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Chapter 1

- Running With A Rocket -

...Come to think of it, that's a very, VERY bad idea!

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OUR FIRST SUSPECT was IDed as TR agent Melinda Sproll, a five-foot-four Caucasian adolescent of sixteen, with shoulder-length, gently waving auburn hair, smart hazel eyes, lean, deceptively cute features and benign expression. Melinda doesn't fit everyone's stereotypical image of a hardcore criminal, which is why she's just the kind of girl Team Rocket likes to use for its undercover operations. Our records on her indicate she must have been inducted somewhat earlier than most TR ops, probably when she was eleven or twelve, which made a good deal of sense, considering that she was also a talented pokémon trainer. Most TR field agents start out very young anyway, usually beginning their careers somewhere around fourteen or fifteen, and most of them end up doing their first bit of jail time soon after. But Melinda was different on that account as well. Up to the time I undertook this operation in St. Petersburg, she had virtually no criminal record, and nothing at all outside of our database. Only my organization's own agents had any suspicions, and even then, she'd only been questioned a few times. Sproll had disappeared for a while after that, only surfacing again about two years ago when we recognized her as a competitor in the final rounds of the East Pacific League's Semifinals, about two months before our discovery of Team Rocket's base on Pokémon Island. Needless to say, this latter concern sort of distracted us, and we didn't pick up on Melinda's trail again till some months after our ill-fated showdown with TR on Pokémon Island. At that time, Melinda was going by a fake name, as she was now (some complicated-sounding Czechoslovakian thing that I still can't pronounce right...).

     I glanced up through the sunroof of my vehicle, which I'd originally opened to give me another vantage point (as if I'd need it). The day seemed pleasant enough. Anyway, it was early yet. I hoped that would give us enough time to hash this thing out and see it to a favorable conclusion. Reaching around and behind me, I locked three of my car's doors manually, while taking quick stock of my surroundings. Nothing threatening came into sight, so I eased the driver's side open, pushed down the last lock and stepped out, quietly shutting the door behind me. I took mental note of where I was, punched my vehicle's location into my cell phone, storing that information in its memory. I began walking. I had my tracking device on me, so there was no need to tell operation HQ where I was. They would know.

     Sproll was heading down the street perpendicular to the alleyway I was coming from. She had passed the alley's opening by then, but I didn't want to just emerge from that place, so I detoured down an adjacent alleyway that was parallel with the street our suspect was traversing, taking it all the way out to the main walkway. I emerged in time to see Sproll duck into a medium sized establishment across the street on my right, a bookstore of some kind. I crossed the street after her.

     Upon entering the building, I spotted my target again, as she made a bee-line for the back of the store, clearly in a hurry to get to wherever it was she was going, or to get away from whoever might be following. I wondered if she'd spotted me yet. I followed anyway, weaving my way through a few of the isles of books, looking as if I were intently searching them for some particular piece of literature. I pulled even with a rack of paperback novels, just as my target stepped inside the women's restroom, which was located in the back of the store, its entrance set in the left wall within an open alcove, opposite the men's room. Plucking a random paperback from the selection next to me, I leaned against the wall and pretended to read, alternately reaching into my jacket's pocket, where I punched coded text into my cell, telling operation HQ where the target was and where I was in relation to her. Then I sent the message. Within four minutes, I got a reply. I pulled my phone out and had a look. I was mildly surprised to hear that the rest of my tracking team had a visual on Sproll: apparently, my target was in the alley behind the bookstore, making a quick getaway down its length. Replacing the German paperback I still had in my other hand (I could tell it was some trashy romance, but deciphered little else...), I left the bookstore.

     By now, I was somewhat sure my target had spotted me, though she probably didn't know who I was--just that I might be following her. I put my accompanying operatives on keeping up with Sproll as she trotted through the back alley, while I headed parallel with her basic trajectory on the main walkway. I got a coded text two minutes later: the little woman had gotten in an empty vehicle parked by the sidewalk and was heading toward the main highway. I bit my lip; I was too far from my own car. I code-texted my team of field ops who where already in vehicles and told them to keep trailing our target and to let me know when she stopped. To my relief, they replied almost immediately, informing me that Sproll had just taken a quick ride down to a mall located about 20 minutes walk from where I was and not at all out of my way. I told them to stay on her; let me know where she goes inside the establishment and when and where she exists, if she does. If she should meet with anyone or take any detours, stay on her; try to get an audio or visual, but do not engage. I'd be there as soon as I could.

     Heading briskly down the sidewalk, I spotted an apparel shop and ducked inside. I picked out a new pair of pants, a jacket, gloves, a scarf, a nondescript black cap, shades and a pair of soft-soled tennis shoes. I bought the items and headed out again, entering an internet cafe two doors down. I headed into the men's room, changed into my new clothing, put my former garb in the empty shopping bags, dropped my car keys in with them and headed through the employee door in the back and out into the alley beyond. Spotting a dumpster, I carefully deposited my items behind it, took a snapshot of the location, got GPS coordinates and sent both of these to one of my stand-by operatives along with the location of my car, instructing him to pick up my stuff, take it and my vehicle to the mall parking lot and wait there. Putting my hands in my pockets, I strolled nonchalantly back into the regular flow of pedestrian traffic. It was then that my tracking operatives sent me a coded text. I slipped my phone out and studied its screen. I frowned. Our target had left the mall and was heading down to where [x] and [y] street intersected, possibly intent on entering a large, nondescript warehouse located at that junction. My team was making this last conclusion because, incidentally, the team that was tracking our fourth suspect, IDed as TR field operative Butch Hachiro, had confirmed that he was also heading for that spot down a back alleyway, accompanied by two dark-clad, thuggish-looking individuals. I wanted to know if we had an ID for Hachiro's escorts, but we didn't. This was definitely getting interesting quick. Not wanting to be left too far behind these escalating developments, I got the warehouse's address from my lead tracker, then hailed a nearby taxi that happened to be rolling by. Within ten minutes, I arrived at the corner where this warehouse was located. I paid my ride, eased myself out and had a quick look around. I immediately spotted Sproll heading up the street below me.

