by David Archer
It took only a few minutes to get everything warmed up and ready, and then the plane began to taxi toward the runway. As it turned into the wind, Noah heard Sarah breathe a sigh of relief, and then the ground was rushing past as the plane gained speed. The nose lifted up, and a moment later the sound of the wheels on the asphalt came to a sudden end as they left the runway.
“A little nervous, were you?” Noah asked her.
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Not all of us can be perfectly calm all the time,” she said. “Some people know what it feels like to worry. Just because you don't, that doesn't mean you can judge me for it.”
“I'm not judging,” he said. “There's a part of me that wishes I knew what it felt like, just so I could feel normal, I guess.”
“Be careful what you wish for, boss,” Moose said. “I've been a nervous wreck from the very moment we landed here, and it hasn't let up yet. Diplomatic flight or not, if they knew we had her on this plane, there's not much doubt in my mind that they'd blow us out of the sky.”
“Oh, don't you just have the most wonderful thoughts,” Sarah said. “I was actually starting to calm down, starting to feel better, but no, you can't let me relax! You got to make sure I keep right on worrying, don't you?”
“Hey, I just calls 'em like I sees 'em,” Moose said. “Trust me, I'm just as worried as you are.”
“Just relax, the best you can,” Noah said. “It's not like you can do anything about it.”
Selah gave a groan, and began to wake up. The plane leveled off and a moment later, the copilot reappeared. He stopped beside Noah.
“You're Mister Colson, right?” Noah nodded. “Okay, I was told to let you know that we're on the way to Nouakchott in Mauritania. Our flight plan actually calls for us to be headed for London, but we're being diverted, and I'm supposed to tell you that your other associates back in England will be returning to the states later today.”
Noah nodded. “Thank you, I appreciate it.” The copilot returned to the cockpit, and Noah reached into his pocket for his cell phone. It showed four bars of service, so he quickly dialed the number that would connect him to his boss, Allison.
“Camelot,” she said as she answered. “I understand some congratulations are in order.”
“Well, we managed to find her,” he said, “and we have her with us on the way back to Mauritania. I terminated the one person I'm sure was involved in taking her out of her own country, but it appears that there are some bigger people involved. Do you know anything about Nicolaich Andropov?”
He could hear Allison tapping on computer keys. “Hmmm, checking the file on this guy. Deputy director of SVR, handles a lot of wet work. Sounds like their version of me. What about him?”
“If the girl is telling the truth, then the man I killed is his son. He was also, again according to the girl, planning to marry her. To be honest, I didn't get the impression that he was too invested in that idea. He seemed a lot more interested in the political uses he could make of her.”
“Typical,” Allison said. “We're bringing Neil and Mister Decker back home today, and you and the others can come home after you've dropped Selah off to her father. Ambassador Morgenstern will be letting him know shortly that you're on the way with the girl, so there should be a diplomatic reception waiting for you when you land. There will also be a new crew waiting for the plane you're on, to turn around and fly you back to Denver. I understand that plane is pretty comfortable, so you can get some sleep.”
“That will be appreciated,” Noah said. “If there's one thing I'm learning about this life, it's that you don't get as much sleep as you want.”
“Yeah, but we pay you pretty well. You can't have everything, right? Hopefully, I'll see you in a couple of days. I can't wait for the debriefing on this one, and from what I hear, there may be some commendations in it for you and your team.”
“See you then, boss lady,” Noah said. He ended the call, and looked over at Selah. “Well, hello there, young lady,” he said. “We'll be landing in a few hours, and I understand your daddy will be waiting for you when we get there. I don't know how much trouble you might be in, but I suspect it's going to be more than just the usual grounding.”
She shook her head. “My father could beat me and imprison me, and I would still be better off than you. I only met Nicolaich a few days ago, but I have heard so much about him, about how he never fails, and you have painted targets on your heads. On the other hand, if Vasily is really dead, then Nicolaich will probably be coming for me, as well. If he gives me the chance, before he kills me, I shall tell him everything I know about you. I shall describe each of you to him, so that he might find you and take his vengeance.”
Noah sat and stared at her for a moment, and then smiled. “Be sure to tell him this, too,” he said. “Tell him that I said I'll be waiting.”
The flight attendant offered to make them lunch, and all but Selah accepted. It was simple fare, consisting of roast beef sandwiches, potato chips and soft drinks, but it was welcome. Once they had eaten, Noah and Sarah drifted off to sleep, while Moose sat up to watch Selah.
The flight lasted almost seven hours, and was uneventful. Noah woke up after about three hours, and let Moose get some sleep for the rest of the trip.
Shortly before they landed, Selah turned to look at Noah. “Do you know what you have done? I have spent the last two years trying to get away from my father, trying to be free of his manipulations and threats, and you have taken that away from me. I had found someone who loved me for me, someone who was good to me and would not use me, the way my father tried to do. Now, if Nicolaich does not kill me, I will be forced to marry some potentate of another country that my father wishes to engage in trade or security agreements. I shall be nothing more than a slave of my father, despite the fact that in public, he despises the way women are treated in our country.” She shook her head in misery. “And you, you will go back to wherever you have come from, and forget what you have done to me. You will not remember, not until the day when Nicolaich comes for you. On that day, I pray that you will have time, have just one moment, to remember me, before he does to you the same thing you did to Vasily.”
