Foreign Correspondence: Cover Letter
Chapter 8
by
Mo
Disclaimer: The X-Men and Alpha Flight belong to Marvel. The movie belongs to Fox. Hotmail belongs to Microsoft. Belarus is an independent country and belongs to its citizens, mutant and otherwise. Bryn Mawr is a private women's college founded in 1885. It belongs to the women, mutant and otherwise, who have lived and learned there for the past 116 years. The Miami Herald is a real newspaper but AFAIK has never had an Adam Greenfield on staff. I do feel like Scott and Logan are a little bit mine since I've been borrowing them for so long.
Scott and Logan were at the meeting table in the outpost's living room. Maps and plane schedules were spread out in front of them. Warren entered the big room and spied Scott. "I've been looking all over for you."
"Warren! You're back. I looked for you when I got in, but Wendy said you had gone into town."
Scott got up to greet him but Warren glared at him. "Why didn't you tell me you're sending Laura to Belarus?" he asked, his voice filled with anger.
"She said she wanted to tell you herself. It's going to be okay. I know you're worried, but - "
"You don't know shit. Worried? I'm more than worried. I'm furious. It's an insane idea. She has no experience doing anything like this. Laura's not like you and me - she didn't spend her teenage years risking her life daily and calling that high school. She's had no combat training of any kind. She's never been to that godforsaken place - doesn't know the first thing about it, even if she can speak the language like a native. And what do you think this is going to accomplish? There are thousands of mutants in those camps. There's no way someone can infiltrate and get them all out. You think Laura's going to be some sort of one-woman liberation force?"
"I'm not sending her to get the mutants out of the camps, Warren. People - our people - in Belarus are suffering unspeakable torture every day. They're dying, and often glad to die after what they've been through. Every day. And there's nothing I can do about it. Don't you think I know that? Don't you think it keeps me up at night? If I could send a team in and liberate those camps, of course I would. But that's not an X-Men mission. It will take an army to do that. Or the equivalent in U.N. peacekeepers.
"We're working on that - through diplomatic channels, through mutant-friendly officials at the State Department. We're trying to get the U.N. involved, Amnesty, the Eastern Orthodox Church. All of that. Jean and Charles are working night and day on it and who knows if they'll have any success? They'll keep doing their damnedest as long as any of the mutants in those camps are still alive. But that's not what this mission is about."
"So what *is* it about?" Warren's voice was still belligerent, but he seemed to be calming down.
"Kolya Ivankov is missing."
Warren opened his mouth to ask something, then changed his mind. Scott motioned for him to sit down across from him. He continued, "Jean-Paul has kept in touch with the reporter from the Herald: Adam Greenfield. I told him to try to continue their correspondence even after Sasha was settled in Westchester - Greenfield might have information we could use. So, they've been exchanging emails and talking on the phone. Greenfield has been in Lithuania these past few weeks, trying to get more information on what's going on in Belarus. It's as close as he could get. The Minsk government is cracking down on foreign reporters and they certainly weren't going to let Greenfield in. Kolya Ivankov - yes, the same Kolya Jean-Paul talked about - was the one who helped him get Sasha out of Belarus. Kolya stayed in the country. He has been aiding mutants who are passing as normal. Giving them new identity papers, getting some of them out of the country before they're found out - either to Latvia or Lithuania.
"Kolya has really been leading the underground mutant rescue operation. He had been moving from place to place, living under an assumed name. Greenfield wasn't in contact with him for fear of blowing his cover. But then Kolya called Greenfield, asked him to help with mutants who had gotten out of Belarus - arranging for new identities or passage to other countries. They can't really stay in Lithuania indefinitely and there are very few countries willing to take mutant refugees. Canada, by the way, is one of them. So, Greenfield has been helping. He's helped with travel, made arrangements through the Canadian consulate - that kind of stuff. He and Kolya were in regular contact. Kolya called Greenfield every day at the same time. From different locations, sometimes just brief conversations, but every day. Then he stopped. Greenfield hasn't heard from him in three days."
Nobody said anything for a minute, while that sunk in. Then Warren asked, "So how did we get into it?"
"Greenfield told Jean-Paul. I think they have really become friends through all of this and he's terribly worried. Kolya knows the whereabouts of hundreds of passing Belarussian mutants, according to Jean-Paul. If they've captured him it's only a matter of time before they break him. If they haven't captured him, well he's somewhere where he can't contact Greenfield. He's in some kind of trouble. We've got to get him out of there before there are hundreds more people sent off to those camps."
