Again, I know it's been a while, but be patient with me. Theses stories take a while to write, you 9, for your enjoyment. R&R!

Ch.9: Inside the Mission

As I stepped inside, I could tell it was very dark. Thankfully, I was able to see pretty clearly because of the night vision on the sunglasses. I was shaking as I made my way down the stairs and into the first hallway. It was the third door on the left, I had been told. I cautiously crept inside, hands at the ready position. I was able to make my way to a corner safely because nothing had really happened yet. What appeared to be happening was that the terrorists who had tapped the apartment had found what they were looking for and had come to the apartment to kill the residents living there and then steal the computer's hard drive and disks, and whatever else had the classified information they had been searching for on it. I could see Sara and two other agents I didn't know. (Toby had been driving the helicopter, being one of the chief escorts and Anton was on a different mission tonight). They were hiding behind some of the furniture in the darkened apartment. I could see the residents of the apartment, a young man and woman, being bound and gagged by the terrorists. I gasped as I saw what the terrorists were trying to do.

There were three of these unidentified bogeys and they were all masked, wearing your basic ski masks. Not very original, I thought, but then terrorists didn't need to be original. They were scary enough by themselves. The slender one who appeared to be a woman, was holding what looked like a can of fire-starter. Another was holding a lighter. My eyes were wide as I watched. It looked as though we had gotten there just in the nick of time. If we had gotten there any later the couple might already be dead and the place already burnt down. I wondered when Sara and the agents were going to step in and do something, though. I hoped they wouldn't wait much longer, I hated to see that poor couple get tortured more than they needed to. From where I was crouching I could see the looks in their eyes, just the vaguest outline of their expression in the moonlight. They looked very scared and muffled sounds were coming from them as the terrorists doused them in the fire-starter fluid. I glanced over to where Sara was with a worried look, but as I looked over there, they were gone already.

I looked up and they were closing in on the terrorists. Sara delivered a swift blow to one's head as the others roundhouse kicked the rest. It didn't even take more than a few minutes. I was amazed, but I supposed that when there were more terrorists,or there was a particularly more violent situation. Sara nodded at me when they had finished moving the lifeless bodies of the terrorists into a pile. She informed me that they would take them back to HQ, and question the ones that woke up before sending them off to federal prison. She beckoned me to come and help her untie the couple. The minute she took out their gags, the couple thanked her, a thousand times, praising her greatfully. Sara smiled. "Now this makes the job all worth it," she said. As we finished untying them, she introduce them to me as Carolyn and Sam Tate, special agents to the FBI. "Sam and Carolyn, meet our newest member, Veronica. She's with our Confidential writing team.

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you," said Carolyn. She shook my hand as Sara finished taking the last of her bonds off. "It's too bad we had to meet under these circumstances," she said. "Normally, we don't have such close brushes with death. I'm guessing this is probably your first mission. I hope you're not upset by me and my husband Sam, I'm sure we look a mess. But we're okay, now, I assure you. There's no need to get worried for us."

"Um, it's okay, I need to learn to get used to this sort of thing, anyway," I responded.

Sam Tate stood up and shook my hand as well. "Well, that was certainly unexpected," he said. "I honestly had no idea those goons were tapping us. Our apartment was very secure. Or so we thought." He shook his head. "That was close, thank goodness you guys got here when you did. What were they looking for anyways, do you know?"

"Well, we think that they were onto your Stodke-Hart research. They didn't want anyone to find out about their secret dynamic team," Sara answered. "I'm guessing they thought you two were gonna release info on that mishap in Kentucky. We're not sure yet, we're gonna take these guys back to HQ for questioning."

Sara looked over at me. "Sam and Carolyn's division works very closely with ours. I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more of them in the future. They stop by the agency a lot to drop off research. She turned back to Sam and Carolyn. "Were there any witnesses that you know of?"

"We're pretty sure that everyone was asleep. All our neighbors are older, and it's past 1. If anyone asks about any noise or whatnot we're prepared to tell them that it was just us moving our furniture around to look for something that Sam lost that was very important," Caroline stated.

"Sounds like you guys have got it covered. Are you gonna move out, then?"Sara asked.

"Well, we're gonna have to now, aren't we?" said Caroline. "Now that we know the terrorists know our location, we have no choice. It's not safe for us to stay here. It'll be okay. I'm sure the boss will hook us up with a new secure location."

"Well, I guess our work is done here, then. I'm gonna have to call for backup to transport the terrorists outta here, we're not all gonna fit in the copter," said Sara. "C'mon troops lets string 'em up, and then Sam and Carolyn can take it from there. Ready?"

The others bound up the terrorists with the same ropes that had been used to tie up Sam and Carolyn as Sara radioed HQ. I just stood and watched, not sure what I was supposed to do next.

Soon everything was finished. Sara got off the radio. "Alright, Ready troops? Let's head on out."

She looked at the Tates. "Can you guys handle the goons until our backup gets here to pick 'em up?"

"I think we can," replied Carolyn.

"Alright, then , we're out," Sara announced.

"We can't thank you enough for getting here when you did. I really don't think we would have made it otherwise. Sam and I can usually hold our own, but this was a really close call. Those ropes were a little too tight, we couldn't budge them. Thank you again so much!"

Sara smiled. "You two are valuable assets, we wouldn't wanna lose ya. Anyways, just doin our job. Take care, you two." She turned back to me."Alright kid, let's skedaddle."

I followed her out to the hallway and then up the stairs. Toby was waiting for us with the helicopter. We all piled in and started back off into the night.

"Well, not bad for your first mission, huh? Sara asked me.

"I guess not. I was really scared, though," I admitted.

"Ah, that's natural. You'll get used to it, I'm sure. Oh, by the way, all you have to do is write a mission report for this one. You don't need to submit a newspaper story because nothing really happened that would make anyone suspicious. And if we're lucky no one will even have heard it or anything. So you have you're work cut out for you, huh, kid?"

I nodded. "I guess I do." I smiled. Not bad for my first mission, indeed.

Well, the end of Ch.9. Hope it was up to par with the rest of them. If not, well, you know I was really tired when I wrote it and the next one will be a lot , hope you liked, and I keep reminding you to R&R.