     Casually, I turned on my heel and began meandering away, taking out my phone and pretending to be engrossed in some meaningless conversation. Sproll ignored me, still intent, apparently, on business. I heard the slight tic-tac of her nails on the combination pad set in the wall beside the front door; heard it beep softly and heard the snick of several metal locks sliding open. Leaning against the wall, phone hiding most of my face, I watched her out of the corner of my eye and over the bottom half of my cell as she glanced once over her shoulder, entered, and closed the door softly behind her. I waiting a few seconds, my sharingan eyes glowing to life under my new pair of coal-colored shades as I scanned the streets and surrounding buildings myself for any unwanted observation. Satisfied that I wasn't being watched, I turned back around and went to the warehouse door. It was locked again. I put my ear to its metal surface. Detecting nothing but one pair of receding footsteps, I tried to determine where my target would exit, if exiting was her plan (and I suspected that it was). I began walking down the street, the way Sproll had come after her detour through the mall. I had a hunch about what she was up to now, but I wasn't sure if she would do it inside this establishment or if she was just passing through this one again while on her way to another. From where I stood, I just couldn't see enough of the whole scene to be able to know, so I sent a coded text to my operatives who were tracking Butch. Sure enough, Hachiro and his escort had stopped in the alleyway directly behind the warehouse. I kept my phone to my ear. Five minutes later, my operative affirmed that Sproll did in fact emerge from a cellar door that led from the warehouse into the alleyway. Better still, she was with Butch and company, all of them making their way out even as the coded text was being delivered to me.

     I jogged back down the street, quickly studying the schematic of St. Petersburg that all of us had downloaded back at operation HQ. I found the opening to an alley that ran adjacent to the one Butch and Melinda were currently traversing and slipped stealthily in to continue my dogged pursuit. I received another coded text. Hachiro's shady-looking escorts had left and were getting into a vehicle parked on the main sidewalk--which was just as well--and Hachiro and Sproll had turned down another alley and where continuing on foot. I code-texted the lead operative tracking Hachiro and put him and his team on Hachiro's two escorts; I code-texted the team I'd been tracking Sproll with and informed them that we'd be following Hachiro and Sproll as they went on together. A minute later, I got two replies: Hachiro's escorts were being tracked, but it seemed like they were just circling; Hachiro and Sproll, however, had split, entered two separate but adjacent establishments via their back doors, come out the front doors at different times, walked down the street and entered the same establishment, Butch first, Melinda trailing him by half a minute. The building they'd entered was a decent-sized bar-and-grill type joint. Neither had come out again, so it was a fair bet they were still inside.

     My heart pounded. I needed to know what was going on in there; we needed to get closer, immediately. Punching out code-text like it had been due yesterday, I ordered my team members into strategic positions around the establishment and its surrounding premises. One of them I sent inside to identify our targets, where they were sitting, and if anyone was sitting near them. I had another come down the alley to pick me up and drop me off again near the restaurant's front doors. It seemed early for our targets to be meeting with Giovanni, but if they were, then they couldn't dodge us all day; they would have to get around to things soon. I suspected this was where they'd finally be conducting business, if not with Giovanni, then at least with each other. I called back all but one pair of operatives from the team who were tracking Hachiro's escorts and had everyone take positions within a hundred-fifty-foot perimeter around the restaurant. If Boss Genovese was with Hachiro and Sproll, we'd need to act fast and in force. I closed my phone and waited. My field op arrived with his car about a minute later. Just out of the blue, I noticed we were about the same height, build, and ethnicity. We also happened to be wearing the same color pants and shoes, but different colored jackets, and he didn't have a cap on.

     I had us switch jackets and I gave him my cap, then we jumped back in the car and sped off.

     On my way over, my operative inside the restaurant code-texted me: Hachiro and Sproll were in a private room in the back of the restaurant, walled away from the main house. Instantly, I checked with my perimeter patrol, but so far, neither of our targets had been seen leaving the premises. So far, so good.

     I hopped out of the car two doors down from the restaurant (just to be sure) and had my driver go take a position in the alley behind the restaurant, where he'd wait further instructions. I knew what Hachiro's men were driving and what they looked like, and I didn't see them or their vehicle anywhere. With the coast clear, I went on. My other op met me just inside the dining establishment's front lobby and a smiling hostess escorted us to a booth toward the dimly lit back of the restaurant. Fortunately, this eating place was one that catered to a more relaxed and somewhat lively patronage--mostly people of the upper blue-collar and lower white-collar working class and their families, with a few younger couples and several groups of emerging adults, which I guessed to be a mix of grad and post-grad students, apprentice types, and young entrepreneurs. There was lots of healthy noise and plenty of room for us to just blend in. It was really a heart-warming atmosphere; one that reminded me of my own grad and post-grad days. I liked that place, very much. I was sorry Team Rocket liked it, too.

     Just on the side, if I get out of this mess alive, I'm going to round up whoever's still left from my street team and we're going there to party it down! I'm going to eat steak and potatoes, wolf steamed veggies, devour the buffet bar, drink beer, sing stupid songs with my crew and scarf unhealthy quantities of dark chocolate cake. We'll rock the house till the break of dawn, or at least till our gracious hosts decide they've had enough of our rollicking shit and boot us out. At any rate, that's my motivation to stay alive right now.

     So, where was I? Oh, yes...

     Our targets got themselves a back room, walled away from view, which made things just a little less simple and just a little more complicated for my team and I. Still, I entered the restaurant with the operative I'd sent in ahead of me and we calmly took our seats, toward the establishment's quieter back corner (I think the hostess got the wrong impression on our relationship...). I let my field op order her meal and mine, and I turned my attention to my cell, code-texting my back-door man, asking his position. He was in the right place and had the car parked not too far back in a convenient space he'd found between two adjacent establishments, some 10 feet away, in case we needed it. I told him to drop a bug into the back guest rooms, got his OK and put my cell away. I conversed amiably with my field op, waiting patiently for both food and phone call. I hadn't realized it, but we'd been tracking for a few hours now and I was kind of hungry. 10 minutes later, lunch hadn't arrived yet, but I got a coded text from my guy in the back. He'd succeeded in getting one of our adroit beetle devices dropped into the back rooms. He also gave me the bug's frequency. I excused himself from the table, went through the back door and met him in the alley behind the restaurant I took back my cap and switched our jackets again. He went to take my place in the restaurant while I ducked into a nearby space between two buildings and tuned into our bug's signal. It took a few seconds, I but I finally got an audio.

