X-Men Mission: Opera Redux - Uncomfortable Conference

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Farouk makes it to Israel, in order to arrange a rescue for the X-Men.



"Vazhin. I never expected to see you here as anything but a prisoner."

"I see Israel's famed hospitality isn't a myth."

"Oh, we'd be happy to let you stay. There are plenty of cells." Yitzhak Shavit bared his teeth at Vazhin, and no one mistook his gesture for a smile. It was an uncomfortable conference, to say the least. Sabra sat to Yitzhak's right, part guard and part intelligence resource for the senior Mossad officer. Across from them sat Col. Alexei Vazhin of the GRU, and his most trusted field agent, Natasha Romanova. The two women eyed each other warily, but without the hostility of their bosses. In the middle sat David Langstrom, alternating between impatience and annoyance.

In many ways Operation: Opera Redux had been a success. The plant at Saqqaz was nothing more than a ruined memory, and the mutant kept there was in Israeli hands for now. But a destroyed helicoptor had trapped five of the X-Men in Iran. A rescue mission wasn't considered possible, until a new player had entered the ring unexpectedly; Amahal Farouk. He'd looked sickly getting off the plane, walking with the aid of a cane, but no one had tried to deny him access to the mutant that was currently under the guard of three extremely unhappy looking X-Men. It had been as his cryptic request that the Americans had asked for Vazhin to attend this meeting, ostensibly about what to do with the powerful Iranian mutant they had acquired.

"Gentlemen, if you are quite done measuring your genitalia..." Amahl slammed his cane on the table with a crash and swept the gathered assemblage with an acid smile that did not reach his eyes. "Let me settle this for you - mine is bigger. Now could we perhaps get to the business at hand?"

He knew that he was coming on too strong, that even in the current situation he was not the equal of the men in this room. He couldn't even claim to speak for the Alamut. Wincing, Amahl, thought of the conversations laying ahead. They won't be able to come after him openly - everything he has done fitted the mission statement of the Society completely.

But the unspoken rule was to avoid publicity at all costs. getting involved in the near-nuclear war and being the actual architect of this meeting...

All off us in the same room.... A Hamas wet dream.

He glared around the table, his hand clenching into a fist under the table as the image of Kane's head disintegrating under impact of a high-contact rifle round popped into head.

It didn't matter what they told him, he was sure that this entire fuck up was that young moron's fault.

A headache was blooming into a migraine behind his eyes, and he stifled the desire to rub his temples. He was already giving away too much. And this was not the room to be weak, or even appear to be weak.

So in the end he did the only thing he could and played the invalid, playing up his illness, and cantankerousness, even swaying dramatically and almost falling onto Romanova's lap at one point. Her cleavage was still fanastic, he was gratified to discover.

Hopefully he laid it on thick enough that most of them would assume it was an act. He wouldn't be the first, after all, Ken Nehrumani has been dying for 20 years, yet somehow he kept outliving the competitors.

"I see you haven't changed, Professor Farouk." Shavit said. He was an old enemy; deeply suspicious of Farouk ever since he'd first gained prominence. His 'illness' would do nothing for the old man, who glared out at him through the filter of fifty years hard fighting. "As much as Israel regrets the X-Men's loss, we see no reason to risk an open act of war against Iran. They were informed of the risks."

"Gratitude is the disease of dogs." Vazhin said, with an ironic smile. "However, I'm not as quick to toss away potentially useful assets. Professor Farouk, we've met through... intermediaries before. You're not playing this game without stacking the deck first. What do you have that is going to change our Jewish friend's mind?"

Farouk glanced covertly at the Israeli, just in time to see the latter's Adam's apple twitch. Vazhin might have pronounced it 'Jewish friend' but he was spelling it 'tricky Yid bastard.'

Scratch an Ivan, find an anti-semite.

Some things did change along with the flags.

Farouk smiled blandly into Vazhin's flat, Slavic face noting a flicker of interest in those much too clever eyes, as the Russia registered the effortless change from irascibility.

Dealings... Amahl first came to know Vazhin by Reputation when he was just beginning to claw his way up the Alamut ladder. The file was most illuminating and, inevitably, filled with conjecture at least as much as by the proven facts.

He earned his spurs in Afghanistan, and despite what his official dossier said, it was strongly rumored that he was among the commandos that stormed the tajbeg Palace in '79 and retired their dear and fraternal socialist ally, President Amin.

Farouk had also been made privy to the photos of some of the villages that Vaznin's spetznas visited during the war, in reprisal raids.

True enough, it was only Pathans, barbarians to a man and a shit-stain on the face of the world. Still... It paid to know that much like Shavit, Vazhin didn't get to his desk through a law school. He waded through a sea of blood to get it.

