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Fort Jay seemed like the best place to meet- it was in New York City, just on Governor's Island. Armando had all his information in a well guarded, and rather large room. Files sit on files and among all of it Armando sits in a rather nice suit- reading.
Indeed, most of the gathered information has been delivered to Fort Jay and sits in this large room, with several desks- all there for the SHIELD and Avengers who are working on this major problem. Armando has been here for several days straight- he didn't really need to sleep. He's really only been drinking tea- only seen a few times heading to the on base mess to get away from staring at papers. The danger of the situation is not lost on the grey skinned mutant- lives hang in the balance. Millions upon millions of lives.
"Wait…" Armando finally says, as he looks through his papers- and back to his notes. "Wait… that might be something!"
Sam Wilson has been doing a lot of air travel lately: SHIELD needs to investigate a large number of sites spread out geographically, and his familiarity with the Air Force bureaucracy has proven invaluable in gathering the information needed in the shortest possible interval. However, this means that his sleep has been sporadic and his time zone unreliable. When Wilson arrives at Fort Jay, carrying yet another pile of manila folders to feed into the insatiable nerve center of the investigation, his bearing is as official as ever, but his features look much the worse for wear.
That all changes as he enters the room just in time to hear Munoz's announcement. Immediately alert, the pilot dumps his stack of folders onto the already overburdened table at the center of the room so that he can move quickly to Armando's side. "What might be something?" he asks, looking over the tall mutant's shoulder.
Amadeus has likewise been spending a lot of time around Fort Jay himself, though he's been back and forth between there and the SHIELD HQ in Chinatown. Information from various sources has been pulled together regarding the actual materials used to create the dupe bombs, though he has helped on some of the other research as well. Comparing notes with the other SHIELD investigators ought to shed some more light on it all. Patterns always emerge.
He's walking into the large room himself just in time to hear Armando's announcement. In a nice suit himself, Amadeus Cho is carrying a stack of files of his own even though he's having a more difficult time with them than, say, people who actually exercise. "What might be something?" he asks, though he ticks his gaze over towards Sam as well to give the other man an upwards nod of his head. "Jinx," he asides. "Also, hello."
"Okay. Since we started pulling data from other sites a patter has begun to immerge." Armando says, as he opens a series of files- employee manifests. "At first gaze its difficult to see the pattern here- but look here." Armando points out various employees. "On each of these bases you have one or two employees who relocate to the city of Detroit- and all are former employees. They tendered resignations.." Armando grabs another file where he's put the resignations- he flips through them and pulls out the various personnel files. "And all left for Detroit."
At 'jinx,' Sam glances at Cho, raises one eyebrow, and gives him a small, dry smile. "Good to see you, Cho," he answers. "Keeping out of trouble?" It seems a fair question, given the circumstances of their first meeting, but for all his military bearing, the pilot seems friendly enough.
Of course, Armando's newly discovered pattern is of central focus. Wilson reaches past Armando to fan the resignation forms, revealing the forwarding addresses in and around Detroit. "That fits with what Cho said about automotive parts and paint," he comments. "Good thing we're dealing with domestic manufacturers. Kennedy has given us free rein, but he knows Director Carter. West Germany would need a lot more convincing to open up for those of us who aren't SHIELD agents." Like, oh… everyone in this room except him.
With a quick sidestep, Wilson moves to a spot beside Munoz and pops open one of the stuffed folders he brought with him. After a couple of seconds of riffling, he pulls out a stack of resignation forms and starts checking them, tossing them onto the table one by one as they fail to meet his criteria and are discarded. Then, his expression brightens and he hands one to Armando. "Here we go! Woodhaven, Michigan. That's near Detroit, right?"
Cho's eyes widen a touch and his brows lift at Armando's revelation, though he looks momentarily distracted with keeping the files from dumping out all over the floor. Finding a table, he sets them down and starts separating the stacks so they don't wind up on the floor despite his efforts. "That actually lines up a bit with what I found out about the materials…so far." There's a quick nod in Armando's direction. "I mean, I have my suspicions, anyways. I was going to take a field team to check it out, but…"
He lets his words hang a moment, pausing to grab a candy baar from the front pocket of his suit. As he unwraps it, he continues. "Woodhaven, Michigan," he echoes. "I definitely think we should go check it out. See if any of the theories pan out." A look is cast to the Armando and Sam respectively in anticipation.
"Heya, Cho." Armando offers, lifting a hand. "Woodhaven." Armando looks up towards a map he'd gotten of the Detroit area and nods, "Looks to be about half an hour's drive- about thirty miles. A pretty regular commute!" Armando offers over to Cho, with a nod of his head. "Yeah- we should absolutely send a team out that way. Investigate all the inventory from the various automotive plants." he remarks. "I'd bet money we find something fishy out that way, too."
