OSI Interview: Ravi Azad

Posted on Tue Apr 30th, 2019 @ 11:17pm by Special Agent Mathew Richards & Civillian Ravi Azad PhD & Special Agent Mark Badger & Special Agent Brick Johnson

Mission: Interlude 1
Location: Conference Room
Timeline: Current (Day TBD, early in the week?)

Supervisory Special Agent Mathew Richards of USAFOSI looked over the information he and his team, with the help of agents from Region 7, had gathered so far. There was still information up in the air, but they had enough to begin interviewing SG-1 about their encounter with what OSI had now determined were former CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers who had all disappeared with the last decade. Disappeared without a trace. Mathew looked over at Special Agents Mark Badger and Brick Johnson. "Let's go and let the good Doctor in, shall we? And remember, this is, for the moment, an nice, informal chat. Let's not get them on the defensive or otherwise make them nervous, okay?"

"I'll go get Dr. Azad," Mark said, having his own ideas already percolating where this investigation was concerned. "From what we know of him, he shouldn't be hard to break."

"Indeed," Brick Johnson said with an agreeing nod. Then the monolith of muscle moved to the corner and stood like an intimidating statue with his hands clasped in front of him, waiting for the good doctor to be escorted in.

Nervously, Ravi walked through the door once his escort opened it. "Ah... hello," he said. "I'm Doc-doctor Azad."

Matt rose form his chair and shook Ravi's hand. "I'm Supervisory Special Agent Matt Richards of the US Air Force Office of Special Investigations. I run the OSI Detachment assigned to Project New Dawn. These two are Special Agents Mark Badger and Brick Johnson. They work for me. Please sit. I'm sorry that you seem to have gotten three of the most brutish and thuggish looking agents in my detachment to debrief you, not to mention the largest, except for Badger over there. It must feel like you were thrown into the ring with three professional wrestlers or something."

"As long as they don't try to body slam me, I think I'll be all right," Ravi joked nervously as he sat in the empty chair.

"That's another dollar in the short joke jar, Richards," Badger grumbled from his side of the room. He had the look as if he was just waiting for the moment he could body slam the engineer.

"Settle down, Badger," Matt said. "We're all friends here. Doctor, among other things an OSI agent does for a living, we handle counterintelligence for the Air Force. We keep people from successfully snooping with strong security and deception techniques, and if we find a leak somewhere we plug it as fast as possible. If we find a mole, we flush it out and capture it. We're concerned, as I'm sure you are, about these people, who turned out to be Jaffa, who were posing as doctors and a nurse from the CDC and officers in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. When the hoods of their suits were taken off of there corpses, did you recognize any of them from anywhere?"

"I am afraid not," replied Ravi. "However, I am terrible with faces; I have to see them at least five times before they stick in my mind."

"That's fine," Matt said. "That's pretty much the answer I was expecting. This last mission was your first off-world mission, correct?"

“Yes, it was,” replied Ravi. “I’m afraid it didn’t go as I had expected. I underestimated how difficult it would be to decided alien technology. I mean, I knew it would be difficult, but I did not realize it would be quite that difficult.”

"I can only imagine," Matt said. "So, I bet finding out that you were going off-world for the first time was pretty exciting. I'm betting you're smart enough not to have bragged to anyone specifically about going to another planet, but did you tell anyone you were going out of town or anything like that? Like on Facebook or Twitter or something like that?"

"When I took this job, I had mentioned to my brothers and sisters that I might suddenly disappear from time to time with little or no warning," he replied. "But, not specifically at that moment, no."

"Alright then, Doctor," Matt said. "Regarding the device you were investigating, can you think of any reason Valenti and her team would have tried to take it with them? Or why someone took it from them?"

"It could probably be used as a powerful weapon, if one could figure out how to control it and direct its power to one's enemies," Ravi replied at once. "I have no idea what its intended purpose is, but the fact that it rendered everyone utterly useless was not lost on me. If we should ever relocate it, I would recommend it be destroyed at the earliest possible convenience."

"We'll take that under advisement, Doctor," Matt said. "Those are all of the questions I have. Mark? Brick? Anything to add?"

