by David Archer
“You can stay home on this one…”
“Don’t even think about it,” Sarah said, cutting him off. “Where you go, I go. Besides, you're going to need a driver. I can handle Moscow, and we may have to move awfully fast.”
Noah nodded, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Marco. The call was answered on the third ring.
“Hey, Noah,” Marco said. “What’s shakin’?”
“Have you heard the news? Team Cinderella was captured yesterday, in Russia.”
Marco whistled. “Holy crap,” he said. “When do we leave?”
* * * * *
Jenny and the men had been placed in sparse holding cells, small, bare concrete rooms with nothing in them. A hole in the floor, they were told, would serve as their toilets, but there wasn’t even a pad to lay on. Jenny spent her hours in the cell sitting on the floor and leaning back against the wall. She managed to sleep, but only fitfully, for a few minutes at a time. Still, she knew she would need whatever rest she could manage.
Between the darkness and the intermittent sleep, she had no idea what time it might be when the cell door suddenly opened. Light flooded into the room and four men rushed inside. She was yanked up onto her feet, her hands were cuffed behind her and a black bag was pulled down over her head. With one man holding each arm, she was marched out the door and through the hallway, and then the echoes of their footsteps told her that she was in a large enclosed area, like a big garage.
It probably was a garage, because she was pushed into the backseat of a car a moment later. The doors slammed and the engine started, and she heard several other vehicles close by. More car doors slammed, more engines fired up, and then they started moving.
The ride lasted quite some time, but she couldn’t quite say how long. She had just decided to guess that they had been moving for an hour when they made a turn and the vehicle began to slow. It stopped a few minutes later and her door was yanked open once more. Rough hands grabbed hold of her arm and dragged her out, almost causing her to fall. She was pulled back upright and then marched ahead, but her captors stopped her after only a couple of minutes. One of them said something to her in Russian, and then reached down to grab her right leg and lifted it slightly.
She felt a step under her foot, and realized that they were boarding an airplane. She moved up the steps carefully, one step at a time, and another pair of hands was waiting at the top. She was walked into what seemed to be a fairly large aircraft and pushed into a seat. Her hands were left cuffed behind her and the bag was still in place as seatbelts were fastened around her.
She heard others being brought onto the plane and called out once, but someone slapped her head. She didn’t need an interpreter to know that it was an order to be quiet, so she closed her mouth and sat there. She tried counting seconds and realized that about fifteen minutes had passed by the time the aircraft’s door was closed and locked and the engines began to whine.
The bag over her head seemed to be made of some heavy fabric, because she couldn’t even see light through it. She could breathe easily, though, so she leaned her head back and relaxed. As the plane climbed up to its cruising altitude, Jenny managed to drift off to sleep.
This time, she slept fairly well. She woke refreshed some hours later, when someone lifted the bag enough to put the mouth of a water bottle to her lips. She took a grateful drink, swirling it around in her mouth to moisturize the dry tissues, then swallowed as much as she could before it was taken away.
It seemed to her that a couple of hours passed after that, before the plane suddenly began to descend. She was fairly certain they were coming into a landing at Moscow, and finally allowed herself to wonder if anyone back home in Neverland was aware of her arrest, yet. Her heart ached for Neil, because she knew that he was incredibly attached to her.
Suddenly, her anger at being arrested turned into guilt, because she blamed herself for letting it happen. She had been so anxious to let her demons out that she had been less than cautious. Killing the two surveillance agents had been stupid, especially since she knew that the Russian government was going to be notified of a planned assassination of the very person they were assigned to watch.
Now, because of her stupidity, she and her entire team were going to die. Despite knowing full well that death was a risk in her profession, Jenny had a strong love for life, and it had gotten a lot stronger since she had grown close to Neil. Tears began to run down her cheeks as she thought of the suffering he would endure after she was executed, and even more when she thought about the future she had allowed herself to dream of having with him. She had even spoken to Allison, very privately, about the possibility of having a child.
Allison had been blunt. While she would not order a pregnancy to be terminated, becoming a mother would not remove Jenny from her position with E & E. Should she become pregnant, Allison would urge her to consider placing the child up for adoption, but Jenny knew she could never do that. She had planned to talk to Sarah about it, to see if she and Noah had given any thought to parenthood, but she didn’t get the chance.
Now, it wouldn’t matter.
After the plane touched down, Jenny was the first one to be led off. She was once again put into the back seat of a car, and waited again while others were brought down and put into different vehicles. She was sure she heard at least half a dozen different cars, which meant that she and her team weren’t the only prisoners being brought to Moscow. One of them was probably VanHorn, but she didn’t have any idea who else there might be.
This time, the ride lasted just over half an hour. When the car stopped again, Jenny was taken out and walked quickly into a building and put into a chair. The bag was finally taken off her head, and she blinked several times as her eyes adjusted to the light in the room.
She was sitting on a hard wooden chair at the side of what looked like a roomful of clerks. There were armed guards standing around the room, including one that was only a few feet from her and keeping his eyes locked on her at all times.
