The Aftermath of a Terrible Success

A bureau chief tries to debrief an agent.

DANIELSON nervously walks into Station Chief ALVAREZ’s office and takes a seat in front of his desk. ALVAREZ is still reading the report DANIELSON had written on Operation Puck. DANIELSON fidgets in seat trying to get comfortable. ALVAREZ takes his glasses off and takes a deep breath.

ALVAREZ: Agent Danielson… I don’t even know where to begin this meeting today. Usually after an agent successfully completes an operation like this we give him his commendations, we have a gala to celebrate it, and the country thanks you for doing your job before we put you right back to work. The thing is what you and your team did in this operation to achieve its unbelievably important victory is not something upstairs is happy with nor am I.

DANIELSON: Sir I take full responsibility for my actions. My team was just following my orders despite the circumstances. Operation Puck was a success and we saved France as well as Italy with our methods.

ALVAREZ: Danielson it is taking every muscle in my body to not punch you in your stupid f*****g face. Congratulations for saving two countries but you are beyond mental retardation you naïve idiot. The Director is jerking off as many c***s as he can to keep what happened under the tightest of wraps. If anyone finds out that Americans had not only an operation without the consent or knowledge the aforementioned countries, but the giant cluster f**k of s**t that it was, World War 3 would no doubt happen.

DANIELSON: Chief with all due respect, the operation’s outcome outweighed the methods used to achieve it. I personally saw to it that what we did will not be traced back to us. Everyone who did know it was us, which was the hostages we saved in the underground base, won’t tell a soul because they know how to keep secrets.

ALVAREZ: It won’t be traced back to us!? Are you that f*****g deluded agent? I read you and your team’s reports and watched the goddamn news as this forsaken operation was going on. I’m honestly surprised no one has put it together that it was us from how much the world had its eyes all over what was supposed to be a covert operation with no public attacks. That’s not the only thing I’m getting a hemorrhoid over though because for this operation you used over nine-hundred million American tax payer dollars in the span of three weeks. To put it in perspective those idiots over in the DEA had a budget of a couple billion dollars a few years ago. A decade ago our operatives only needed a budget of two million to stop Armageddon after a dictator of a small nuclear armed country decided to get drunk and screw with an ally of outs. No ponies were rented to be used as live bombs at a target’s birthday party for their child thus injuring and traumatizing children.

DANIELSON: It was our only shot at taking out the target and it succeeded. Without him the terror group wasn’t able to finish another WMD.

ALVAREZ: You could’ve killed him any other way like a normal f*****g person you dunce. My kid could’ve done it better and she’s only 7.  You also used military grade explosives to blow up not one, not two, not even three but five retirement homes in Italy to try to kill another target visiting his grandfather. 

DANIELSON: The ma- okay I admit our intel wasn’t complete so we may have had to improvise and destroy the retirement homes around the last known location of the target.

ALVAREZ: Jesus H Christ I thought this station was supposed to be full of professionals. You had fifty men in your team could you not send at least five men one for each home and taking out the target before he arrived or as he was leaving?

DANIELSON: It did occur to me but I felt it would’ve been more strategically advantageous if we didn’t risk the men and just destroy them all.

ALVAREZ: …

ALVAREZ gets up from his chair to look out the window. He tries to find a lone tree in the parking lot he likes to look at when he’s not in a good mood. His tired eyes lit up when he saw the tree was still there to comfort him. This joy did not last however and a car ran into it knocking it over. Several agents were outside guns drawn thinking it was an attack but it was a drunken agent who had forgotten he had work that day. A tear wells up in ALVAREZ’s eye, the only thing that gave him a respite from his gloomy days surrounded by incompetence has been taken from him.

ALVAREZ: *whispering* You won’t even let me have that huh you b*****d. I bet my life is just one big cosmic joke to you.

DANIELSON: Sir did you say something?

ALVAREZ: No I was just looking out the window hoping a lucky assassin could put me out of this bureaucratic misery.

DANIELSON: You shouldn’t be so negative sir you are a brilliant man with an amazing service record.

ALVAREZ: Yup and look where it got me, I’m here stuck with you.

DANIELSON looked away from ALVAREZ trying to hide his pained face. ALVAREZ slowly walks back to his desk and sits down in his chair while taking one final look at the report.

