Chosen

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight: The Year of Moni Pottokov

"As you move outside of your comfort zone, what was once the unknown and frightening becomes your new normal." -Robin S. Sharma

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The Christmas spirit didn't last long. The Christmas season for two of us agents didn't even last until the next day.

 Early the next morning, Maria Hill made a call for Black Widow and me. We were to be sent over to Morocco on a mission. A powerful but secretive drug lord was apparently planning to create a way to use the Titan weapons into his own ultimate weapon. We had to find if this information was true and if it was we had to stop him. There was a twist to our objective: we were not to stop him immediately. We would stay and squeeze any additional information out even if we knew Mr. Masih was creating a tyranny weapon.  Agent Hill could not give us an estimated time period on how long we would be overseas. It was completely up to how long it would take us to gain the drug lord's trust and put an end to his schemes.

 Not only was this an unknown length-wise mission, it was also an undercover operative. Both Natasha and I were to assume disguises and take a part in where we could earn this drug lord's, Mr. Masih's, trust. Natasha took on the identity of Natalea Romafov; I became Moni Pottokov. Honestly, it was sad how no one put our aliases to our real names.

 I was hired to be Mr. Masih's servant. I tended to anything he ordered me to do. I first started out by taking care of the pigs and alpacas. Then I worked my way up and I became the home washer. I scrubbed floors, hand washed laundry, and cleansed the windows. Sooner than expected, I became Mr. Masih's personal servant. I know exactly why too...

 Natasha was to become an asset. She would personally talk to the man. She would worm her way into Mr. Masih's operations by gaining his trust. Natasha also had to try to convince him that she wanted to be a part of the engineering team to create this weapon.

 That is where I came in. Natasha does not know enough about weapon designing to last long in that team of engineers. I was to become a servant in the villain's mansion. She had a tiny earpiece in her ear that allowed me to listen to everything she was hearing when I chose to. Each morning I would her slip a note about what she should do and say while she is in the lab later that day. Occasionally, when I would be passing through the laboratory, I would briefly whisper a few instructions to Natasha just to help. Her cover as Natalea Romafov was never blown. 

 Arim Masih was never suspicious of us. He never questioned why I didn't have much of an accent. He never questioned why I liked to be in the laboratory. Honestly, I thought that would raise the most questions. A low servant shouldn't be allowed access into the top secret laboratory, but Mr. Masih did not seem to care. He also never doubted Natasha's or mine's backstory. He was as careless as he was tyrannical.

 Natasha's backstory was that she came over from America because her ex-employer heard rumors about the Titan device. When her ex-employer became no longer available, she came over here to offer her services. My background was that I transferred to Morocco from a personal service company from Russia, where Mr. Masih typically hired his house staff. When Mr. Masih asked for a house servant, S.H.I.E.L.D. had a way of making sure I was the one the company sent to him.

 Here's the fun part about my cover in the mission, I had to pretend I was deaf. I could "read lips very well" and could speak little Arabic. I did not pretend to have this disability for fun; it gave me a huge advantage. Since everyone in the household believed me to be deaf, they would not cease their talking about the operation when I entered a room. I found out a little bit of information that way. Another major advantage I had was that I was the designated servant to Mr. Masih during his personal business meetings. He thought that as long as I kept my head down, I wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on their conversations. In reality I was able to hear every single word of their illegal plans.