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The Company
Time: Friday, July 6, 2012 (midday).
Place: Marseille safe house.
Last Event: Tying off loose ends after whacking Muhammad Asif.
With the latest dirty work for the "Indian" secret service done, the Agents discuss their next move – a decision they would prefer to make before somebody else does. The whole team would like to take a side trip to decompress and let the trail cool. Anabel reminds everyone that Nice is just two hours away, and the others agree that Nice would be a pleasant place to lie low. Before musing can progress to planning, though, there's an unexpected knock at the front door.
Her hand on the pistol in her belt and her associates watching her back, Wen answers the door. To her surprise, the caller is "Yuri," the Russian wheel man whom the group met in Taiwan, working alongside "Chen," "Consuela," and "Dr. Farnsworth." The fact that the visitor is a fellow Agent suggests that the Company has taken a direct interest in the team's situation after letting the British (in the guise of Indian spies) call the shots since May. Nobody relaxes entirely, but Wen invites Yuri in and Anabel asks him what brings him to their door.
Yuri's words and body language – and the Agents' glimpses out the windows – reveal that that the driver has come alone. His job is to extract the group before the British try to pull their strings again, and specifically to chauffeur them to Darmstadt in the truck parked just outside. Vinnie immediately slips out to examine the vehicle. Yuri shrugs and asks the others when they can be ready to travel, to which Qoqa answers that she needs time to clean the safe house first. Yuri is fine with that, as long as Qoqa can offer him a glass of vodka, which of course she can.
Having been in Marseille for only a few days, and with minimal gear, the team has left few traces to wipe out. Qoqa is done in less than two hours, after which it's time to get rolling. Sneaking out in ones and twos, the Agents climb aboard Yuri's truck, which has been cunningly rigged to look like a moving van full of furniture. Concealed behind the junk is a large, clean passenger compartment, complete with air conditioning and a fridge full of snacks. Once everyone is on board, Yuri starts the 10-hour drive to Darmstadt.
An uneventful trip ends with the Agents climbing out of the van in the middle of the night. They instantly recognize their surroundings: Darmatech's loading bay, which they last saw in March 2011, as they were being wheeled aboard a truck whilst concealed in vending machines! Yuri says that he must get going, and drives off. Once the heavy door rolls shut, the place is quiet but for the hum of lights and fans. Strangely, nobody shows up to greet the group.
After side visits to the washrooms (to freshen up) and the cafeteria (to grab food from real vending machines with no people inside), the Agents make their way to Schreiber's office, down in the subbasement. They encounter nobody along the way – no security guards, no janitors, not a soul. Knocking on Schreiber's door elicits no response. Just as the group is turning away, however, Schreiber steps around a half-lit corner and calls them over.
Schreiber explains that the Company wanted the team recovered from British control, so he asked Chen's squad to take care of it. Apparently, they in turn sent Yuri. Meanwhile, Schreiber arranged for the staff here at Darmatech corporate headquarters to be scarce by claiming that the building needed to be clear for "bio-security checks" – a lie to ensure that nobody would witness the Agents' arrival. The fact that Staedert agreed to a plan that would doubtless cost her company money and productivity piques everyone's curiosity. There's more going on here than a simple extraction.
Grilling the habitually tight-lipped Schreiber, the Agents manage to learn that the Company plans to stash the team out of British reach for a while at some Chechen-run "camp" in Ukraine, on the shores of the Black Sea. For whatever reason, the Ukrainians have permitted a Chechen militia train to there, and Schreiber somehow knows the people involved. He explains that it would be a great opportunity for the group to learn military-style escape and evasion while maintaining a low profile. That isn't why Staedert had Schreiber bring everyone to Darmstadt first, though . . .
The truth is that after detailed risk and cost-benefit analyses, courtesy of Dr. Sakata, the Company has concluded that the ideal squad should consist of eight operators. That means the team is two people too large, and Staedert wants to trim their numbers. Since Chen's crew is currently down to six, Staedert sees a golden opportunity to turn an oversized group and an undersized one into two optimally efficient units. Schreiber leaves the Agents at the door to their old quarters in the medical wing with ". . . so make up your minds, and I shall see you in the morning."
Come daylight on Saturday, the Agents are still mulling how to react to Schreiber's news. The greatest redundancy is clearly between Hamid and Jili, who are equally good at all things electronic. To a lesser extent, the team boasts several ex-military shooters, and having all of Klas, Lev, and Wen might be overkill. Except that Klas and Wen work well together as a sniper team, while Lev has a completely different role as the squad's tactical leader. And of course there are emotional attachments, particularly Jili's relationship with Paul and Qoqa's with Lev. This last point leads Hamid to volunteer to leave so that Jili can stay.
