by K. T. Tomb
“Okay,” Aziz said, “We’ll stay alert.”
“Good.”
As Petrovik hung up the phone, he let a wide smile spread across his face.
It was about time the regime changed around here. They had become inert, stagnant, and stale under Ilea’s leadership. She was way too unconfrontational; she hated a dispute, ran from an argument. There was no way the organization could be led in that manner and survive for much longer, he thought. But when I’m in charge, things will be a whole lot different and then maybe we can be known a little more worldwide for doing and not just sitting around looking.
He was very pleased with himself as he sat looking out over the Paris skyline from his office window. What Petrovik didn’t know was that if he had turned around at that second, he would have been in time to see Moira, the intern, step back out into the hall and silently close his office door.
Chapter Three
It was hard not to notice the large white van following them from the airport all the way into the city. Chyna thought it lucky that at the airport she had decided to drive one of the Land Rovers herself and give the second to Eli. She took Asha, Sirita and Demetri with her, allowing Thorin and Oscar to go with Eli. Initially, it had been to ensure that each vehicle had one guide and one bodyguard, but with the van on their tail, her plan would allow them to split up and confuse whoever it was trying to follow them.
She took the chance that if they split up, the followers would choose to stick with her vehicle and she was right. With military precision, the two Land Rovers approached the next exit on the highway as if they were going to pass it and then at the last minute, Eli veered off onto the exit ramp. Chyna watched the driver falter for a moment behind the wheel of the white van before following her at a steady pace. She slowed down and moved over into the slow lane as she drove directly to the U.S. Embassy on the Tigris River. When she pulled into the gates, Chyna was relieved to see the other vehicle had already arrived, which meant that Oscar and Thorin were in position.
As she got out of the Land Rover and glanced towards the gate, she noticed the white van passing at a very slow pace and though she couldn’t see the occupants, she knew they were looking directly at them, wondering what they would do next. Chyna assumed that they would find somewhere to park close by and wait for them to come out of the embassy compound. At that moment, she saw a little movement in a tree that was just inside the embassy wall. The shaking continued until she saw Oscar drop from the lower branches with his long range rifle secured across his back. He jogged across the lawn towards them.
“Is it activated?” Chyna asked him.
“Sure is,” Oscar replied. “You should be able to track them right now with that app I put on your phone.”
Chyna took the phone from her pocket and opened the application. It took a few seconds for anything to happen but soon enough there was the little dot moving slowly along a road a few streets over from where they stood. She smiled at the image, satisfied with what she saw. They would stay in the embassy as long as it took for the van to leave the area and proceed to the place where they were now holding the American group of Scientists.
They were all painfully aware of what could possibly happen to the second group of hostages if they were to sweep into the building in Baiyaa and rescue Lana and the European archaeologists. They just couldn’t risk it so they would wait for the followers to lead them there. Agent Hamilton was duly impressed with their little tagging exercise. He and a few of his operatives had surrounded Oscar to get a look at his equipment and the tracker that was up on his laptop screen showing that the van had parked a few streets over waiting for their departure from the compound.
“I definitely have to get me a few of those,” he said, laughing and clapping Oscar firmly on the back, as he listened to the engineer reel off the firing distances and tracking radius of the apparatus.
“Agent Hamilton,” Chyna called to him, as she approached the little group.
“Miss Stone,” he replied, extending his arm to her for a handshake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Agent Stewart has only the best things to say about you and your team and this young man here has certainly wowed us so far with that awesome tagging he did on your little tail there.”
“Yeah, they’re certainly a bunch of amateurs. I don’t think it’s going to be difficult to get our people back.”
“We’re here to help in any way we can.”
***
Moira sat at her desk feverishly firing off the emails that Petrovik had instructed her to send.
How the hell did I still manage to become the intern in this whole thing? Hadn’t I been the one who had blackmailed him? She thought, as she typed furiously.
But she knew the answer to her question only too well. Petrovik had been completely blindsided by her brazen confrontation in his office that evening. He had no idea how much of his conversation with Aziz she had overheard and she planned to use that to his disadvantage.
“So, Mr. Petrovik,” she had started, as she closed the door to his office behind her and turned the lock. “This is what the United Nations is all about, is it?”
“What are you talking about, Moira?”
“Conspiracy with paramilitary groups, kidnapping, ransoms, blackmail? I really just thought it was a lot of boring paper-pushing up until now.”
“What are you talking about?” he had demanded angrily. “There’s nothing of the sort going on around here. What is it that you think you know?”
“I know your man Aziz was supposed to send Director Le Gal an email this afternoon with the ransom details for the missing group of archaeologists. So I made sure to intercept her incoming mail today by setting her inbox to automatically forward everything to my email address and lo and behold, there came the email from an anonymous address demanding one million Euros for each of the captives.”
“Oh shit!” he said, placing his face in his hands.
“That’s right. All I want to know is; what’s your share of that eight million?”
“Why would that be of interest to you?”
