Special Agent | ✓

Fifty-One

a/n: it's 00:07 where i am, which means it's wednesday, which means it's update time again! figured i might as well post the other chapter, too, really get the endgame going! hope you enjoy.

Fifty-One

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From: Chief Adina Tibble

To: all Agency departments.

Subject: Enough.

My dear colleagues and subordinates,

It has recently come to my attention that a grievous injustice has been committed within the Agency, resulting in the recent kill order on Analyst Quinn O'Reilly. New discoveries have uncovered a new narrative: Quinn O'Reilly is innocent, and the evidence against her was planted by none other than a group of conspirators within the the Department of Operations.

Should you doubt my word and require the evidence itself, look no further than the file titled 'Op HLS'.

This is the final time any department governing the actions of the Special Agents will dare go against the Department of Intelligence, especially to order the wrongful execution of one of our own. On my word and conscience as the Chief of Intelligence, I urge my department to take a stand against this injustice. As of this memo, we are on strike until the Chiefs reconvene and rescind their mistake.

Cheers,

Chief Adina Tibble

"I wouldn't say 'Cheers' is the proper way to end that, but I digress."

The words were muttered quietly, by none other than Chief Eylem Vahid. Adina had penned the memo with no small amount of courage, before assigning Vahid to send it off through the proper channels. After that, Adina would be able to do little more than sit by and watch the fireworks as the first leg of their plan was completed.

Vahid had pushed aside her worry regarding Adina being shoved into the Agency's dusty basement, reminding herself the woman was a veteran when it came to Agency business. Judging by the furious look spied on the Director's face — relayed to Chief Vahid by her loyal techs — after she'd gone down to visit Adina in the basement cell, it seemed she was more than able to hold her own.

The rest is up to you, Chief Vahid.

Those were the last words Adina had spoken to Vahid, before disappearing from her office only moments before the memo had been dispatched through the communication channels used by the Agency. If they wanted any chance of clearing Quinn, they'd need to not only catch Kent in the web of lies she'd busied herself spinning, but nail the pathetic bastard who'd planted the evidence on Quinn's computer at the Knightsbridge HQ.

And that second part? That was Vahid's job.

She would be lying if she said she wasn't terrified of it. Even though she and Tibble had spent the last week preparing for it, she could almost feel herself splintering over every step of their carefully laid out plan. They'd been fine-tuning it day in and day out. Vahid had even noted Adina dodging calls from a number she suspected was O'Reilly, though she hadn't called the older woman out on it. Better to retain the little distance she still held between her and the shitshow that had blossomed within the Agency, should things go complete awry.

If this doesn't go to plan ... it's only a matter of time before they get you, too.

Vahid's fists clenched, her nails — today, a cobalt blue — digging crescent-shaped marks into her palms. Her hands had been shaking unsteadily all morning, rendering most of her word infinitely harder as she found herself pressing the wrong buttons on her keyboard, destroying lines of code she had to go back and undo time and time again.