Operation: Mad Men - It's A Raid
Jun. 6th, 2018 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsUsing the information from Erma, the team closes in on HELIOS.
The building was on Water Street, just on the edge of the Vinegar Hill neighborhood in Brooklyn. The location made sense; it was close to numerous factories and the massive Naval Yard. Trucks were coming and going all the time, and it was industrial enough that new people in the neighborhood wouldn’t be noticed unlike the more residential communities in the borough. Kevin took a long look at the five story red brick building from the back of the utility van they’d used to get here. The pictures that they’d uncovered had showed the basement entrance with the now disused coal shuttle and service stairs.
They’d cleared the other locations in the photos, using both the Agency’s access to city records and old fashioned shoe leather to confirm no new owners or renters were involved on site. Only this location had a new listing; a small clothing manufacturer had rented out the main part of the basement for a distribution centre for their merchandise. The company checked out as legitimate, but they had no idea about any expansion into Brooklyn. All they needed was confirmation.
It seemed that stakeouts were pretty much the same back in Kevin's day as it was in current time, just without the fancy technology to assist or to help the time pass. Wanda shifted slightly to ease the beginnings of a leg cramp while she kept watch on the building in front of them. "The same amount of lights have been on for the last few hours," she commented, "no change so far on the inside, at least."
"What if we - what if we cut their lights? I mean, um, not for more than a couple of minutes, but if nothing's changing we have to change it?" Marie-Ange sat crossed-legged on the floor of the van. "Can we do that? Turn it off, and turn it back on and see who scatters like a roach?"
"Not my department." Jubilee was sitting in the back of the van, and while she personally had a fairly good idea of what was needed to shut off the power for a length of time in this era, her cover identity wouldn't and so didn't know such things. "Although it's tempting, I think it would just put them on high alert that something weird is happening."
"What we're doing is illegal, ladies. Messing with the power grid brings in utility workers and that is attention we don't need." Kevin reminded them. It was hard to remember that their first taste of being in the field was an operation that would send them all to jail. The Agency had an understanding with the NYPD commissioner who would conveniently forget other people being there if arrest had to be made, but that was the extent of their cover. "Wait, leggy blonde on the corner. He passed the binoculars to Page. "Is that Underwood?"
"Confirmed, that's definitely her," Felicia replied. She handed the binoculars back and used her freed hands to tighten the ponytail she's secured her hair into before continuing, a little louder amid the noise as the others secured their gear. "She just entered the building. Let's go."
It was a good thing Wanda had traded the fashionable, but older fashioned, high heels for something she could actually move well in before they'd even left the parking lot. She turned towards Kevin, a hand on the door handle. This was the part that would be the hardest - not acting like a seasoned veteran. "Your direction, sir?"
"Only one way in or out. Mrs. Brinson has notified our friendly precinct. Page, I want you to cover the stairwell, liaison with the cops when they arrive." Kevin started to pass out 45s from a metal box in the van. Each one had three full clips attached to the holster. "Schmidt and Alders, you go right as we go in. Clear the two side rooms. Tan's with me. Remember ladie- agents, this is not the OK Corral. Our job is to lock them down long enough for the police and grab HELIOS for the old man. We hit heavy resistance, you fall back outside and help hold the door until backup gets here."
Kevin stepped out of the van, racking shells into his shotgun. As they moved out, he ghosted ahead, pressing up against the brick beside the door. He gingerly tested the latch and it clicked softly. Unlocked. With quick hand gestures he brought them up behind him in order and eased open the door. There were only eight steps into the basement and they went down them slowly. They waited until Page took up position near the top step, propping open the door. Sydney pointed at Alders and held up three fingers. Each dropped them one at a time and with the final one stepped out of the stairwell and fired a booming round that echoed in the confined space into the bricks.
"This is a raid!"
Muriel Alders had more experience with guns than Marie-Ange Colbert. Regular practice, even, if the easy grip and automatic trigger discipline was any indication. Marie-Ange usually had to remind herself - Muriel Alders needed no such reminder. She went right, glanced over her shoulder to meet eyes and Wanda, and shouldered a swinging door open as the older woman covered her entrance.
Wanda was right behind her, watching her back as Marie-Ange took point, twisting slightly to make sure no one was hiding against the wall. While no one was pressed up against the wall to ambush them, there were plenty of people directly in front of the two women. Caught by surprise, some were freaking out, others running and some looked ready to fight. "Hands where we can see them!" she yelled, raising her voice to be heard over the chaos.
