The Briefing (pt. 1)

"Are you sure you've got the details memorised?"

Alistair had been pestering his daughter about her methods of memorisation from the moment she'd declared that she was ready to begin the mission. It was not that Alistair did not think his daughter capable, it was that he was a nervous wreck the closer the date came. If the mission were not so important, he would've chosen someone else,

"Yes, I am sure. Ask Ken the same question, he hasn't even looked at his file once," Joanette looked at her partner with a glare. Once again, he was glued to his cellphone. "Ken! Eyes up, we have important stuff on our hands."

Ken gave Joanette a flat look and went back to texting. "I already went over my file. It's all very simple. We get in, we settle."

Joanette was feeling like an empty cup in the process of being filled with boiling annoyance tea. If it wasn't against agency policy, she would've hurt Kenton by now. "What the hell did I do to get saddled with this idiot?" She turned to her father with her hands on her hips, her eyes alight with fury. Her partner's indifference was beginning to make her go insane.

"Calm down, Joan," Alistair sighed, beginning to feel defeated. His eldest daughter had completely inherited her fire from him, and he was beginning to question whether it was a good thing or not. Alyssa, the youngest of the twins, was more like her mother. Cold and calculating, following orders without hesitation. Her work was thorough and she was willing to carry out her mission at her own expense, no matter how much she suffered. What Alistair valued most about her, was that she was not only willing to give up herself, but people around her as well.

The agents were intermediaries between normal life and the underworld; sacrifices had to be made, and Alyssa made them perfectly.

Joanette questioned everything that didn't make sense to her. Her rule to live by was that she was always entitled to an explanation, and if it wasn't given to her, she would bully it out of someone. Her ability to connect with people made Joanette a master of perception, and she would often find ways to manipulate a situation to her advantage by using her empathic abilities. Joanette was a big believer in revenge, and her strategic ways of causing someone's downfall made her an unparalleled force in the agency.

"Calm down? You're sending me into the lion's den, Alistair. How the fuck do you expect me to just 'calm down'?" Joanette pointed an accusing finger at her partner, "and this man right here isn't taking anything seriously, so I basically have to do everything myself!"

"Just because I'm not being hysterical about a dumbass mission doesn't mean that I'm not taking this seriously," Ken pushed off from the table he was leaning against and came to stand directly in Joanette's line of vision with his arms crossed. "You've done worse than this. Get your shit together."

"What's your name for the mission?" Joanette glared right back at him with a silent challenge in her eyes. Ken started at her, and she could literally see his eyes blank as he came up short. She smiled smugly and was about to demand she get a new partner when he interrupted her.

"Mackenzie Soujin," He grinned, effectively pissing her off even more. Ken enjoyed getting under his partner's skin more than anything. Joanette was a good agent, and he knew that she'd give her life for him if it came down to that, but outside of the field, she always acted like she hated him. He never took it personally, but he enjoyed annoying her.

"Anyway," Joanette turned to her father, "why are you so invested in ensuring this girl's safety that you had to call me into it? What's in it for you?"

Alistair pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't have the patience to explain to her what his motives were. The Agency had been dedicated to dabbling in the dark recesses of commercial business for decades, and this time was no different. Alistair wanted to secure the future of all the agents by ensuring that the Italian-Spanish Mafia would always need someone from The Agency to protect their leaders, and that started with his daughter.

He wanted their secrets so he could exploit them and make them his own. Alistair's motives were far from pure, and he was willing to take on two of the biggest organised crime organisations in the world to suit his pleasure. Not to mention he was in a race with the CIA to get one of his agents infiltrated before they did.

"There's something that you need to get for me. I can't tell you what it is, but I need it. I'll direct you to it when the time comes, but for now, I'm begging you, don't ask any more questions," Alistair put his hands together in a petition to his daughter.

Joanette was tempted to ask more because she wasn't satisfied, but something in the back of her mind told her that she should just let it be. "Fine, at least let us see our disguises."

"What disguises?" Her father asked, a look of surprise on his face. Joanette gave him a flat look.

"You called me for this mission. You wouldn't have disturbed me if you didn't have a disguise ready for us."

"She's right, you premeditate everything," Ken nodded along with his eyes once again glued to his cellphone. Who he was texting so often, nobody knew, but it's not like they were asking either.

"Damn, I can't hide anything from you," Alistair stood up from his seat and began leading the way to the hidden elevator located in the wall directly behind his seat in his office. The Agency took careful measures to conceal their most sensitive cases from the agents who were not involved, and this came to show when they had two arsenals built.

The arsenal accessed through Alistair Bordeaux's office was reserved for classified missions, which the Bordeaux family and their partners usually took care of. Even though Alistair was the head of The Agency, many people around the world bore the Bordeaux name and led the branches in their country of residence.

But without exception, in the most complicated of missions, there was always a Bordeaux in charge.