“Isn’t it obvious what I’m doing here, Petrovik? If you don’t give me thirty percent of your cut, all I have to do is pick up the phone and tell Director Le Gal everything I know. She’ll have your slick butt in La Sante prison faster than you can say ‘Hello’.”
“You think you can swim with the big sharks do you, Moira?”
“No, Petrovik,” she replied, calmly. “I know that I can. Now tell me what your share is.”
It turned out that he and Aziz were splitting the ransom on the Europeans fifty-fifty, but the Americans were a different story. He would personally broker the deal between Aziz and the United Nations, save the group and get all the recognition for it by resolving the situation independently of the Director, making her look incompetent. The little weasel was after Ilea’s job. Moira wasn’t sure how successful that part of his plan would be and she wasn’t a hundred percent sure she cared whether he did it or not. When she had her cut safely squirreled away, she would make that decision.
So, she sat there and sent every communiqué that he had asked her to. Clearly, he intended to make her earn her cut. It also occurred to Moira that by instructing her to take over the communication between him and Aziz, he was incriminating her as much as he was in the whole affair. She had taken some precautions with that however, by going down to the electronics store nearby and purchasing a new tablet with mobile internet capability and a disposable prepaid SIM card for it. She would be damned before she was caught with any of that information on a device she used for anything else.
When she finished, she stood from the desk and stretched. Why hadn’t she just left at six and gone home to do this? She wasn’t sure, other than wanting to get it over with as soon as possible. Regardless, she was done now and ready to go home for the night so she pressed the sleep button on the tablet and walked down the hall towards the restroom. It didn’t take her long use the toilet, wash her hands
and freshen up her makeup, but when she returned it was clear that she had taken a little too long; the tablet was gone.
Frantic, she looked around the office. Her heart sank when she realized there was only one other person in the office with her.
“Dammit!” she said, trying to remember if she had initiated the password protect feature for waking the tablet up.
She couldn’t be sure that she had, so Moira dipped into her handbag and with drew a tiny brown vial which she palmed and walked to Ilea Le Gal’s office door. She took a deep breath, knocked and walked in. Quickly she scanned the desk for the two things she needed, both of them were easy to spot. Her tablet lay at the Director’s left elbow with the screen bright and the email application open.
Oh, fuck! she thought.
The other was the steaming cup of coffee that Ilea always drank when she was staying late in her office. Before she could look up from her computer screen, Moira went straight to the desk and scooped the half empty cup up. She took it over to the percolator in the corner of the office and refilled it from the hot coffee pot. Then she emptied the contents of the vial into the cup and picked up a stirrer from the canister. After adding the two packets of Splenda her boss always did to the cup and stirring it quickly, she placed the cup back on the desk. She turned to leave but Ilea stopped her.
“Moira, you left this on your desk.”
Moira turned slowly to face her, trying to keep a blank look on her face.
“What’s that, Boss?” she asked, steadying her voice.
“Your tablet?” Ilea asked inquisitively.
“Oh, yes. Thank you,” she replied, reaching for the device.
Ilea looked at her suspiciously for a moment before handing the device to her. Moira pretended not to notice and made a bee line for the door. She couldn’t be sure whether Ilea had read any of the emails or not; or if she now knew anything about what was going on. Either way, she had drugged the woman and she would wait until the drug took its effect and remove her as an obstacle, even if it were just temporarily. She had the perfect place to put her.
***
Hammurabi and Ishtari sat on their horses looking down at the fighting in the valley below them. Their forces had taken Ishme-Dagan’s invading army by surprise near Asshur. They had been making steady progress towards Babylon for two days but none of them, not even the great king, had suspected that they had been set up from the very beginning; on the night that his bastard daughter had been bedded by King Hammurabi.
Ishtari had been correct in her estimation that by the end of one cycle of the moon the forces of Assyria would enter the lands of Babylon to seek revenge against the royal couple for the apparent attempt that had been made on Kashira’s life by the queen. The news had also followed shortly to Ishme-Dagan’s ears that Hammurabi had not punished the queen for her indiscretion. That had enraged him the most; the thought that his supposed ally had condoned the poisoning had made his blood boil in his veins and he had summoned the generals of his army to him. To not take immediate and decisive action against him would be to admit that Assyria was inferior to Babylon and worthy of her conquest. He would die before that happened.
Now, he sat on his beautiful Arabian stallion and watched as the army he had sent out in front of him was being decimated by flank after flank of Hammurabi’s soldiers as they descended on his ranks from the surrounding hills. Dagan would never had gone directly through the valley if he’d had any idea that they were aware of his impending attack. Even as the retreat was being sounded and his generals shouted at him to turn around and ride for the border, he was hopeful of a win. Eventually they had to take the reins from his frozen hands and lead his galloping horse away from the advancing Babylonian troops.
