by Lee Brainard
30
Lake Placid, New York
Thursday, November 15, 2018
As it turned out, Irina’s Thanksgiving vacation didn’t land on Thanksgiving weekend. New guidelines had been issued in October for every institution and agency involved in the Minoa Project. One of the new stipulations was a requirement to maintain a minimum of fifty percent of staff on duty at all times. This meant that federal holidays would be observed in split shifts. Irina was assigned to team B, who were informed that they would be taking their vacation a week early. She didn’t mind. She was just thankful that she was given vacation time—providing her the opportunity she needed to do her spy thing. Thankfully, the change didn’t affect the cover story she had planned, a ski trip with friends in the Adirondacks. In mid-November, two early snowstorms arrived back-to-back, blanketing upstate New York with four feet of snow.
Her plan was to join three friends from her church for a girls’ outing to Lake Placid, where they would stay at the Courtyard, a hotel in the Marriott family. Her friends were going to spend their days tackling the slopes at Whiteface Mountain, while she was going to spend hers, supposedly, holed up in her room, soaking in the hot tub, and catching up on her reading—Tolstoy’s War and Peace, cover to cover, in the original Russian. In the evenings they would rendezvous for dinner and shopping.
The group arrived at the hotel, in Olivia’s green Outback, shortly after ten. They checked in, carried their luggage to their rooms, and ordered pizza. While they were waiting for their dinner, Irina pulled Olivia aside. “Olivia, can I borrow your car? I need to go somewhere.” Olivia’s Subaru was ideal because it was all-wheel drive and didn’t have GPS.
“Sure . . . Where?”
“I can’t . . . I don’t . . . I’ll tell you later.”
“How long are you going to be gone? A couple hours?”
Irina grimaced—embarrassed. “Until Sunday afternoon.”
Olivia snapped. “What? That’s the whole weekend. I thought we were doing a girl thing together. That was the point of this whole trip, wasn’t it? You were the one that suggested it, planned it, and talked us all into it.”
Irina tried to soothe the situation. “I understand your disappointment. I am truly sorry. But I just have to do this.”
“This? What is this? And where will you be doing this? What is so important that you need three days to do it and you can’t even talk about it to one of your friends?”
“I’d rather not talk about it . . . not yet anyway. I promise that I will tell you everything after things have run their course, whether for good or for bad.”
Olivia brightened a bit. “Wait a minute. Is there a guy in your life? Is this why you keep turning Cameron Braddick down? What have you been hiding from me, girl? This guy must be quite the catch. You had us all wondering if you didn’t have a guy on the string somewhere. Otherwise, we couldn’t understand why you would turn down the hottest, hunkiest, most eligible bachelor at New Life Church.”
Guy angle . . . hmmm . . . maybe I can work this. “Yeah. There is a big fella involved. He’s a rogue in the eyes of many, but ever since I discovered him, I’ve found myself strangely attracted to him. I believe the whole situation is a matter of divine destiny.”
“But why now? Why this weekend? Why do you have to bail on your girlfriends at the last minute? Couldn’t you take care of this at some other time?”
“Things came together pretty quickly. And the way they came together didn’t leave me any other options. With the direction he is going and the way things are going in my life, this weekend was my best, maybe my only, shot. I might not get another chance. The folks that are trying to keep us apart have been pretty successful up to this point.”
“This rogue fella isn’t a married man is he?”
Irina laughed. “No. Absolutely not. I would never even consider such a relationship.”
“Okay. Just be careful Irina. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
“I promise, I won’t get myself into trouble.” Make that moral trouble . . . can’t promise that I won’t get into trouble.
Olivia relented and handed over her keys, still a little reluctant. “Here you go. We won’t need the car because we are planning to take the shuttle to the ski slopes.” She looked Irina in the eyes. “Girl. I’m trusting you. Please don’t make me regret this.”
Irina hugged her and said, “Thanks. You won’t regret this once you understand.” She added, “I promise I’ll be back by early afternoon on Sunday.”