"How do you know it isn't too late?" This time it was Logan asking.
"There's still some news coming out of Belarus. If there had been a massive roundup of seemingly normal people, it wouldn't have gone unnoticed. But each day that goes by makes it more and more likely that they'll capture Kolya. And if they've already got him, well, the Belarussian Anti-Mutant Police have proven themselves totally ruthless. I've heard some of what they did to Sasha. It's not a question of *whether* Kolya tells them everything he knows. It's just a matter of when. We can't let them get hold of him. Not alive, anyway."
There was another long pause. "Why Laura?" Warren asked, finally.
"Come on, Warren, you know the answer to that. We send anybody else in there they'll be totally at a loss. She speaks the language. The languages: Belarussian and Russian. She can get around; she can understand what others are saying. And she's smart and capable and doesn't look like a mutant. Or a combatant. She's inconspicuous. And she's here, goddammit. I don't have time to find someone else who just happens to speak Russian or Belarussian and has a mutation that doesn't show and is willing to go to the current world hot spot for mutants." Scott put his hand on Warren's arm. "I have to use Laura. I'm sorry, Warren. Look, we've got a good plan - I wouldn't send her if we didn't. We've got things worked out. I've got cover for her, I've got protection. Jean-Paul will be with her. They'll get in and out as fast as they can."
Warren's looked down, wings drooping. "I tried to talk her out of it. She said she has to go. She wouldn't listen to a word I said."
Scott didn't say anything.
After a while Warren looked up. "Well, if she's going, I'm going with her."
"You can't. You wouldn't last a day in Belarus. I'm not going, Warren. I can't - the glasses make me too easy to spot. And you're twice as easy to spot as I am."
"I'll tie them up. Nobody will know."
"Yeah, right." Scott was trying to be patient but the worry was coming out as sarcasm. "Until they strip search you. Or frisk you. Or somebody just pats you on your goddamn back. I'd just as soon send Hank or Kurt as you. It's totally out of the question."
"I can't let Laura go there by herself."
"She's not going by herself. I told you: Jean-Paul's going with her. He can fly her out of there if need be, just like you could. Better, even, because of the super speed component. And nobody can tell by looking at him or Laura that they're mutants. They have a fine cover story. She'll be a Belarussian immigrant to Canada and she's showing her husband the land of her birth."
"You can come up with whatever cover story you want, Scott, but I'm going, too. Don't act like this is going to be easy for her. Or safe. Her mutation doesn't show but that doesn't mean they can't find out what she really is. Particularly if she's snooping around places no tourist would go near. That country is a hell-hole for people like us and you're sending Laura in there. Well, she's not going without me."
"You're telling me it's a hell-hole?" Scott's voice was rising. "I've metSasha Cherevko. I've seen what's left of him. He was starved. He was beaten. He was raped. He can't sleep, can't eat, can barely function. I can't send obvious mutants into Belarus. I'll lose you if I do, Warren. Look, we're not kids any more. This is for real. You want to be an X-Man, you've got to do what I tell you. You've got to take orders. You are not part of this mission."
"Well, if these are the orders, I don't want to be an X-Man. Okay, Cyclops? I resign, before I even signed up again. Keep the uniform, keep the lapel pin, keep the fucking secret decoder ring. I'm not part of the mission? Fine. But I'm still going with Laura." Warren stalked out of the room, wings flapping angrily.
Scott stood up to follow him, but Logan stopped him, his hand on Scott'sshoulder. "Let him go. You're not going to get anywhere arguing with him."
"Stay out of this, Logan. It's between me and Warren. We have a lot of history. I know how to handle him."
"Yeah, you're doing a bang up job so far."
"Look, I know you don't like him. It's fine with you, I'm sure, if he goes offto Belarus just because he's hot for this Laura woman. Fine if he doesn't come back, too. That's what you're thinking, isn't it?"
"No, Scott, it's not." Logan looked very serious. "I'm thinking if it was you going, I'd go, too. I'm thinking if it was me going, you'd go. And youwouldn't stand for anybody telling you that you can't 'cause the glasses make you too obvious. An army of lovers, right? I don't think he's just hot for her, Scott. I think it's a lot more than that."
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