     My operative had been thoughtful enough to steer the beetle bug into a space somewhere behind the thin, veneer-like material of the wall in Butch and Melinda's meeting room, in good range for picking up their voice frequencies but well out of sight. They were already talking to each other when I dropped in on the conversation. I scrolled through the menus on my cellphone and began downloading what I heard. It seems my timing was pretty good; I skipped the precursory chit-chat and managed to land square on TR business, and it seems I didn't miss anything important. I was able to determine that our targets were not with a third party after all; were not meeting with Giovanni or anyone else, either in person or via some telecommunication device. And they did not discuss any preeminent meetings with their gang's big boss. Boy, was I pissed. However, they were discussing the particulars of an important organizational operation; a plan to lift the pokémon off several specific trainers who were competing in the forthcoming pokémon tournament. Their mission in this case was to dispose of these trainers and take their prized, very well-trained champion pokémon. Butch did the debriefing and Melinda asked some questions about certain particulars of the heist, but about twenty minutes after they started--give or take a few--the meeting was over. That was it; I had it all. I didn't get any info on Team Rocket's notorious leader. Still, among other things, I learned that Melinda was, under no circumstances, suppose to either contact or be contacted by any Rocket affiliates, agents or assets of any sort again until some time during the tournament, when other TR operatives would be collaborating with her to conduct the murder/theft. That, I knew, was the key to accomplishing a few very useful things, not least of which would be taking out several dozen dangerous TR operatives--including Melinda and hopefully, Butch, too--saving the lives and property of those they intended to vandalize, and possibly gaining some useful informants who might prove instrumental in acquiring our real target, Genovese himself, should he escape this time too, in which case, we'd have to start our hunt all over again from scratch.

     I was just going to send what I'd learned to operation HQ when I received a coded text from my operative inside the restaurant: Butch was leaving through the front door with his escorts, who'd come back to get him, and Melinda was headed my way.

     I had two or three minutes to act.

     I told my operatives to retrieve their bug and call someone to pick them up; I'd be using that car in the back. Not waiting for a reply, I immediately code-texted two other operatives located on either side of the restaurant and had them head over to join me in the alley. I didn't wait for them to reply, either. I just positioned myself a few feet away from the back door and waited. Not a second later, the latch turned and Melinda stepped lightly into the alley. She looked both ways down its shady length, looked quickly over her shoulder to make sure she hadn't been observed or followed, then eased the door shut behind her, turned on her heel and walked straight into me. I quickly put my palm to her abdomen and discharged one, good stun volt through her. She didn't even blink. I knocked that poor girl out so fast she probably didn't know she'd been hit. Of course, she never saw me. I was cloaked (technology rocks).

     I caught the Rocket agent as she slumped to the ground, expanding my screen of invisibility to envelop her unconscious form. I thoroughly searched her, confiscating her wallet, cellphone, a necklace and pair of earrings, a vender's pocket map of St. Petersburg, her pokédex, a new-model pokégear (which sported some distinct Rocket component upgrades), her watch, two pokémon containment devices, a small handgun, and some minty chewing gum (mmm, tasty...). I didn't find anything else; no disks, flash drives, computerized storage media of any kind, and I detected no signals, electronic or otherwise coming from anywhere on her. In short, she didn't take any notes from Butch and she wasn't bugged. I thought that odd. I passed a strong magnetic current over her body just to make sure. She was clean. Satisfied, I pulled out two pairs of handcuffs, snapped her wrists behind her back and locked her ankles. I carried her to the car, laid her face-up across the length of the back seats and strapped her in. I left her there, still unconscious. My two operatives arrived a minute later and, uncloaking myself, I instructed them to take our captured target and her confiscated gear back to operation HQ; my fellow Elite agent would know what to do from there. After they left, I sent a code-text to operation HQ myself, letting them know that our first suspect had been confirmed and apprehended and was on her way over. I also confirmed the identity of our second suspect and noted that neither of them discussed plans to meet with Giovanni, though they did reveal plans for another important TR operation. I then called the field op who still had my rented car back at the mall parking lot and instructed him to pick me up at a hardware store on the other side of the alley behind the restaurant. I waited for his confirmation reply then shut my phone and took a deep, steadying breath, letting the oxygen work its way down into my lungs and then out again. I forced my mind to calm a bit while heading for the establishment I'd told my op about. My chase was pretty much over for the moment, and I'd managed to learn something important. But it wasn't what I had been looking for. I still--we all still--needed desperately to know when and where and with whom Giovanni would be having his little rendezvous. I really couldn't relax till we knew that; none of us could.

     On my way through the hardware store's back door, I got a coded text from the lead operatives who were tracking our second and third suspects (IDed as TR agents Cassidy Haruka and Drew Macaire, respectively). My heart almost stopped. These two Rockets had met sometime just before Melinda and Butch and they were going to meet Giovanni in about 8 hours, which was much sooner than we'd anticipated. Trying to maintain external calm, I hurriedly continued to read their incoming texts: Giovanni's scheduled meeting place was in a secure, underground bunker which probably housed the core for TR's direct operations within the city, as suggested from Cassidy's short debriefing with Drew; it had a secret entrance located outside the city and that was the point from which the TR Boss would make his entrance and his getaway. Neither Cassidy nor Drew disclosed the bunker's precise location in their conversation, but Cassidy did give Drew three specific landmarks to make sure he found the right spot. That was all we had on that. As to what exactly Giovanni wanted to discuss with Cassidy and Drew, it seemed very vague, and I didn't have enough information from my op's text to piece together the highlighted bits of conversation they gave me to be able to form anything cohesive, coherent or complete in any way. Apparently, Cassidy used a lot of coded terminology. I wasn't happy about that, but it couldn't be helped. I asked the lead op if she had anything else of substance, but that was all TR had given us. My field ops had an audio recording, but it wasn't coded. We'd have to wait until we got back to operation HQ to listen to both of our audio recordings. In the meantime, I asked where the suspects were. My operatives told me that Cassidy was in a car headed for the main highway, and Drew seemed to be heading back to his temporary residence at a four-star hotel located across the street from the stadium, which was serving as a kind of trainers' village for all the tournament's out-of-town competitors. It seemed this chase, too, had come to its conclusion. We had what we needed. I ordered two pairs of operatives to keep a visual tab on both TR agents, and the rest I ordered back with me to operation HQ, immediately. I got their affirmatives, then I shut my phone and put it away.