Olivia, disappointed, shrugged her shoulders and walked back into her room to join the other girls, who were getting ready to watch the classic chick flick You’ve Got Mail. Irina stood there for a moment feeling like a witch because she was not only deceiving her friends but potentially dragging them into trouble with the authorities. She pushed the unpleasant thought out of mind. She was only doing what she had to do. She had no choice. With her resolve intact, she returned to her own room and began her preparations for her escapade. Here goes my own inept version of Mission Impossible. With a little help from above, I can pull this off.
She plugged her cell phone in and placed it on the desk—she was leaving it behind. This should buy her some time. Those tracking her would think she was still in her room. After all, everyone knew that she never went anywhere without her phone. Then she plugged her thumb drive into her phone, installed a busy-signal app, which gave every call a busy signal, and activated it. If her boss attempted to call her, perhaps under the prompting of the feds, it would appear that she was talking to someone.
Just in case agents got suspicious about her phone ploy and decided to search her room, she left misleading signs that might buy her a few more hours. She filled the hot tub and turned the heater on, tossed a bag in the corner with one-and-a-half days of dirty clothes, crumpled the bed, moved the TV guide to the bed stand, set her tablet on top of it, tucked a bookmark into page two hundred sixty-four of War and Peace, poured several cans of Coca-Cola down the drain and tossed the empty cans in the wastebasket, hung the “do not clean” sign on the doorknob, left a half-eaten bag of Salt-N-Vinegar chips on the table, spread her hygiene and cosmetic items on the bathroom counter, left her suitcase unzipped on the floor, and left her main purse on the desk, taking only her clutch purse. That should do it. Looks like I’m actually living here and just went out for a while.
Next up was her disguise. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt, a combination she never wore. She didn’t mind dressing country classy but felt a little hick in plaid. Maybe on a real camping trip. Then she retrieved a blonde wig from her tennis duffel, which she had stowed away in her suitcase, donned it, and primped in front of the mirror. Definitely think I look better brunette. Finally, she added a powder-blue Eddie Bauer ski jacket purchased just for this trip.
She did a last-minute double-check of her preparations, then left the room with nothing but her clutch purse and her tennis duffel, the latter holding the things needed for her mission: a shoebox, a plain brown grocery bag, a manila envelope, tape, a DVD, a small laser printer with USB cable, a dozen sheets of 60-bond paper, several sheets of mailing labels, three five-dollar stamps, a pouch of quarters and dimes for the toll roads, a change of underclothes, and some baby wipes. She had added the last two because she couldn’t bear the thought of going two days without washing up at least once. She briskly walked down the hall, bounded down the stairs, and headed for the internet room just around the corner from the lobby. Slow down girl . . . you’re a little too antsy.
Thankfully, no one else was in the room—she had it to herself. She opened the browser, navigated to Startpage, and then to Buster. She logged in, opened Open Office, and began writing to Ariele. Preferably, the letter would have already been written, but she hadn’t dared to access Buster or Startpage or use TOR, after she had come under suspicion, figuring that such actions would be regarded as subversive by those who were tracking her every move on the internet. Twenty-three minutes late
r she finished, connected the USB cable for the printer, and printed the letter. Step one done.
Now the uncertain part. Would she find a mailing-label template on Buster that matched one of the three sizes she had brought with her? She hoped so. Her backup plan was filling out the labels with her left hand. It would look like chicken scratching, but it would be legible. Thankfully, she did find a template for the smallest labels. She placed the correct sheet into the printer, entered the sender and receiver, and printed the labels. Then she disconnected the cable and put the printer back into her bag. Step two done.
On to the last step. Irina put her double-density DVD into the drive, selected the files, images, and documents she wanted in the download queue, and started the download. She wished she had a cup of coffee. This was going to take a while. After twenty-six minutes that seemed like days, the download was completed. She retrieved her DVD, logged out of Buster, closed the browser, and cleared the computer’s browsing history and temp files. It had taken her sixty-eight minutes to do her computer stuff—twice as long as she had anticipated. Off to a great start Miss Super Spy. At least she was done.
