The Masquerade Ball

The Basement

Dya thought that masquerade balls died out a long, long time ago. Everyone in the hall wore a mask and that made sense. Here, who you are does not matter. Here, you are safe to do whatever you'd like, you have no face and nothing will be held against you. Which made it the perfect event to infiltrate. Dya, Sofie and Nad hadn't even had to negotiate at the gate, let alone pull out their guns. That wasn't to say that they wouldn't have to use them tonight.

They were dressed elegantly, hair perfectly done, each having their own corsage, all wearing different type of colored and styled ball gown. They wore shiny high heels that matched with their gowns. The gown was nothing to gawk at, but it synergized perfectly with their masks that was decorated with jewels and glitters.

"Mr. Hale said that they're keeping him in the basement," Nad whispered fiercely. "Someone wanted him more than they did. They're passing him off."

Dya huffed. "Very helpful, Nad. This place is huge. I bet the basement goes on for miles."

"It'll be alright," Sofie assured her. "We've got this."

"Right." Dya thought for a moment. "We have a name, a description. We just have to take our guy down." Dya answered.

"Get the time and place of the negotiation." Sofie replied.

"And when we're the ones who show up instead--" Nad grinned, intentionally trailing off. "They'll be in for a nasty surprise."

"And that's why they say we three have a golden chemistry." Dya added.

They bumped fists. Nobody in the agency worked alone. Some did, sometimes, but that was exactly what had led to Hakeem's capture. Dude thought he could raid a warehouse all by himself. He was one of their best agents-- decades of experience, two kingpins brought down, been undercover many times, spoke five languages, played several sports-- he was like the living embodiment of an action hero. But even their most experienced agents, even Balqis, even Adam himself ran missions in pairs or trio.

Going solo, unsurprisingly, hadn't gone well for Hakeem. And now it was up to Fadia, Sofie and Nadia, three of the newest fully-fledged agents, to rescue him.

Mr. Hale, their handler for this mission, he has been losing his mind worrying about Hakeem since he is one of the agents who had worked at LDC ENT the longest. Hakeem has worked closely with another agent, but they've never really run any missions since the other agent had gotten a promotion to a desk job. This, Sofie suspected, may also have been why Hakeem has gotten so reluctant to work with others. It has been a while since he'd run a mission with someone other than his old agent partner.

Dya, Sofie and Nad had only run missions with one another since graduation. She wondered if the same will ever happen to them. She wondered if either of them would ever be so reckless. But, before this incident, Hakeem had always seemed as level-headed and competent as they got, so.

The rich dressed themselves in gowns and suits just as lavish and ornate as their masks, donned masks just as expensive and intricate as their clothes. They laughed, downed several glasses of champagne.

The man they were looking for had been described as tall, conventionally handsome. Dark hair. Their handlers saw him enter the mansion dressed in a red suit with a marginally matching mask, one decorated with lace and complete with feathers sticking out the top. Nad rather thought something like that would look very, very tacky.

"Psst." Dya nudged them both. "Over there."

And it was, indeed, a very tacky outfit. Nad wanted to roll her eyes to the back of her head.

It proved dreadfully difficult to get their man alone. He was almost always with someone, talking to one person then immediately moving on to the next. And people kept complimenting him on his ridiculous getup. Gross.