     I was standing in front of the hardware store's glass front by now, looking out at the street beyond, taking in everything I saw out there, and paying attention to none of it in particular. Maybe a minute went by. I pulled my sleeve back and read my watch. It was early afternoon now. I put my back to the glass, waiting for my ride to get there, and ran my mind over everything we'd been at all day. There was a lot our joint EURO-CHINA team would have to do in the next eight hours, and if things were going to work out right, we would have to do it flawlessly. It was our once-in-a-lifetime shot at this. I wished to God we were using a team made entirely of Elite agents, but I knew that wasn't possible. There was only me and my partner, and she'd have to run things from the office-end of this operation.

     My ride pulled up and I stepped back out into the streets, opened the passenger door and got inside. About ten minutes later, we were back at operation HQ.

     I met my partner in the lobby. She'd received Sproll twenty minutes ago. The Rocket girl was awake now and on her way to be locked up somewhere in an observation room in another place in the city. I could tell my partner wasn't at all happy with my decision to take Melinda in. She was right to be so. Sproll might still have had any number of internal bugs implanted in her, and even if my stun wave and magnetic disruption had disabled them, that would've just as soon let whoever was monitoring Sproll know that something was amiss, and with satellite readings and such, they could easily pinpoint where on the globe her signal had been disrupted or cut off, and, if they were smart enough, they could possibly guess at how it had been disrupted and maybe take a guess at who did it. Team Rocket knew we were on them, all over the world, twenty-four-seven. At any rate, we had no time to question Sproll now. She was secured and being monitored and searched by a team of techs. If she was still bugged, we'd find out soon enough. In the meantime, we had more pressing business to attend to. My partner told me to get a shower, get some food, get a shave and to meet her and our team of operatives in the big conference room in the back.

     I sheepishly asked about snatching a nap. For that I got a rather cold, insidiously venemous thirty-second glare.

     So I asked again, nicely.

     She gave me twenty minutes for my whole break, to do whatever I though I had to; then I'd better have my ass in that conference room.

     The conference room we were meeting in was packed like a can of sardines (so cliché, and I hate sardines...). Everybody was there; all our field agents who'd been on the streets with me earlier that day, and at least three-fourths of our team who ran the infrastructure at our modest base of operations. I'd used all twenty of my minutes for sleep, so, when I found myself standing in front of the door to the back conference room, I was still in the street clothes I'd bought earlier that morning, and I was still pretty groggy from a nap that did practically nothing to touch either footsore or lingering jet lag. I hadn't eaten either, though I was beyond hunger now. A shower still sounded nice, but what I really wanted to do was go back to sleep. However, the noise of sixty-to-seventy-odd people talking at once hit me like a smack across the face as I opened the conference room door. The energy was very lively and I suddenly found myself very awake very instantly. Non-too-subtly excusing myself through the sea of conversation, I at last secured my spot at the head of a long, oval-shaped conference table, and took a seat next to my partner, who greeted me by handing over her crystal display pad for my brief perusal. I nodded approvingly and handed it back. Thanks to my her superb organization, we'd be done with this in a very timely fashion. Standing, I called the meeting to attention. Everyone took their places and the room became quiet.

     Our first order of business was to review the covert field intelligence we'd gathered thus far. For that, I called the lead trackers who'd been in charge of following Cassidy and Drew. Two blond female ops, both dressed in pressed black business attire, having shed their street garb some twenty minutes ago, now stood up from where they'd been seated on my right. Both knew and were known by all present, which saved us introductions. I gave them the floor and sat myself back down.

     Amanda Wesley and her team had tracked Cassidy from the TR agent's apartment in downtown St. Petersburg, followed her on a meandering track through the city till her path finally converged with Drew's, at which point Wesley began coordinated tracking with Stephanie Hollis and her team, who'd been trailing the latter Rocket since he left his living quarters at the pokémon trainer village. Steph and Amanda summarized their team's actives, mentioning nothing they hadn't already told me--though Wesley did mention planting a bug on Drew after he left his meeting. Anyway, we all listened to the audio recording Steph and Amanda's team had taken of Cassidy and Drew's conversation. From that, our whole team was able to determine a few new things: namely, several of our ops who'd worked against Team Rocket before, in St. Petersburg specifically, and infiltrated some of their intelligence recognized code names for two distinct landmarks out of three that Cassidy had specified as reference points for Drew to use when identifying their base's hidden entrance. These revelations were invaluable; now, we virtually knew the precise location of the gateway to TR's St. Petersburg base of operations, which was where Giovanni would come in and go out. How big those operations were was not yet known. Our resident EURO ops knew there weren't any pokémon or technology trafficking operations being done in this area, not in the city or anywhere nearby. It was possible that the base in St. Petersburg was simply the head or even just another adjunct or simple gateway to an entire underground network whose specific, key outlets of shady business were physically located far away from the city and its surrounding countryside, so as not to attract any undue attention to their center of command and to delay any linking of their separate facilities to each other. That was my formulating theory at the meeting at any rate, but I didn't have much more evidence from anyone there and then to confirm it, so I temporarily dismissed the matter as file-thirteen material that we could dig up later if it proved useful. I steered the meeting on to our primary objectives. We listened to Steph and Wesley's recording two more times. From this alone, we still couldn't really tell what Giovanni intended to discuss with his agents. Cassidy mentioned that other operatives were waiting inside the underground and would also be meeting with the Boss; she mentioned that she'd be reporting on some activity she and a team of hers had been about, but she didn't specify what that activity was. She finally got confirmation from Drew that he had his material ready for their meeting.