Turning, Felicia covered their entrance and possible retreat, flicking her stance between the door and the stairs up to the second floor. Her back was mostly protected by cement, but there was a definite clench to her jaw, an unwillingness to be this exposed and out of comforting things like shadows, or duct work. This was so much easier with ear pieces, where she could gently cajole and hear everyone else was all right. "I got your backs, babes..." she murmured, knowing they couldn't hear her.
Wendy Lee Tan, aka Jubilee made sure to keep herself close behind Kevin as they moved into the basement but not so close that she interfered with his movement or situational awareness. While she had a gun, and the training to use it, she and the body she was wearing much preferred the Peg Carter school of fighting, beat the shit out of whoever it is with your fists till they stop moving.
A door to Wanda's right slammed against the wall as a young, skinny man came tumbling through. She thought about the gun in her hands, looked at the 'threat', and settled for punching him in the face. Out cold, he went down without a sound but she was already moving past him, both hands back on the gun. The room she entered was smaller and a quick glance confirmed that the only way out was through her or a small window.
"Stop right there!" she shouted, eyes on the one ripping up paperwork - he'd probably started the moment he'd heard something strange. Wanda said over her shoulder, "Three suspects but not the target!"
Oh, how she wished for plastic zip-ties. Marie-Ange directed the suspects - well, the ones who were not lying on the ground knocked out - on their knees with little impatient twitches of her gun. "Floor. Knees. The very fine New York Police will be here shortly to handcuff you and arrest you for something, and I do not want to shoot you in the hands." Well, she did sort of want to, because it would be interesting to see if Muriel had better aim than Marie-Ange but only in an academic sense. "Hands on your heads, please and thank you."
"Down! Down!" Kevin barked as he went through the main room. Most of the women were at tables, folding clothes into boxes or typing up letters from telegraph sheets. The woman in front of him stuck her hand into her shirt, and Kevin shot her in the face virtually point blank. A collective scream went up as the mist of blood splattered them. "On the ground!"
"I don't think so." A heeled shoe connected with the side of Kevin's knee even as a hand pulled the shotgun from his. The blonde they'd spotted earlier emerged from the shadows, whipping the metal barrel back across Kevin's face, breaking his cheekbone and toppling him to the floor. She racked the gun with one hand, ready to give Kevin a taste of what he'd just meted out.
There was none of Jubilee’s normal finesse in this body, it hadn’t had the years of gymnastics training; or the agility training that she still kept up. Still, there was something to be said for brute force and a will to use it.
She barrelled forward, grabbing the barrel of the gun to push it up and away from Kevin as she got in close and nasty. Jubilee’s right hand formed into a fist and followed up with a punch aimed directly at Dottie’s nose, she knew if she let Dottie bring the shotgun into play things would get a lot messier.
While getting the gun in play wasn't an option, she didn't need it. Underwood released her grip on the gun, planting a foot on Jubilee's knee and driving her other one up and into Jubilee's chest. The woman was winded as Dottie braced her hands on her shoulders and went up and over, rotating in a tight spin to wrench Jubilee off her feet sideways and to slam hard into the cement floor. Kevin was already pulling out his pistol as she kicked the loose shotgun back into his face. Taking advantage of the distraction, she bolted for the back of the basement.
Jubilee wheezed softly before rolling over onto her stomach and hefting herself painfully off the floor. Dottie had hit hard, and while in the real world she had the experience and agility to dodge most of what had been thrown at her, here it was another story. The urge to swear was strong, but considering the era it was unlikely to go over well.
She couldn’t see where the other woman had gotten to, which was weird given the size of the basement. She reached a hand down to help Kevin to his feet, wondering if they’d just lost a prime lead. She could hear the others questioning the women left, but none of them appeared to know much beyond what they’d been asked to do. They were definitely spies, there was no doubt about that but if any of them knew of HELIOS, they weren’t revealing it.
Jubilee moved further into the basement, trusting the others to watch her back as she searched for where Dottie had gone, the other woman had been moving at speed so she suspected there was at least one more exit to this place. She found it easily enough once she’d reached the far edge, a water access door that the builders hadn’t thought to include on the blueprints. It was an easy enough oversight, and one she’d experienced herself on other jobs. You always knew to look for the things the blueprints didn’t show, it was just in this case they hadn’t had the time or the resources to do so.
“She’s gone, and there’s nothing here beyond a few low level spies.” Jubilee noted as she headed back to the group. “So what now?”
"Goddamn..." Kevin muttered, looking around. There were a few copies of cables, but other than Underwood's immediate flunkies, there was nothing that seemed to fit whatever HELIOS was. Just a big concrete room in the bottom of a nondescript building. "Alright, get the ladies locked up in a side room. We make a thorough search and then get out."
Something told him that whatever the intentions for HELIOS had been for the Soviets, at the very least his team had stopped them. But what had they stopped? Even as they began their search, he knew that he'd being asking himself this question for a long time.
