Chapter Text
London was predictably dreary this time of year, and Nicole fucking hated it. She ducked under a storefront canopy and enjoyed the brief respite from the pouring rain, hoping her mark took his time in the rundown laundromat he had stepped into. The guy clearly wasn’t expecting to be followed, as evidenced by the fact he hadn’t even tried to lose her while Nicole tailed him for the last eight blocks. A rookie mistake if Nicole had ever seen one.
She brushed a strand of damp hair out of her face and pulled a pack of soggy cigarettes from her pocket, only managing to light one thanks to the canopy hanging over her head. Nicole didn’t smoke - she wasn’t an idiot who wanted to die of lung cancer - but people in London commonly did, and it was one of many small tricks of the trade she had picked up to help herself blend in when she didn’t want to be noticed. When was the last time you saw a clean cut Agent John Doe smoking a cigarette in his navy blue suit while on the clock? Exactly.
Dumbass mark of the day exited the laundromat and actually glanced both ways before choosing which direction to walk. Nicole was surprised he even bothered based on how careless he had been all afternoon. Must be a bit more paranoid now that he had the goods on him, which was exactly why Nicole was trailing him in the first place. Now, the fun part of her job began, and she smiled to herself as she crushed the barely touched cigarette under her boot and followed him into the rain.
She kept her distance as he lumbered ahead, broad shoulders hunched against the rain as he got just as drenched as Nicole was. A cool trickle of water slid down the collar of her shirt and between her shoulder blades, and Nicole shivered as she tugged her collar tighter against her skin. This city really fucking sucked sometimes. Nicole had been stationed in London for the better part of two years, and she still wasn’t used to the heavy rains so common in the early Fall.
Her mark crossed the street and she followed a few seconds later, quickening her pace as he turned down an alley and disappeared between two sets of row houses. The heavy set man wasn’t likely to outrun her, but Nicole needed to start closing the distance between them so she could make her move soon. Her orders were simple - incapacitate the guy without making a scene, and acquire the flash drive that was now somewhere on his person. Easy.
The sun was beginning to set over the city, and Nicole used the lengthening shadows to her advantage as she came within fifteen yards of her mark. He made another sharp turn between a different set of houses, and Nicole cracked her neck before breaking into a jog.
Go time.
She rounded the final corner at a fast clip, and the man half-turned at the sound of her footsteps just in time for Nicole to tackle him to the ground in the dimly lit alley. He spluttered and thrashed as he fell forward into a puddle, and Nicole pressed a knee into his back and leaned all of her weight against him as she felt for the pressure point at the side of his neck.
“Get the fuck off me!” he shouted, his accent thick as he continued to struggle beneath her.
Nicole said nothing, finding the spot she was looking for and pinching it between two fingers and her thumb while counting to five in her head. The guy twitched a final time then went still, his face falling forward into the puddle underneath him.
“Damn it,” Nicole muttered, pushing off his back and crouching by his side as she prepared to roll him over. The boss would be pissed if she let the idiot drown in a fucking rain puddle. He must’ve weighed close to two hundred and fifty pounds, and it took Nicole two attempts to finally roll his limp body over. She worked quickly then, rummaging through each of his coat pockets and then the pockets of his jeans before finding what she was looking for.
“Gotcha.” She pocketed the flash drive and stood up, glancing around the alley to find a good resting place for her unconscious friend. Sighing heavily, she hooked her arms under the man’s armpits and dragged him across the concrete, propping him up so he was seated against the brick wall next to a dumpster that would partially block him from view if anyone walked by.
That done, Nicole brushed her damp hands against her even more damp jeans and took in the houses lining the alley. Everything seemed quiet, and only a few lights were on in some of the homes as most people had yet to get off work. Her eyes froze on a house a few yards down, a girl of maybe thirteen watching her as she adjusted a pair of large headphones over her ears while she sat on her back stoop. She looked pointedly between the unconscious man and Nicole before giving Nicole a bored nod, and Nicole sighed in relief. Kids.
She saluted the girl with two fingers against her eyebrow and turned on her heel, settling in for a long, wet walk back to the office.