     And that was all we got off Cassidy Haruka. Smart woman. Definitely more careful than her counterpart, Butch Hachiro, who I'd eavesdropped on earlier that day, whose every word of information I'd heard and understood almost perfectly.

     And speaking of Butch, it was now my turn to reveal what I knew about all this. Most of it I mentioned earlier in this brief-message-turned-official-report, so for time's sake, I'm not going to repeat myself here. However, from my own audio recording, my colleagues were able to come to some decisive conclusions that I had not. Specifically, several of our resident EURO ops noted that from the names Butch gave Melinda for all the individuals they planned to pull the 'ol 211 and 187 on, four of them (there were seven in all) were known operatives of another dark-minded organization that our own has been trying hard to destroy with more immediacy than we have Team Rocket. I am, of course, referring to The Shadow.

     The relationship between Team Rocket and The Shadow is very interesting. For some time--a good five or so years, in fact--there seemed to be mutual business activity between them, but two years ago, they had a nasty fall out over some black market guys who'd tried to sell both of them the same rare talisman, which we actually ended up with. Our interference didn't seem to unify anyone, though. Team Rocket and The Shadow still blame each other as much as they blame us, and they've been fierce rivals ever since, striving to outdo each other in the race for underhanded, subversive world domination. As my EURO colleagues pointed out, Butch gave the names--not the aliases, but the actual names, as far as we know--of four Shadow agents:

     The first was Malvolio Castello, a known Shadow Warlock Warlord of Italian Mafia heritage who currently operates from his family's estates in New York City, USA and Naples and Rome, Italy. This man has, among other things, been instrumental in training some fifty Warlocks and half a dozen lesser Warlock Warlords for The Shadow. My organization has engaged him and his forces twice now in armed confrontation, both of which ended in a bitter stalemate and severe casualties on either side. Castello is a rather imposing man, standing at about six-foot-seven, broad-shouldered and muscular, his physical aging comparable to that of a fit forty-year old man, with long gray-streaked raven locks braided and tied neatly behind his otherwise bald head like twin demon horns. However, the man has been alive for some two-hundred-fifty years, give or take a few. We suspect, though we've no blood samples to prove as much, that Castello may have been turned by a vampire or lycan, probably when he really was in his forties. At any rate, none of our allies among either race know more than we in this matter of speculation, since it's from them that our information to consider such a possibility was obtained. Of course, Castello might be any number of things. Maybe a dragon? That would be really bad, though I doubt it's possible; we're pretty sure he's only been around as long as our records say. Heck, we've got early photographs of him at his daddy's rapidash stables and salac berry orchards (we know they're genuine 'cause we jipped 'em out of his personal family album, which has all his other creepy, mobster, witch, sorcerer, warlock, vampire, what-the-hell-ever-they-are ancestors in its dingy pages). Point is, Castello's been doing his thing for a long time. Aside from his rackets and legitimate businesses, he's actually done seemingly little in the way of blatant crime, especially compared to a fellow mafia madman like Team Rocket's Giovanni Genovese. Castello's primary focus has always been mastery and promotion of the dark arts, in fulfillment of the wishes of The Shadow. It seems his real gains in power from mastery of raw dark arts alone actually peaked and plateaued over fifty years ago, but he has, since that time, been steadily exploring developments in technology as a means to supplement and enhance what he has been able to gain through the mastery of dark magic, and his successes in this area have proven to be exceptionally dangerous. He is an exceptionally dangerous man on all accounts (or an exceptionally dangerous vampire or lycan or hybrid or whatever it is he actually is now). But I've said nothing new about him here, so I'll say no more, except to mention now that he is very instrumental in the problems that have developed over the past two weeks, ever since my partner and I and our combined team of EURO and CHINA ops undertook this whole mission.

     And he's still at large, so I'd watch my back.

     The other three Shadow agents set for Rocket assassination were of a much less insidious standing than Castello, but still formidable in their own right. The first among them was one Prince Simba Abubakar. Interesting name, but an even more intriguing background. He's the oldest among five brothers and the twenty-nine-year-old heir to the Ishnahtal Kingdom, or what used to be Congo, Africa. Simba's father, King Lucian Abubakar, is a Shadow Warlock (his operations are well known to us, so I won't mention him further).

     Prince Simba is a big-time Pokémon Master. Among other accomplishments, he has, the last five years in a row, held a seat among the Elite Nine of the Sahara League. It's significant to note that he's only lost twice in his whole career. His first defeat was at the hands of Lancelot de Drey, the fiery-haired Master Champion of both Indigo and World League fame. Simba was also bested by Alexander Al Adin, the current Sahara League Champion, who he lost to when he took a shot at Alex's title. Simba seems to have contented himself since with his seat in Sahara's Elite Nine, though he has steadily moved up in their ranks, currently holding seat three of the nine. I can confirm that he is a very senior Shadow Sorcerer, and probably a few levels of damned soulessness shy of Warlock status.

     The third Shadow agent was a newly-made Sorcerer--presumably trained in Castello's schools--named Charles Tudor. If he sounds familiar, I can confirm that he was the younger brother of our late agent, Chelsea Tudor (0106). He's been a trainer in the world of competitive pokémon five years now, and his rankings are impressive.

     The fourth Shadow agent was Shadow Witch Chalese Sarai Sarrinada (I think The Shadow likes people with wierd-ass names). Chalese is a Galatea MDA with a minor in Strategic Coercion, and a 9.5-kpa High Hat of Victoria Hell Hall (that means she majored in evil, minored in manipulating world governments and had an A+ in the art of killing people). About three months ago, she was acknowledged by the WPL as a full Pokémon Master after defeating The Cambridge League's Elite Seven (she didn't challenge Cambridge's Champion). My new info on her is that she has a very mean pair of Houndoom and the most anti-socially homicidal Salamance I've ever seen. Super scary b--I mean, witch.

     So, those were all agents of The Shadow, Malvolio Castello extremely prominent among them and presumably the leader of some operation that involved all four.

