Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Torchwood characters, I'm only borrowing them, and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
Original characters are my own invention.
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It had seemed like an easy enough assignment, one that would only take a short time.
After all, this was Torchwood Three they were talking about, the barely functioning motley crew, protecting the earth from the scum of the universe.
Duane and his team could barely keep themselves from laughing whenever they were handed the assignment. Now if it had been Torchwood One, that would have been a trickier proposition. Fully staffed with agents and God knew what sorts of alien technology to back them up. Having to infiltrate that base would have been tricky indeed. But Torchwood One had been overrun and all its technology hadn't been enough to save it.
That was partly the reason behind the assignment. Duane's bosses had wanted to find out if Torchwood Three was hiding any nasty little secrets the same as their head office had been. "But aren't we on the same side as Torchwood?" Duane had asked his Boss. "Can't we just ask them what they're doing?"
The reply had been a derisive laugh, "You think that bunch of Limey's are gonna give us a straight answer? Hell, not that I blame them are anything. They were set up to protect their country from threats, just like we were set up to protect ours. Trouble is, one day they may decide that we're just as much a threat as a bunch of green skinned aliens. And if they do, then I want to know exactly what they're packing."
"They're very much the junior department of Torchwood. What makes you think they're even 'packing' anything dangerous?"
The response had been a file full of newspaper clippings and reports. Duane had examined it, "Gas leak reports? Almost fifty killed? I don't follow."
"Gas leak," Duane's boss had snorted derisively. "That's the oldest cover up in the book. Weapons test goes wrong, or civilians get in the way. Just chalk it up to a gas leak and move on. Now maybe I'm misjudging these guys...or maybe Torchwood have something that can wipe out a city block in the space of minutes. If they have it, then we need it too."
So Duane and his team had been sent to Cardiff to infiltrate the base. Piece of piss, they'd figured. After all, with their training and experience, it should have been a pretty damn straightforward job to get themselves or some recording devices inside Torchwood Three to find out exactly what they were doing.
But somehow, it wasn't quite as easy as was supposed to be.
In some ways, the undersized nature of Torchwood Three was in itself a kind of protection. A larger organization, one with large numbers of personnel who couldn't be expected to remember every face they worked with, that would have been an easier infiltration. A few finely crafted fake ID's, a quick stroll through the halls to scope out the security system, and Duane and his team would be in and out without anyone the wiser. But when the entire organization consisted of five people, it would be a bit hard to sneak an extra person in anywhere.
Plan B would have normally been to go in without hiding. Instead of fake ID's they'd have used fake orders from senior staff at Torchwood's head office, go in as VIP's and get a guided tour. One problem that Duane pointed out to Travis when he'd suggested that plan. "As far as we can tell, there are no senior staff left. This is pretty much the head office."
"You mean this bunch are all that stands between the UK and any potential Alien threat?" Bertha, Duane's second in command had asked. "Good God, they are sooo screwed."
Perhaps it had been that attitude that had lulled Duane's team into a false sense of complacency, certain that it would only be a matter of time, and probably not much of it, before they'd be able to complete their mission. With the obvious avenues of infiltration closed to them, they were forced to use other measures.
The first step was to find out as much information as possible from the Torchwood staff. To that end, Duane sent his people out into the pubs and clubs of Cardiff to track down and chat up the team. A few drinks were sure to loosen the right tongues.
Only it didn't seem to work out that way. Without fail, Duane's men and women returned to their base with nothing to show for the efforts except massive hangovers and equally massive expense claims. Duane had to field several calls from the suits in accounting as he tried to explain how it had indeed been necessary for his team to spend so much on booze. It wouldn't have mattered if they'd managed to glean even a tiny scrap of information from their targets, but the Torchwood team had proved to be both close mouthed and hollow legged as they successfully drank Duane's team members under the table.
Duane's next strategy was a tried and tested one. If you couldn't get your people in, then you sent the next best thing.
Unfortunately whatever Torchwood lacked in people and resources, it certainly wasn't lacking in the 'bug-detecting' line. Not one of Duane's bugs made it past the Tourist Office fa?de and into the hidden depths of the base.
