Operation Fortnight

Acht: Wichtige los für Kriegan (In Progress)

11949 1430hrs

Sitting in a prison cell in the highly oppressive country of Kosovo.

The whole place reaked of cleaning bleach, fresh paint, and stale urine.

The room that I had been forced into was colorless and tasteless. It was as if I had been sealed into a concrete cube with steel bars on one side. The roof above me was lit from behind by some form of artificial light source. There were small slits in the walls where I could just barely see into the cell blocks to my immediate left and right. The one on the left was empty unless it was occupied by an unusually short man, but the one on the right held a man in his mid-forties in army combat gear, lying asleep, I hoped, on his cot and cradling an American Flag.

I wasn't expecting my capture to be so forceful, but then again, I'm not sure why being a victim of military policy was supposed to be a grand ol' parade. I still had red marks on my forearms where the guards had applied their iron grip before throwing me into this concrete block.

I stood at the south window, or at least what I presumed was the south window, not having a compass and not being able to see the sun at all. I had read reports which said that this prison block was built just before the second world war by Nazis to hold political prisoners until they could be executed, and government building was constructed over the cells as some sort symbolism after the war that killed my parents finally came to an end. It would seem a little far-fetched if it weren't for the impressive amount of news coverage that it got at the time. What sort of a government would be stupid enough to intentionally put the place where they make their laws directly above the place they punish their criminals? Fortunately, the people of Kosovo very quickly caught on to their little mistake and moved the seat of their legislature across the street a month later without telling anyone, and then just renovated the inside of this place into a larger prison.

The only thing separating me now from the great Kriegan, and the answers I was hoping to find there, was two feet of white rock mixture, a few steel bars, and short game of Frogger.

Given what I knew about Kriegan the former's current predicament, I knew that it was only a matter of time until he died and his son took over. And from then on, it would be a race to inaugurate Kriegan the latter into the office of "person exercising absolute power," and from there on, I only had about an hour before he seized control of the executive and made his power official. The plan was to take advantage of the inevitable rush of mass grief and panic that would arise from the passage of a dearly beloved brainwasher, gain access to the capitol building, find out whatever illegal documentation they have that was deemed to be too confidential to be kept at the warehouse, and finish off my job with a complimentary bullet to the Kriegan's forehead.

Unfortunately, that required a little bit of a waiting game.

I was beginning to find it very difficult to pass the two hours that did pass before I realized the singular flaw in my plan: the human element. I soon began to curse Kriegan the first quite loudly, wishing he would just hurry up and die already, expecting for the guards who I could see bobbing past the hallway door in the distance to come and do something about it, but when they didn't, I just cursed louder, seeing no reason to contain myself seeing as how I was already in prison and all.

"Deine Mutter geht in der Stadt huren!!" I shouted, loud enough for it to echo off the empty walls and come screaming back at me.

My shout must have woken the guy who slept with his flag because he slugged his way out of what little bed he had and staggered over to the nearest slit in the wall and pounded on his side of the wall a couple time, not that it did much.

"Shut up, you stupid woman!" He shouted back.

I fired back with, "Sprich nicht mit mir, du verrückter Mann!" before realizing that I was still speaking my native tongue with someone who was obviously American.

"What? Speak English! Who in Hell are you, anyways?" the American replied.

"Major Jaeger."

"Oh ho ho! A Major!," the guy harped while clicking his tongue, "I'm guessing army, then?"

"Close enough," I said, reaching into one of my satchels for one of the many identification cards I keep on me, most of them fake, only to realize for the third time since arriving that my satchels, along with any other weapons and gadgets that weren't directly infused into my body had been confiscated from me at the door. I very briefly considered telling him just what part of the military I was representative of, but I needed him to maintain his ignorance for now. Wouldn't want him knowing too much and blowing my whole plan.

"Never heard of it," He shrugged, "Not that it really matters. I'm first up at the chopping block the minute the kid takes the crown." He laughed, his dog-tags jingling and catching the light, which made the letters of the name JOHNSON glow bright silver. "It's kinda funny if you think about it," he continued, "Here I've been rotting for almost three years, getting tortured and forced to be their little guinea pig for some kinda sick human experiments, just waiting for someone to hurry up and kill that bastard, and now he's finally going to die, and I don't feel no better."

"That's life." I nod, running a left hand over the spot on my neck which was usually covered by my braid, where I could still feel the scar from where they first began their bionics experiments on me those seven years prior, even if it had long since disappeared, "I command a high stakes task force under the Anti-Terrorism Response Initiative of the United Nations Act of '43."

"Ain't that it, though? Kill one crackhat and another, even more ruthless one takes his place."

"Just hang tight, soldier. The Kriegan dynasty will be taken care of soon enough."

"Man, I don't even care anymore," He mused, returning to his cot, "I just wanna go home. Go visit my momma's grave. Rest my head on American soil once more. See my baby girls again."

"I have a feeling that you might just get your chance to do all that," I mutter to myself, giving the newest element to my brilliant plot the chance to rest before his big performance.

I rubbed my wrists and thought with a smirk about the floggings the peckerheads who run this prison would receive for making the conscious decision to lock up a dangerous woman such as myself without the proper set of bracelets. Still the faint red lines at the joint where my wrist was thinnest seemed out of place. It took me a few moments for the memory of them tightening the cold steel handcuffs around my wrists, to the point when they first captured me to sink back to the forefront of my consciousness. I must have slipped out of the bonds without even realizing it, almost like a reflex at some point, but I wasn't sure when. Or where they were now. They must be well hidden if even I didn't know where they were, I had been trained too well to carelessly leave something so dangerously incriminating lying around in plain view. I few moments of searching reminded me that I had coyly hidden them in the elastic band of my underwear, a discomfort that I had been completely desensitized to by this point.

Suddenly, the doors to the complex swung open and in walked a man in a white military uniform followed by ten other men in brown military uniforms.