     This was very disturbing. Team Rocket was bad enough, but what were Shadow agents doing in St. Petersburg? Castello was competing as a pokémon trainer, but that surprised no one; this might simply confirm intelligence work we already had on the man that suggested he'd been working with pokémon longer than he'd been exploring technology as a solution to the limits of his black magic. I thought it unlikely that the TR operatives I'd seen active in St. Petersburg so far were up to the task they'd set for themselves, especially where Castello was concerned.

     But Giovanni Genovese coming in. Why? Maybe he brought a new solution to his problems with The Shadow; some new, insanely powerfully crazy weapon with massive destructive power? He had to have some inkling of who he was dealing with, after all, since their impending assassination was an operation of his very own crime organization, whose inner workings he should be intimately attuned with.

     Whatever was going on, there were three more names on that Rocket hit list. We didn't think much of them at first, but after IDing the Shadow agents, it was hard to ignore them. After all, the first two were Indigo League's own Lt. Surge and Lancelot de Drey.

     Surge formerly ran the Saffron City Gym on Pokémon Island, but recently, he's taken the second seat among Indigo's Elite Four. And Lance is still hands-down Champ of Indigo. Both are Pokémon Masters of the first order. It made more sense for Team Rocket to hit these two than it did for them to take on the Castello squad, presuming the likes of Butch and Cassidy were running things. They might be capable, but not enough for Castello. From our own side of the fence, the last time we'd tried eavesdropping on the warlock, none of our ears came back--and we'd sent some good ones. Team Rocket never even got that close. With Lance and Surge, they had a small chance. Of course, those two were actually allies of ours. Messing with them meant messing with us and Team Rocket should know that. The last time they had tried anything, their agents got the crap beat out of them and ended up in federal prison with something like twenty-to-life. Very bad numbers. Now they were gonna hit Surge and de Drey, and four Shadow heavyweights? I wasn't laughing. Giovanni wasn't an idiot; he was up to something.

     There was still one more name on the hit list, and like those before, it gave us fresh pause, but not because we knew who it was. Actually, we didn't, really. Team Rocket's seventh target was yet another Indigo Leaguer of master-level status, but one we weren't all that familiar with--a guy named Ashura Ketchum.

     Looking back, I can't believe we didn't find out about Ashura sooner. For everything he is, it's incredible we knew next to nothing about the him. All I knew was that he'd been one of at least two or three adolescent Pokémon Island superstars, and that was a while back--probably ten years or so. Now, he was just your average, high-ranking, title-ridden Indigo League legend... I mean, he did manage to beat Lancelot de Drey--maybe once or twice. Still, Lance, and Surge, and a host of other Pokémon Masters weren't just trainers anymore; they'd gotten involved with foiling TR operations aggressively, especially in their home countries. It made sense that Team Rocket wanted guys like Surge and Drey gone. But Ketchum? We had to look him up real quick, and what we found was very interesting. Apparently, Ash, as he is more commonly known, also did a great deal to screw up Team Rocket's operations, not only in Pokémon Island, but wherever in the whole wide world that he went. For some reason, he just kept crossing paths with important (and expensive) Rocket operations. This kid did serious, multi-million-dollar damage to some of Giovanni's pet projects in the Pokémon Island Archipelago, The Orange Islands, the United States and parts of Europe, not to mention a very embarrassing TR fiasco in Beijing that Ketchum somehow pulled off, as usual, with just his six-pokémon team and a few fellow trainers. That was up till his early twenties. Up till now. He was still ranked high in the WPL--Pokémon Master, no less--but he hadn't been active for a few years. Some scandal disillusioned him off the competitive floor. Since then, he'd been hanging around Kanto and Johto with an old friend named Brock Stone, a former Pewter City gym leader. It seemed the two were partners in some business that had them traveling those regions. Still, something wouldn't quit bothering me. If Team Rocket wanted Ash dead, why hadn't they hit him years ago, when all this started? A little more sleuthing revealed that they had tried, but every attempt had failed. It was like Ash Ketchum just couldn't be touched, and in the meantime, he'd continue to give Team Rocket hell. He'd embarrassed them to a point that was just ridiculous. In short, they wanted him dead more than either Lance or Surge. That kid was grade-A pain-in-the-ass; I was really starting to like him.

     So, the long and short of it was that Team Rocket wanted seven people dead: four Shadow agents, one Indigo League Champion, one of their Elite Four, and one of their other Pokémon Masters, Ash Ketchum . I wanted to know just one thing: what were the brains of Team Rocket thinking, trying to kill so many dangerous people all at once?

     It occurred to me that this was what Giovanni was coming to St. Petersburg for. It was early to speculate, but what if he really was bringing some weapon meant to be a match for agents of The Shadow--even Castello? And if that was so, what would stop him from using it on two of the world's most powerful Pokémon Masters as well? And if he was going to do that, then why shouldn't he also turn it loose on that damn Ketchum kid, who'd put millions of dollars worth of Rocket operations into the dump and who'd evaded every previous assassination attempt? Giovanni must be confident that whatever he had could finally do the job. And if it could, if Team Rocket had something at their disposal that could take out all seven of these guys in one shot...

     The conference room was suddenly very, very quiet.

     My partner finished my thoughts for me: If Giovanni had something up his sleeves like that, then a few things started making sense. It was also probable that Cassidy and Butch really knew nothing more than what they'd already revealed--it wasn't just all we could get; it was all they really had themselves. As far as Giovanni would be concerned, he would feel it unnecessary to really put any of his operatives in charge of this: the new weapon would, presumably, take care of itself. This was in standing with some similar projects Giovanni had been a part of in the past, not least of which were the demon portals he'd tried to open a while back, and some time before that, the top-secret genetic engineering projects he'd funded on Cinnabar and New Island, which had created the super-pokémon Mew clone known as Mewtwo. And those were just two attempts at many in a series of documented projects of his that, despite their diversity, really had just one purpose: to create one big super-weapon that would cure all of Giovanni Genovese's opposition problems. For a while, a small team within my partner's EURO division had been gathering covert field intelligence that suggested Giovanni was at this old game of his again. It was possible he had something now; something, either prototype or finished product, that he wished to put to the test. If that was the case, then Cassidy and Butch and anyone else of his just needed to keep doing their business as usual and let the new weapon work at will.

     It was that frightening, madman genius of his again.

