Anne nodded to the last two arrivals. She checked her time repeater in her implant. "Late! That is not exactly a good start. Missions like ours sometimes rely on split second timing. You two could have been killed, or worse, got everyone else killed. DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN!"<br/><br/>The SAS Officer's voice sounded incongruous coming from such a slight woman, but it was a voice that demanded obedience. She moved on. "You all know me, I'm Major Anne Laughton, former SAS officer, and I run this show. You can call me Major, you can call me Ma'am, you can call me boss, you can even call me Sir. You can call me Ms Laughton. If you survive this mission, you may earn the right to call me Anne when we're off duty." She smiled softly at Niki.<br/><br/>"This lady is Nikita Stack. She is my lieutenant" She pronounced the word the English way,<em>leftenant</em>, "My second in command. She is also our infiltrator and disguise specialist. The little girl sitting in the shadows over there with the heavy machine gun that none of you have noticed is Francine Littlejohn. She is my personal secretary. Fran, put the hardware down and come join us... Fran will be taking notes during the meeting."<br/><br/>Francine did as she was told, leaving the .50cal set up where it was in the dark shadows where a coffee machine used to stand and no lights remained. She walked delicately towards the table, clearly ill at ease with the company she was in. "Hi, everyone.." she said awkwardly, sitting at the table with an old fashioned pen and note pad.<br/><br/>Anne smiled encouragingly at her and she smiled adoringly back.<br/><br/>"Okay, next we have Sofia Nilsson. Sofia is our weapons specialist. I understand you are equally good with a sniper rifle as a block of plastique, which is exactly what we need. I like people who can multi-task.<br/><br/>"Richard Preston. Yes we know your real name. If you want to be called Oni, that's fine. Oni is our new hacker..."<br/><br/>At this, DeFoe looked up. "What, you need two hackers now?"<br/><br/>"All in good time", Anne quelled him with a look. "If we could keep questions until I ask for them? Thank you!"<br/><br/>She turned to the final human member of the team, "Kirra West. Raveness, it's good to meet you at last. We have a lot in common! Kirra is our point-man. Finally, last but not least", she put a hand on the small plastic box. "Iffie. Iron Fist Artificial Intelligence, or IFAI. You will all have spoken to it already at some point. Iffie is probably the most vital member of the team."<br/><br/>Defoe looked up again, now looking distinctly worried. "I'm Je-..."<br/><br/>"YOU, fucked up!" Anne snarled at him. "You assured me that our system was impenetrable. You assured me that no one could hack into the dummy office software. You assured me that our lines of communication were secure."<br/><br/>She stood and leaned forward. Her hands resting on the table. Her left hand was almost touching the grip of the Uzi she'd left there.<br/><br/>"But..."<br/><br/>"Mr Oni there placed his calling card on every computer in the dummy office. Of course he thought he was hacking our real offices, but that's irrelevant. But Mr Defoe, that is not the biggest problem. Iffie has been analysing what went wrong in Toronto last month. As you know, we lost three good people. We figured out why. Our coms were compromised. That was your responsibility!"<br/><br/>Defoe was white with fear. He tried to access the net, but suddenly he was cut off, jammed. "No... Please?"<br/><br/>Anne pulled the Beretta from it's holster at her hip and pointed it at him. The shot was incredibly loud in the confined space. A small black mark appeared in the middle of Defoe's forehead. The back of his head exploded, spraying blood and brains in a wide arc. the body slumped forward.<br/><br/>"Someone get rid of that?" Anne holstered the pistol, policed her brass and sat down again. "Right, before I start the briefing, are there any questions?"