One at a time, the others were brought in and placed in chairs close by. As each bag was lifted, she recognized Randy, Dave and Jim, and then VanHorn, whose picture she had been shown by Dimitrovitch. Two more men were brought in after him, but she had no idea who they might be.
The way they were being watched, she figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to try to talk. She sat and waited, and it was only about fifteen minutes later that she was ordered onto her feet once again. The cuffs were removed from her wrists and she was escorted by two men into another room.
“You will change,” one of them said in broken English. He pointed to the table, where stacks of rough clothing were waiting. Jenny walked over and picked out a pair of pants and a shirt that looked small enough for her, then looked around.
“Bathroom?”
“Change,” the man said. Jenny stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. While both men watched closely, she stripped down to her underwear and put on the clothes she had chosen. The ones she had removed were picked up and thrown into a trash bin, and then she was led through another door.
That door opened into a long hallway, and she saw cell doors on either side. She was allowed to go almost all the way to the other end before the man who had spoken told her to stop. He opened a door on her left with a massive key and pointed, and she stepped inside.
The cell was a definite improvement over the last one. There was a steel bunk with a fairly thick mattress on it, and there were sheets, pillow and blankets stacked neatly on it. There was also a toilet, which she quickly and gratefully used, and a table containing a pad and several short pencils.
She moved the blankets and pillow to the table and started assembling the bed. With nothing else to do, she thought she might as well try to get a little bit more sleep.
CHAPTER SIX
Noah, Sarah, Neil and Marco walked into the conference room with two minutes to go before noon, but Allison, Donald Jefferson and Molly were there waiting f
or them. For once, Neil walked past the doughnuts without even noticing them and took his seat at the conference table.
“First things first,” Allison said. “Neil, I'm so sorry this is happened. Please understand that this is a risk every team faces in the field.”
“I know that,” Neil said. “I just don’t understand how we could just leave them there, walk away from them.”
“It's because of something called plausible deniability,” Jefferson said. “Every intelligence agent we have, of any kind, is fully aware that the Secretary of State will disavow any knowledge of them or their actions if they're captured. To do anything else would mean that sending them into the country to complete their mission would be an act of war.”
“I don’t,” Neil said immediately, “have any issue with that. My issue is with the fact that this organization is capable of pulling off a rescue, so that's what I want us to do.”
“Unfortunately,” Allison went on, “rescue is not always possible. In fact, I've had to order the deaths of American agents in the past, when they had information that simply could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands. Everyone eventually cracks under torture, Neil. Everyone.” She cleared her throat. “In this case, however, the only thing Jenny and her team could reveal is our existence. The Russians are already fully aware that we exist, and they even know more than I like about Noah and Team Camelot, so I'm not in that position. For that very reason, we're going to discuss the possibility of a rescue mission, but I have to caution you that what we talk about cannot leave this room without my explicit authorization. Is that understood?”
They all agreed that they understood and would obey, and Allison nodded once.
“All right. State has been advised that Jenny and the others are being charged as spies, as well as assassins. What that means to us is that the State Department can do absolutely nothing to try to secure their release. They will be going before a Russian court about forty hours from now, and will almost certainly be convicted and sentenced to death. A conviction for assassination or espionage is not appealed in Russia. If they're sentenced to death, which they will be, the executions will be scheduled for four days later. That means we've less than five days to figure out how to get them back. Any ideas?”
Noah leaned forward. “Neil has located blueprints of the building they’re being held in,” he said. “With some help from Wally’s department, I believe Marco and I can get into the building and eliminate any opposition long enough to find them and get them out. The hardest part will be getting away from the prison itself and out of the country. My plan is to have Sarah waiting with a van, something big enough for all of us to fit into for the drive to the airport. Since Jenny and her team can’t be acknowledged officially, we can’t risk putting them into a diplomatic aircraft, so my plan is to bring them out as cargo, instead.”
Allison looked at Molly. “What do you think?”
Molly scowled. “He had me until he mentioned a cargo flight. Russian cargo jets are searched several times before takeoff, usually with sniffer dogs. I'm pretty sure they would catch the scent of people hiding inside the plane.”
“Alternatives?” Jefferson asked.
Molly shook her head. “I'm afraid I can’t think of any,” she said. “We're talking about Moscow. I have trouble imagining any way to get them out of the country.”
“Just give us some new IDs for them,” Neil said. “We can take some clean clothes to them, give them wigs and colored contact lenses and whatever else it takes to change their appearance. With a passport that seems to match, they should be able to walk right onto any commercial flight, right?”
“I'm afraid not,” Molly said. “Russian airports use some very sophisticated facial recognition technology, now. They would be spotted, no matter how well disguised they might be. The software uses things like facial bone structure, things that can’t be changed with a simple disguise.”
“Oh, come on,” Sarah said, “there’s got to be a way. There just has to be.”
“I might have an idea,” Jefferson said softly. “It's going to sound crazy at first, but it just might have a chance of success.”
Allison looked at him with a grin. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” she said. “Spit it out, man.”
Jefferson licked his lips and turned to Noah. “When you got Sarah back from the Chinese, you had to steal a plane and fly it yourself, right?”