With a bustle, she stood up, gathered up the loose items, and placed them in her duffel. Finally, she was ready to go. She glanced at her watch. It was 12:47 a.m., early Friday morning. As she walked out the front door, she nervously fretted to herself, hopefully, this disguise works . . . throws off the fed boys who are almost certainly tailing me. Whether the disguise worked or whether nobody was tailing her, she never found out, but there were no headlights behind her when she pulled out of the hotel parking lot, nor when she turned and traveled north on Sentinel Road. While she did see headlights behind her a few times on Main Street and Sara Placid Road, nobody stayed behind her. By the time she was heading west out of town on State 86, she was starting to relax and her pulse was returning to normal. Salina, Kansas here I come.
31
Salinas, Kansas
Saturday, November 17, 2018
After a grueling drive without stopping, except for fuel and caffeine, she arrived in Salina at 2:36 a.m. Saturday—her eyes heavy and sore. She was exhausted to a degree she had never experienced before. The last four hours she had driven with her window down and the radio going full tilt on an obnoxious heavy metal station. She desperately wanted to lay down and sleep for a while. But sleep was out of the question until she had done what she had come to do. Her first stop was the Pilot Travel Center, where she filled the tank and purchased a copy of the Salina Journal. While paying, she asked the attendant if he knew where she could find a drop box for mail nearby. He replied, “At the Petro Salina on the other side of the interstate. The truckers drop their mail and small packages there.”
When she got back in the car, she drove to a quiet corner of the truck stop and parked. It was time to place her baby in a box—kind of like Moses—and trust the providence of God that the precious cargo would be protected. She laid the manila envelope containing her letter and DVD on the bottom of the shoebox, stuffed the box with crumpled newspaper pages, placed the cover on the shoebox, and taped it shut. Then she wrapped the shoebox with a plain brown grocery bag and attached her labels and stamps. Okay . . . I’m ready . . . let’s do this. She drove to the Petro Salina, found the collection box right away, and—with a bit of a squeeze—got her package in. A huge weight fell off her chest. It was done. It was finally done.
But she still had to get rid of the trash. She returned to the Pilot Travel Center, pulled up to a dumpster, and threw away the remaining pages of the Salinas Journal, all her receipts, her food and beverage containers, the printer, the extra labels and paper, anything that might suggest that she had been in Kansas or why she had been in Kansas. Now—finally—she could sleep. She found an empty spot on the far edge of the automobile section, parked, crawled into the back seat, donned her coat and hat, wrapped her legs with Olivia’s car blanket, laid herself down with a sigh of relief, uttered a brief prayer of thanks, closed her eyes . . . and she was out.
***
Irina woke with a start . . . nervous . . . not remembering where she was or why . . . very tired . . . wanting to go back to sleep . . . but feeling like she needed to wake up and get going. Groggily she forced herself to sit up. She rubbed her aching eyes and tried to put things together. The fog started lifting. With a jolt, she remembered where she was and why. She surveyed her surroundings. The sun was higher on the horizon than it should have been. She checked her watch. Oh, my! It was 9:35 a.m. I overslept! She had to get going if she was going to be back in Lake Placid by the time she had promised.
She started the car, put the defroster on high, ran inside, used the ladies room, purchased eight Doubleshots and six Krispy Kreme donuts, ran back to the car, wiped the fog off the inside of the windows, and headed out. Once she got on the interstate, she set the cruise at four mph over the speed limit. Finally, she could focus on her breakfast. She wolfed down two of the donuts, then downed two of the heavenly-rich coffee beverages—a combination that was definitely not her normal breakfast. My ballet teacher would have a cow . . . but just in case today is the end of freedom for me . . . I want my last meal in freedom to be the splurge of a lifetime. While she hoped she would make it back before her absence was noted by the agents assigned to her, she knew the odds were against her.