When Schreiber reappears later that morning, the Agents inform him that they could operate with nine people but not eight. They explain that while they would be able to do without two electronics experts, cutting anyone else would reduce team effectiveness too much, whatever Sakata's numbers claim. Schreiber understands, having operated in the field himself. However, it's Staedert who needs convincing, not him. Fortunately, she's a businessperson, which means that her quest for efficiency is tempered by an appreciation for negotiation.
Anabel proclaims that she has every intention of negotiating, and inquires as to when she can meet with Staedert. Schreiber says that Staedert will be in for a few hours this afternoon – it's a Saturday, after all. Anabel asks Schreiber to procure some business clothing so that she and a couple of her associates (aware of Staedert's bias toward attractive people, she picks Hamid and Klas) can look professional for the meeting. Schreiber agrees, hinting that he's sympathetic to the Agents' cause, and goes off to see what he can do.
While the team waits, they prepare their arguments for retaining a group of nine. The plan is for Anabel to do the talking, of course. Klas and Lev brief her on the tactical roles of everyone on the team, and why sacrificing two people would be suboptimal. Qoqa tackles the question from a group-dynamics perspective, explaining to Anabel how breaking up certain subunits would damage performance and morale. And Hamid polishes his case for volunteering to step down, hoping to make his value seem so great that his expertise counts double.
Eventually, Schreiber returns with business dress for Anabel, Hamid, and Klas. The three Agents clean up and then head upstairs to their summit with Staedert. Schreiber leaves them at the door of the weirdly clean and white reception area. After a short wait under the watchful eye of the remarkably tall and surgically perfect Ms. Chang, it's time to negotiate with the boss.
The "meeting" proves to be closer to a grilling. Staedert wants to know everything about every member of the team, despite clearly having extensive personnel and mission records on the computer on her desk. The discussion sprawls across topics as diverse as expenses, skill sets, morale, and the logistics of transportation (leading to some perversely detailed questions on fitting Agents of various heights and weights into cars!). Staedert pokes into personal matters, too, asking about the couples in the group while mumbling about research showing that real couples can more successfully pose as such for covert purposes, but also present security concerns.
Across the table, Anabel talks up the value of everyone she wants to keep on the team. She explains each person's role and how various people work well together, and presents Qoqa's analysis of group dynamics. When tactical matters arise, Anabel defers to Klas, who does a surprisingly capable job of relating this side of things without sounding like a military yahoo. And Hamid speaks up in favor of his own departure, revealing that he likes his current teammates but desires the opportunity to work on less-bloody job than the ones they seem to do. When he hears that Chen's squad needs an electronics expert, he makes a big deal out of that as well.
Over the course of the meeting, other Agents – including Qoqa and Wen – find themselves called in to answer questions. Amazingly, given that only Anabel and Hamid have a background in negotiation (and in light of the emotions involved, in some cases), everybody presents her or his case politely and diplomatically. In the end, Staedert agrees that while Sakata's analysis makes sense in theory, it has been made clear to her that in practice, numbers alone don't tell the full story. She's willing to transfer Hamid to Chen's unit and keep Anabel's group at nine. Of course, Staedert attaches a condition.
Staedert explains that since the arguments presented to her hinged heavily on tactical considerations, because Hamid explicitly requested a transfer to less-bloody group, and as the team has a long record of decidedly violent operations, she's authorizing a nine-person squad on the grounds that they're going to receive the dangerous assignments. In her words, "You will need extra people if there is a constant threat of somebody taking a bullet." Anabel winces at this but agrees. Always the negotiator, though, Anabel fires back a request for a further concession.
Anabel explains that greater danger means not only the need for a larger headcount but also superior access to mission-specific hardware – or at least adequate funds with which to acquire it in the field. Anabel points out that inadequate equipment has been a major issue in the past, citing many operations where her people, equipped with nothing better than what could be bought at retail stores, were expected to face well-armed opponents in secure locations. Staedert says that she can easily set up anonymous accounts to enable the group to purchase gear. She'll look into getting specialized kit to Agents in the field, but warns that this is subject to high-level Company decision-making and thus rarely fast.
Striking while the iron is hot, Anabel adds that downtime between assignments is also a serious concern. She points out that dangerous jobs lead to injuries, both physical and psychological, that need time to heal. There's also the matter of "disappearing" after such work, so that the trail goes cold on various police and intelligence services. Qoqa is present for this part, and makes an excellent case in favor of all of these arguments. Staedert listens carefully and then responds with, "Well of course! I shall remind Chaturvedi to take care of such things." With that, the meeting ends.