Code Name: Camelot (Noah Wolf #1)(82)
Neil smiled from ear to ear. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “I’m actually very glad to hear you say that.”
Allison turned to Moose. “Moose, I want to give you a special pat on the back. You went halfway around the world into a completely unknown situation, impersonated an international arms dealer, secured and delivered a fissionable quantity of nuclear material, all without batting an eye, when you were ordered to do so by your team leader. As I recall, just a few weeks ago, you pretty much hated his guts, didn’t you?”
Moose shrugged. “I guess it’s hard to stay mad at a guy who can kick your ass. Besides, I completely understood where he was coming from. We had the chance to get that stuff off the market, we couldn’t pass that up.”
Allison looked at him for another second, then turned to Sarah. “Sarah, I was particularly proud of you on this mission.”
Sarah’s eyes went wide. “Me? Why me?”
Allison grinned. “Because you handled it, my dear. And if you think about it, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Sarah turned pink, but grinned.
“Noah,” Allison said. “You surpassed every expectation I had. That logical brain of yours caused you to see and take advantage of opportunities that the rest of us overlooked. Because of that, the DEA has managed to take almost twenty million dollars worth of drugs off the street in the last two weeks, and we’ve managed to secure nuclear material that could have been used to make more than one small nuclear device. On top of that, we now know who that supplier is, a known antiquities dealer from Egypt. Moose actually carried the material out of that hotel, because it was packed inside an ancient leaden urn.”
Noah nodded. “It’s like I told you, Ma’am, I’m just here to do a job. We all are.”
Allison looked at them all for a few moments, and then smiled once more. “That’s very good,” she said. “That’s very good, indeed, because I’m already working on your next mission, and it’s one that all of us believe only Team Camelot can pull off. Unfortunately, you’re not going to get a lot of time to train.”
Noah looked at the other three, who all looked to him, then turned back to Allison. “Can you tell us anything about it?”
She looked at them for a moment longer, then nodded. “The president of an African country is being pressured to form an alliance with Russia and Syria. That’s an alliance the United States does not want to see happen, but we’ve just learned that the man’s daughter is being threatened by some outside force. If he does not agree to the alliance when the summit meeting on it is held in three weeks, our intelligence indicates that she will be murdered. In a moment of weakness, he confessed this situation to one of our diplomats over there, and when it was sent back to the State Department, our president got hold of it. He called me and asked me to step outside our normal operations, and send a team in to find out just what kind of threat it is, and eliminate it.” She paused for just a moment, looking at each of them in turn. “The problem is that you’ll be going in with less than optimum intelligence. At this point, we don’t even know for sure where the girl is, so this is as much an investigative mission as anything else.”
“I’m just curious, but wouldn’t this be something more suited to an outfit like the CIA?” Noah asked.
Allison gave him what he interpreted as a sad smile. “Normally, it would be,” she said. “Unfortunately, in this case, we cannot risk whoever is behind this pressure finding out that we even know about it. That means we can’t use any asset from an agency that our enemies know anything about, and so far, the only one they don’t know about is us.” She got to her feet, and stood there looking at them. “I’m afraid that this is going to be your next mission. Your briefing, such as it is, will take place the day after tomorrow.”