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| Scene Title | Confidence |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Shortly after their argument with her, Cat and Elisabeth track down Sarisa and have her listen in on a conversation with Kazimir in Argentina. |
| Date | December 28, 2009 |
Down the corridors and up stairs they've walked, to Sarisa's office they've gone. Cat steps up to the door and knocks once, then she waits for an answer. None comes. "It helps," she murmurs under her breath, to be in after saying you want to be present for this, Agent." Her head shakes briefly. "Did she think I was going to wait until tomorrow?"
A quiet and empty nearby place is looked for in which to handle this business.
"Hang on," Elisabeth says quietly, tugging Cat down the hall. "Better that we not make more waves today — she's already peeved enough." And then she pokes her head into the next office over with a small grin at the petty officer on duty in the JAG office. "Excuse me. I'm trying to locate Agent Kershner, do you have a way to locate her on board or have her paged to return to her office? It's important."
It's amusing how often PO Clarke finds himself in proximity to Liz when he's doing the most embarrassing of things. Halfway through picking one ear with one of his keys, Clarke frantically drops the keys down into his lap and angles his eyes up towards Liz. "Hhh— Harrison," he chokes out with a grimace, sliding the keys across the table he was seated at a few inches. "Hh— yeah sure." He clears his throat with an awkward smile hiding it, reaching out for a cord phone on the desk, picking up the receiver just to hold to his mouth and presses one of the circuit numbers on the side.
"She's dow at the firing range," Petty Officer Clarke notes with a quirk of his head, "This should get her." Holding down the button he speaks into the receiver, holding it like a microphone.
» Agent Kershner, Agent Kershner. «
The sound echoes over the ship's intercom system.
» Please report to your office, Officer Harrison and Doctor Chesterfield request you. «
There's a little whine of the speakers as he puts the receiver down with a click, angling his head to look up towards the pair with a lopsided smile, one hand brushing over the top of his head. "Is, ah… there anything else I can get you ladies?" Both of Clarke's brows go up hopefully, and somewhere in the back of his mind full-body massage is hilighted in neon at the top of his list.
A man can dream.
"Thank you, Legalman Clarke," Cat replies. She's versed herself in what the various badges and insignia on uniforms mean, and caught on quickly to the Navy's custom of often using job titles as ranks and terms of address. "I'm good for now," she adds, "but later it'd be good to look over some of the books with shipboard regulations and policies just to make sure we know what they are and don't break the Captain's rules."
With a wink and a grin the young petty officer, who seriously isn't much more than a baby — she's not even sure he's old enough to drink! — Liz replies, "Thanks a bunch, Ian. Have a great one!" And then she tugs Cat back out the door to go wait at Kershner's office, keeping the two of them enclosed in a silence field. "That poor guy," she laughs. "He forever turns red when I come in the door." She leans on the wall and awaits the arrival of the agent.
"He does?" Cat asks with a chuckle. "Not many of us on board. These folks go out for six months at a time, that would explain it." She too places her back against the solid surface and waits the Agent's presence. Hopefully Sarisa left her gun out on the range, Cat muses to herself, while pondering visiting that place herself sometime.
"Think we're gonna be in deep shit when she realizes that you're entirely cirucmventing the SatCom relays on her own SatCom phone?" Elisabeth asks with a grin as they wait. She nudges Cat when she hears the agent coming from down the hall. "Guess we'll know in a minute." She looks …. somewhat more amused at this moment than might be prudent, handing Charlie Team's SatCom to Cat.
It's a few minutes more before the silent approach of Agent Kershner is noticed, her low-heeled shoes normal click on the floor muted by Elisabeth's sound-dampening aura she's protected herself and Catherine with. Buttoning up her suit jacket to conceal her under-arm holster, Sarisa is making fast and somewhat annoyed procession towards her office, that heel-stomping and fast-walking pace a mother has when they're storming down the hall to pick up their misbehaving children from school.