The building was on Water Street, just on the edge of the Vinegar Hill neighborhood in Brooklyn. The location made sense; it was close to numerous factories and the massive Naval Yard. Trucks were coming and going all the time, and it was industrial enough that new people in the neighborhood wouldn’t be noticed unlike the more residential communities in the borough. Kevin took a long look at the five story red brick building from the back of the utility van they’d used to get here. The pictures that they’d uncovered had showed the basement entrance with the now disused coal shuttle and service stairs.
They’d cleared the other locations in the photos, using both the Agency’s access to city records and old fashioned shoe leather to confirm no new owners or renters were involved on site. Only this location had a new listing; a small clothing manufacturer had rented out the main part of the basement for a distribution centre for their merchandise. The company checked out as legitimate, but they had no idea about any expansion into Brooklyn. All they needed was confirmation.
It seemed that stakeouts were pretty much the same back in Kevin's day as it was in current time, just without the fancy technology to assist or to help the time pass. Wanda shifted slightly to ease the beginnings of a leg cramp while she kept watch on the building in front of them. "The same amount of lights have been on for the last few hours," she commented, "no change so far on the inside, at least."
"What if we - what if we cut their lights? I mean, um, not for more than a couple of minutes, but if nothing's changing we have to change it?" Marie-Ange sat crossed-legged on the floor of the van. "Can we do that? Turn it off, and turn it back on and see who scatters like a roach?"
"Not my department." Jubilee was sitting in the back of the van, and while she personally had a fairly good idea of what was needed to shut off the power for a length of time in this era, her cover identity wouldn't and so didn't know such things. "Although it's tempting, I think it would just put them on high alert that something weird is happening."
"What we're doing is illegal, ladies. Messing with the power grid brings in utility workers and that is attention we don't need." Kevin reminded them. It was hard to remember that their first taste of being in the field was an operation that would send them all to jail. The Agency had an understanding with the NYPD commissioner who would conveniently forget other people being there if arrest had to be made, but that was the extent of their cover. "Wait, leggy blonde on the corner. He passed the binoculars to Page. "Is that Underwood?"
"Confirmed, that's definitely her," Felicia replied. She handed the binoculars back and used her freed hands to tighten the ponytail she's secured her hair into before continuing, a little louder amid the noise as the others secured their gear. "She just entered the building. Let's go."
It was a good thing Wanda had traded the fashionable, but older fashioned, high heels for something she could actually move well in before they'd even left the parking lot. She turned towards Kevin, a hand on the door handle. This was the part that would be the hardest - not acting like a seasoned veteran. "Your direction, sir?"
"Only one way in or out. Mrs. Brinson has notified our friendly precinct. Page, I want you to cover the stairwell, liaison with the cops when they arrive." Kevin started to pass out 45s from a metal box in the van. Each one had three full clips attached to the holster. "Schmidt and Alders, you go right as we go in. Clear the two side rooms. Tan's with me. Remember ladie- agents, this is not the OK Corral. Our job is to lock them down long enough for the police and grab HELIOS for the old man. We hit heavy resistance, you fall back outside and help hold the door until backup gets here."
Kevin stepped out of the van, racking shells into his shotgun. As they moved out, he ghosted ahead, pressing up against the brick beside the door. He gingerly tested the latch and it clicked softly. Unlocked. With quick hand gestures he brought them up behind him in order and eased open the door. There were only eight steps into the basement and they went down them slowly. They waited until Page took up position near the top step, propping open the door. Sydney pointed at Alders and held up three fingers. Each dropped them one at a time and with the final one stepped out of the stairwell and fired a booming round that echoed in the confined space into the bricks.
"This is a raid!"
Muriel Alders had more experience with guns than Marie-Ange Colbert. Regular practice, even, if the easy grip and automatic trigger discipline was any indication. Marie-Ange usually had to remind herself - Muriel Alders needed no such reminder. She went right, glanced over her shoulder to meet eyes and Wanda, and shouldered a swinging door open as the older woman covered her entrance.
Wanda was right behind her, watching her back as Marie-Ange took point, twisting slightly to make sure no one was hiding against the wall. While no one was pressed up against the wall to ambush them, there were plenty of people directly in front of the two women. Caught by surprise, some were freaking out, others running and some looked ready to fight. "Hands where we can see them!" she yelled, raising her voice to be heard over the chaos.
Turning, Felicia covered their entrance and possible retreat, flicking her stance between the door and the stairs up to the second floor. Her back was mostly protected by cement, but there was a definite clench to her jaw, an unwillingness to be this exposed and out of comforting things like shadows, or duct work. This was so much easier with ear pieces, where she could gently cajole and hear everyone else was all right. "I got your backs, babes..." she murmured, knowing they couldn't hear her.