     And now, we'd have to come back down to earth. It was possible Giovanni had such a scheme up his sleeve--something to use on seven guinea pigs before he turned it loose on all his opponents in force, which would include The Shadow and our own organization. But this still didn't account for The Shadow's presence in St. Petersburg. Our immediate problem was this: we had the possibility for a very nasty three-way confrontation here, between The Shadow, Team Rocket, and us. We were here to capture Giovanni, and we had better figure out how to do that. We couldn't do anything about what we didn't know, but with what we did, we could do a lot. We'd ask him what he was up to later.

     We also needed to foil TR's assassination plans, at least where Surge, Lance and Ketchum were concerned. We considered putting up the shield for Castello, too, who, should he be assaulted by TR assets, had the power at his disposal, along with his fellow Shadow members, to easily level half of St. Petersburg, or worse. That was a pile of casualties and collateral we didn't need on our minds. However, if he was on a mission himself, then it was likely that he'd simply dispatch any would-be assassins with as much silence as they surely intended to dispatch him. In the unlikely event that TR's plans for Castello succeeded, we would at least have one less Shadow Warlock Warlord to worry about. Whatever The Shadow was here for, we did not need them alerted to our own movements and we did not need a confrontation with them, or worse, with them and Team Rocket at the same time. We needed to do what we were here for first. Once we had Giovanni detained, we'd worry about The Shadow. Hopefully we'd take care of the former quick enough to deal effectively with the latter, before they did anything.

     No one objected to that. So, we moved ahead.

     The basic plan for capturing Giovanni was fairly easy to devise: We immediately decided against following Team Rocket's Boss into his own hideout to take him down, but we did decide to activate the bug Wesley had planted on Drew when he left his meeting. We'd use it to (1) physically track him through TR's underground hideout and hopefully obtain the beginnings of a rough layout, which we'd use to help us infiltrate it later; and (2) to get an audio on Giovanni's meeting with his operatives--maybe get some more names, places and dates; anything we could about who the leaders of Team Rocket would be after we took Giovanni out of the picture. Above all, we needed to know precisely what Giovanni was up to. So, we were decided in favor of apprehending TR's leader just as soon as he came back out of his underground stronghold.

     We divided our forces into four teams:

     The first team's job was to identify the exact location of the secret entrance to TR's hideout, and to get all pertinent information on their surroundings. We dispatched them from the meeting immediately with instructions to report back in an hour.

     Our second team was dispatched right on the heels of our first, their job to quietly inform Drey, Surge and Ketchum of their situation and then to take the three Pokémon Masters, willing or not, to one of our safe houses till we could get them safely back home. This team was to consider their operation a top-priority, top-secret mission, which would not end till they either accomplished all its objects, received word from me or my partner to abort, or if all their principles died. They were to remain together and see this thing through to its end. With that, they departed.

     I put myself with our third team. Our job was to conduct the actual capture of Giovanni Genovese. In all, I had some 19 assault ops with me. Two squads would back up me and a pair of other assault ops who would physically apprehend Giovanni and then leave the action immediately; they'd cover us as we went in, make sure our escape route stayed clear and that no enemies followed. I also had four snipers to provide my close-quarter units with some ranged, precision fire-power. After securing our target and fleeing the scene, I and my two accompanying operatives would join two more, who'd be in charge of securely transporting Giovanni Genovese directly to our holding place in Berlin, where Commander Griffin and his team would meet all five of us. Counting myself, that made seventeen of us. I decided to pick up three more, for back up, and to make sure we didn't get flanked. All of us were mobile suit combat pilots and we'd be employing that technology for our mission.

     Finally, our fourth team would consist of all members running the infrastructure of this operation. My partner already had that team under wraps, so she'd just stay there. I also gave her command of the remaining armed personnel--some twenty-strong--that I wouldn't be taking with me, just in case something went amiss and my capture team needed bailing out. In the meantime, they'd be deployed to protect the grounds our operation HQ sat on.

     With that, the meeting was adjourned. My partner assembled her communications chiefs and their techs and began organizing and delegating. I picked out twenty combat ops to remain behind and selected their captains. After that, I rounded up my assault team. We'd debrief somewhere, then we'd head to where our heavy combat gear was housed. I had planned on using a mobile suit team for this part of the operation from the beginning. If we encountered any significant opposition, I figured this would be enough to offer twenty mere mortals, including myself, the edge that only superior armor, speed and firepower could give. I didn't have an army of Elite agents, but the suits we'd be in were technology from our organization, only to be used for missions of this level. It was the best we had, and I had a feeling that nothing less would do.

     In all, our joint personnel and staff meeting had taken the better part of four hours. That meant we only had four left. Not much time. With a resolve to see this thing through, we all went to work.

     I debriefed my own team for about one of those remaining hours before we finally departed, grim-faced, leaving in twos or threes, some alone, from various exit points in the three-level complex I'd chosen for our purposes, located a block from our operation HQ. We left the way we'd arrived, working to not be seen together. We would take separate vehicles to the mobile suit hangers, which were located some distance away, dispersed in underground bunkers whose entrances were located in several inconspicuous places scattered around the general vicinity. We wouldn't group at all till it was time to carry out our mission, and even then, all communication from here on out would be electronic. I left with the two ops whose job it would be to follow me and tackle Giovanni himself. We stopped by a drive-through, grabbed some food, then continued on.

     We arrived in the right neighborhood about ten minutes later, parked half a block away from the bunker's front door and continued on foot, taking different routes to our common destination, arriving and entering at different times. This took about twenty minutes. I got there second. After using my keys to unlock the combination panel, I punching in the code and waited for the doorway's internal scanners to finish checking my prints, retinas, and other identification points. A minute later, I was descending into the bunker's dim interior. The lights were already on at the bottom.

     The hangers are underground facilities that house about three to six mobile suits each. They consist of air-tight docks for the mechs, which are embedded in the center of the facilities back wall, directly across an open concrete floor from the elevator that takes the pilots down from the surface into the hanger. To one side of the suit docks is a row of large, walk-in lockers for the pilots, and beyond that, there's a work space big enough to hold three suits at a time. The workspace has storage cossets and chests for all the repair and diagnostic tools and computers and for all the spare weapons, ammunition and miscellaneous components specific to the mobile suit models being stored. On the other side of the mobile suit docks is the launching pad, which will take three machines at a time to the surface.