****
The Black Badge safe house that doubled as their office was located in what locals would consider the dodgy part of West London just north of the Thames in Hammersmith. The agency had acquired a three-story walk up on the end of a dilapidated row of houses that probably hadn’t seen better days since the late ’70s, and it was here that Nicole and her team gathered intelligence, trained, and planned their operations. BBD agents all had their own homes as well, but they certainly spent the majority of their hours at the safe house that was affectionately known for security purposes as ‘Mum’s House’.
The mum in question was their site lead and the person who called the shots for their three-person field team, a woman who went by the moniker of ‘Kevin’ rather than her real name. Black Badge as a rule had a less than stellar sense of humor, but when Nicole had first come on board three years ago she had scoffed when introduced to Kevin and jokingly asked if she’d chosen it because Bosley had already been taken. Needless to say, her smart mouth had earned her a casual punch in the face from her new boss, and the two had been close ever since.
She circled the block three times to ensure she wasn’t followed before approaching the house, shouldering her way through the front door and wincing at the horrific squeak of the warped wood in its frame. Eliza had once offered to fix the stupid thing, but Kevin had assured them the obnoxious door was a built-in intrusion deterrent, so it was ultimately left alone. There was certainly no way in hell anyone would be sneaking up on them coming through the front, so in this instance Nicole couldn’t fault Kevin’s logic.
The second door that separated the mudroom from the rest of the house was a much different affair, a modern addition that boasted bulletproof steel and a keypad that required a fingerprint for entry. Nicole placed her thumb against the reader and waited for the light to turn green, the door clicking open once her scan had been accepted. She flipped off the camera above her head and smirked, knowing Rosita would be rolling her eyes as she manned the security cameras on the third floor.
The first level held the gym and a large sparring area where the team trained and did all manner of exercise, especially on days like this one when the rain kept them mostly indoors. The second level housed the barely functional kitchen and an open-concept living area that was used as a briefing and mission prep space, and was also where the team hung out between jobs if they weren’t at their own homes. At the very top was their makeshift intel center, which was primarily Rosita’s domain as the team’s resident comms and data guru. There were also two drafty bedrooms for when someone needed to crash at the house, which was common if they were working long ops or overnights. The place was sort of like a dysfunctional sorority house, if the sorority was for miscreant CIA agents who had a complicated relationship with the law.
Nicole peeled her wet jacket down her arms and shook it out slightly before hanging it in the entry closet, toeing off her boots before making her way up the narrow staircase. She found Eliza in the kitchen cooking something that smelled fatty and delicious, and Nicole peeked over her shoulder at the steaks she was searing in a large cast iron skillet.
“Steak?” Nicole asked, more than a little surprised at the large cuts of red meat in place of their usual fare of boring chicken and fish options.
“Kevin’s treat,” Eliza said, poking at one steak with her finger before flipping it with a pair of metal tongs. “Sounds like we’ve got a new mission coming up.”
“Ah, so it’s a bribery dinner,” Nicole said, her excitement dimming slightly. “Must be a shitty job to warrant New York strips.”
“Not a bribe, an incentive.” Kevin swept into the kitchen in a black power suit that was her standard uniform no matter the weather or temperature outside, and she flashed Nicole an expectant look as she made her way to the fridge. “You look…soggy,” she remarked. “How did it go?”
Nicole fished the flash drive out of her pocket and held it up with a smug smile. “Piece of cake. Left the guy sleeping in an alley, and he never saw my face.”
“Good work.” Kevin took the drive from Nicole and slid it into the breast pocket of her blazer before cracking open a Diet Coke. Her obsession with canned soda was enough to single-handedly keep the city’s recycling crews in business.
“Steaks are almost ready if you want to go let Rosita know,” Eliza said, turning off the stove and pulling a stack of chipped plates from the cabinet.
Nicole walked to the bottom of the stairs and raised her voice so Rosita could hear her. “Busty, dinner’s ready!” she shouted.
Eliza gave her a pointed look as she placed a steak and perfectly cooked baked potato onto each plate. “I could have yelled up there myself, lazy.”
Nicole shrugged and plucked at the clinging fabric of her long-sleeved Henley, wishing like hell she’d brought a change of clothes from home today. “Fuck it,” she muttered, pulling the wet shirt over her head and hanging it over the back of a chair to hopefully dry out before she had to put it back on. Her sports bra was thankfully mostly dry, but she frowned at her soaked jeans that were growing more uncomfortable by the minute.