Wendy Lee Tan, aka Jubilee made sure to keep herself close behind Kevin as they moved into the basement but not so close that she interfered with his movement or situational awareness. While she had a gun, and the training to use it, she and the body she was wearing much preferred the Peg Carter school of fighting, beat the shit out of whoever it is with your fists till they stop moving.
A door to Wanda's right slammed against the wall as a young, skinny man came tumbling through. She thought about the gun in her hands, looked at the 'threat', and settled for punching him in the face. Out cold, he went down without a sound but she was already moving past him, both hands back on the gun. The room she entered was smaller and a quick glance confirmed that the only way out was through her or a small window.
"Stop right there!" she shouted, eyes on the one ripping up paperwork - he'd probably started the moment he'd heard something strange. Wanda said over her shoulder, "Three suspects but not the target!"
Oh, how she wished for plastic zip-ties. Marie-Ange directed the suspects - well, the ones who were not lying on the ground knocked out - on their knees with little impatient twitches of her gun. "Floor. Knees. The very fine New York Police will be here shortly to handcuff you and arrest you for something, and I do not want to shoot you in the hands." Well, she did sort of want to, because it would be interesting to see if Muriel had better aim than Marie-Ange but only in an academic sense. "Hands on your heads, please and thank you."
"Down! Down!" Kevin barked as he went through the main room. Most of the women were at tables, folding clothes into boxes or typing up letters from telegraph sheets. The woman in front of him stuck her hand into her shirt, and Kevin shot her in the face virtually point blank. A collective scream went up as the mist of blood splattered them. "On the ground!"
"I don't think so." A heeled shoe connected with the side of Kevin's knee even as a hand pulled the shotgun from his. The blonde they'd spotted earlier emerged from the shadows, whipping the metal barrel back across Kevin's face, breaking his cheekbone and toppling him to the floor. She racked the gun with one hand, ready to give Kevin a taste of what he'd just meted out.
There was none of Jubilee’s normal finesse in this body, it hadn’t had the years of gymnastics training; or the agility training that she still kept up. Still, there was something to be said for brute force and a will to use it.
She barrelled forward, grabbing the barrel of the gun to push it up and away from Kevin as she got in close and nasty. Jubilee’s right hand formed into a fist and followed up with a punch aimed directly at Dottie’s nose, she knew if she let Dottie bring the shotgun into play things would get a lot messier.
While getting the gun in play wasn't an option, she didn't need it. Underwood released her grip on the gun, planting a foot on Jubilee's knee and driving her other one up and into Jubilee's chest. The woman was winded as Dottie braced her hands on her shoulders and went up and over, rotating in a tight spin to wrench Jubilee off her feet sideways and to slam hard into the cement floor. Kevin was already pulling out his pistol as she kicked the loose shotgun back into his face. Taking advantage of the distraction, she bolted for the back of the basement.
Jubilee wheezed softly before rolling over onto her stomach and hefting herself painfully off the floor. Dottie had hit hard, and while in the real world she had the experience and agility to dodge most of what had been thrown at her, here it was another story. The urge to swear was strong, but considering the era it was unlikely to go over well.
She couldn’t see where the other woman had gotten to, which was weird given the size of the basement. She reached a hand down to help Kevin to his feet, wondering if they’d just lost a prime lead. She could hear the others questioning the women left, but none of them appeared to know much beyond what they’d been asked to do. They were definitely spies, there was no doubt about that but if any of them knew of HELIOS, they weren’t revealing it.
Jubilee moved further into the basement, trusting the others to watch her back as she searched for where Dottie had gone, the other woman had been moving at speed so she suspected there was at least one more exit to this place. She found it easily enough once she’d reached the far edge, a water access door that the builders hadn’t thought to include on the blueprints. It was an easy enough oversight, and one she’d experienced herself on other jobs. You always knew to look for the things the blueprints didn’t show, it was just in this case they hadn’t had the time or the resources to do so.
“She’s gone, and there’s nothing here beyond a few low level spies.” Jubilee noted as she headed back to the group. “So what now?”
"Goddamn..." Kevin muttered, looking around. There were a few copies of cables, but other than Underwood's immediate flunkies, there was nothing that seemed to fit whatever HELIOS was. Just a big concrete room in the bottom of a nondescript building. "Alright, get the ladies locked up in a side room. We make a thorough search and then get out."
Something told him that whatever the intentions for HELIOS had been for the Soviets, at the very least his team had stopped them. But what had they stopped? Even as they began their search, he knew that he'd being asking himself this question for a long time.