Noah nodded. “That's correct. I flew a Cessna 195 under the radar to Vietnam.”
“I'm thinking of a similar stunt,” Jefferson said. “If arrangements can be made to get them to a plane, it's not all that far from Moscow to Warsaw. Our embassy there could have a diplomatic plane ready to go when they arrive, to bring them back home.”
Allison looked at Noah. “What do you think?”
“It would depend on the plane,” Noah said. “My grandfather taught me to fly in his Cessna 310 when I was a kid, and I remember it clearly enough. The 195 was a fairly easy plane to fly, but I don’t know that we’d find one in Moscow. If I have to fly under the radar again, I want something similar.”
Molly turned to the computer beside her and started tapping on the keys. A moment later she looked up and smiled. “There's a tour service with a 1976 model Cessna 310 for sale in Moscow right now, and it has its own private airfield. We’ve got seven dummy corporations set up in Moscow at the moment, and I can arrange for any one of them to purchase it today.”
Allison looked at Noah, who nodded again. “I can fly it,” he said. “It's got plenty of range for the trip, and it could fly under radar if necessary. It was only designed to carry up to six people, but we could squeeze all eight of us in there. The plane certainly has enough power to get us off the ground, and the fuel capacity to compensate for any loss of range from extra load.”
Allison chewed her bottom lip for a moment as she stared at him, then turned to Molly. “Buy it,” she said. “Do whatever is necessary as far as registration, insurance, all that, then get it checked out mechanically. I want it ready to fly when Noah gets to it, fully fueled and everything.”
She turned back to Noah. “Get out to Wally and pick up whatever you need. If there’s something you can’t carry into the country, make sure he gets it on a diplomatic flight today. I'm authorizing this mission, but there’s one thing I want all of you to understand. I cannot afford to lose both teams. If at any time you decide the mission cannot succeed, abort and come home. Is that understood?”
“Understood,” Noah said without hesitation. Neil, Sarah and Marco nodded their agreement, but Allison could see the reservation in their faces.
“All right, then,” she said. “As soon as Wally provides you with mission IDs, Donald will make arrangements for your flight to Moscow. Remember that you only have a matter of days to pull this off, so move as quickly as you can.”
Allison got up and left the room, and Noah and his team followed. They had arrived in Neil’s Hummer, and climbed into it as soon as they got to the garage and headed directly out to R&D.
Allison had called ahead, so Wally was waiting for them when they arrived. As soon as they stepped into the foyer of the building, Wally reached out and grabbed Neil’s hand and pressed it between his own. “Allie told me,” he said. “Don’t you worry, Neil, Noah will get her back for you. He is the best, the absolute best.”
Neil mumbled his thanks as Wally turned to Noah. “Okay, Noah, tell me what you need. Allie says you've got carte blanche out here, you can have anything you want.”
“Good. Remember the guns that make people freeze where they're standing? The ones with scopolamine gas in those little capsules?”
Wally broke out into a smile. “Yes, of course.”
“I need four of them loaded onto a diplomatic flight today, headed for Moscow. Can you do that?”
“Consider it done, and I'll send along plenty of the antidote gum. We’ll have to put the ammunition inside a pressurized container, though. I'm afraid they would all burst whe
n the plane reaches altitude. Wouldn’t do to have the whole crew go to sleep all of a sudden, now would it? What else?”
“Send along the tools we used that time, too. I don’t know that we’ll actually use them, but I prefer to have them if we need them.”
“Okay, no problem,” Wally said. “What else?”
“The iPhone, the one with the backscatter detection system. I may need to see through walls now and then, and it works.”
Wally motioned for them to follow him, and led them to one of the many workshops. He had a quick word with the technician inside, and a fully functional iPhone was quickly activated and programmed. Wally handed it to Noah, and then smiled.
“One of our girls here had a couple of bright ideas about backscatter,” he said. “Check it out, try it on the wall over there.”
Noah put the phone against the wall and activated the backscatter detection system. Backscatter radiation can be collected and analyzed digitally to render an image of what might be behind a solid object, like a wall. Noah had used it before, and had found it to be incredibly useful. The image was monochromatic and grainy, but it was clear enough to allow him to determine how many people might be on the other side of a wall and a general idea of the type of weapons they might be carrying.
The screen lit up and Noah’s eyebrows rose a quarter inch. Instead of the grainy, black-and-white image he was used to, the screen showed a view of the room on the other side of the wall that was as good as an old black-and-white TV image. He looked around at Wally.
“How did you manage this?”
Wally pointed at the girl who had programmed the phone. “That's Holly,” he said. “Holly came up with the idea of combining backscatter detection with sonic echo impulses. The phone emits a sound wave in such a high frequency that only electronics can detect it, then reads the echo and combines it with an analysis of the backscatter radiation. The result is a view that's much clearer than anything we've had before.” He giggled. “The only problem was creating the computer circuitry that would be small enough to stuff inside that case. Don’t let anybody measure that phone, because it's three millimeters thicker than normal iPhones.”