No surprise, really.

Scratch a Russian, find a Mongol, after all. Any day now the clumsy butchers would begin to stack up skull-mounds in Chechnya, in earnest.

Farouk felt the eyes on the back of his head and turned swiftly, catching Langstrom's gaze. The American did not appear abashed in the least, continuing appraising him cooly. Amahl realized that in a second they would look ridiculous, and turned back toward the Russian.

"Gentlemen, you appear to be laboring under a misunderstanding. I am not here on the behalf of the X-Men. I am just an ailing old man, eager to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, and help the cause of peace in any way I can."

He shrugged deprecatingly, letting out artful cough. Romanova snorted slightly in amazed disbelief until swiftly quelled by her boss's look.

Farouk smiled gently, letting his hand shake as he pointed. "Perhaps we should hear from our American friends, before we commit ourselves to any irrevocable and tragically final decisions?"

The other two men smiled and the heads swiveled in macabre unision, like tracking gun-turrets toward the Agency man.

Farouk hid a satisfied smile. He suspected as much - they were at least as eager as himself to see the American show his cards. In fact he probably just won a favor from both. It's the Yankees who were caught with their dick in a zipper on this one. And the Russians would be more than eager to get some of their own back, after the groveling they were forced to do after the mess with Magneto.

And Shavit would be a fool not to realize that he had McKenna over a barrel. Any other mistakes and his government's connection to the vigilante mutants might be blown completely open.

The very fact that they were both in this room meant that Americans needed their help. And nothing came free in this fallen world.

Langstrom seemed unmoved, his still expression not changing. They could all see the game being played out here, but none of them knew the stakes truly on the table; like a poker game in which the stacks of chips each player had could only be guessed at. Langstrom's role here was at the President's quiet request. He didn't want X-Men, especially American X-Men turning up on al-Jazeera between a pair of IRG, Langstrom, on the other hand, couldn't care less. No matter what the Israelis did, any attempt to draw the US into a diplomatic flap would cost them a lot more than America, and the Russian's still had over a thousand miles of border with China that just needed one word about the space laser to turn into a weaponized standoff.

But who was Farouk? That was worth noting.

"Gentlemen, as was explained, the United States government had no pre-knowledge of any operations by Israel in Iranian territory, and we will strongly back a UN directed investigation on the behalf of Iran in order to determine what actually happened. Until such time, and without proper evidence, we will trust our friends and counterparts in the Israeli government that this incident was not the work of the IDF or any other agency." Much like poker, Langstrom had just flashed an ace; the US would back Israel's denial, and any UN investigation would be less than useless.

"In terms of any mutant that may have reached Israel seeking assistance, we are more than ready to provide it on humanitarian grounds, as we assume our Russian friends agree." He smiled tightly. "Perhaps, since you've met the mutant, Professor, you can tell us about his powers?"

Farouk nodded modestly, feeling the headache receeding slightly as he felt himself caught up in the old game, the dynamic in the room shifting constantly, the minute glances and body language providingthe barest of clues, and even then more often than not even those were poisoned bait.

It was nice dealing with the professionals again.

Langstrom intrigued him, he had heard of the man - one couldn't avoid it in his line of work. Whelan's golden boy, groomed and trained to take over after Chester finally rolled snake eyes.

And he was doing well, considering how hobbled his was by McKenna's idealism and the political-appointee currently fronting and the Agency's ...

Farouk's eyes narrowed in sudden thought and he cursed the sluggishness of his mind. He should have seen it before. Langstrom's preternatural calm at the implicit threat to leak the X0Men involvement was clue enough. Even lacking a shred of evidence, given the region's mindset that US government's involvement would be assumed into a an unassailable tenet of conventional wisdom within days.

It would be disastrous for the current Administration, especially in the election year.

But just because ADDO of the Central Intelligence Agency was here representing the White House, did not in any way mean that he was working from McKenna's script....

Farouk gave the American another sidelong, assessing glance. No this was not the time and place. When it all came down to it, he knew fairly little about the man to play with him at this juncture. With the US tilting farther and farther away from the interventionist model in foreign policy, Lagstrom never attracted Farouk's attention apart from a cursory interest.

A mistake. With SHIELD drowning in gadgets and turning slowly but surely simply into another data-sifting bureaucratic muddle, the Company was coming back into its own.

Farouk cast his mind back, putting the bits and pieces together. Distracted by his own private issues and concentrating on the regional interests that dominated Alamut, it would appear he had missed a shift in the Great Game.

