Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure HQ, Paris, France

Francis scowled as he sat in the large office room, flipping through the multitudes of manila folders. There just didn't seem to be any end to it. Reports regarding the increase in narcotic abuse and the steady flow of firearms appearing in the black market were flying in left, right and centre. A couple of documents regarding missing persons peeked out from beneath the pile, but Francis decided he'll just dump them on someone else. He didn't really have time to be able to deal with all of it.

Standing up and walking towards the shelf, he picked a navy blue file off it, and flipped through it. The contents only help grow the frown that appeared on his face. It seemed that all his potential spies and contacts were all dead or missing in action. In other words, he was quite at the standstill. Sighing, he replaced the file and strode towards the office door. Opening his door, he poked his head through it and looked around. Catching sight of his bespectacled partner, he called out to him.

"Matthieu! A moment, if you please."

Matthew was on his way to his partner’s office with orders to drop off an armful of folders containing various reports. As if they didn’t have enough on their plate already. He looked at the floor ahead of him, inwardly groaning at the thought of the recent overflow of cases, but looked up when he heard his name.

“Of course! I needed to hand you something, anyway,” he responded, quickening his pace as he walked over. “Apparently there’s an influx of missing…” he trailed off, able to see the pile of folders in Francis’ office from the doorway. Matthew peered at it over his partner’s shoulder, staring wide-eyed; it undoubtedly made the number of files he held in his hands small in comparison.

“Er…never mind, sorry. You first. Is something wrong?” The reports could wait. They weren’t of higher importance than the others, after all.

Francis stared at the pile of folders in Matthew's hands. Oh no... surely... no way...
Beginning to feel slightly sick, he shook his head.

"Oh, er.. well, don't just stand there. Do come in." Moving aside, he held the door open and ushered Matthew in. Closing the door behind, he walked over to his desk and leaned on it, folding his arms across his chest. A light sigh escaped him.

"No, I was just about to ask you as to whether you had any leads to any of the cases that we are working on, or even any hypotheses and theories. We're... at quite the impasse."

Matthew gave Francis an apologetic look. “Unfortunately, I’ve run into plenty of dead ends. I mean…there’s no doubt that much of this is the work of organized crime, but I’m beginning to wonder just how many groups we’re dealing with.”

He frowned at the less-than-hopeful notion, staring down at the new additions in his hands bleakly. Matthew wondered where he should put his pile. Looking at the other folders in the room, he doubted that it really mattered at this point.

“I think we could use some backup. Is there anyone left you could call?” he asked, quickly running out of ideas. Matthew thought these cases were too difficult with so few people, especially if many of them were interconnected.

Francis shook his head. "Unfortunately, none at all. Although, if the cases are as interrelated as we believe they are, then maybe there might be information on then somewhere, somehow. If worse comes to worst, then I might have squeeze out information from anywhere, maybe even Interpol. Plead with them, beg.... I don't know. Just something." That last thought put a frown on his face. Hopefully, it shouldn't have to come to that.

He had noticed Matthew looking from the pile of folders on his desk, to the pile that he was holding in his arms. Well, that was definitely not a good sign, but ti wasn't like he could put it off.

"Well, that's more work for us, isn't it?" He asked as he nodded at the files Matthew held. Pushing aside some of the documents on his desk and pulling out a large piece of blank paper, he sat down opposite of Matthew. "Might as well get to it then. Maybe we can try and figure out how many groups are involved, at the very least."

Absolutely no one? Matthew knew that they were tight on people, but he hadn’t been informed that the situation was that bad. He suddenly had a strong feeling of dread.

“Yes, I’m afraid this is,” Matthew said, looking back at the files Francis had gestured towards. He placed the folders on a relatively empty portion of the desk. He had at first hoped in vain that these reports would be the pieces to a single puzzle, but the sad truth was that reality was never as clean and convenient as that. Instead, they were left with pieces of multiple puzzles mixed together.

Which meant that in order to solve any of these cases, they had to sort them out. Which meant paperwork. Matthew sighed, but said, “So should we start by figuring out which ones are related? There could be a pattern somewhere. Because I’ve noticed a lot of these lead back to a similar location…”

Nodding his head, Francis picked up one of the new folders and scanned through it. "Maybe we should organise the narcotic cases and the firearm cases separately. Hopefully, there should be a lead in there. Where is it that you think they can be traced back to?"

“Good idea,” Matthew said, flipping through a couple of the files that were already on the desk. “Right. The United States. Same region, even.” He spent a couple of minutes trying to find an example of matching locations until he found two similar cases of narcotic abuse.

“See? Same these two involve drug trafficking to the same state,” he said finally, laying the two open folders next to each other as he pointed to different lines in each report. “And the same…city? Francis, remember seeing any more having to do with this city?”

Now they were getting somewhere.

((Notifs are being stupid. Technology hates me. D:))

Leaning in, Francis nodded. "Ah! I've seen..." he trailed off, immediately standing up and pulling out a folder from somewhere in the pile, "here-" Opening it up, he lay it beside the two folders, "and here... here... and here," He said, laying down a few more folders in increasing fervor.

"America, yes? Could this be a lead, Matthew? How on earth did we not notice it before?" Francis said, his fingers tapping on the table gently as a small smirk grew. "Shall we head over to it, then?"

(don't worry about it. xD)

Well, this was certainly exciting. Matthew had to wonder as well how they’d missed this earlier. His mood performed a one-eighty degree flip and his smile grew wider with each folder Francis lay open.

“Yes! Yes, let’s go!” He said with an extremely eager tone. He coughed, a bit embarrassed. “I mean…that would be best.”

Though really, who could blame him for being a bit excited? They were actually getting somewhere and it would be nice to go to North America again. It had been a while since he'd been on the other side of the pond, so to speak.

Smiling gently, Francis began assembling the folders.

"Pack your bags, Matthieu. We're leaving tonight. I'm letting the higher-ups know, prepare the tickets for the fastest planes and we'll be having breakfast in America by tomorrow morning. At least, only if their breakfast is any good." Francis said, shuddering a little at what he had heard about American breakfasts.

“Oh, the food’s not that bad,” Matthew said, trying not to chuckle at Francis’s reaction. “Then again, for you, it might be. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

He gave a quick parting wave as he exited the room to go gather anything he would need. Now that Matthew thought about it, he was quite positive that he’d seen the name of that city in regards to other cases regarding firearms that he’d put to the side a while ago, deeming them unsolvable. He’d have to give them another look, now.