Once she sets foot into that globe of silence, she jerks a step off and works her jaw open and closed, as if she just entered an area of different air pressure. One hand goes up to her ear, fingers tugging at her lobe, but then blue eyes quickly flick up to Elisabeth. "Could you not do that on this ship? It's wonderful that you've registered that ability but it's rather like whispering in public." She doesn't really care, she's just in an exceptionally bad mood.
"Why exactly are you outside of my office?" Blue eyes dart back and forth between Elisabeth and Cat, settling on the latter as she adds, "I somehow assume this is your idea?" Yeah, she's still a little sore.
"I asked if you wanted to be present when I made contact," Cat begins calmly, "and here we are. Given the matters at hand, the mission, I hadn't intended to delay. Would you prefer we did?" There's no edge to her voice, it's an honestly asked question of the Agent's preference in the matter. The SatCom is in her hands, ready to be used.
Elisabeth very carefully hides her smirk behind what looks to be a very sincerely apologetic expression. "Sorry." She drops the bubble, allowing the sounds of the ship to infiltrate back into their space. "I sort of like my privacy." And she gets little enough of it these days. She lets Cat handle the whole 'we're making the call, you said you wanted to be here' bit.
Sarisa imparts a look down to the SatCom in Cat's hand when she makes her point. When those blue eyes come back up, there's a quirk of her head to the side. "You're going to call now?" It isn't so much a questioning tone as it is a why does everything in my life have to be so hard tone of simmering frustration. "Fine— fine." Sarisa waves one hand in the air dismissively, reaching in to her suit jacket to retrieve a small plastic ID badge that she waves at the proximity lock on the door, turning the red light green and popping the door open and into the office. Only a look is afforded to Liz, but it — for once — doesn't have any venom in it.
Stepping inside of the sparsely furnished and clearly borrowed office, Sairsa walks around the faux-wood desk, settling down on the wheeled chair behind it while motioning to a trio of chairs in front of the desk. "Close the door," she offers up to either of them rather indirectly, then retrieves her own SatCom from inside of her suit jacket, laying it down on the desktop. She seems to assume they'll be going through her on this one.
A few thumb presses pulls up a communications link, and the SatCom in Cat's hand vibrates to let her know that it has received a connection to the primary network.
"We don't know what his situation is, on starting the call," Cat states, "so I would recommend not doing or saying anything which might cause anyone nearby on his end to suspect things are out of place." She lifts the device as it vibrates in her hand and reads what the screen tells her, preparing to enter whatever's needed to move forward from that point. Sarisa's mood causes her to not so much think it wise to involve T.Monk in this, and she's not in much position to conceal asking him in any case. She will have to hope he's listening and provides.
Leaning back against the wall, Elisabeth keeps her mouth shut once more. But her blue eyes are on Cat more than Sarisa, unable to conceal the worry in them.
"You'll be on the talking end, I'm just observing." Sarisa comments as she types in the dialing key sequence on her SatCom, "In fact it may be best if he does not even know I'm listening. So that act is entirely on your end, Catherine." As the central SatCom begins dialing out, Cat's SatCom displays the same read-out Cat recalled from the last time there was a link-up with the Central SatCom when she had been able to speak with Bravo team. This time, however, the globe on her screen rotates towards South America and hilights Argentina in red, then triangulates a pin-marker on the map with latitude and longitude coordinates, and then opens a staticy connection window that winks out after a moment, turns red, and displays an unfamiliar alert.
«VOICE ONLY MODE»
Sarisa arches one brow at that, and seems to tense just slightly as she hears Peter's voice come up over Cat's SatCom. "Who is this?" Because it isn't the same communication method as before, and that makes things all the more confusing.
"It's Catherine, Herr Volken," she reports as a beginning. "Checking in to report completion of your assignment and ask for further instructions." Then she's silent, hoping he wasn't caught at a bad time or with witnesses, surmising how he reacts will give clues as to that situation. Her eyes drift toward the persons with her in this office, then settle back on the display.
