Queen & Country: Declassified (2002) 3

Queen & Country: Declassified (2002) 3

Jan 2003

Operation: Landslide (Part 3)

by Greg Rucka, Brian Hurtt, John Dranski

The surprise guest turns out to be the KGB. Wallace and Karpin are about to get arrested when Don Weldon shows up, mows down a couple of KGB agents with his car, and escapes with Wallace and Crocker. Weldon has to drop them off somewhere else in Prague, along the river, and return the car which is in Barclay’s name.

The KGB questions Barclay and Weldon, the latter of whom buys Wallace and Karpin some time by lying. Wallace and Karpin make it to the Austrian border. Wallace makes it home safely but Karpin is shot and killed while trying to crawl through the fence.

Queen & Country: Declassified (2002) 2

Queen & Country: Declassified (2002) 2

Dec 2002

Operation: Landslide (Part 2)

by Greg Rucka, Brian Hurtt, John Dranski

Crocker meets with Don Weldon (at that time the number two man in Prague) who explains the plan to him for extracting Karpin. Crocker moves ahead with the extraction plan but things go south quickly. Karpin was under surveillance and then he and Crocker almost get captured at the meeting place. Crocker gets shot escaping from the trap.

Crocker and Karpin hole up in a safe house. Francis Barclay, the number one man in Prague, has no interest in sticking out his neck to help Crocker. Barclay starts to draft a message to the home office blaming Crocker for going ahead with the extraction despite a (nonexistent) warning from Barclay. 

Queen & Country: Declassified (2002) 1

Queen & Country: Declassified (2002) 1

Nov 2002

Operation: Landslide (Part 1)

by Greg Rucka, Brian Hurtt, John Dranski

Minder Three Paul Crocker returned empty handed (but alive) from East to West Berlin, in 1986. He was stopped at the border by the KGB but then allowed to pass through. Minder One Lindsay Mills didn’t make it back from a mission in Ukraine. Crocker was home for less than a day when he was sent back out on a mission to Czechoslovakia to pick up a KGB agent who wanted to defect.

James Wason, Crocker’s boss, advised him to be extremely cautious, given the state of affairs, including the death of Mills. A Russian KGB agent who stopped Crocker at the border had the would-be defector, Valery Karpin, in Prague, under surveillance.

Queen & Country (2001) 12

Queen & Country (2001) 12

Sep 2002

Operation Crystal Ball - Part Five

by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernandez, John Dranski

The terrorists in Japan prepare to strike their intended target. Wallace works with Sanya Miloska in Sarajevo to find Rashed El Haje. Chace works with Colin Hodgson in Cairo to learn something about what Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) has planned. 

Chace and Wallace learn enough to figure out that the terrorists' intended target is at the Men’s World Cup in Japan. Japanese special forces finds the terrorists and the canisters of sarin gas before the terrorists are able to pipe it into the locker room where the English team is preparing for their match against the Nigerian team.

Queen & Country (2001) 11

Queen & Country (2001) 11

Aug 2002

Operation Crystal Ball - Part Four

by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernandez, John Dranski

Tara Chace returns from Rome. Edward Kittering returns from Turkey. Paul Crocker, Don Welson and C ponder why Youssef was killed and what their next move should be. Crocker wants an SAS operation in Sudan but Weldon nixes that idea. C says he’s willing to go ahead with it but he will need more information before he can attempt to get the authorization for it.

A Saudi who is suspected of having ties to EIJ is spotted in the Cairo airport, headed to Sarajevo. Crocker sends Paul Wallace to Sarajevo and Tara Chace, after a brief reunion with Kittering, to Cairo. Both are told not to maintain a low profile and to make sure that they are armed.

Queen & Country (2001) 10

Queen & Country (2001) 10

Jul 2002

Operation Crystal Ball - Chapter Three

by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernandez, John Dranski

Kittering goes to Iraq on a black op mission.

There is lots of conversations at headquarters about operations that are currently ongoing. 

The intel that Youssef provided seems solid so Chace is sent to meet with him again. This time the meeting is to be in Rome. Something seems off when she gets there. Someone is tailing her. She eventually finds Youssef but he is dead.

The issue ends with Kittering making his way across the border, into Turkey.

Queen & Country (2001) 9

Queen & Country (2001) 9

Jun 2002

Operation Crystal Ball - Chapter Two

by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernandez, John Dranski

Chace meets with Youssef in the Cairo embassy. She ruffles the feathers of the local station chief. She reports back in once the meeting is over. Youssef told her that Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) had the means and intent to strike a British target with poison gas. He gives them the grid coordinates for a facility somewhere in Sudan. He wants a substantial amount of money before he will tell them more.

Kittering mopes while Chace is in Egypt. His mood picks up once she returns. They share a tender moment in a pub after she gets back. 

Paul Crocker tries to get some help from the CIA but they want something in return, a black op. There’s someone they want killed. Crocker decides to send Kittering to do the job. 

