Heroic Measures (continued)

“We don’t have enough intel!” Harrison shouted.

“We’ll never have enough intel,” Red countered. “You know as well as I do that no plan, no matter how good it is, survives first contact with the enemy.”

Walter thought he had heard that phrase somewhere before, but could not place where. He guessed that it might have been from some history class, sometime, mostly likely when he was paying much less attention than he should have.

“Be that as it may,” Westin countered. “If we don’t go in there with as complete of knowledge as possible concerning their facilities and personnel, then we might as well just march up to them now and get the slaughter over with.”

Vivian and Red almost rolled their eyes in unison at Westin’s dramatic delivery.

“The longer we wait,” Red insisted, “the more entrenched they’ll be. They’ll be better prepared and more likely to have further compromised our ranks.”

Walter nodded. He shared Red’s concern in that regard. Although they believed that they had purged themselves of all enemy operatives, Walter suspected some still remained among them. Harrison had even gone so far as to suggest that there might even be “sleeper agents” among the ranks of the heroes.

He had asked Red what those were, but it was Grant, surprisingly, who answered him.

“Deep cover agents,” he said. Seeing Walter’s questioning look, he went on. “Operatives prepared so they no longer remember their original identities,” he explained. “Through hypnosis, psychoactive drugs . . . other techniques.”

Walter guessed from the large man’s expression that Grant had some personal experiences related to this.

“They’re programmed to ‘wake up’ when a code phrase, or something other trigger, is used.” Grant continued. “That’s what makes them so hard to detect. The trigger can be anything from a code word, a date, musical notes, an odor . . . almost anything can be used.”

For the next several days, Walter had studied every member of the council and staff he encountered, wondering if they might be such an operative, embedded by their enemies. Additional gathered intelligence might give them the answer to that question, but the odds were against it.