Unlike the SHIELD, paradoxically, suffocated by the gush of the seemingly unlimited funds, – the CIA dishonored, crippled and starved from the Iran-Contra Debacle on through the late 1990s – went the other way.

Under Chester Whelan and his heir it went back, remembering itself, recalling the bad days, mad days, old days of the OSS.

The Firm was hungry again. Overlooked and liking it that way. Stripped down to the bone and muscle, and nasty with it.

People, not microchips, ware the engine of the spook business, Whelan had often been quoted as saying and it would appear that his protegenever forgot.

Slowly but surely new networks arose and old ones were painstakingly rebuilt throughout the world.

Quietly, the best among the multitude of the cast-off soldiers and marines were approached. Bitter but patriotic still, most jumped at the opportunity they may have disdained before to work for the spooks, and the Agency's non-existent 'Army of North Virginia' grew and began to make its presence felt.

The fact that the CIA had a private paramilitary force, wasn't a secret of course. Nothing in Washington was, really.

Farouk filed the sudden, late insight away for later. No, this was most definetely neither the time nor the place.



Time to drop the bombshell. Turning he smiled coolly at the Israeli. "Yes, my conversation with our young friend. Most illuminating. Did you know that he is not Iranian? He was born in Kandahar. His Iranian hejira is fairly recent, in fact"

The sudden pause stretched, becoming interminable, heavy with meanings, unsaid and unsayable.

Shavit's expression didn't change but somehow he suddenly seemed eve smaller than his already dimunitive stature, but not helpless. Coiled and tensed, like a mongoose ready to strike. Beside him Sabra was less inscrutable and Farouk smiled at her gently.

The rumor was it was her that pushed heavily for the inclusion of the X-Men on this mission. If that resulted in embarrassment of the Mossad, more if they provided faulty information that ended up getting the Americans killed or captured...

Israeli intel establishment was going to be a snake-pit for months, after this, Shin Bet and Army would bough cherish the opportunity to slip the dagger in, and within Mossad itself...

Farouk smiled again, "And shockingly the discoveries didn't stop there. Did you know that the extent of his abilities has been somewhat... exaggerated?"

Shavit's lips pulled back in an expression that, only with exceeding charity, could have been called a smile.

"A cobra spits," He said in fluent Arabic "And a Pathan speaks. Who will grow rich on the difference?"

"Exactly how badly did the Mossad mishandle their intelligence?" Vazhin's half shrug conveyed no embarrassment at the glare directed his way. "This was a considerable operation in which you involved force, Shavit. Only prudent to determine the extent of your failure."

The Russian steepled his fingers and leaned back in chair, seemingly at complete ease. "And while I tend to agree with Yitzhak on the general trustworthiness of the Afghans, thankfully this is not a situation where we are forced to rely on his promise alone. It would be a matter of hours to determine the true extent on the young man's abilities."

Farouk nodded sagely, allowing the Russian to envoy another split second of his rival's emarassment as Shavit glowered at them both.

And then the Arab smiled thinly and Vashin's eyes hooded as he felt the sudden danger.

"Actually, that won't be necessary. I am sure that our Russian collegues are as eager to deal with this situation as the rest of us, as quickly as possible. Thus, no doubt they will share their dossier on Mr. Khalili."

"Khalili? Hassen Khalili?" Vazhin almost growled back, in obvious and uncomfortable surprise. With Farouk's satisfied nod, the Russian colonel sat back with a scowl, the lines in his face deepening with displeasure. It was Natasha who sat forward to speak.

"Hassen Khalili doesn't have a dossier with us. He's part of another man's, Anatoly Markov. An odious former KGB operative who went into business for himself in Ubzekistan and Afghanistan, organizing local slavers. He sought a high market business with young mutants, for weaponization purposes. Hassen Khalili was one of the men who had disappeared which we believed Markov to be responsible for."

"And where is this Markov?"

"Enjoying the hospitality of the GRU, until we have the full extent of the information he has in his memory." Everyone at the table knew that meant Markov was being systematically tortured to reveal all of his details, before being shot or packed off to a remote labour camp. "It was part of a deal with one of the X-Men which allowed us to finally have him legally arrested in Europe and returned to us; Inspector Kane."

Shavit paused to look through his papers for a moment, covering his own displeasure. With every new revelation, the intelligence behind the mission was coming apart, and having to explain to the Prime Minister how the Mossad had risked a shooting conflict with Iran over nothing more than a percieved threat chilled him. "He is a mutant, correct?"

"Yes. I believe he had the ability to remove impurities in metals. Very useful in some situations. The Iranians could have acquired marginal quality uranium supplies and used Khalili to make them optimal." Romanova paused, and smiled wickedly. "But that would still require them to be able to enrich it, I'm afraid."