As she listens, Elisabeth moves toward Sarisa's chair. It takes a little more concentration to do it this way, but there are only the three of them in the room — Elisabeth narrows her eyes a bit, focuses her attention on how her ability shifts, and puts herself and Kershner into a one-way bubble. They can hear everything from Cat and the phone, but Cat can no longer hear Elisabeth and Kershner. Elisabeth puts a hand on Sarisa's chair and says calmly with her eyes still on Cat, "I owe you an apology for earlier, by the way." She's well aware at this point that everything the Navy doctor is doing for her will be on record for Kershner. "I'm riding a very fine edge on my temper right now." Not just because of the Xanax, either. "They can't hear us," she then assures Sarisa.
«Fantastic,» comes the garvley tone over Cat's SatCom, «Make sure Grigori remains under sedation and unable to utilize his ability. Have you received contact from Bravo Team yet, has Gabriel returned to the carrier?» Kazimir's words cause Sarisa to arch a brow, and there's something in her expression that is like a person who finally begint o see pieces of a larger puzzle coming into place. Somehow, with that statement there, she's beginning to figure out what might be going on. She's not entirely sure if she likes it.
Elisabeth's remark elicits something of a puzzled expression from Sarisa, her head quirked to the side one brow raised, and there's a dismissive wave of her hand, as if at the moment it's all water under the bridge. But she did hear the apology, she just seems to be a very business-first sort of person.
Notably, her business includes how this conversation seems entirely one-sided, with no details on how Alpha Team is doing. Sarisa furrows her brows to Cat, watching her intently for a moment, as if to re-ask that question of are you sure?
"Bravo Team is to be extracted soon," Cat replies. "None are yet aboard, and Command had no knowledge of our communications. It is believed you were beyond contact. Can you advise of situation on the ground?" Silently she nods in Sarisa's direction, while waiting for the next words from distant quarters. There's not a trace of concern to her features.
Paying close attention to Cat's expressions and the intel coming through, Elisabeth touches Sarisa on the shoulder and puts a finger to her lips to warn the agent that bubble's coming down.
There's a momentary pause of silence, save for a static crackle on the SatCom, and the murmurs of a voice speaking in Spanish, a deep and baritone voice, but the details of what he's saying save for a few words are lost to the conversation. Kazimir's voice, however, is clearer in his response. «… no, no I would not worry. The team coming up the mountain shouldn't…» then the voices are muffled again by a hand placed over the speaker. A moment later the sound comes back more clearly, and Kazimir's voice once again plays out to Cat.
«Situation here is going according to plan. I will make contact when I am ready to be extracted, I am uncertain how many of the… current team will be returning with me, there will likely be some altercations before departure is prepared. I will not be returning alone, regardless. It is good to hear Zukhovsky is in safe hands.» Then, with a moment's hesitation he asks, «Were you able… to find Yvette?»
Sarisa's blue eyes go wide, and she looks up to Cat very sharply. The knowledge the Volken knows his daughter was around, and that she was present in Russia comes as a surprise to the agent. She's quick— almost too quick— to slash her fingers across her throat and shake her head, a very quick do not tell him Yvette is here, pantomime. Why she cares, that's somewhat curious.
"Her location is unknown, Herr Volken," Cat reports, stating the truth. At least part of it. "She proved not necessary in collecting Grigori, and I didn't sight her. It's to be hoped the team is extractable with you, and we'll be anticipating contact from you." A brow lifts as she looks at Sarisa, Cat herself being puzzled by the reaction. She'd relayed there was discussion of her as possibly needed in catching Grigori.
A frown also creases Elisabeth's features — not over the Yvette thing, but over the whole 'don't know how many of the current team will be returning' comment. Though she understands that he's having to be very careful in his phrasing. The situation is going 'according to plan' but there's always the question of whose plan. We're walking a really fine line here. She pitches her voice low, so low that Kershner almost can't even hear it, and sends it to Cat's ear without it being audible to the SatCom. "Can he give us any kind of a timetable? We're working on really short time here, as I'm sure he knows."
