Ghost Protocol: Meet the Civilian

Chapter 7: Plan

"The lens might be a little uncomfortable." Jane was telling Brandt as she carefully stuck the camera lens into Brandt's eye. "It captures images and transmits them to the printer in the briefcase."

Kat was sitting on the couch across from them, holding an icepack to Ethan's head in an attempt to prevent any swelling or bruising while he finished buttoning up his shirt, back in his sleek suit. Brandt blinked, frowning as he groaned while his left eye twitched, trying to adjust to the lens.

"All right?" Jane checked, and Kat glanced over as Brandt continued to blink uncomfortably.

Brandt hummed, scrunching his nose slightly as he answered: "I can't see out of one eye but it's fine."

Kat hid a small grin at his words while Jane fetched the test paper, though apparently not well enough; Ethan chuckled at her while Brandt also caught her eye and he gave her one of his boyish grins.

"Blink twice to activate the shutter." Jane ordered as she held up the test paper, which read: 'test copy' followed by a series of numbers from 0 to 9. Brandt did as she said, blinking twice as he stared at the paper.

"Notice, the numbers are in order." Jane pointed out as Brandt finished blinking and she turned to pick up the page that had slid out of the printer in their fake briefcase.

"A perfect copy." She pointed out as she held up the printed copy for Brandt to see. "But the numbers are scrambled."

Kat peered around Jane to see it was indeed the same in everything except for the numbers, which were no longer in order.

"Masks?" Ethan called as he started buttoning his cuffs, now that they knew the camera worked, and Benji confirmed: "Uh, 60 seconds."

Kat moved to button Ethan's other cuff, trying to save them some time while Benji asked Ethan hopefully: "Are you sure that I shouldn't wear a mask? You know, cause I'm not exactly Omar Sharif."

Ethan gave him a look of complete disbelief and Benji quickly finished: "I'll play it French. This," he handed Ethan what looked like a smart phone with a tracker switched on, "is your tracking device. This is what you're tracking."

He held up a few sheets of paper held together with a-

"The paper clip?" Ethan asked as he took the papers and looked at the object in question.

"No, it's the paper." Benji corrected. "It's in the briefcase. It's coated with isotopes, which give off a unique..."

He trailed off at Ethan's blank and slightly impatient look although Kat had looked over with interest, having finished straightening Ethan's cuffs. While Benji appreciated that she seemed to be impressed by his technical explanation, he explained simply to Ethan to save time: "It just means that you can track the documents, even if they switch briefcases."

"Range?" Ethan cut in, and Benji replied a little apologetically: "Not that good, like half a mile. Safest thing would be to not let Wistrom out of your sight- Is that Wistrom?"

He suddenly shifted topics, staring at the computer. Kat quickly moved out of the way as Ethan moved to stare at the computer where they could see Wistrom entering the hotel lobby, another man in tow at his side.

"Who's that with him?" Ethan demanded with a frown, and Benji shrugged helplessly as he admitted: "I don't know. We don't have an uplink, so there's no facial recognition."

Ethan picked up the laptop, moving quickly to show it to Brandt as he asked the analyst: "Who's that with him?"

Jane walked out of the bedroom, freshened up and ready after their almost disaster with the window just as Brandt replied, squinting at the computer: "That's Leonid Lisenker. Polish-born cryptographer. He redesigned Russia's nuclear security at the Cold War."