"Jesus, Shavit." Langstrom muttered. This was a pure, high quality, A-grade fuck up; a shit sandwich that they were all about to share a bite of. Langstrom also knew the same thing that Farouk did. The only way to salvage the situation was to get the X-Men out and deny everything until it disappeared. The question was if that was all Farouk wanted? "Shavit, Alexei, there will have to be an extraction."

"My government will never agree to that." Shavit said, knowing that offering him up as the scapegoat would work just as well, and less dangerous to the country.

"Nor will Russia. Interfering in the affairs of another nation, David? What is America suggesting?"

"That this issue, much like the weaponization of space, is something that cannot be seen by the entire world." Langstrom said, earning another glare from the Russian. Vazhin had no part in the space laser incident, but his government was paying a heavy price to the Americans for it. Langstrom switched his gaze over to Farouk, and telepathy wasn't needed to understand the meaning. The X-Men put the US in danger from the incident, and thanks to Farouk, Langstrom had neatly flipped it back on the Israelis and the Russians. If the X-Men were caught or killed in Iran, the price for both countries would be inordinately high, and much more damaging to them than the United States. In short, Langstrom had them by the balls, and it was Farouk that had given him the grip.

"This is beginning to reek of '70s nostalgia," Sabra finally said. First Iran as a pathetic recapitulation of Iraq, and now secreting the X-Men out seemed eerily reminiscent of Operation Yonatan. "Professor Farouk, I'm sure Professor Xavier has the resources to determine the exact location of Storm's team. Colonel Vazhin, if you provide a secure air route through Azerbaijan, we may come in through the north and retrieve them."

Natasha gave the table a blade-like smile. "We recently 'recovered' a Hind from Syria. If I had someone to copilot with low altitude flying experience-" Sabra only nodded. Both she and Natasha were professionals. "We can sneak in under the radar and border hop them back to Azerbaijan."

"The mutant cannot stay in Israel."

Vazhin sighed. "If I recall, his family lived close to the border in any case. We have friends in Turkmenistan. We could relocate him over the border without any undue attention." He said finally. While he could potentially use such a mutant, now Xavier's eyes would be on him, as well as this Farouk. Better to bury him in one of the satellite republics and deny him as an asset to anyone else.

Farouk half rose, placing his plams on the smooth surface of the table and leaning forward with a satisief air about him. "Ahh, an equlibrium of discontent. Everyone evenly displeased. That perfect foundation of mutual and lasting understanding. Ladies and gentlemen it's been a pleasure as always, let us do this again, never."

The audience gave the muted, obligatory chuckle and amidst the rustle of papers and hushed tag prepared to disperse.

Farouk's lips thinned and he steeled himself for the spike of pain as he reached for Shavit's mind. Even if he was at his best, he would not have attempted a reading of any mind in this room, unless there was no other choice. Most of them might not be mutants, but many a telepath would envy the mental shields they had.

But he was not at his best, in any case, and even the simple process of contacting the Israeli made him sway slightly, his fingers curling into talons and he gripped the desk with force enough to turn his knuckles white.

Before you leave, Itzhak...

Shavit's control was perfect, as he continued to converse softly with Sabra, not even glancing toward Farouk. Yes, yes. You want your pound of flesh. I expected you would dicker with the Amis, seeing as how you just made me spread for them with no lube. They owe you.

Fascinating, and deeply disturbing imagery. But as it happens, it's you who has what I want. And we both know that today could have gone much worse for you, if I wanted to.

Shavit gave a dry mental chuckle. It went badly enough. Ai, some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. What do you want, you vulture?

The contact that fed you Khalili.

Shavit stiffened, his posture suddenly rigid and words stilted, making Sabra look at him oddly. yet he still hasn't turned around.

The Institute takes care of its own messes, Amahl.

Be that as it may. And assuming that you will eventually find him - and since we both know he's probably rabbited by now it will take you a while - I want him, Yitzhak.

Shavit's mind closed down with heavy finality and giving a brief nod to the assemblage he left, still without a glance at the Arab. It was no matter, Farouk thought, sinking gratefully back into his chair. The Jew would bargain, he was after all a Jew, but give in the end.

Something was wrong here. Mossad had been set up, and likely enough the Americans as well.

If not the X-Men, it would have been something else. An Israeli strike on Iran would almost inevitably bring about an American re-engagement in the region.

There was no chance that an independent operator, ex-KGB or not, would run something like that on his own.

No.

Somebody was playing a deeper game here, and playing it in the Alamut's back-yard.