![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Company
Time: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 (wee hours).
Place: Darmatech HQ, Darmstadt, Hesse.
Last Event: Interrogating the apparent leader of the attack on Darmatech.
With their wounded treated and their captives interrogated, the Agents turn to the larger issue of keeping the night's attack from arousing the suspicions of Darmatech's many non-Company personnel – not to mention the German authorities! The injuries of the guard whom Qoqa saved, the death of his companion, and the messy state of the top three stories of the building are all liable to be challenging to cover up. Fortunately, Staedert has a plan: Darmatech will close off the affected areas of the tower to repair "fire damage." This will buy the Company time to clean up the mess – a feat about which Schreiber seems confident, though he shares few details. Staedert intends stay out of sight for the duration in order to confuse enemies trying to learn whether she survived the assault.
As for the Agents' role in this scheme, Staedert insists that they keep a low profile for a few months rather than strike back at John Talbot Deringer and Emerson Tactical Solutions. After tonight's attack, she believes the situation to be too tricky to tackle without far more information. She wants the group to stay in Darmstadt until summer, if only to help Schreiber shore up security. She also wants them to select two of their number to serve as her bodyguard and her driver; the choice is theirs, but she makes it clear that if the Company wants Darmatech's continued support, it owes her serious personal protection. She can't resist adding that this will reduce the team to the size she recommended back in July 2012, though she softens this by promising lavish training resources for the duration of the crew's Darmstadt stay.
The Agents have little choice but to accept Staedert's offer, whereupon they're left in peace. However, nobody is in a mood for sleeping, despite the recent, frantic action and the late hour. Anabel, Paul, Qoqa, Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang all feel healthy enough to act and too tense to rest, and are itching to know how Deringer's goons pulled off their attack and almost grabbed Staedert. They fan out to examine the scene before Schreiber's cleaning crew arrives.
Vinnie and Paul walk the building perimeter to inspect the entrances. It doesn't take them long to spot a fire exit wedged open, its alarm circuit cut. Paul examines the area closely but finds no clues beyond the suspicious situation itself – whoever did this wasn't subtle about tampering with the door or its electronics, but took great pains to clean away footprints, fingerprints, and so on. In Paul's opinion, the deed was done by somebody on the inside, most likely a person with access to industrial-strength cleaning supplies and ample time to use them.
Meanwhile, Wen and Zhang check the security cameras for bypasses like the one Jili discovered earlier. Between indoor and outdoor installations, the Darmatech campus boasts hundreds of units . . . and the Agents soon find that not one or two of these but a staggering 70 have been tampered with! Wen removes electronic gizmos from cameras pointed at the two staircase entrances on each floor of the main building; from all of the cameras on the top three levels; and from the approach to one of the tower's fire exits. The latter location is where they encounter Paul and Vinnie, establishing beyond any reasonable doubt where and how the enemy got in.
Anabel gets the job of checking Darmatech's HR records for personnel hired since the team tangled with Deringer's faction. As the Darmstadt campus is large and busy, this proves to be quite a few people. However, when Paul, Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang report in and ask her to narrow the search to security and custodial staff with all-floors access on the night shift, the list gets a lot shorter. In fact, only one name meets all the criteria: Martin Wigner, a janitor hired last week and put on the night shift. Though Wigner's references are impeccable, his photo betrays him – Anabel immediately recognizes him as one of the men who was trying to cut through Staedert's office door earlier!
While all this is going on, Qoqa visits the wounded prisoners to do a little first-hand information-gathering. With menace in her gaze and surgical tools in her hands, she asks pointed questions about how the men gained entry to the building. She soon learns that the intruders had an inside man – "the cleaner" – who spent a week tampering with security, and then let the rest of his team in and led them upstairs to their objective. Cross-checking this against what her associates discovered, and then cross-examining other captives, she feels confident that she has extracted the truth. She also gets confirmation that the truck-driving assassins who attacked the Agents were part of the enemy operation; they were intended as a distraction to keep Staedert's "security people" out of the way. She even finds out where they ditched Heinz after stabbing him and hijacking his vehicle.