Queen & Country (2001) 8

Queen & Country (2001)

May 2002

Operation Crystal Ball - Chapter One

by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernandez, John Dranski

Tara Chace and Edward Kittering assist German intelligence with Operation Roseshore. Chace and Kittering return to the UK with a laptop recovered from suspected terrorists. Crocker insists on making a copy of the data on the laptop before handing it over to the CIA. This brings him into conflict with Don Weldon, his boss, but C backs up Crocker. Angela Chen, the CIA’s station chief in London isn’t happy about the delay but can’t do anything about it. 

Chase is sent to the British embassy in Cairo to interview Mahmoud Youssef, a Lebanese man, who walked in off the street claiming to have knowledge of a plot involving chemicals. 

Queen & Country (2001) 7

Queen & Country 7

Mar 2002

Operation: Morningstar - Chapter 3

by Greg Rucka, Brian Hurtt, Christine Norrie, Sean Konot

Crocker tasks Chace with seeing what she can dig up on MacMillan, the agent who was recently executed by the Taleban. Wallace and Kittering have checked all of MacMillan’s drop sites without finding anything. Chace breaks into the apartment of MacMillan’s girlfriend and finds some of his notebooks.

In the most recent notebook Chace finds a reference to another drop site that MacMillan used for his work as a journalist. That information gets passed along to Wallace and Kittering who, with some help from Dennis from the Delhi office, find the other drop site and the information for which they were searching. 

Queen & Country (2001) 6

Queen & Country (2001) 6

Jan 2002

Operation: Morningstar - Chapter 2

by Greg Rucka, Brian Hurtt, Christine Norrie, Sean Konot

Tara continues to resent being left behind. She tries drinking and a casual hookup but neither seem to slake her need. She gets kicked out of the operations room and told to go home and get some rest.

Paul Crocker gets into an argument with Don Weldon over whether to abort Operation Morningstar or proceed with the plan. Tom and Ed cross into Afghanistan with some help from Dennis, the number two guy from the Delhi office. They check two of the three drop sites without finding anything. All the while they are under surveillance from the Taleban.

Queen & Country (2001) 5

Queen & Country (2001) 5

Nov 2001

Operation: Morningstar - Chapter 1

by Greg Rucka, Brian Hurtt, Bryan O’Malley, Sean Konot

A British agent is taken prisoner by the Taleban in Afghanistan. He hid a list of agents before he was arrested. Minders One and Three, Wallace and Kittering, are briefed and prepared to go overseas. Chace (Minders Two) is not. She’s angry about it. She is still recovering from her last mission. The issue ends with the reveal that MacMillan, the agent who was arrested earlier in the issue, has been executed by the Taleban. 

Queen & Country 4

Queen & Country 4

Sep 2001

Operation: Broken Ground - Part 4

by Greg Rucka, Steve Rolston

The minders deal with the Russian would-be assassins without sustaining any serious injuries. Two of the Russians are killed, one by Edward Kittering and one by another Russian who shot at Tara Chace and missed. David Kinny goes through the roof when he finds out that the Minders engaged with the Russians. He only wanted them to draw them out. Chace let’s Kinny knows what she thinks of his opinion.

Crocker wants the surviving Russians dead. He tries to get an op authorized to do just that. His proposal gets shot down, first by Weldon and then, when he goes behind Weldon’s back, by C. He tries through other means to get at the Russians but finds out too late that they are being handed over to the CIA.

Queen & Country 3

Queen & Country 3

Jul 2001

Operation: Broken Ground - Part 3

by Greg Rucka, Steve Rolston

Crocker has Wallace and Kittering, Minders One and Three, keep an eye on Chace, Minder Two, while she waits for the Russians to try and hit her. Wallace has armed all three of them with pistols.

Weldon, Crocker’s boss, objects to arming the minders. He insists that the agents from MI5 who are also keeping an eye on Chace will be armed and that’s enough. MI6 agents are not supposed to conduct operations domestically. 

Queen & Country 2

Queen & Country 2

May 2001

Operation: Broken Ground - Part 2

by Greg Rucka, Steve Rolston

The Russians retaliate by hitting MI6 HQ in London with a shoulder launched rocket. Two people are killed and one is injured. Paul Crocker wants to retaliate but his superiors are against that. They force him and his team, which includes Tara Chace, to work with MI5 which has jurisdiction in this case. 

MI5’s investigation reveals the culprits behind the attack and that there is a bounty on Chace’s head. Tara agrees to be the bait in an operation to draw out the Russian agents sent to kill her. 

Queen & Country 1

Queen & Country 1

Mar 2001

Operation: Broken Ground - Part 1

by Greg Rucka, Steve Rolston

SIS Minder Two Tara Chace completes a mission to assassinate a Russian arms dealer in Kosovo. She is pursued, gets injured, but manages to escape back to the British consulate more than 85 km away. 

Tom Wallace, Chace’s boss, and Paul Crocker, Wallace’s boss worry about her until they find out that she has made it to the British consulate. Crocker gets called in by Don Weldon, his boss, who wasn’t informed in advance about the operation. Crocker has to explain the deal he struck with the CIA.