xp_logs | Nathan, Alison, Thursday evening

Nathan and Alison are going to Belgium to find Foley. Belgium probably needs to be very, very afraid.

He didn't mind charter planes nearly as much as commercial flights. But given where they were headed, what they were planning to do, and what had happened in the last twenty-four hours already, Nathan thought he could be forgiven for still being a little on the restless side. Instead of relaxing on one of the couches, he paced back and forth, ignoring the mild turbulence as he tried to think through all the various permutations of the situation he and Alison were about to plunge themselves into.

Alison, on the other hand, was pretty much draped over a couch, staring out one of the windows idly now and then. "You're pacing," she remarked helpfully, stopping the window gazing to look at him for a moment. "Tell me what's coming up instead?" He'd still pace, but at least maybe he'd stop frowning so much his eyebrows might stick together.

Nathan stopped, eyeing her for a moment. "We land in Brussels," he said, then started to pace again. "I've got a safehouse there. I grab my gear, we pick transportation, and then we head to Tournai as quickly as possible to see if we can find Foley before the retrieval team does."

Oh boy. "Define gear. Define transportation." She knew why he'd asked her to go. She was the best suited person to face Foley, considering their respective powers. She didn't move, watching him pace patiently.

"For you? Non X-Men body armor... you should fit some of Mina's, the two of you are about the same size. For me, the same, plus weaponry." He sat down finally, on the couch opposite hers. The pacing hadn't been doing much to get rid of the nervous energy that had been driving him since he'd gotten MacInnis' phone call anyway. "As for transportation, just something out of the safehouse garage. Not sure whether I should go for speed or durability. I know there's at least one armored SUV in there..."

"Armor is good." She didn't ask if she could move properly in it - Nathan knew what he was doing in this particular matter far more than she did. "Comms?" She twitched slightly at the thought of an armored SUV. Oooh, she wanted to drive that. She called herself back to attention however - now was not the time to be even the slightest bit silly.

Nathan nodded. "Can't rely on my telepathy," he said brusquely. "If there are psis with the retrieval team they could overhear." He leaned back into the cushions, his fingers tapping out a restless rhythm on the arm of the couch. "We need to call the Pack from the safehouse, too. See who's available for backup if we need it."

That was what she'd thought. "Isn't it short notice to call them in though?" She was fairly sure they'd move earth and heaven to come over and help anyway, but still - they were talking a matter of hours, with this.

"Ninety minutes flying time from Berlin, remember. And we're used to scrambling when we have to," Nathan said, unconsciously using the plural. He was already sliding back into that old familiar mindset. That should probably bother him - shouldn't it? - but it didn't.

She nodded slowly, noting the changes - they were hard to miss really. "Walk me through the set-up," she finally said, shifting from her sprawled position to set her feet down from the couch, facing him.

"He used one of the old exit strategies," Nathan explained, mentally running over the information MacInnis had given him. "A particular false identity, supply caches at various points along the route. Tournai's the next stop on the route if he's using the specified sort of transportation. He'll need to hit the safehouse there."

Alison nodded while listening, going over what he said during the pause that ensued. "Wait. That's an old Mistra exit strategy."

Nathan surprised himself by smiling. A bit sheepishly, even. "No, it's actually not..."

She stared at him blankly for a moment, then grinned tightly, shaking her head. "Oooh. I see." Shaking her head Alison gave him a wry look, weaving a bit as the plane hit a light turbulence. "What else should I know before we go in there, Nathan?"

He rubbed at the back of his neck. "This is... well, it's along the same lines as the codewords MacInnis used to identify himself to me back in May," he explained. "When I was made field commander, I wanted... a separate safety net. Just in case." And no one had ever told him not to do it, so he hadn't been going against orders.

"Makes sense," Alison replied, pushing back to sit cross-legged on the seat. The turbulence ended, the plane resuming its smooth course. "Nathan? What if the extraction team gets to him first? What then?"

"We have to hope they don't," Nathan said, profoundly dissatisfied by the answer. "I'm at a loss, if we don't find him at the safehouse or in the vicinity. We'd have to get back in touch with MacInnis and see if he can find out where they take him, in that case. None of the 'official' European facilities would be in the places I remember them."

"We can't afford to hope that." Alison sighed, looking down as she thought things over. "Don't think Foley would be caught easily, for one. They'd probably leave some sort of trail behind them if they get to him first, too. And not have time to clean that up, since we're already on the way." She considered that for a moment longer.

