The White Feather- A story of infinite worlds

Ace In The Hole

“There has to be a way to get to that bastard without getting our asses killed, or worse. It’s been a f*****g month since we started tracking down his every little activity. And now at the end, you're telling me that the motherfucker is almost immune to our every plan?” Tony yelled, slamming the files in his hand on the desk. He was furious getting no useful information from his highly aspirated operation.

“Yes, but I’m not saying that he is completely immune. I’m saying that he is ‘almost’ immune to our efforts. I might just have a way of getting to his head and manipulating him into answering our questions.” Olivia said, trying to calm Tony’s frenzy.

“Go on then, what are you waiting for?” Tony said. He had no respect in his voice, but the team didn’t mind. They could understand the pressure he was under, especially after Thomas stopped the communication completely. They figured putting up with this s**t would be much easier than diving into unnecessary arguments.

“Okay, so all we have to do is find out some real hard proof of his ties to the terrorists. Something that will make up lose his chair in the senate, if not putting him behind bars. Then we will use it to blackmail him into telling us the location of our comrades. Sure, it seems almost impossible with him watching our every move, but if we have some faith in ourselves, I’m sure we can figure something out.” Olivia said, looking at the people in the room and trying her best to convince them.

“Tony and I have already discussed it, more than once in the past few days. But there IS no getting away from his lookouts. This is his city, and every other person you see is an informant for him.

What we need deliberately is an ace in the hole, someone who can go behind enemy lines unnoticed. And I don’t think we are getting it. We have to face it that we are at a dead end, and the best thing we can do is just go in and take the fucker out.” Gabriel said and punched the wall.

“So your plan is to just go in using nothing but brute force and capture the man? The man who will know you're coming long before you reach him?” A voice came from outside the door.

All the individuals in the room went into high alert mode. They took cover behind anything they could find and took out their weapons. As soon as the pistols were in place, Tony took the liberty of asking the man who he was.

“Who the f**k are you? And what do you want from us?” Tony shouted.

“The question isn’t what I want from you, but what you want from me. And as far as I can tell, you are in desperate need of someone like me.” The man said and laughed.

“Enough of the f*****g bullshit. Tell me who you are and I won’t kill you slowly.” Gabriel said, pointing his gun at the wooden door.

“I’m your ace in the hole, but you can call me Thomas.” The man said, opening the door and walking right in front of multiple guns, which were staring straight at his face.

The man was none other than our Thomas, looking with pity at the agents. He realized that he was right to assume that they were rookies with no experience in the field. They panicked as soon as they faced the first real problem in their mission. He had doubts about breaking protocols before coming here, but now he was glad he did it.

“Wh…What are you doing here?” Tony asked. He was visibly surprised on seeing his secret mentor walking right in.

“Well, I figured you dickheads might be in need of help, and I also had nothing better to do. So I figured…..” Thomas said and shrugged his shoulders.

“But don’t you need us to verify the security of the perimeter before you could open a portal? I pretty sure I didn't get a notification for that!” Olivia asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, but then the agency would know that I have made an unauthorized jump. And as a consequence, they would pull me right back to interrogate. I don’t think that would help you. So I just assumed that you would be in a safe perimeter at this time of night.” Thomas said, sitting down and pouring himself a drink.

“The agency dosen't know you are here?!” Emma asked. Her eyes widened and she became more attentive.

“Nope, and I intend to keep it that way. I would make everything clear if you guys would just shut the f**k up for a minute and let me speak.” Thomas said, irritated.

“Yeah sure, go on…” Tony said and signaled his team to stand down.

“Good, so here’s what will happen in the following few days- I will disappear from here, and I will not be in contact with you expect for the occasional use of long distance laser radio. There will be no physical contact other than this one. The agency must NOT know that I’m here and assisting you in the mission. Because if they do, all of our careers will be ended right away.

Now I have seen everything in life, and it won’t affect me much. But your job will be finished before even properly starting. So you will do everything exactly as I tell you to do. Tony is no longer your leader, I am. Well, at least for as long as I am in this desert. You will walk how I tell you to walk and do nothing without asking for my permission.

Now I have no more than fifteen days to do my part and reach that son of a b***h senator. Fifteen days would roughly translate to one day in our world. And hence I would hardly be gone when I go back. The operation would be risky, but it is the only way to ensure that this earth is not taken over by terrorists who are using time as a weapon. Because if we turn a blind eye, they wouldn’t just stop here. They WILL eventually make it to our agency and we will be horrifically outnumbered and outgunned to take them out on our own. The seniors of the agency might not take this seriously, but I'm not taking the risk of waiting until things go out of hand.

Also, it is critical that I stay undercover and as far away from you as possible. Because he is watching you, and there is no use for me to be here if he even acknowledges my existence. You will keep on doing some dummy work and interrogate people to make sure he keeps his eyes on you. And while he thinks that he is seeing everything, I will come in from behind and f**k him in the ass.

Now, are we clear or do you need more reasons to get me on board?” Thomas said, lifting his eyebrows. His 'speech' was followed by a long silence. The agents were battling with the idea of letting a rogue agent inside their mission. But he was also the only way to get to the target.

“I think I speak for all of us when I say this- we are deeply honored to have the opportunity of working alongside you. We have faith in your plans and are looking forward to our first assignment.” Gabriel finally said and bowed a little.

Thomas wasn’t used to this kind of respect and was at a loss of words. But like every leader who dosen't know how to handle a situation and fears that his men might undermine him, he thought that using strictness would be a cool option.

“Yeah yeah, cut the crap and tell me more about the senator.” Thomas said coldly and went straight down to business.

