11:19, Federal Police Headquarters, #1 Police Administration Place, Skalm, Kazulia.
By the time Kolden exited the highway, drove down the main road and arrived at the Federal Police Headquarters, he was already twenty minutes late for the meeting. His hair hung in his eyes, and his beard still reached down to his clavicle-to years worth of growing he thought to himself. As he opened the door and barged into the room, heads turned to him. He sighed. "Sorry, I'm late. I've been in the boonies on piggyback tours. I'd forgotten about the traffic around here." A small group manned the sides along with a conference table the length of the national mall in Skalm. The table looked long enough to support a military parade and a few armoured vehicles. Five individuals had clustered chairs near the head and a man with a crew cut, his hair glistening with steel shaving under the fluorescent lights, turnaround from a dry-erase board where he'd been writing his name: Nils Arvesen.
"What do we have here?" asked Arvesen, using his marker to point out an empty chair. "Are you man? Or beast?" Kolden cracked a grin. The hair and beard did suggest that he'd spent the night in a refrigerator box. With a little grooming, though, Kolden would be back to his old self. He drew back his head. "Where's Kringen? They told me that NSOC would be heading up this task force." "Kringen's out, I'm in," snapped Arvesen. "You boys are lucky, I guess." "Who who are you?" Kolden asked, shifting around the table, a portfolio in one hand, coffee in the other. Arvesen eyed him with a crooked grin. "Not much of a reader, are you?" A lean Kyo-man who had to be Park (based on the picture Kolden reviewed in the portfolio) turned to Kolden and began laughing. "Relax, he's done this to all of us. He's good. Just trying to lighten the mood."That's right, I'm good," said Arvesen. "We need to loosen up around here-because what we're about to do ill be tense. Very tense." "What department are you from?" Kolden asked. "BORSIG. You know what that is?" Kolden nodded. The Kazulian Border Protection Agency Special Intervention Group was the global special response team for the Department of Home Affairs' Border Protection Agency. BORSIG agents deployed in more than eight countries in the Dovanian region to respond to serious terrorist threats of all types. Their weapons and gear were comparable to those of the HSK, the MSK and other special operations units. BORSIG teams worked alongside military units in Eljang and Reunii to help find, confiscate and destroy illicit narcotics being smuggled across the border. They had earned an excellent reputation in the special operations community, and Kolden had on several occasions shared intelligence with BORSIG operators who exhibited the highest level of professionalism.
The unit was founded in 4603, and within three years it was already engaged in counter-narcotics operations in Dovani during Operation Pierce. BORSIG agents were tasked with helping to disrupt the growing, processing and smuggling of cocaine in a long list of countries including Ntoto, Utembo, Xampa and New Alduria. Agents worked alongside the Police Security Directorate (now the Security Intelligence Organisation). "I head up the Dreton Sector," Arvesen went on. "But the deputy commissioner wanted me to work with you gorillas for this operation. In my humble opinion, I'm uniquely suited for this job because our mission involved both exposing and dismantling the drug trade and exposing their relationship to criminality, which I remind you is Mr Kolden's area of expertise." "Reporting for duty as ordered-sir," Kolden said with a mock scowl. "Now you're playing along," Arvesen said with a genuine grin. "Welcome to Operation Roman. And as a matter of fact, I've been asked to make you our field team leader." Kolden chuckled under his breath. "What crazy drunk suggested that?" "The National Commissioner." That drew some laughs from the table. "All right team, in all seriousness, we have got a lot to cover here. I heard you guys love presentations, so I have a few of them. Just give me a minute to load them up." Park groaned and turned to Kolden. "Good to meet you." "And you're from Criminal Intelligence." "You've been doing some good work around the world. Not sure I'd last five minutes." Kolden smiled. "Maybe ten." Park was a damned fine federal agent with numerous successful operations under his belt. More recently, he had been performing recon operations in Eljang and Reunii where criminal organisations were growing opium and where he had been tracking an assassin who had murdered one of his associates. Seated beside him was Jane Hagen, a thirty-two-year-old agent from the Criminal Intelligence Directorate. A familiar face, he had worked alongside her in previous missions. Mainly operating out of the Dreton Section, she had built a reputation of being extremely persuasive.
Kolden caught the gaze of the man near the head of the table, Simon Welde, who despite his surname, could easily pass for one of the posher members of the North Dovanian aristocracy. His father was half Daddwyr, Half Kazulian and his mother was North Dovanian. He'd been born and raised in Kazulia and been recruited out of university to join the Border Protection Agency's Customs Division. According to his file, Welde has been working for several years on gun smuggling operations and just been promoted to join Operation Roman to use his knowledge of the smuggling operations of the cartels. Arvesen pointed at the photograph. "All right, our primary problem is this: I don't trust the North Dovanian police to be wholly accurate with their intelligence nor do I believe that all of it is going to be 100% true. That means although we work with them, we gather our own intelligence which is going to be used as the gold standard for our joint missions." "Persons of interest?" asked Kolden. "A Lot," said Arvesen. "Because there is so little intelligence, we have to assume everyone is in on it". Arvesen brought up a colour-coded chart representing the chain of command in North Dovani's new counternarcotics mechanism. He continued, "the bottom line is this: we are here to both train and assist. You know the drill. Welde and Hagen, you're together. Park is with me. That leaves you, Kolden." Kolden grinned, "To North Dovani it is."