At first Duane had thought it was just bad luck. The bug on the Torchwood SUV had somehow become demagnetised and run over...repeatedly. The bug in the pizza boxes delivered to the Torchwood offices had been baked in a microwave. The bug in the newspapers picked up by the man in the Tourist Office had gone silent just after picking up what had sounded like a shredding machine.
Their most successful bug had been a tiny video camera shaped like a butterfly. After much trial and error, Bertha had managed to land it on the back of the greatcoat worn by the Torchwood leader after he'd hopped out of the SUV. Duane's team had watched with bated breath as he walked around by the fountains and then suddenly seemed to start sinking downwards.
"I knew they must have a hidden entrance round there," Travis had crowed. "Bertha, you owe me fifty bucks!"
But the jubilation had been short lived. Bertha had made the butterfly bug fly off the Captain's coat as soon as he was below street level. But before she could find anything worth focusing on, a loud squawking noise came over the speakers. Bertha had twisted the joystick, trying to turn the bug to find the source of the noise, but the last thing the camera broadcast was a large beak aiming straight for it.
There was plenty of arguing over what exactly that beak had belonged to. Bertha insisted it was too large for an ordinary bird and had to be alien in origin. Travis accused her of not calibrating the video feed correctly and said the magnification must have been skewed. "It's probably only a canary or something, just looked big."
Whatever the answer, Duane had decided that enough was enough. "Ladies and gentlemen, what is the easiest way to get something into a secure base?"
His team had looked at him blankly. Duane sighed inwardly at their lack of comprehension. "If we can't get the bug into the base...well we'll just have to get one of them to bring it in for us."
"You mean, turn one of them?" asked Bertha, "I don't think we have time for that. It could take weeks or months to persuade any of them to help us and we'll be pulled off this assignment before that long."
"Not if they don't know that they're helping us!"
He could see the growing awareness as he explained his plan. Grab a Torchwood member, drug them, stick a bug on them, and send them on their way. "Obviously they scan everything coming into the base, that's why all our bugs were discovered and destroyed."
"But won't they scan their people as well?" asked Travis.
"Probably, but they won't be able to do as detailed a scan for fear of causing cellular damage. We use a low level bug, set it to switch on after enough time has passed for our subject to get inside the base, and then just sit back and listen in to all their dirty little secrets."
"If it's that easy, then why haven't we tried it already?" asked Bertha.
"Because the bugs are expensive and would have sent us over budget for this assignment," replied Duane.
Travis snorted derisively, "Like we haven't exceeded our budget already!"
"Yes well, it's a last resort, but we're not exactly batting a thousand here and we need to get results and fast. Otherwise our next posting will be tracking down Yeti in the Himalayas!"
"Can't be worse weather than here," muttered Travis.
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So the plan was set in motion. The bug was acquired from a contact in London, together with instructions on the best places to conceal it. "Perfect," said Duane as they sat in their surveillance van and ran the final tests of their equipment. "Now all we need is to pick our target, and no," he added quickly, "We are not planting this bug on Captain Harkness." He saw the looks of disappointment on Travis and Bertha's faces. "I don't care how much you want to manhandle him, he's the Torchwood leader, we're staying well away from him."
So the team waited and watched for an opportunity to present itself.
In the end it was almost too easy...they'd been waiting for hours, watching the feed on the monitors, when without warning 'Tourist office guy' as Bertha had nicknamed him, appeared on one of the screens. "Shit!" swore Travis, "He's coming right over!"
There had been an immediate panic as Duane tried to decide whether or not to drive out of there before he could reach them. In the end, before they could get the engine powered up, there was a knock on the side door.
"What do we do, Duane?" hissed Travis urgently.
Duane took a deep breath and made a quick decision. "We don't look our gift horse in the mouth." Grabbing a tranquilliser gun, he moved over to the door and gestured to Bertha to open it.
"Hello there, Sir, I was wondering if you could move your vehicle, it's blocking..." was all the man managed to say before Duane shot him with a tranq dart. He swayed slightly, before slumping forward and being pulled into the van.