She pushed on hard through the morning and afternoon, keeping herself awake with caffeine-laced energy drinks and cracking black-pepper sunflower seeds, a trick learned from her brother Vasyl, who was a traveling software salesman. Normally, she refused to chew sunflower seeds, especially in cars, because they were so messy. But protocol goes out the window in desperate situations—and she desperately needed to stay awake. She hated to admit it, but chewing sunflower seeds was actually kind of fun, though it was disgusting that the floor and seat were littered with cracked shells that had missed the thirty-two-ounce plastic coke cup. Maybe around a campfire . . . just spit ‘em into the flames. Her female mind quickly made the jump from sunflower seeds and a campfire to cowboys . . . then her cowboy . . . wherever and whoever he was . . . she lost herself in reverie.
Early in the evening, bone-tired and unable to fight the sandman any longer, Irina realized that she needed to sleep for a couple hours. She took the 465 loop under Indianapolis and headed for the Pilot truck stop, where she had stopped on the way to Kansas. There, she figured, she could rest her weary frame. But she never got her nap. Unbeknownst to her, the FBI had recently broadened their search, and that step had enabled them to get a location on her.
The original APB for Irina had been sent out at 8:56 p.m. Friday night—covering the New England states, the northern Appalachian states, the seaboard states, and Ohio—after the FB had determined, upon questioning her friends, that she had fled to parts unknown. When she left under mysterious circumstances, they assumed that she had snuck off to meet a guy—like a secret boyfriend or an online contact—a dubious venture that seemed out of step with her reputation. They were horrified to learn that the sweet young lady whose company they enjoyed was sought by the FBI and Homeland Security as a serious threat to the security of the United States. Olivia’s distress, however, far surpassed the others’. The FBI confiscated her Outback without recompense.
At 6:00 p.m. on Saturday the FBI expanded the APB to include all states east of the Mississippi River. This quickly brought Irina’s escapade to an end. At 7:25 p.m. an overpass camera on the west side of Indianapolis reported the license plate of the Outback. Five minutes later, just as she signaled for the exit that would take her to the Pilot truck stop, Irina noticed a patrolman on her tail with lights flashing. She negotiated the exit and slowed to a stop on the ramp. It’s over, she thought to herself, glad I splurged on the Krispy Kremes. He waited until a backup arrived—about three minutes later. Then the two patrolmen approached her with pistols drawn. The first one ordered her to step out of her car. After she complied, he barked, “Hands on the vehicle. Walk your feet backward. Spread your feet.” Sh
e remained in that uncomfortable position—made even more uncomfortable by the inconvenient fact that she desperately needed to empty her bladder—for several minutes. “How long do I have to wait like this!” she blurted out. Nobody answered.
Several minutes later, she heard cars pull up, doors open, and footsteps walk up to her. But there was no conversation between the agents and the patrolmen, not even muffled whispers. Strange. She sensed motion on both sides of her, then cringed as both of her arms were wrenched behind her back. Cold metal touched her wrists and handcuffs clicked shut—a click that symbolized a new era of her life.
“Why are you arresting me?” she demanded.
“You are not being arrested. You are being taken into custody for questioning,” one of the agents answered, almost mechanically.
“Then what?”
The question went unanswered. They spun her around, marched her to the second SUV, and pushed her toward the open back door. She clambered in, awkwardly banging her head on the opening and munching her fingers on the seat. Nothing like climbing into an SUV after dark . . . on uneven ground . . . with your hands handcuffed behind your back . . . when you have to use the ladies’ room. They took her to the Indianapolis Field Office, where she was questioned, often intensely, by the Counterterrorism Division and Homeland Security agents assigned to a regional Joint Terrorism Task Force team.
She didn’t remember much about the next four days—a blur of interrogation sessions, paper cups of bad coffee, and transfers to other facilities. She was polygraphed three times and harnessed to Casper. She talked freely, even blithely, but gave them no information that could jeopardize her effort to warn the world about the Rogue. Though they threatened to use whatever means necessary to make her talk, her fears that she might face the waterboard, or some other formidable tool of the trade, never materialized. Maybe they only use that stuff on real terrorists.