“Don’t even think about it,” Kevin chided, knowing exactly where Nicole’s mind had gone. “Going shirtless is one thing, but pants will not be optional at the dinner table.”
“Ugh, fine,” Nicole said, picking up two of the plates and carrying them to the square folding table the team used when they shared meals. Eliza followed with the other two, and Rosita emerged from the stairs with a set of headphones dangling around her neck. She eyed Nicole with an arched brow and took her usual seat as Nicole fell into the metal chair across from her.
“Lose your shirt on the job, Haughtshot?” Rosita asked, smirking at Nicole’s narrowed eyes.
“Don’t make me come over there and wring my hair out on you,” Nicole said, running her fingers through her damp strands to unstick them from her scalp.
“You smell like a wet dog,” she said, cutting into her steak that Nicole noticed was perfectly medium-rare, just as Rosita preferred.
“Yeah, well, some of us were busy doing real work in this godforsaken weather while you were up in your bat cave playing Minecraft or whatever the hell you do up there,” Nicole countered.
“It’s called gathering intelligence. You should try it some time,” Rosita quipped.
“Children, can we not?” Kevin said, sighing around a bite of steak so rare it almost made Nicole’s stomach turn.
“Yes, mother,” Nicole and Rosita replied in sync, glaring at each other as they continued to eat in silence.
Nicole and Rosita’s relationship had always been…prickly, but Nicole would risk her own life to protect her teammate the same way she would for anyone else at the agency, no matter what she thought of Rosita’s attitude. They liked to give each other a hard time, but they also respected the others’ expertise and knew the value they brought to their unit.
“So what’s this new assignment?” Eliza asked.
Kevin swallowed her mouthful and took a sip of her soda before answering. “It’s a cyber espionage case. There’s an employee in the U.S. Embassy the agency thinks is selling secrets to foreign governments. They don’t have jurisdiction to look into the guy due to his placement and connections, so they’re sending us an asset that we’ll use to get close to him.”
“The agency is sending us an asset?” Nicole asked incredulously. “Why can’t one of us do it?”
It was extremely uncommon for the CIA to bring new agents into BBD, primarily because the more agents they recruited, the harder it was to keep the inner workings of their clandestine branch off the books. Black Badge was a small, elite unit that handled missions requiring the utmost secrecy, and most importantly allowed their home agency to keep their hands clean of any less than legal dealings that were necessary to complete an op. Small BBD teams were scattered all over the globe, and Nicole hadn’t been expecting their London outfit to gain another member.
“Yes, they’re sending someone,” Kevin confirmed. “We’ve recruited a woman from Information Technology, an agent who has the particular skillset we need to crack this guy’s devices once we get access to them.”
“IT?” Nicole asked, chuckling as she popped a bite of potato in her mouth. “You can’t be serious. What’s she gonna do, break into the guy’s emails and see if he’s been messaging back and forth with Putin? Give me a break.”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, and the woman they’re sending is one of the best hackers the agency has ever seen,” Kevin said. “As such, I expect all of you to treat her with the respect she deserves, in spite of the fact she’s not as experienced as you in the field.”
“How inexperienced are we talking?” Eliza asked.
“She’s in IT, Shapiro. There’s not a chance in hell the chick’s ever stepped foot out of Langley, let alone been involved in a field operation,” Nicole said.
Kevin sighed. “Haught is correct, she’s…green. Which is why you all are going to train her, get her up to speed on how things work around here, and make sure she’s prepared for what we need her to do.”
Nicole’s knife stilled over her steak as she glanced up at Kevin in disbelief. “You expect us to train this desk jockey to be a field agent? How much time do we have?”
“Two months.”
“Two—” Nicole paused and put her silverware down, rubbing her temples as she shook her head slowly. “We can’t cram a year’s worth of training into two months, boss. Especially for someone who’s never been in the field. That’s insane.”
“You’re going to have to,” Kevin said, sawing into her steak as though completely unbothered by what she was suggesting. “The agency has given us a deadline, and we’ve got to make this happen before any more information is sold into the wrong hands.”
“Two months,” Rosita muttered, shaking her head as she poked at her dinner. At least Nicole wasn’t the only one with some common sense around here.
“Clearly, you should be the one to train her,” Nicole said, eyeing Rosita who glared at her in response.
