Gabriel & Kevin | Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It...

[x-velocidad.livejournal.com]

Gabriel, in the interest of learning more about being a spy, gets some guidance from Kevin Sydney.


The amount of grunt work that came along with being a junior-temporary-whatever at Snow Valley was not in the sales pitch that Gabriel had received. Or, at least, that he remembered. There were days when he felt like little more than an errand boy. A highly-paid errand boy, but an errand boy nonetheless.

The advantage to all the running around was that he got to spend more time out and about, and less time desk-bound, answering phones. And on days like today, a gorgeous late-summer day that felt more like May, he was grateful. Tasked with a lunch run on his way back from the post office, Gabriel took a major detour, using his powers to squeeze in an outdoor run and a shower before actually accomplishing the task at hand.

And so he was running a bit behind schedule when he finally dropped a brown paper bag in front of Kevin Sydney. "Here you go. Long line at the deli," he shrugged.

"Never changes. Corned beef, fat cut? Extra pickle?" Kevin pulled the bag closer before pausing to refresh his coffee. "You need a cup?"

"Yes and yes," Gabriel nodded. "I think there's twice as much meat as usual, too." He reached into his pocket, pulling out his cellphone. "The girl with the lip ring was behind the counter today, and I usually flirt with her to see if I can get free shit."

"It's the carvers you need to get in with. That Ethiopian kid is a wizard with a knife." He pulled out the wrapped sandwich and pickle. "Did you get a name and a number?"

"Nah," Gabriel shook his head, looking down as he tapped out a text. "Probably for the best. I would have had to let her down gently, and then we'd need to find a new deli." He reached for the coffee and considered the man in front of him, who he really barely knew. "So" He took a sip of his coffee. "Working on anything interesting? Like, what's your deal?"

"I'm working on a couple of old networks, seeing if they can be adapted to our own intelligence sources." Sydney paused to pull out his lunch from the bag. "Mostly Eastern European. Older gentlemen who have been left fallow by the Agency."

"The Agency?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "CIA?" He reached into the bag in his own hand, retrieving salt and vinegar chips. "So that's true? You're a super-spy?" He ripped open the top. "Huh."

"I'm an intelligence agent. It's a little different and not even close to what the media shows."

"Well, okay." Gabriel's eyebrow went higher. "What? More desk-work, and fewer moles and Bond girls?" He glanced around the office. "Closer to this monotony than Mission: Impossible?"

"With a lot of boring hours in the field, waiting for contacts, picking up reports, trying not to fall asleep watching a room through a scope. The Bond girls you pick up after the job is done, while in another city."

"Yeah, sure." Gabriel snorted. "And now you're here, surrounded by lunatics and tracking down god-knows-what in god-knows-where." He popped a chip into his mouth. "Big upgrade."

"You'd be surprised. There were... drawbacks to working for the Agency. Besides, they may be a little flaky, but there's some talent here. They need experience more than anything else."

"Yeah. Case in point," Gabriel gestured to himself. "Fuck if I even know what I'm doing here, let alone what I'm supposed to be."

"What do you think that you could do?" He said offhandedly, unwrapping his sandwich.

"I dunno," Gabriel shrugged. "I mean, I'm fast. I used to steal shit. And I'm a decent liar." He stopped to grab a chip. "God, I sound like a psychopath. Where does that leave me?"

"If you think that makes you a psychopath, you might be too innocent for this line of work, kid." Kevin took a bite of his sandwich, chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. "Lying, stealing and running away quickly is the hallmark of a good operative."

"Oh. Good. Other than pouring a solid old-fashioned, I don't have any other marketable skills."

"Don't sell that out. It's hard to find a decent cocktail in this city. TGIF is top on my list of places to firebomb one day." Kevin gave him a serious look. "How serious are you about wanting to learn tradecraft? It's not easy and it involves a lot of practice and failure. You'll want to give up on a daily basis for years. That still appealing?"

Gabriel shifted. "I'm pretty, like... I'm a never-give-up kinda guy. And I feel like I'd be better at this, then, like anything else I could do with no..." He shrugged, not willing to get into his lack of education and negligible finances. "But I'm also not much of a long-term planner. So I don't know where that leaves me." He scratched his nose. 'You really went to TGI Friday's? Come on, guy."

"I'll make you a deal. I've got a ton of little things locally that need to be kept up with. It's a good starting point. You do that and I'll train you on some of the skills you need. Once you're at a level that I think is ready, I'll push them to assign you to some of the actual intel work that the office does."

"Yeah," Gabriel smiled. "Okay." If he was going to be here every day, he might as well be getting more direction that Marie-Ange had given him when she'd offered him the job. And there was something about Kevin that Gabriel decided he'd liked, although he couldn't imagine what. "And I'll introduce you to some of New York's finer cocktail bars."

"Son, that is an area I'm relatively certain you'll be learning from me as well." He reached into his desk for a phone and an envelope. "We'll start you today. When that phone rings, you'll get a set of numbers. Record them and then use the information in the envelope and a current edition of the Times to determine where to pick up the information. All the details are in there. The locations are all in the five boroughs, so it's just some leg work. Each package you pick up comes back to my desk unopened. Most of the drops are rental lockers, PO boxes, local bars or gym change rooms. I want you to be anonymous. That means being forgettable and quick; you go in, you pick it up, you walk out. You don't flirt with the bartender or talk to the locker attendant about music. If you have to talk, stick to traffic and weather. Be boring, Gabriel."

He passed over both items. "Very boring. And I will be checking up on you to see how you're doing. You think you can handle that?"

Gabriel wrinkled his nose as he glanced down at the envelope. "Boring." He glanced up and gave Sydney a slow nod. "Sure. I mean, I know how to fly under the radar." He reached for another chip. "Where do you even buy a newspaper around here?"

"Let me correct myself. The pick ups will be job number two. Can you guess what job number one now is?"

"Yes, dad." Gabriel rolled his eyes. "I was only half-serious anyway."