Camila was somewhere in the middle of a Central African jungle when she found out Helen Fader had been murdered. She was sitting on a metal chair on the roof of an army outpost with an FN P90 strapped to her chest idly checking the inbox on her tablet when the email popped up.
It was written simply and didn't raise any red flags at first glance.
Helen Fader was found dead in
a dumpster two blocks from
your last assignment zone
Cause of death was gsw to the
chest. Additional bruises,
fractures and
restraint marks were found No external DNA was found on
the body.
The email was short and meant as nothing more than a heads up. It was assumed that Camila had made the kill as some sort of casualty of war action and the agency would cover her ass. The whole greater good and such. But there was the problem. She hadn't killed the woman.
When she had left the woman, she had been a bit shaken preherps in danger of a stroke maybe but definitely alive. Someone else had gone in shortly after she left, someone who had missed her by a hairs breath. This person had recaptured Miss Fader and taken her captive and then killed her. All before the police had been able to breach the scene.
Camila did not like this.
A shot rung out somewhere to the right of the shed reminding her there was an intense firefight raging barely 20 kilometres (metric system rules bitches 🤘) east of her position which she was supposed to be keeping a lazy eye on with her tablet controlled UAV.
She switched back to the video screen but now she was distracted and there was no getting around it.
"you okay there boss?... That last shell nearly took out the drone." One of her teammates and frequent drinking buddy, Tyrone yelled as he ducked through the trapdoor and lifted himself onto the roof. His long braided hair ,which would have raised eyes back stateside but was perfect for ops here, hung loosely to his waist tied in a multi -coloured bandanna.
Camila stood up and pushed the tablet into his hand "No I'm not. Take over. Radio me if you see any alpha target " He nodded understanding that she would tell him whatever it was when she felt he needed to know and no sooner . She jumped through the door ignoring the rungs and landing lightly on her hunches. The compartments that served as home to her unit were built shrewdly to conserve space, maximize ventilation and prevent heat as much as possible. Interior decoration wasn't a top concern in construction. As team leader her bunker was the largest and first in the narrow hallway. It reminded her a lot of the cramped living space she resided in during military school
She shrugged off the red beret on her head and shook her mane of brown, non-regulation length hair out of the rubber band that restricted it. She considered removing her combat boots as well but decided she didn't need to get comfortable to do what she was about to. She reached beneath her bunk and retrieved her personal laptop.
She placed it on the only desk in the room and switched it on. As it loaded her mind performed high pressure mental shelf cleaning.
Had she been followed? She had been sloppy and a bit lazy with the whole red dragon affair but not enough to not notice a tail.
Maybe Dimitri had an extension security team she hadn't spotted.
No, that didn't make sense because they would most definitely have been outside at the time of the shooting and either shot back at her or had enough time to intercept her.
The person who killed Helen had been there but wasn't expecting Camila. Someone highly trained enough to make it to the nest before the cops or anyone else and skillfully retrieve an entire person in full view of an open crime scene.
Camila really didn't like this.
She signed into the Wi-Fi and lodged a secure video call. It was answered almost immediately as if the recipient had been expecting the call.
"you idiot!!" the dark-skinned girl on the screen whisper yelled as her face came into view. Camila raised an eyebrow inquisitively
"I know I haven't checked in with you Mani but I'm in an active war zone and.... "
"Shut up!!! Of all the psychotic bitches you could get yourself involved with, you picked Lauren freaking Jauregui! ..... What is wrong with you Mila. Do you have a death wish? Did you hit your head a little too many times in training?.... I don't know why I even bother, I'm talking to a dead woman anyway.... "
Camila was both genuinely shocked and hurt because she had not been expecting this berrating from her best friend.
"I have no clue who the hell that is or why you think I did anything to her. "
Normani only seemed to get even more fired up
"the bullets recovered from Helen Fader were carved and match her usual ballistic MO. "
Camila congratulated herself on actually getting some information of use from her clearly insane friend.
"Lauren Jauregui you say. Well I'll need a docier and location predictions on.... " Normani interrupted her quickly with a scowl.
"you're not listening to me. Lauren Jauregui is an untouchable like literally ,the boss will kill us. She's a theta target. " it was Camilas turn to scowl. "well then we have a problem because this woman is a possible witness to my mission even though I cannot for the life of me figure out where she was when....... "
Camila paused as it hit her like a ton of bricks. "Mani send me a description of the suspect right now. " Normani turned her attention to another screen "done... But honestly Mila, please tell me you haven't gotten your Cuban ass into some trouble. "
Camila didn't respond. She was too busy glaring angrily at the picture of one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. The picture was taken with what seemed like a Nokia phone so the quality wasn't great and dark toussled tresses obstructed part of her view but it was enough. There was no doubt that the disappearing target from Dimitris room was the same one in the picture.