"Doctor Ravi," Mark said, still looking like a few storm cells short of a tornado. "You were asked by Agent Richards about the use of social media. You didn't answer that question completely honestly, did you?" Mark picked up a rather large file and flipped through the tabbed sections, then flipped through pages. "You are aware that you were issued a new cellphone as part of your standard equipment. The same cellphone you used to text 'Amelie'. Who is Amelie, Doctor?"

"A friend," answered Ravi honestly. "A new friend, but a friend all the same." He racked his brain, but he was absolutely sure he hadn't said anything to her about leaving town or being unavailable. When they had exchanged numbers, he had warned her that his job takes him away for a few hours up to a few days at a time, but he knew for sure he had not said anything via text or social media. In fact, he didn't have a twitter and rarely used facebook or Instagram. When was the last time he had posted anything to either of them? He couldn't remember. All this went through his mind in a matter of seconds and he shook his head. "Why do you ask?" he asked.

"Why did you fail to answer the question when you were asked?" Mark asked. "You think this isn't serious? Someone here gave information to the enemy. Information that allowed them to have a weapon of mass extinction as you so eloquently described today and you hold out information on us?"

Ravi blinked, confused. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, brow wrinkling. "What question did I fail to answer?"

"You haven't known Amelie long have you?" Mark asked, ignoring Ravi's question. "In fact, you only met her a day or two before you left on the mission didn't you?"

"Yes, but I didn't say anything to her about it," replied Ravi. "In fact, I didn't even know about it at the time. And you can search my phone if you like. I said nothing to anybody. I used to work for NASA; I know what 'Top Secret' means."

"Yes, you worked for NASA. You're a brilliant mechanical engineer. Pretty damned smart, I bet," Mark said. "We're going to search your phone. We're also going to search Amelie's phone. We're going to find your brothers and sister and we'll search them as well. We're going to do more than search just the phone, Doctor, we're going to search the data on the phone. Including the packets that make up all the data. Why? Because some asshat around here decided to betray more than just their country but their very species and we will find that person. Still think you're so smart, Doctor?"

Ravi laughed at the absurdity of it all. “You’re telling me that you’re going to go all the way to India, Indonesia, and Greece to check my siblings’ phones?” he said. “Not only that, but you’re going to check a random friend’s phone. Did you notice there was a group text on there as well from the same morning and into the next day? It includes five of my friends from NASA. You’ll want to check their phones, too. And probably all of the phones of people in my contacts list, just in case. And make sure you get warrants for those searches; my friend know their rights. So, all in all, when this is said and done, you will have informed not only all of my friends and relatives that something is up, but also several police departments and- since it involves several countries, Interpol is likely to get wind of it. You’re going to have a lot of people tipped off to something big happening and then the likelihood of someone finding out about this that you don’t want finding out about this is astronomically high. And all to find out that I am indeed as smart as I think I am.”

He had no doubt that they would do it anyway, but it still had to be said. He didn’t often flaunt his intelligence, but this guy had ticked him off by insulting it, so the opportunity seemed like a good one.

Mark smiled as he leaned back, crossing his arms again. He smiled, it was predatory and presaged victory. "If I have to, I will. Fortunately, I don't have to. Your phone, on the table, now."

Without another word, Ravi stood, pulled the phone from his pocket, crossed the room and placed it on the table. “By all means,” he said stiffly. “Take your time.”

"It'll take as long is it needs. Security is going to escort you to your quarters where they'll take possession of any other phones, tablets, computers or other devices you might have in your possession."

"Understood," replied Ravi, as if the word rhymed with 'douche canoe.'

Brick finally moved from his position at the door, striding over to the table to take Ravi's phone. "Due diligence does not mean a lack of courtesy; we will be discrete," Brick assured Ravi, then excused himself to go clone the phone and investigate it thoroughly as quickly as possible so they could return the device with as little inconvenience as possible.

Mark had a quick, quiet word with a security force airman, laying out what should happen. Once Ravi's devices were confiscated, he was to be left free until and unless someone from OSI said differently.