     A small communications center sits to one side of the entrance/exit elevator. It usually has one large display screen, embedded in the wall, and three to six normal-sized ones lined up in front of it, attached to a long table at which are chairs and keyboards, one of each per monitor. The monitors are connected to computers housed in the floor under the tables; each of these is plugged into a mainframe that's embedded somewhere deep in the center of the entire network of mobile suit hangers. The space on the other side of the elevator has a small kitchen, complete with sink, counter top, refrigerator and pantry, both stocked with non-perishables. Beyond that is a sleeping area, with three to six low beds, equipped with inflatable mattresses, thermal sleeping bags and pillows. The beds stay clear while not in use, their stuff stored away in the beds themselves, which are basically hollow, rectangular metal and concrete boxes. When opened, they recede some three feet into the ground. Their lids can be closed and slept on top of, which would be like sleeping on a normal above-ground bed, or their occupant, if he or she should choose, can settle their mattress into the bottom of the open box. They can even close themselves up in there (there's a latch on the inside as well as the out). As a last note of general architecture, a barrier of clear, very strong, glass-like composite encompasses the entrance, communications center, kitchen, and sleeping area, stretching from the floor to the ceiling, partitioning those spaces off from the heat and noise that comes from the rest of hanger when the battle machines are out and operating. Part of the partition is a door that slides open to let one pass between the hanger's respective living and working quarters. In short, it's far from being put up in the Hilton, but for a mobile suit combat pilot, who usually has his of her next mission on their mind anyway, it does just fine.

     My hanger was a three-suit outfit. As I entered, I noticed that all the battle mechs had already been wheeled from their docks, ready to be carted over to the work area, checked, armed and activated. Actually, one of them already was. I returned a wave from my first operative across the way, who was in the process of parking her machine, ready to begin running diagnostics. Finishing the sandwich and drink I still had on me, I passed through the clear composite wall and crossed the open concrete floor, tossing the disposable wrappings left from my late lunch into an incinerator bin set in the wall between where the last mobile suit dock ended and the first locker began. I moved over to those lockers. I knew each of them were about the size of a walk-in closet and twice as deep with a shower, sink, toilet (with paper, I hoped), and a pair of internal foot lockers with toiletries, towels, dryers, and a set of piloting clothes and accompanying gear. The ID panels on the locker doors scanned my prints and retina, confirming my identity while I alternately activated and perused the drop-down menus embedded in each, looking through the electronic lists, trying to find a locker with clothes my size ('cause I like to be comfortable when I fight). Anyway, it didn't take long. I stepped into a locker right as my other operative finally entered the facility. A quick shower and change later, I was back out, and running diagnostics on my machine.

     The three of us were using SW-SSYs (Stealth Wing Shadow Scythers). These are the upgraded version of one of my organization's oldest but remarkably dependable ground-to-air fighter suits. Shadow Scyther's possess decent armor and firepower, but their real strengths are excellent speed and versatility, and superb stealth. This is my kind of battle mech. Now, our eight-man close-quarter assault support would be using SW-SSZs (Stealth Wing Shadow Scizors), the much more heavily armed and armored version of what I and the two ops with me would be using. Shadow Scizors are considerably slower than their SSY cousins, but then we needed their far superior shielding and firepower for the roles their operators would be playing in this.

     Our snipers and our three-man rear guard would also be using Shadow Scythers, albeit with alternative components. The snipers would swap out their machines' standard pair of armor-shredding blades, which also housed embedded 45 millimeter automatics, for one long-range 90 millimeter semi-auto precision rifle. Our back-up crew would be swapping their blades for pairs of high-capacity submachine guns, and they'd also be shedding some of their stealth technology for more powerful flying engines. If we needed them, we'd need them to get to us fast.

     That left our getaway team. They would be piloting SWGs--Stealth Wing Gundams--the only two such machines we had in our arsenal there. I had some reservations about using them for the role a simple armored air transport could also fill. Gundams are the biggest and most powerful of all mobile suit types. I was using them for the latter of those two reasons. With Team Rocket and The Shadow on our hands, there was no room for mistakes. I didn't feel like taking chances with anything here. After all, should a pair of SWGs be intercepted by hostile forces, they would be more than a match for anything short of a superior number of equally powerful and skillfully piloted gundams, which was an unlikely threat from either Rocket or Shadow forces, the former of which did not possess such technology yet, and the latter of which simply did not employ it.

     Two hours went by.

     With just one hour left, it was almost time. I helped my fellow pilots affix the containers we'd use to transport Giovanni to the back of their machines. These are similar to the spherical devices most pokémon trainers store their element-wielding buddies in, and they employ the same basic storage technology, albeit on a much larger and more powerful scale, and there are some significant complexities that separate them by a long shot from any pokéball. The containers have an oblong structure that tapers at either end, making them look more like giant, flat eggs. They're also pretty big--about eight feet tall. And they actually operate on a series of storage devices that essentially house each other in successive layers, like one of those Russian dolls that you take apart, in which there are smaller versions of the same doll, who get smaller and smaller, till finally, you're left with the very last doll at the center. With our containment system, the initial device that actually holds the target is in the center of the whole contraption, and when it captures its target, successive layers of storage devices close on it till you're left with the black, oval-shaped shell. So, basically, we were going to stuff Team Rocket's Boss in an over-sized tower of pokéballs. It was kind of funny to think about.

     Tools and spare parts were finally put a way, the work area cleared of all unnecessary equipment as last system checks were conducted and we climbed into our machines and fired their engines. Cockpits closed off the noise and heat from without and system monitors came to life from within. Seventeen minutes before departure time, all twenty of my mobile suit pilots were online and reporting to me, and I was reporting to operation HQ, who gave us our last information uploads minutes later, which included the stuff from our scouting team. They'd found the entrance to Team Rocket's underground bunker, and no one had seen them do it. Everything was in place.

     I gave my team the thumbs up and we blasted off into the night.

     It was show time.