G.I.Z.M.O. (COMPLETED)

Chapter XXII

August 17th, 2013 Hotel de Richmond, Richmond, Virginia.

    "I cannot believe we have a mission already! I thought I had three more weeks of..."

"So, are you telling me you're not ready to get to work, Agent Biltmore?" Aaron asked.

"No, I'm not saying that, sir, but this is some serious shit!" Biltmore exclaimed, his voice echoing throughout the lavish conference room seated in the heart of the Hotel de Richmond. "I just don't know if we're ready."

    Aaron cocked his jaw and sighed. He folded his arms and looked down at the new agent with a raised eyebrow. "School's over, Biltmore. It's time to get dirty," the CHR chief said and then glanced over at Cole; a man seated just two chairs away from Chris. With a hand to each side of his head and elbows on the wooden surface of the hotel conference room's long, shiny table, he sat intently reading over the mission brief spread out in front of him as if his life depended on it. "What about you, Agent Hitchens?"

    "Sir? What about me?" Cole asked, lifting his head from his hands in confusion, apparently interrupted from some thought. He inadvertently let his hands slap the table as he brought them down.

    "What do you think about the mission?"

    "Oh, I have no issue with it, other than the fact there ain't a more senior field agent with some related experience on our team," Cole replied and tapped the documents spread out before him. "I think it might make things too risky with only me and Agent Biltmore."

    "Thank you!" Biltmore exclaimed. He looked over at his new boss. "Please, tell me it's not just us, sir?"

    "Cool your jets, boys. We're waiting on a couple more people," Aaron replied, rolling his fingers on his shirtsleeve. He glanced at the gold Timex watch on his wrist. "They should be here any minute, now."

    As if on cue, the door burst open. A tall, beefy man in his late fifties wearing a leather biker's jacket, a gray beard, and matching long hair tied in a ponytail, stepped inside followed by the stench of a cigar. A billowy cloud quickly filled the room like a smoke grenade.

    "There goes the no smoking deposit," Biltmore said.

    Cole laughed and looked up at the bearded man. "How's it going, Santa? You here with my Harley Davidson?"

Smoke escaped from between the older man's lips as he opened them to speak. "Hah, you jokers are as funny as hemorrhoids," he retorted in a deep growl, the cigar still clenched in his teeth.

    Aaron coughed, shook the large man's hand, and then pointed at the two new agents. "Hitchens and Biltmore, this is Agent Nicholas Carol."

    "Just call me Saint Nick, greenies," the man said. "It's the code name the elves at Langley gave me."

    Chris and Cole looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

    "Dammit, I like you already," Cole exclaimed. He stood up and extended a hand over the table for the man to take it.

    Biltmore also rose from his seat and repeated the gesture, waving off a puff of the smoke that billowed from Nick's cigar.

    "Agent Carol has been with Special Activities for over two decades. He has the connections and resources in the Middle East we desperately need to complete our mission."

    "I smell Saint Nick beat me here!" said a voice from behind the big man.

    "Mike!" Cole exclaimed at the appearance of a stocky man in a dark blue suit with short, dark hair as he entered the room. "What the hell, brother? Twice in one day?"