Nathan leaned back, not answering that for a moment. "Clues?" he finally said, more sardonically than he should have, and then bit his lip, giving Alison an apologetic look. "I'm sorry."

"Nathan, if they'd come after you when your conditioning was cracked, d'you think they'd have managed to get you under without any fuss at all? Foley is a sound manipulator. If he's taken, I'm willing to bet we'll know from the great big gouges at the capture site." She ignored the tone of his voice easily. "We already know Mistra teams aren't perfect, don't we?" she pointed out, softly.

"I don't think they'd take him easily," Nathan said, his voice very low. "Especially not if his conditioning's just broken. But whether they leave anything at the scene that can actually lead us to him, if they do take him, is another matter entirely."

"Mmm. If he's following one of the old plans you set up, who says they'll be the ones to leave us a clue?" Not that Foley knew they were coming, but she knew she would still try in his place, even if there wasn't the slightest hope for help. "We have to anticipate either one. How wide is your scanning range? I'm betting any Mistra facility would radiate its own flavor of pain." The words were neutral, as was her expression.

Nathan stared at her for a long moment, then smiled again, a bit oddly. "You're a strategist," he said.

He hadn't just said what she thought he'd said, had he? Wait. No, he had. She stared at him blankly for a moment, mouth open to protest and not a whole lot coming out other than an inarticulate squawk. "It just makes sense," she finally said.

"It does, but it's not the way I think," Nathan pointed out. "I improvise. I adapt to rapidly changing conditions on the ground. You, on the other hand, want to have your options all mapped out before you head into the situation in the first place. Which makes you a strategist."

"Nathan, I'm the original don't plan ahead girl." She stopped at that though, and looked a bit sheepish. "Well, I used to be. The rock star thing means you have to know where you want to go. And hey. Scott was the one to train me when I got here." I've got scenarioitis, great. He is contagious. "I guess I just picked up a few things along the way. And you can't plan for everything. Still have to be adaptable as well or else you'll work yourself into a blind."

"You need a balance of the two," Nathan said with a nod. "That's why GW and I work so well together; he plans ahead like an obsessive-compulsive, I fly by the seat of my pants very well."

"Well, I don't think I'm obsessive-compulsive," she murmured, "...much. Just makes sense to prepare for more than just one eventuality, is all." Alison shrugged a bit, then frowned. "And I can't help but think the odds are a lot higher that Mistra will catch up with Foley before we do. They want to keep their first gens bad. And they've done this before."

"He's their current second-in-command in the field," Nathan murmured. "Or was... Morgan's lieutenant. They won't be letting him go easily, no."

"And he won't be going back easily. Not one bit," Alison replied serenely, giving Nathan a faint smile. "Course, they might not expect us to drop by for a visit and lay dibs on him like that. Mighty rude of us, that."

Nathan gazed back at her for a moment, and then shifted, stretching out on the couch. "I feel like I haven't stopped to breathe since Tuesday," he said, his voice very low. "Maybe part of my problem with planning ahead is that I'm afraid to think too closely about what we'll be facing." The memory of the bodybags he'd loaded into the helicopter last night tore at him, and he swallowed, keeping his expression composed. He had to keep focused. For Mick.

"So let me do the planning on this one, that's all." Which was, in a way, what she'd been doing just now and even though it felt weird to be doing so, someone had to. "I've got some distance you don't have and I can be annoying about the details as much as I want for both of us." And she didn't have the intrinsic fear of Mistra which inhabited Nathan at a very basic level.

"Going to be GW for me? You're much prettier than he is." Nathan groaned suddenly, covering his face with his hands. "Fuck, I'm punchy."

"Yes, I am much prettier," she answered with much dignity, before leaning over to extract a slim black case from the small packsack she'd brought along. "And you can have a nap while I do the whole planning thing, why not?" Alison grinned a bit at his curious expression. "I downloaded a few things from the mainframe to this before we left. Might help us out."

"The mainframe is scary," Nathan said, eyeing her. "Charles knows too much. I know people who would sell their firstborn for fifteen minutes alone with our databases."

"These people would probably want to do very naughty things to this too," Alison answered serenely, flipping the lid open. "Bad mental images, I know." She gave him a stern look, waggling her fingers at him. "Sleep. I plan. Then we get Foley back."