Armando leans back in the wooden government issue chair he'd been supplied. "I think we've hit the first big break here." he says with a little grin. "Calls for a bit of celebration, don't you think?" he wonders as he reaches into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulls out a bottle of Scotch. A few cups follow from the other drawer. He uncorks the bottle and pours three glasses. The glasses are then offered towards Sam and Cho respectively.
Wilson looks a bit surprised, hesitating at the offer of a drink. Scotch isn't conducive to the kind of rigid control he generally keeps at work. Then again, on this case he's little more than a glorified courier, and Munoz's dossier indicated that the mutant was more or less incapable of getting drunk. Plus, Armando's right: this is a huge break. Adopting a tight smile, the pilot accepts the dram and takes a tentative sip. "Thanks, Munoz," he says, turning the glass and giving its contents an evaluating look. "This is good."
Back to business, though. Splaying his fingers on the tabletop, Wilson hunches his shoulders and nods at the other two. "You're right — we should send operatives in, but we're going to need to do it quietly. If we go in waving the SHIELD flag around and kicking over rocks, whoever's behind this will hear about us long before we find a location we can actually hit."
"You're probably right," Amadeus says to Armando with a light smirk on his lips. "Whatever we're looking for is definitely in that area. Like Sam said, though, we oughtta' be quiet about it." There's a nod then in Wilson's direction, obviously in agreement. "If we make too much noise, it'll blow the investigation and probably make a mess." Again, he presses his tongue out between his lips to wet them briefly before taking a big bite out of the candy bar which he happily chews and swallows.
When the Scotch comes out, Cho sticks his tongue out a little and scrunches up his face. "Heh. That stuff tastes like /plaid/. I swear it invokes instant synesthesia." With a laugh then, he holds up the hand holding his candy bar, wiggling it a bit. He looks to Sam. "You're the one of us that's a field agent, though. How do we proceed?"
"A twenty year old Isles Scotch." ARmando notes, with his own sip. "Smooth and really good." It helps that Armando can survive without food or drink when buying expensive booze. "Yeah. It should be a quiet sort of thing." Armando agrees with a nod, smiling as he lifts his glass. He sips his bit of scotch after saluting his comrades with the drink. "Particularly since we're trying to get a look at material manifests. I'm not the quiet type myself- or, at least, I wouldn't be too good at this particular kind of spookery." Armando says with a grin, before another sip of his scotch.
"Its a good scotch, Cho. Not everyone can live on grape nehi and candy bars." Armando offers with a playful grin towards the big brain of the Avengers. "However, with the information we have now, I've narrowed down the time-frame considerably. It should make the job a little easier for whomever we send in. Only about a few months worth of documents will need to be checked." Armando continues. "Time is of the essence, though. We'll need to get someone out there ASAP."
Sam runs the back of one thumb along his jawline and furrows his brow, considering Cho's question. "We'll need a solid cover story. Government inspectors would probably be the simplest, between SHIELD and the White House," he says. "From there, like Munoz said, we pull their inventory records and check for anything missing. If one of them has lots of inconsistencies, we know it's likely where the bombs were made. If items are missing all over, it's probably a different location entirely. In that case, we'll have to track down these people" — he gestures to the stack of resignation forms — "and figure out where they're working now. Department of Labor would be the likely place to start, but a union wouldn't be a bad place to check, either. See if these guys are members; if not, we can narrow it down to non-union factories."
Cho looks dubiously at Armando as he pours the glasses and looks very discerningly at the liquid contained within. "Alright. If you're vouching for it, I'll give it a try. I thrive on empty calories." It does raise the question as to whether or not he could actually get drunk with the way his brain burns calories. It also might explain why he can put away an entire pizza and five burgers without gaining a pound. It's a little beyond having a healthy teenage metabolism. Taking one of the glasses up, he peers down into it like it might bite him.
Sam's words draw his attention once more to him and he inclines his head in a nod. "This is why you get paid the big bucks. I think we ought to bring a signal jammer or something just in case?" He's no field agent himself, but he's trying to pick up on a thing or two. He addresses them both then. "If we wind up needing to hightail it, having the option of disrupting their communications would definitely give us an advantage."
