The Phoenix Ghost

SNAFU

When Dad had first approached her about the Estonia drug ring assignment, the end of January, he'd been ecstatic that he'd managed to convince the Blackbourne's to take the two year assignment especially as he'd tried twice before that and Owen had declined the offer because of her father's contingency that their bird could not come with them. I'd asked Dad at the time why they would've agreed on the third approach, given that his contingency was still in place, but he hadn't cared enough at the time to dig for the answer to my question. It had been victory enough to part the dogs from the bird. He had even bragged that it was his suggestion to Owen to use the excuse they all wanted their own wife in his farewell letter to Sang so she would be 'emotionally deterred from looking for them'. Those were his actual words. I might've felt bad for Sang Sorensen but I had my own secrets to hide and playing along with my father's views meant I got to keep the only family I have left so call it selfish but my needs were my priority.

These weren't the only thoughts keeping Amanda up at night either. She'd known as soon as she'd seen Owen Blackbourne's face when he'd arrived in Estonia to find the Andrews team of birds on the assignment with them, that he suspected her father was playing his team in some way. Her instincts had been screaming at her since then that Owen and his team were on to her father's scheme and they suspected her team were involved in something besides the known assignment, but it hadn't mattered to the Blackbourne team because they had their own agenda. That's what worried Amanda. Could her team become collateral damage in whatever had truly motivated the Blackbourne team to leave their bird and take a two year gig in Estonia?  She really wished she'd pushed her father more to find out what had been the catalyst to change the Blackbourne dogs' minds about their bird. She couldn't help but feel it was vital both to understanding what motivated them as well as sensing an opportunity to work with them on their objective to gain some leverage over them.

Her techie bird, Erin had informed the team that the same day I'd first made first contact with dad that Victor had amped up his security on all the Blackbourne team's electronics and personal sites. Which was pointless from her birds' perspective since Erin hadn't figured out how to breach his original security defences.

The Andrews team of birds were currently on surveillance duty. Amanda had been pacing at her station thinking over the events of the past five or six months when Erin came through the door with a distressed look on her face. Without words, she held up the necklace Victor had given her, identical to the ones we'd all received from our Blackbourne 'boyfriends', which was broken and dangling from her finger tips. The necklaces all have chrysanthemum shaped pendants that were about a quarter of an inch thick front to back on the chain. With the necklace broken it was now visible that there was a bugging device concealed in the flower's head,

'So they know we were at the hotel the day before yesterday,' I sighed at Erin in resignation. She nodded her head grimly, no need to go into detail about what we'd done there. Victor was clever enough that the Blackbourne's had video and audio of what went down. Amanda covered her face with both hands in tired resignation before gathering herself together to deal with confirmation the Blackbourne dogs knew enough of the truth to be after proof,

'Call the rest of the girls together.' The others were stationed elsewhere to provide complete coverage for the surveillance purposes of our assignment,

'We need to decide how we're going to put our cards on the table with the Blackbourne dogs and get them to make the best of being stuck in each other's company for this assignment,' Not that I'd tell them all I know but definitely all my team knows. I will have to disclose that dad was sacked from the BoD and that I'd spoken to him. My gut tells me they know some of this anyway since the timing of Victor increasing his security measures could not be a coincidence so it isn't really betraying my father when they already know. This is damage control, pure and simple.