Field Mission HQ, Glasgow, Scotland, 07:35

For the past two days, Glasgow had been swallowed in a rainy deluge. It poured in sheets against the windows of the Four Clovers Hotel, where the very highest floors existed in a realm crafted from fog and frost.

On the highest floor of all, the twenty-third, Marty, Don, and Avery were in their own private world: only themselves, a gleaming glass-top table that spanned half the conference room, and a projector. Avery paced, hands clasped behind his back, as he waited for the dinosaur device to whirr to attention.

He walked a lion’s walk, each step a slow prowl; ice-shard eyes raked his surroundings, framed in straw-blonde sideburns. Avery was not of particularly impressive stature, average at most, but it was his gait -- and his gaze -- that commanded obedience. His face was carved, as though from granite, for marble was too delicate a descriptor; where most men still had hints of softness in their cheeks and their lips, Avery’s features cut firm lines. Darkness lurked behind an exterior that he controlled to the letter. Professionalism rendered cold. Grace rendered lethal. His voice, in Marty’s opinion, was the only thing that saved him.

Avery turned on his heel, facing his juniors, as the projector awoke.

Don jumped awake as well when Marty drove her elbow into his side.

“Your Manchester mission was a shining success,” Avery said, wasting not a second. “Now, we’ve gotten word of new developments. You are needed in --”

“London?”

Avery stared at him, the look hard as rock. “Ballycastle.”

“Northern Ireland again?” Though it sounded at first like a complaint, Marty heard the relief in her own words.

Avery fixed that piercing stare on her, and he paused. “Yes, again. The Ulster branch is overworked and there’s a brownie colony growing in the Dark Hedges.”

Don raised his hand, did not wait to be called, and inquired, “What’s got them so overworked?”

“None of your concern, Agent Wheeler.”

Marty, risking admonishment, smirked in Don’s direction.

“Agent O’Flannigan.”

She winced, dutifully looking to the map of Northern Ireland’s county Antrim spread across the whiteboard. The town of Ballycastle was marked with a black x on the far northeastern shore; a red line spanned from there to another x -- the Dark Hedges. Marty thought, of all things, how freezing it would be up north, then with a flicker of spiteful glee, how Don would hate that even more than she did.

“What’s the mission objective?” she asked, hoping she did not sound too eager.

“You’ll arrive less than an hour before nightfall. Still plenty for their team to brief you. After dark, it’s a simple bait and eliminate setup. No heroics. That goes for both of you.”

“Kill, don’t capture?” Don followed the line, fingertips tapping the table.

“Kill, don’t capture,” Avery repeated. “We’re not transporting hordes of brownies over the Irish Sea.”

“Understandable,” she said. “How and when are we getting there?”

“You depart in forty minutes. Your train ride from here to Ayr is one hour. There, you’ll board another, and that will take you from Ayr to Ballycastle in just over eight hours. The tickets were sent to your non-classified email accounts.”

Inwardly, Marty heaved a beleaguered sigh. Eight hours? She supposed that she should have adjusted to travel times by now, and had heard that each mission was easier than the last, but that long in a small space with Don was always miserable.

Aloud, she replied, “Thank you, sir. Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

There was no need for Avery to tell them they were dismissed. Marty slung her backpack on, letting it hang loose, and Don was right behind her as they emerged into the fog-darkened, crimson-carpeted hallway.

Side by side, they approached and entered the lift at the end, passing under bronze doorways that reflected back warps of their faces, cast in shades of yellow. She pressed 4 for herself and 3 for Don, and as the lift began its descent, she rested against the wall.

The silence between them was palpable. She bounced her foot, feeling Don’s eyes on her and forcing herself not to shudder from the chill of the metal surface on which she leaned.

He spoke first, a hush in his tone, a tension. “Was Avery acting funny?”

“What makes you say that?” Despite herself, she knew exactly what he meant: Avery’s hesitation at Don’s question. His watching them, searching their expressions.

“Why was he mad when I asked him about London?”

“Maybe he was just annoyed that you’d got off-topic.”

Marty also knew what she herself was trying to do: rationalize. Deflect.

“I dunno. Kinda felt like... I’d gotten a tad too close to something.”

“Don, I doubt it. Keep pushing him like that, and he’s going to push back.”

Shaking his head, her partner hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and started to whistle. It was a better sound than wild speculation, and as such, Marty let it fade into the background of consciousness. She began a mental list of what she would need: nails, salt, weapons. Ivy leaves. Socks, scrunchies. St. John’s wort. Toothpaste. A good, thick book for the ride.

She brushed past Don the moment the lift doors opened. On swift footsteps, she marched to her room, where she slid her suitcase from beneath the left bed. From under the right, Marty pulled a grey hardshell case, just past the length of her arm, all scuffed surfaces and padlocks and weight. It wasn’t a painful weight, but a solid one, and she placed it aside with ease and care. She spent the next twenty minutes in a blur, stuffing her backpack full of supplies and spare clothes -- what she was wearing now would undoubtedly end up covered in dirt and blood. And bog sludge, if they had to go traipsing through the bog, which she didn’t doubt.

They regrouped in the parking lot, the expanse of which was as near to empty as the agents could hope. Don’s rain coat was zipped up to his chin, an American flag patch sewn to each sleeve. He held his own hardshell case, more scratched and much heftier than hers, and shouldered a bulging backpack without so much as slouching.

Along the way, Marty made a stop at the closest convenience store for coffee and breakfast sandwiches of questionable freshness. Don stood guard outside, where he pretended to slouch and yawn, while in reality, he stayed to ensure that they were not being followed. Marty eyed him through the window as she paid. She took a cursory glance about the store, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and returned to the mist-laden morning air. Don grabbed his sandwich and coffee as she slurped hers -- lukewarm, unsurprisingly. They finished their meal in a rush as they cut through the early beginnings of a crowd toward the station entrance, into which they vanished as though they’d never been there at all.

❦❦❦

Behind drawn blinds and closed doors, Avery sat at his desk, phone in hand. He leaned on one elbow, which pressed against the wood and did not improve his mood. Taking a breath of preparation -- all of this was necessary, whether he liked it or not -- he dialed the number and called.

It rang only once. Despite a thin veneer of static trapping the other person’s voice, he could hear their accent clearly: fast-paced, lilting.

“Does the Scottish branch have a lead?”

“I believe so. It’s not yet clear.”

His contact snapped at him, fire in their voice. “Then make it clear.”

“I’m sorry. We’re still working on it --”

“We?”

“My branch. But my best juniors are in Northern --”

“We don’t want juniors. We want full agents.”

“I’m sorry. We’ll ask the English branch for help.”

“You can’t rely on the English branch forever.” There came an acidic addition: “They aren’t your people anymore, Avery.”

Avery put his free hand to his forehead and rubbed, struggling to will away his frustration. Everything he said was a losing battle.

“I know,” he conceded. “But they might be our second best option.”

“Second best? Who takes first place?”

His chair squeaked when he twisted to face the window, and he rolled the blinds up. The city was a painted skyscape, cloud and concrete and steel and mountains.

“You.”

Avery’s contact went quiet.

At what they said next, his heart began to thud, a drumbeat of sudden and wild adrenaline, roaring through his veins, feeding the energy that the office so terribly stifled.

“Four.”

He whispered, reverent as he sealed a secret deal, “Four.”