"Normani, send me everything you have on this woman and figure out what reason she had to meet with Dimitri Orlov.... Oh and her current location would be peachy. " Normani opened her mouth to say something but Camila had already disconnected the call.
She logged into the agency's data base and typed in Lauren Jauregui. She might have asked Mani to do the deep intel gathering but it didn't mean she couldn't do her own digging.
.......................................................................
Lauren groaned audibly for the third time in two minutes as she tried in vain to get Zayns attention. They were docked in some less than savory port off the coast of Socotra where she could swear the sun had decided to make it's permanent bed. The load of AK-47s in their possession was originally intended for an African warlord of some sort but after Zayn had run logistics, he deemed the sale too much of a hot-spot at the moment and would rather avoid anymore attention than they needed to.
Which braught them to today. Compulsory sunbathing off the coast of Yemen trying to convince a tribal chief that when they said they wanted cash for their merchandise, they didn't mean gold or human slaves or any of the assortment of things the entourage had braught to pay with.
It wasn't like Lauren stuck so strictly to the cash rule that there was no room for anything else.
Diamonds were easy to move, easy to sell and half the time worth a lot more than what was being baught ✔️
Same story with cocaine provided it was cut with ethanol ✔️
Gold was heavy. Fencing it was a lot more complicated than you would think and tracing it was too easy ❌
People were people. And people will always be problematic no matter what part they played. The logistics of dabbling in human trafficking ,without even adding her strong morals on the subject, were enough to give her a headache if she thought about it for too long ❌
Emeralds were a 50/50 type shot. Easy to sell and profitable but super hard to authenticate and honestly , Lauren hated every emerald dealer she knew ✔️❌
Her Pashto was slightly off the fluent mark but she could swear she heard Zayn call someone a pigs ass. His long dark hair curled waywardly round his head as he moved his fingers erratically yelling at the leader of the small armed group.
Luka materialised next to her seemingly out of nowhere in his usual ninja like creep.
" do you think we should take the gold? It doesn't seem like they braught anything else. " he ran his ringed fingers through his own short dark locks as his eyes followed Zayns movements.
Lauren shrugged " I'd rather just kill the whole lot of them and leave everything for Tubal to find here.... So next time I tell him, it's cash only the memory of blood stained gold jumps into his head."
Luka didn't flinch, his baby blue eyes still studied Zayn closely.
" I know you've been under a little stress lately Laur but you're starting to get a little too Carrie meets doomsday up there if you know what I mean. "
He leaned forward as he said this causing his shirt to ride up his muscled frame revealing the sheathed ko-bar at his side. There was an amused twinkle in his baby blue eyes she knew was just to mess with her so she played along.
"you've been watching too many American films. I liked you better when you didn't know who Ryan Gosling was. "
Luka chuckled and punched her playfully. " you like what you like, I like what I like... but you're changing the subject. "
Lauren shrugged dismissively. She knew she was charging the subject but she really didn't need Luka realizing the extent to which the Orlov incident had been affecting her.
She was pissed.
Most people got angry and they yelled at someone, got into a fist fight... Maybe even thrashed a room and left glass shards in really uncomfortable places.
Lauren Jauregui wasn't most people.
Her rage was the stuff of legends. The type of psychotic fuel that made men drag armies across seas, besiege cities, burn villages to their foundation.
It was a red flaming monster that usually slept soundly in the recesses of her iron clad mind, bound by years of physical training and mental self discipline. A rage that she never let out unless absolutely necessary.
Because like it's kin, it would not rest until it had bathed in the blood of its wakers and danced gleefully to their moans of agony.
Lauren was mad.
She knew someone had tried to kill her. Someone had wanted her in that room next to a man with a target on his head. Someone had known she would be intrigued enough by the irregularity of Dimitris request and checked it out personally and with no back up.
Someone who knew her very well had tried to kill her.
And that person had very nearly succeeded.
Mostly she was mad at herself. She had gotten too complacent. Allowed for far too many people than was necessary into her inner circle. In hindsight her therapist was more to blame since he had convinced her that her need to prepare for every possible probable event was simply acute paranoia and some sort of residual childhood trauma.
She mentally bookmarked setting his office on fire preferably with him inside.
Fuck therapy and fuck everyone else. It was time to go back to number one. She reached her right hand behind her jacket, gripping the firm handle of the silenced double barrel AF2011 she knew was tucked into her belt.
For now, she would focus on teaching a wannabe terror lord a lesson but next would have to be tracking down the person who wanted her dead. At the moment, she had only one lead whose docier was so heavily redacted, she was almost impressed.
Almost.
It would take a lot more than black ops seals and red lines to scare her off. Whoever Camila Cabello really was, she better pray to God Lauren would find her in a good mood.
That was fun. Lauren and Camila will meet soon enough. Trying to build it up a little and give some backstory.