"Good thinking, Sam." Armando offers to the military man. "I'll let those who know a lot about that figure out how to best approach." Armando says in agreement with Cho, "And I'll write up my report and isolate the files that lead me to the discovery, so they can be easily shown to those who need to know." the mutant says with a nod of his head, taking another sip. "Clerical errors would be my guess, though- I mean, if it worked for the military its doubly likely to work for an industrial concern. Papers get lost, or filed incorrectly and no one is any the wiser. That shuffle seems to be the enemy's operating procedure here." he notes, as he takes another sip of the scotch, before putting it down on the desk. "I should be able to get a report and the files together in about twenty minutes. I remember where they all are." he says with a grin. "Might not be a bad idea, Cho's signal jammer." he looks again towards Sam. "But if it was used it might tip our hat, all the same."
"I would rather like to see how all that is done, if only to pick up some of the techniques. I can't imagine I'll be in a dark room reading files with all my time." Armando offers, "Seems like a good learning experience." he says with a nod. "After I get that report done I'm going to go out for something to eat. I can bring something back for either of you, if you'd like."
Wilson flashes a wry smile at the thought that he's making big bucks. Hardly. "Not a bad thought," the pilot answers Cho. "Just make sure it's something we can carry and hide easily. Subtlety, and all that. Although once it goes off, we'll need to take out whoever found us out fast."
After another sip, the pilot sets his glass down, leans forward on his elbows, and rubs at his cheekbones wearily. "Guess that means I'll be on the next flight out for Detroit. Just got back into New York, too." He glances at each of the others with a wan smile. "Guess that's the nature of the job. Might not be a bad idea for me to bring Stark's wings, either. Never know when higher ground might come in handy."
"Once we get some information together…paper trails, I might be able to follow them," Cho offers with a shrug and his fingertips splayed just a touch. Save for those holding the candy bar, of course. The young man considers the different avenues of approach, but he won't really know until they get on site. "It's going to wind up coming down to recognizing patterns in their ledgers. That's where I come in. The three of us will have to do our investigating as quietly as possible. Can either of you guys think of anyone else who might be up to the task?"
That said, he looks between the both of them regarding the topic of the signal jammer and gives a long moment's thought to it. As he does, he ingests more candy, naturally. "I could get it to fit in a backpack," he offers. "The kind of power we'll need will require a bit of a hefty battery…/unless/ I can get a peek at something Stark made. I can adapt some of his tech to what I'm planning on. I know he's got a hell of a solution to energy issues, but I don't know how he does it."
"We should press every advantage we've got." Armando says, as he looks towards Cho. "You could fit something like that in a backpack?" he asks, eyebrows raised. "Hot damn, man. That's pretty surprising. With those tubes it would have to be fragile." He shakes his head and looks to Cho with a bit of curiosity- "Anyways, I'll leave that to you." Armando notes, looking back to Sam. "Good luck, Sam. Stay safe on your trip." he says, as he looks towards the pile of papers. "You think we should contact the Director immediately, or just send her the report?"
"I'm headed to SHIELD headquarters next, anyway," Wilson tells Munoz with a thin smile. "I'll let her know what we've discovered, and what we'll need to continue the investigation. You said you'd have the report ready in 20 minutes?" He flips up one arm to check his wristwatch. "I'm going to go make a couple of phone calls, then grab it on my way out."
The pilot is halfway out the door when he stops, leans back in, and fixes the other two men with a look. "By the way: you two have done really good work on this," he tells them, allowing himself a genuine smile. "I'm starting to think this Initiative is really going to work out."
"I'm a lot more precise than the machines that would normally make them," Amadeus tells Armando with a broad smile which is flecked with chocolate here and there. "I can see a lot of the flaws and factors in the old design and ways to fix them at a glance, basically. It's not that hard to solve a cooling problem with electronics if you can optimize the space you're working with. If I can solve the energy /requirements/, I can implement a liquid cooling system if need be. The biggest hurdle is going to be cutting the size of the power supply while boosting its efficiency." Which is a ridiculous statement in the 1960s.
A look is given over to Sam then at his genuine words and he studies him a long moment. "Thanks, man. You too. Gotta' admit the initiative does invoke some curiosity, but I really want to see how and where it goes."
"Yeah, shouldn't be a problem." Armando says, as he returns to his desk and begins to make the report. "Looks like it'll just be you and me for dinner, Cho." Armando says, "What you want me to go out and get?" he asks as he multitasks in his writing of the report. "Or, I could get them to deliver some pizza- I know all the best places in New York." he says with a little grin. "That should be good, actually. Yeah. Hey, Corporal Ames?" ARmando talks to one of the guards posted at the entrance- "Call up Gino's in Little Italy. Tell him Ole' Grey wants one large one with everything." Armando smiles over towards Cho, "You'll love it. Best pizza in the city." he assures his big-brained companion. "By the time I'm done with this report, that pizza should be no more than ten minutes out." And now, Armando gets to work.