Noah looked the girl in the eye, but he said nothing. It was quite possible that she was telling the truth, and would be used as a political slave in her father's administration, but that meant nothing to Noah. In her country, this was acceptable, and there was nothing that he could do about it even if he wanted to.
As for her insistence that Vasily's father would be coming for him, Noah gave it little credibility. Nicolaich probably knew nothing of the existence of E & E, but even if he did, this operation did not fit the way the organization usually operated. If it happened that they identified him and Moose as the shooters, they would only find the names that were used on their passports for this mission, with no possible way to trace them back to their true identities. There was very little chance that Nicolaich Andropov would ever be any threat to Team Camelot.
The captain announced over the intercom that they were about to land, and Noah woke Moose and Sarah. The plane touched down fifteen minutes later and taxied to an area that had been cordoned off and was surrounded by Mauritanian military and police vehicles.
As soon as the plane stopped moving, the copilot appeared to open the door, and three men rushed inside. One of them was President Habib, who threw both arms around his daughter and wept as he clung to her.
Morgenstern was present, as was the Prime Minister, and both men congratulated him on the success of his mission. As they spoke, the flight crew exited the airplane, and another crew entered. Noah watched the girl's face as her father held her, and saw nothing but contempt.
“Mister Colson,” the president said, “there are not words to express my gratitude for what you have done. You have returned my daughter to me, and I am forever in your debt. And if there is ever anything I can do for you, you need only let me know.”
They shook hands, and a moment lat
er the president escorted his daughter off the plane. There was something in the way he kept his hand on her arm that told Noah that she had been at least somewhat honest with him about the situation she would be facing, but it was still not his concern. The new flight crew informed the three of them that they would be flying nonstop to Denver, as soon as the plane was refueled, and the door was closed only a moment later.
Refueling took almost 20 minutes, but as soon as it was done they returned to the air. The flight would take almost 11 hours, and Moose announced that he planned to spend most of it sleeping. Noah and Sarah opted to watch a movie on a screen that folded down from the ceiling, but when it was over they both decided to get more sleep. All three of them awoke after several hours, and the flight attendant was happy to offer them breakfast.
The plane landed in Denver a couple of hours later, and Noah was delighted to see his friend Marco waiting for them. “It's about time you got back,” Marco said. “I've got a nice, comfortable SUV waiting to take you home. You got any luggage to grab or anything?”
“No, just our carry-ons. All the rest was with our other team members in London, so I guess they brought it back with them.”
Marco grinned. “Okay, then, let's get you folks home. The Dragon Lady says to let you get some R and R for the rest of the day, but then she wants to see all of you first thing in the morning for debrief.”
He led the way out to the big Ford Expedition he was driving, and they all climbed in. Noah let Moose take the front passenger seat, while he slid into the backseat with Sarah. Moose took out his phone and called Elaine, his girlfriend—who also happened to be the daughter of Donald Jefferson, their supply officer—to let her know that he was back and dying to see her. From the sounds that were coming from the phone, she seemed quite excited at the prospect.
Sarah suddenly slid across the seat to lean into Noah, and he put an arm around her. They rode like that all the way to his house, where Moose got into his own car and headed for home. Noah and Sarah went to the door, where they found a note from Stan Decker. It simply said that he would see them at the debriefing, and thanked them for letting him be a part of the team, even for such a short time.
It was still relatively early in the day, and neither of them were terribly tired. After twenty minutes of staring at the television screen and finding nothing worth watching, Noah suddenly grabbed Sarah's hand and pulled her to her feet.
“What? Where we going?” Sarah asked, but Noah only put his finger to his lips. He pulled her out the back door, and she suddenly realized he was taking her to the boathouse. They had only been out on the boat a couple of times, and she let out a squeal of delight when he opened the door and led her inside and onto the boat. He used a remote to raise the big overhead door that led onto the lake, then fired up the big Mercury engine and eased the boat out of its slip. When they were out of the boathouse, he turned it around, then shoved the throttle and the big boat shot forward like it had a rocket in its tail. They cruised out to the middle of the lake, and then kicked back on the deck to just enjoy the sun and the wind and the waves.
They stayed out on the water until they began to get hungry in the late afternoon, then headed in and put the boat away. Neither of them felt like cooking, so they got into Noah's Corvette and headed out to the Sagebrush Saloon, their mutual favorite eatery. Neil was washing his Hummer as they drove away, and they waved at him as they went by. Neither was terribly surprised when the big yellow Hummer suddenly pulled out on the road behind them and followed them out to the Saloon.
“Good to see you guys,” Neil said, as he climbed out of the Hummer beside them in the parking lot. “Hope you don't mind if I join you for dinner?”
“Of course we don't mind,” Sarah said. “Come on, let's get a table. The booths are too hard, and the chairs have padded seats.”
They sat down and put their orders in, then chatted a bit about the mission. Noah and Sarah filled Neil in on how things had gone in Russia, while Neil simply complained about Decker driving him crazy while they were stuck in London.