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Thirty minutes later, he was back on his merry way, and thanks to a quick spot of hypnosis, completely unaware of what had just happened, or the fact that he was carrying a bug back into Torchwood.
"How long should I give it before switching on?" asked Bertha.
"Give it an hour, just to be on the safe side," said Duane. "We need to give him time to get inside, get past the scanners, and hopefully get somewhere interesting."
"Yeah, fat lot of good it'll be if all we get is him handing out tourist information leaflets," muttered Travis.
So they waited with varying degrees of impatience until finally Duane ordered Bertha to activate the bug. Of necessity, they weren't going to be able to pick up a video feed, but Bertha had been certain that they'd pick up enough information to make it worthwhile. "If we're lucky, maybe even a password or two, or some sort of confirmation that they have technology worth steal...er, sharing with us."
"Shh," said Travis, "I think we're picking something up."
That was a bit of an understatement. There was a loud piercing shriek from the speakers that had all three team members rushing for the volume control. A few seconds later, all the screens flared into life.
"Did you switch those on?" asked Duane.
"I never touched them," said Bertha.
"Okay people, enough is enough." The voice came from the speakers and a few seconds later the image of Captain Jack Harkness appeared on all the screens.
"Oh shit," said Duane.
"Enough is enough," said Jack. "I've let you play around with trying to infiltrate my base, mainly because I figured it'd be no harm to test our security. But when you lay a hand on any of my friends, that's when it stops being fun."
Duane and his team looked at each other with varying expressions of shock and horror as Jack's voice continued.
"Because you didn't cause any permanent damage I'm going to let you leave in one piece, but if I so much as catch a glimpse of any of you anywhere near my team again..." The expression on his face left them in no doubt of the seriousness of his words. "You have ten minutes to pack up and get the hell out of my city or I'm taking you into custody and having you arrested as spies." The screen faded to black.
"Shit, shit, shit!" said Travis. "What do we do now?"
"We do like the man said and get the hell out of here," said Duane, sliding into the drivers seat. He was about to turn the key in the ignition when the screens flickered to life again. "What the hell does he want now?"
"Oh yeah, I said you could go...your vehicle stays here," said Jack, a cheeky grin on his face as he added, "I figure we deserve some compensation for the way you've disrupted our work the last few months."
"Yeah right," muttered Duane as he turned the key in the ignition. "If he thinks I'm leaving all our gear behind for them to play with, he's got another think coming."
"And just in case you thought you could just drive away, you might want to look at this," said Jack in an ominously cheery tone. His image faded away on one of the screens, to be replaced by an image of the exterior of their van...an image which quickly focused on one of the rear wheels.
"Oh my God," said Bertha.
"The bastard's had us clamped!" hissed Duane, fury in his voice.
"Now that's not playing fair," moaned Travis.
"Clock's ticking people," said Jack.
"Fuck," said Duane, a sentiment, which was echoed by his teammates as they hastily grabbed as much equipment as they could carry.
"I knew we should have got the SUV with the self-destruct button," muttered Travis.
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Later.
"Is Tosh enjoying her new toy?" Jack had a big grin on his face as Ianto appeared at his office door.
"I believe it's like Christmas and her birthday all come at once," said Ianto, "She's already found a number of devices in the van which she's appropriating for Torchwood."
"Well tell her that we're going to return it...eventually, so she's to copy anything useful and then put it back."
"Of course."
"And how are you doing?" Jack's tone was more serious.
Ianto shrugged, "Apart from having being drugged and hypnotized and being used as a Trojan horse, you mean?"
Jack pushed himself up out of his chair and moved over to Ianto. "If I'd known what they were planning, I would never have sent you out there." He reached out and clasped Ianto's head in his hands.
"You know of course what the worst thing about the whole incident is?" asked Ianto, his arms snaking around Jack's waist.
"No...tell me," said Jack, leaning in close and brushing his lips against Ianto's.
"It's that for the next month I'm going to have to suffer through Owen's crowing about how he always knew I had a bug up my ass and now he's been proven right!"
Jack's burst of laughter was only silenced by Ianto's kiss.
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The end
Ceindreadh