ALVAREZ: Before we finish up here I have two more problems I want you to clear up for me. Once you do that I’ll tell you what is going to happen to you. Don’t worry about anything else right now; all I need for you to do is clear these points up for me because if I had you explain every other problem with this operation I would choke you to death. Do you understand?

DANIELSON: *hard swallow* Yes sir.

ALVAREZ: Good, in Agent Margarita’s report she said that you may have broken several rules of the Geneva Convention to obtain the intelligence on the underground base hidden beneath Mont Blanc. This great country of ours has outlawed much of what is described here yet you decided to do them regardless. Now I know you wanted to be that agent that never follows the rules so that he can catch the bad guy and save the day because doing it by the book would never let you do what you have to do in time. I understand that, I served in the Middle East at the top of our ugly war and I too did things that some may call reprehensible. The thing is Danielson you didn’t have to torture anyone or threaten to f**k their wives in the a*s like some goddamn savage because according to Agent Margarita the man you abducted was ready to talk. She says here in her report that the man said multiple times, in his native tongue of Swedish, before your “interrogation” that he was ready to divulge any information. You however did not speak Swedish nor did you listen to her, the only person who spoke it, because you were angry that she stole your - God give me patience �" last vanilla pudding from the fridge in the safe house you were in at the time. This is the most childish, unprofessional behavior I’ve heard in all my time in the CIA. Please tell me that this didn’t really happen.

DANIELSON: What was detailed in the report happened although not exactly as it occurred.

ALVAREZ: So what did happen?

DANIELSON: It was a chocolate chip cookie that she stole from me sir. It was from the best bakery in France so it did anger me quite a bit.

ALVAREZ slams his head against the desk.

ALVAREZ: You know what? F**k it I’m sure you know what I would have said so on to the next one. What in the living f**k were you thinking when you detonated a nuclear bomb in the underground base beneath Mont Blanc!? Sure the base was very far underground so the blast wouldn’t have destroyed anyone nearby but the land around it is poisoned for years and the goddamned mountain sunk a few meters.

DANIELSON: After we secured the base and got the hostages out, we went back in to make sure we didn’t miss anything. After a thorough check we found a nuclear bomb in a room hidden behind a false wall. I ordered some of my men to disarm the bomb before we tried anything else. One of my men had some hearing loss from the fight to clear the base so he thought he heard the order to arm the bomb. This bomb was made to stay armed and couldn’t be deactivated with codes or keys. I gave the order to evacuate the base while also sending a warning to the local authorities to evacuate any nearby towns. Don’t worry they didn’t figure out who I was sir, I made sure of that.

ALVAREZ: How did they even let you become an agent? How did you save anything? After hearing all of this it shows me that you aren’t fit for being an ag-

SENIOR AGENT knocks on the office window. He motions with his hands for ALVAREZ to meet him outside his office. ALVAREZ goes out the door to talk to him. DANIELSON can see ALVAREZ getting increasingly agitated by the SENIOR AGENT but can’t hear their conversation clearly.

ALVAREZ: Are you f*****g kidding me!? This s**t farce is getting it!?

SENIOR AGENT nods and whispers something else to him before walking away. ALVAREZ enters the office and sits down.

DANIELSON: Sir are you alright? You are looking a bit pale.

ALVAREZ: Everything is fine Danielson thank you for your concern. An agent just got news from upstairs and told me what they are going to do with you. Any plans I had for you are off the table because the higher ups are actually really proud of you unlike what I previously thought. The Director especially really liked your gung-ho attitude plus the results you got from it. You are being transferred and promoted to Station Chief in Bolivia where you’ll deal with a splinter group from the organization you eliminated. You are to pack your bags and leave tonight.

DANIELSON: Wow I don’t know what to say sir thank you.

ALVAREZ: You won’t receive any commendations for the operation though. It has been swept under the biggest rug we could find and it’s going to stay that way. Your team is also getting transferred with you to Bolivia so don’t worry about them. You’re dismissed.

DANIELSON: I’ll make my country proud sir! I’ll start packing as soon as I return to my apartment sir.

DANIELSON leaves the office. ALVAREZ pulls out a bottle of whiskey from a drawer in his desk. He grabs a glass as well and pours some whiskey into it. He drinks the whole glass of whiskey in one gulp.

ALVAREZ: Well… S**t.