Qoqa then questions her victims about their background and motivation. She learns that they're former U.S. soldiers – not CIA or ex-CIA – on their first field op for Emerson Tactical Solutions. Pressing for more information, it comes out that they all have serious "issues" that would let an unethical person manipulate them, the foremost among these hooks being financial woes. Further grilling turns up nothing else of importance. It's evident to Qoqa that Deringer brainwashed these men into believing they were doing good, and then told them only what they absolutely needed to know before he spent them to buy an objective.
When the team huddles to share notes, they agree that they should recover Heinz's body before calling it a night. They decide to send Qoqa and Anabel in a van – with Zhang hidden in the rear – rather than risk the unwelcome attention that a large group of beefy men would draw. As Wen's bandaged wounds seem like the sort of thing that might draw unwelcome attention, she elects to stay behind, too.
With that settled, Qoqa drives to the location revealed by her interrogations. On arrival, all three Agents hop out. Zhang soon finds a blood trail leading into an alleyway and ultimately to a body, stashed behind some rubbish. Qoqa moves up to confirm that it's Heinz and deduce the cause of death, only to discover that despite multiple stab wounds, the man is still alive!
Qoqa works frantically to stabilize Heinz while Anabel and Zhang keep watch. Fortunately, all goes well, and before long the squad is on its way back to Darmatech. Qoqa operates on Heinz at once, saving his life and earning the admiration of Schreiber, who seems to regard Heinz as a friend. After that, it's time for everyone to get some sleep.
For the next few weeks, the focus is on recovering from injuries and shoring up security at the Darmatech campus. Jili heals nicely despite her severe injuries, and Klas' arm and Lev's leg likewise knit without complications. Wen's collection of smaller wounds – a mere postscript next to these other problems – are soon history as well. Qoqa oversees all this, ensuring that her allies mend quickly and don't scar significantly. She also takes care of the wounded Darmatech guard and Schreiber's pal Heinz, posing as a private surgeon. Schreiber "takes care of" the wounded prisoners . . .
As for security improvements, the Agents apply their broad expertise to foiling future strikes on Darmatech. On the personnel end, Anabel and Qoqa collaborate on better hiring and security-clearance procedures, which Lev integrates with a superior guard schedule that ensures that sensitive areas are watched more closely and new recruits don't work alone or in sensitive areas. In the realm of physical security, Vinnie consults on better locks, resistant to the tools that Deringer's people brought, while Zhang addresses the matter of roof access – his specialty. Once Jili is feeling up to it, she adds electronic countermeasures to the list, working to make the cameras less susceptible to bypass, and implementing new hardware in support of her allies' recommendations. The team's more eagle-eyed members – Klas, Paul, and Wen – watch for spies and infiltrators, but notice nobody who shouldn't be there.
Once Staedert is satisfied with the new security arrangements, she decides to resume her usual, more public lifestyle. She asks the Agents who they intend to give her as her bodyguard and driver. The decision isn't an easy one, but in the end the conclusion is that there's little point in holding back. Staedert gets the group's toughest, most fit member, Zhang, as her minder and their best driver, Vinnie, as her chauffeur. With that settled, Staedert makes good on her promise to give the remaining seven team members access to whatever training resources they need:
• Anabel hones her B&E skills, taking advantage of Staedert's willingness to pay for any and all locks and tools necessary to the purpose.
• Jili extends her grasp of machines from the electronic to the mechanical, applying her prodigious mental gift for mechanisms to advanced courses in automotive work.
• Klas and Paul spend most of their time cruising the Autobahnen, getting some hours behind the wheel. Paul takes the opportunity to teach Klas the fine art of shadowing other vehicles.
• Lev dedicates his efforts to physical training in Darmatech's wonderful corporate gym facilities.
• Qoqa capitalizes on months of hanging around a corporate HQ by learning how such organizations keep records . . . and exploits access to Darmatech's cutting-edge labs to sharpen her grasp of deadly poisons.
• Wen uses Darmatech HQ as a giant jungle-gym, learning new ways to climb around and break into buildings.
Fortunately, Vinnie's new job leaves days open, so he's able to pass along much of his expertise to Anabel, Jili, Klas, and Paul. Similarly, Zhang has enough downtime to train with Lev and Wen. Come the start of the third quarter, though, it's time for everyone to get back to work.