from the building that looked out over the mountains. Zachary smiled. They could do this.