“Yes of course; so we did as much digging as we could with that d**k watching us. As it turns out, he is much more powerful than we realized. We are surprised that we didn’t know about him earlier during our stay here in Afghanistan. Some people say that he is the most influential person in the country and others even suggest that he plays the president like a puppet.” Tony started.

“If he has that strong of a position, why dosen't he just run for president?” Thomas said and scoffed.

“Well he can’t, because that might cause him some complications. You see, a president is in the spotlights most of the time and if he is sitting on that chair, he wouldn’t be able to monitor the plan he has set in motion. He has his fingers dipped deep in a lot illegal pies.

He is the largest investor in opium farming and has ties to many of world’s leading cartels. Also, his ties with the terrorists are not as secret as you might expect. Strange thing about all this is that everyone knows about him and his deeds, but no one ever talks about him. He is like a ghost walking on the streets.

If he runs for president, all this might hit the world stage and then he would in some deep s**t. But make no mistake, all this dosen't mean he has ditched the idea of ruling with a higher power in his hands. He is a smart motherfucker with big dreams.” Gabriel answered.

“What makes you think that he’s a dreamer?” Thomas asked, going all ears as he knew something big was coming.

“It is clear that he can’t become the president of this country, as the other world leaders would take this opportunity to eat him alive. With him gone, they can easily influence the Afghan public and finally take over. So what will he do to reach power without taking the risk of ending up in jail?” Gabriel asked, looking at Thomas and testing his intelligence.

“Ah, he makes the leaders bend to his will. Oh f**k, I see it now. So he isn’t an ordinary senator, he is the mastermind of this war. He started the chaos to overthrow the government and take over. When the terrorists will win, they WILL have to appoint a leader to look after the public affairs and international relations. And who would they look up to other than the man who is already famous and is feared by most people in the country.

I have to say, that man is nothing short of either a genius or a madman. I mean, starting a war just to get yourself in power, that is... not that ridiculous actually.” Thomas said as he scratched his head lightly.

“And it wasn’t much of a problem as the civil wars usually favor the governments. Until they captured our agents and used them to draft weapons that might destroy the fabric of space time, if not properly used. After that, this war is nothing short of a one sided battle, and we are already watching them take over most of the government possessed Baghdad using the newly formed mercenary groups equipped with revolutionary weapons. The government army is no match for them.” Tony said with a concerned voice.

“Also, the recent intel has lead us to believe that the senator dosen't want to stop there. His aspirations have grown from ruling a country to ruling the whole f*****g world. And it dosen't seem too illogical after the events of the past few days and considering the inventory he possesses.” Emma said.

Thomas took a deep breath and looked at the people in the room. There was a low vibe in the air and his companions were either looking at the floor or were staring into emptiness. They were in low confidence mode and were terrified as this mission was way out of their league and even the slightest mistake could f**k it up.

At last, Thomas couldn’t resist it and started laughing like a maniac. Tears fell from his eyes as he caught his stomach and doubled up on the chair. The agents were confused and looked at each other to find out what could have possibly triggered this reaction from him.

“Uh….What’s so funny, sir?” Tony finally asked gravely.

“Oh come on, look at your faces, thinking so seriously about a problem you can’t fix.” Thomas said, gasping for air.

The others still didn’t understand what he was trying to say and decided to just wait until he finished his laughing feat. And after some time, he finally did.

“That look on your faces is not the look of someone who is trying to solve a problem. Instead, it is the look of a person who is trying to create more problems and excuses to not do anything and feel sorry for himself.” Thomas said, suddenly becoming dead serious.

“I’m not sure I follow.” Gabriel said, unable to grasp the wise words.

“Look, here’s the deal kid- your worrying or yelling won’t solve a damn thing. And if you are unable to find the answer to a hard question, just approach it from a different f*****g angle. Get out and take a long walk, pour yourself a glass of whiskey or just have some s*x for god's sake.” Thomas said and Gabriel finally got the point.

“So we should just forget about the problem and relax?” Tony asked.

“Of course! Just have some fun and forget about the tension. And before you know it, there will be an idea in your head out of nowhere. Because when you worry, you are doing nothing but tiring your mind. But when you relax and push away your problems, your freshly energized mind does the thinking subconsciously and you have ideas like never before.

Why do you think I’m doing the most unorthodox stuff whenever I’m under a greatly uncomfortable situation? This is some gold advice right here, and it will get you through your days at this agency.” Thomas said and lit a cigar from his pack.

“So we are just supposed to neglect that our agents might be facing torture as we have fun here and a man is getting closer to ruling the f*****g world?” Tony asked furiously.

“Hold your horses there, cowboy. Of course you are supposed to neglect that. I know the type of people who want to rule all of this holy earth. Their hopes are short lived, and so are they. High hopes require big balls, and your senator dosen't possess the latter.” Thomas said and laughed.

All of them looked at each other. Thomas did have a point. From where I stand, Thomas had established his reputation within ten minutes of his arrival and made each agent his fan.

After giving some more valuable life lessons to the newbies in this field, Thomas got up and was ready to leave on his quest.

“And before I leave, I want to make one thing clear. If you ever talk to me in that high pitch tone ever again, you won’t be alive to see the daylight again. Understand?” Thomas said, pointing his finger at Tony.

Tony was taken aback by the sudden aggressive reaction by the counselor, and after some time, he simply nodded in affirmation.

The crazy old Thomas White was back, and the senator’s life was about to become a lot harder than he ever anticipated. But the real question was whether Thomas was really as okay as he looked, or did he still see the ghosts from his past standing in the corners somewhere? I guess we'll find out.