Hammurabi smiled and nodded to his horns man to sound the advance. More troops marched forward from behind his line and joined those in the valley to follow the retreating Assyrians. They would harry them all the way to the border and cross it right behind them, preventing them from reforming their ranks and turning to fight again. Hammurabi and Ishtari were guaranteed that by the time they arrived in Nineveh, Dagan and his army would be ready for a full and termless surrender.
They pressed forward and, in accordance with Hammurabi’s great laws, no citizen of Assyria or their towns and possessions were harmed by the troops as they passed through the land. There would be more than enough to sate the soldiers’ desire for loot when they arrived in the capital which, as a purely political move, the king and queen planned to sack and completely destroy. It would be the last time that this country would rise against them; or for that matter exist outside of the Babylonian Empire.
Messengers were sent ahead to the city’s temples advising the citizens to take what they could and return to their villages if they would survive the attack and the news was returned to Hammurabi that the people were leaving the city wall by the caravan full when they heard that all the armies of Babylon were approaching.
They camped outside the city and exchanged messages for three days as was customary and in full accordance with the laws of waging warfare. One could not justifiably destroy another king’s capital city without even attempting to come to a peaceful resolution. The fact that Dagan was desperate to save Nineveh and his life and Hammurabi had already made up his mind to attack the city was not important to the process. There was no surprise when on the morning of the forth day; the Babylonians had formed their ranks in the valley outside the city gates. King Ishme-Dagan looked down at them from the top of the city wall and shook his head before returning to his throne room.
At his instruction, the city gates were opened and the Assyrian soldiers laid their weapons down. Hammurabi and Ishtari rode their horses into the palace and through to the throne room, not even dismounting when they came before Dagan seated there waiting for them. He stood with his head lowered and removed the great crown from his head, walking forward towards them. When he stood beside the king’s horse, he raised his hands and offered the crown to Hammurabi. He took it from Dagan and handed it to Ishtari in disgust before turning to his general and signaling to him that the man was to be taken from the palace to the city center and immediately beheaded.
***
Chyna was in the middle of a strategy meeting with Agent Hamilton when her phone rang. They had finally gotten a location on the white van after the occupants had given up on them leaving the embassy for the night and returned to what was possibly their base in central Baghdad. A scout team had confirmed that the warehouse was abandoned and that heat sensors trained on the main portion of the building identified more than sixteen people inside it; nine were huddled in a room to the rear of the building while seven others moved around in the space towards the front. She was certain it was the American scientists and their captors.
“Hello, Stone speaking,” she had answered, not recognizing the number that came up on her caller I.D.
“Miss Stone, this is Ananda Spearheart, Liaison Director at UNESCO in Paris,” said the woman on the other end.
“Yes, Miss Spearheart. How may I help you?”
“Director Le Gal has gone missing. We haven’t been able to locate her for two days now. She was working late a couple nights ago and she hasn’t turned up for work since.”
“Oh shit! What the hell is going to happen next on this damn case?” Chyna swore, without even thinking about it.
She was beginning to lose patience with the whole affair.
“There isn’t much we can do to help you at the moment, we’ve just managed to get a location on the scientists and right now the combined team is planning a simultaneous extraction of the hostages from both locations.”
“Well at least you’re making some progress. We don’t know what could have happened to her so we’ve already called in the police. That’s actually why I called you, Chyna. This is going to hit the news fast and furious; it won’t be long before it’s on the airwaves over there as well.”
“I understand fully, Ananda. Thanks
for the heads up.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Listen,” Chyna continued before the woman could hang up the phone. “I’ll make a call to a friend and see if he can get you some extra help over there. As soon as we’ve got everyone out safely, I promise we’ll come to Paris to help if you still need us.”
“That’s wonderful. I’m very obliged to you for the offer.”
“Okay, I’ll call you in the morning.”
Chyna hung up before Ananda could say another word, and returned to the table where the rest of the team were studying the blueprints of the two buildings and planning the rescue operations. Chyna volunteered to cover the entrance to the dilapidated hotel that Lana and the European hostages were being held. There were no outlying buildings around it, only a few trees, so the best snipers would have to perch in them to cover the others. She decided to take an L115A3 AWM sniper rifle and compound bow from Agent Hamilton’s arsenal for the job, in addition to her trusty pistol.
At her insistence, Sirita and Oscar would hang back until the agents had secured the locations; Eli and Asha as well. Thorin and Demetri would hear nothing of it and they both injected themselves right into the middle of the action forming up the offensive teams that would be the first to enter. As they loaded up the vehicles with the last of the gear and buckled on tactical vests, Chyna stepped aside to call Tony.
“Hey, Babe,” came his familiar voice on the other end.
“Hey there,” she replied, smiling at his usual greeting.
“How’s it going over there with Hamilton and his guys?”
“We’re just about to head over to get the hostages out.”
“Oh, yeah? How are those plans coming together?”
“Pretty solid, I’d say. Hamilton has a lot of really well-trained guys here and once we’d gotten a confirmation on the second hold location, we basically put a plan together quite quickly.”
“That’s good to hear. I wish I were there to help, Babe. I feel bad about that.”