Her head turns toward the Detective, Cat acknowledging having heard the query. "Is there a timetable, a specific hour I should make myself available for potential contact?"
The sigh that transmits across the airwaves is a long and tired one. «It was too optimistic to hope for her; very well. I am estimating by the first, I will be prepared for extraction and making call out to you. If not a day or two later, depending on extenuating circumstances. Our timetable is short, but we still have a favorable window. We will not have //very long after the first to complete this mission, but I have faith that we can act quickly once I return.//»
On the other end of the SatCom, there is the sound of a screeching door. «I do not have time to talk, there are matters I have to tend to here. It is good to know your mission went well, and I look forward to hearing of Gabriel's — » Not Bravo Team's, «extraction from Madagascar. SatCom Alpha out.»
»Signal Lost.«
Sarisa breathes in a deep breath and exhales sharply, resting her chin on her hands and furrowing her brows. Angling a look towards Elisabeth, there's a very uneasy quality to Sarisa, and it only grows more disquieted as she focuses on Cat. "He's either a very good actor, or you're a very poor judge of character. My one fear is that I don't know which is more likely."
Elisabeth rubs her forehead and says quietly, "He's a very good actor." Then she pauses and looks at Sarisa. "But I guarantee you that if he's screwing the pooch, he will be the one who doesn't make it out of Argentina." She has faith in some of the other people on that team to blow his head off if he's out to fuck over the world. She smiles faintly, though there is still worry in her blue eyes. "I wish he'd given us better intel to go on. And quite frankly, weren't we working on the assumption that the damn thing was set to go off at one of the eclipses?"
"I've seen him act before, he's good. He was alone, until just before the end of transmission," Cat remarks, "that sound was a door. Someone was on the way in, he had to switch tacks quickly. What exactly his plan is, I don't know. I would greatly prefer if there were time to become more fully informed, but there was not. The eclipses, now, are an estimation, there seems to be a delay."
"But I haven't the slightest doubt we'll locate and neutralize the weapon. The Vanguard's plot will fail." Operational Cat speaking as always, never letting on any belief failure is possible.
"I hope you're right, Catherine." Sarisa quietly turns off her SatCom and tucks it back inside her suit jacket. Cat's assertion comes with a slight shrug of the agent's shoulders. "Because either we're right about the bomb going off on the next eclipse, which is set for the 31st, and he's pulling the rug over our eyes… or he's right and there's still time." Blue eyes warily stare at Cat's SatCom, then drift down to the table where Sarisa folds her hands. "Either way we don't have enough intelligence to do anything at the moment, so we have no choice but to wait on what the other teams return."
Looking up to Cat and Elisabeth, Sarisa exhales a tired sigh. "Did either of you have anything else you wanted to discuss, because I'm fairly certain my next stop is to pick up a bottle of Excedrin."
With a soft snicker, Elisabeth comments quietly, "Welcome to my life." She moves to head for the door with Cat. "Hang in there, Kershner. You don't know us well enough yet, I guess, to have much faith in us," she says as she pauses at the door to look back. There is sincere sympathy mixed with wry humor in her gaze. "But knock on wood," she knocks on her head, "we haven't failed when it mattered yet. And at last count, I think we'd saved the world at least twice before this." She's sort of teasing, but there's a hint of seriousness beneath it. A sense … perhaps of just knowing too much.
"I don't let myself speak, or think, of failure," Cat adds quietly. "It's too easy to get bogged down with it, and find worry contributes to problems. Confidence is the best way." She rises, taking a few steps toward the door, before adding "Thank you for your time, Agent Kershner." Then she steps through the door, glancing back to Elisabeth.
"Your head is wooden? Damn."