“Did you know that man never, ever shuts up? He talks, and he talks and then he talks some more.”
“Really?” Noah asked. “He didn't seem like that with me.”
“Of course not,” Neil said, “but you guys won't let me carry a gun, remember? Trust me, I would've shot him. At least three times I would've shot him.”
“Oh, come on,” Sarah said, “he isn't that bad. I sat with him when you and Noah went to the presidential palace, and—well, yeah, he talks a lot, but I think it's just because he's lonely.”
“Do I look like I care?” Neil asked her. “Trust me, I don't care. He just about drove me crazy, while I was trying to keep focused on what was going on with you guys and that Pendergrast idiot. And that reminds me, how come you never called me to see what he was up to?”
“Because we were watching him the whole time,” Noah said. “I didn't need you to tell me what he was doing when I was looking right at him.”
Neil looked at him for several seconds, his mouth opening and closing twice. “Okay, I guess that makes some kind of sense. But you could at least make me feel like I'm contributing once in a while, you know, call and ask me a question, even if you do know the answer. Makes me feel like part of the team, you know what I mean?”
Noah squinted at him. “No, I don't. You are part of the team, why do I need to make you feel like you're part of the team?”
Neil shook his head. “That's what I get for trying to get sympathy from a robot,” he said. He turned to Sarah. “You understand what I'm saying, right?”
She smiled, and reached over to pat his hand. “Yes, I understand, and I'll try my best to explain it to Noah later.”
Neil looked over at Noah, shaking his head again. “Good luck with that,” he said.
They sat at the Saloon for a couple of hours, enjoying their meal and enjoying each other's company. Noah and Sarah opted for dessert, but Neil declined, uncharacteristically. When they did leave, Sarah convinced Neil to come over to the house and hang out with them for a while.
Noah parked the Corvette just outside his garage door, and Neil pulled the Hummer in behind him. They met up at the door, and Noah reached out to unlock it, but then suddenly froze. He had carefully locked the door behind him as they left, but now it was open by half an inch.
Not one of them was armed, so Noah whispered to the others to stay outside for a moment. He stepped inside the house and reached out for the light switch. When the lights came on, he looked around and saw that nothing had been disturbed near the front door, so he began moving through the rest of the house.
After a few moments, he went back and told Sarah and Neil that it was all right to come in. “I can't find anything missing, and nothing seems to be disturbed. I'm sure I locked the door behind us, but I can't see any sign that the lock was picked, either.”
“You locked it,” Sarah said. “I saw you, it was locked. Who would be stupid enough to try to play games like this? I mean, especially with you?”
“It was probably Moose,” Neil said. “Remember, he's got muscle, not brains.”
Sarah shook her head. “Moose wouldn't do that, he's got more respect for Noah than to do that.” She looked at Noah. “Noah? Do you think there's any chance they've actually tracked us down?”
Noah scowled. “The Russians? Nicolaich? No way. Even if we concede that it's possible, it would take weeks to crack through all the subterfuge that went into that mission. There isn't even anyone who could have sold us out, because no one we dealt with had any idea who we really are. No, I think this is somebody around here, and maybe it was just a prank. Still, I'm going to let Allison know about it, and I'm going to install a security system.”
“Well, we can do all that tomorrow,” Sarah said. “For this evening, let's just go find a decent movie and pretend we're just normal people, okay?”
TEN
Allison was in her conference room when they arrived the
next morning, with Donald Jefferson and Stan Decker. They all got up to shake hands with the team, and there were some mutual congratulations before they got down to debriefing. The debrief went smoothly, and took only a short time.
“Once again, you've got everybody in the organization talking about how brilliant I was to recruit you,” Allison said. “Of course, we all knew that already, but it's nice to get some confirmation once in a while.”
“I spent a good part of this mission,” Noah said, “feeling like maybe things were going too easy, too smoothly. I mean, we found Pendergrast so fast that it just seemed almost like it was set up. Couldn't Habib's security people have found him just as easily?”
“Not necessarily,” said Jefferson. “I'm not sure they have access to the voice recognition databases that you ended up using. Of course, if we had put even regular CIA on this, they would have tracked him down, so in one sense, the answer to your question would be yes. Our people would have cooperated with theirs, and shared that information.”
“But for some reason, they didn't want CIA involved, right?” Noah asked.
“That's correct,” Allison said. “And I completely understood where they were coming from, because the normal intelligence agencies are all full of interconnections that could conceivably leak something important like this. They couldn't take a chance that someone from SVR would find out that they were digging into it. Maybe they wouldn't really have killed the girl, but no one knew that for sure. Hell, we still don't.”
She turned to Jefferson. “Donald? What do you think?”
Jefferson chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, then leaned his head to the left. “It's quite possible that Noah is correct,” he said. “It does seem that somebody left some big clues, and made sure we had a way to get to the girl's location. If that's true, then I have to say that the whole thing may have been nothing but a fishing expedition. If the Russians got wind of what we're doing, here in our outfit, it's quite possible that this was set up specifically to draw us, or some of our people, out into the open.”