“Why me?” Rosita asked. “You’re the most experienced in the field, or so you love reminding us every chance you get.”
“I do not,” Nicole argued, although she was the most experienced given her military service prior to joining Black Badge. Her previous life as a Special Forces sniper wasn’t a brag, it was simply a fact. “You’re the resident computer nerd. A woman from IT is your people, Bustillos.”
“Please. You’re basically G.I. Jane or whatever, so why don’t you train her?” Rosita pressed.
“Well, why not Shapiro?” Nicole countered. “She’s just as good in the field, and she doesn’t have as many open assignments right now.”
Eliza shrugged, always the most level-headed of the group. “I’m supposed to take some vacation time soon, but I can reschedule if I have to,” she said diplomatically.
Damn. Nicole had forgotten Eliza was supposed to take two weeks off next month, and she hadn’t had a vacation in the entire time Nicole had been stationed in London.
“No, you should go on your trip,” Nicole said reluctantly. “Me and Busty can handle this.”
“To be clear, this is of course a team effort, but I want one of you assigned as the primary to work with this new agent. You’ll be in charge of her training, all manner of mission preparation, and you’ll also act as her partner when we get the green light to insert her,” Kevin explained.
“Fuck me,” Nicole mumbled. “Fine, fair is fair. Rock, paper, scissors - loser takes the computer geek. You in?”
Rosita stared back at her, a smile playing around her lips as she nodded. “One and done or best out of three?”
“Best out of three.”
“You’re on.”
“So childish,” Eliza muttered.
They leaned over the table to take their positions, and Kevin shook her head as she chewed another bite of steak impassively. Nicole counted to three, and she and Rosita revealed their first plays - rock for Rosita and scissors for Nicole.
“Damn it,” Nicole muttered, cracking her neck before setting up again with a closed fist resting against her other palm.
Rosita smirked as Nicole counted down again, throwing paper this time as Nicole showed rock.
“Fuck,” Nicole said, leaning back in defeat as she frowned at Rosita’s grinning face.
“Sucks to suck, Haughty. Have fun with the newbie.” She winked at Nicole across the table, and Nicole barely resisted the urge to throw the rest of her baked potato at her face.
“Great, it’s settled then. She arrives at Heathrow two days from now. Haught, you’re on pickup duty,” Kevin said.
“She can’t just take a cab?” Nicole asked. “Traffic to Heathrow sucks on the weekends.”
Kevin blinked at her, and Nicole knew she had lost the argument before she opened her mouth. “You’ll pick her up and make sure she arrives at the house safely. The apartment the agency has set up for her is in Chelsea near Battersea Park. I’ll give you the address once I receive it. Take her there, drop off her stuff, then bring her here for an in-brief.”
“Understood,” Nicole grumbled, her appetite long gone as she thought about what the next few months of her life would look like.
Training a new agent was no easy feat, especially one who hadn’t seen any action in the field during their entire tenure at the agency. With such a limited amount of time, Nicole had to hope this woman was a quick learner and had a modicum of innate street smarts that would play in their favor, otherwise she would have an uphill battle getting her ready for whatever this operation would entail. Successfully getting close to a mark while undercover took many months of preparation in the arts of deception, seduction, and hand-to-hand combat at minimum, and Nicole had only eight weeks to get this agent ready. It was ludicrous, but Nicole knew she didn’t have a choice in the matter if the agency had already given the order.
“Oh, one more thing,” Kevin said, pushing her chair back from the table as she picked up her empty plate. “Her name is Earp. Take a sign or something so she can find you at baggage claim.”
Take a sign? Airport pickup duty wasn’t exactly what Nicole had signed up for when she’d been recruited to one of the most elite clandestine organizations in the world. Lovely.
“Don’t forget your driver’s cap,” Rosita teased, rushing out of her chair and up the stairs as Nicole chucked her steak knife towards her back. It clattered harmlessly against the warped hardwood floor, and Eliza shot Nicole a disapproving look as she gathered her plate along with Rosita’s.
“Pick that up and put it in the dishwasher,” Eliza said, not waiting for an argument as she carried the dishes to the kitchen.
Nicole sighed and heaved herself out of her chair, picking up the discarded utensil and placing it on her own plate before helping Eliza rinse everything and load the dishwasher.