by K. T. Tomb
There was a beep signaling the end of the recording and Chyna took the phone from her ear. She looked at the screen questioningly for a minute. What was going on here? She pressed the button to move to the next message and returned it to her ear, listening again.
“Hi Chyna, I really hope you’re getting my messages. I’m beginning to get very worried. I just walked past Moira’s desk…that’s our office intern…and noticed a new tablet on it. It’s exactly like the type we executives receive for our meetings and I wondered what she was doing with mine, so I picked it up and brought it into my office. As soon as I swiped to wake it up, I realized it wasn’t mine and would have returned it to her desk but the screen opened to an email account and I read one of the emails she had just been sending out. I’m so scared, Chyna. She was issuing instructions to someone to move both ‘packages’ to a set of coordinates because the ‘Boss’ had sent ‘Ghosts’ to retrieve them and that it was suspected that the ‘Ghosts’ had a fixed location on a ‘Casper’ that was with the ‘Euro package’. They should shake the ‘Casper’ down and find her tail.
“I think she meant that they should move the hostages to another location and find out what Lana had on her which was allowing us to track her because you and your team were on the way to Baghdad. I really don’t like this, Chyna. I’m going to get out of the office as soon as I can and go home but before I do, I’ll give Morris a call and have him send a few guys over to keep an eye on me and the house. Take care.”
Well, it seemed that Ilea’s mistake had put her in the know about what had been taking place in Iraq but she had also just implicated both Petrovik and the intern, Moira. Aziz had readily given up Petrovik during his interrogation but he had never mentioned the intern. Did he hide that from us? Or was it that he didn’t know Petrovik had a partner in the office? Could it be that Moira found out about what he was doing and managed to insert herself into the deal?
Chyna sighed and signaled to the others to go ahead of her in the line to immigration while Demetri and Thorin held firm at the rear. She pressed the button again to go the third and final message and this where Chyna got her mind completely blown.
“I’ve just been caught by Moira with the tablet on my desk. I managed to avoid explaining how I had it in my possession and curiously, she didn’t even ask about it. She just freshened up my coffee, took the device and left. I just spoke to Morris and he said that he would send a couple of guys to wait downstairs for me. They’d follow me home and watch the house for the night.”
“I’m so sleepy…must have worn myself out today trying to avoid any of this leaking to the press before I absolutely…have to…” She yawned deeply and her words began to slur. “Ch-Chyna? Something’s wrong…I don’t feel…”
The call went dead in Chyna’s ear.
What the hell? she thought, close to panicking.
Demetri touched her on her shoulder, causing Chyna to look up. She was next in line and was being beckoned to the desk by an impatient immigration officer.
“Business or pleasure, ma’am?” he asked mechanically in a thick French accent.
“Business,” she replied.
“Papers, please.”
Chyna took out the diplomatic contract and invitation letter as well as the firearms permit and handed them to the man.
He pretended to read them and handed them back to her, picking up her passport from the desk and flipping through it for a moment. She wondered what he was looking for, since her passport was American and there were no restrictions for Americans entering France. A few moments later, he stamped the passport, handed it back to her and waved her through.
They tumbled into the little shuttle bus that would take then to the rental car lot just outside the airport and it was obvious that Chyna was disgruntled.
“What’s up, Boss?” Oscar asked curiously.
She didn’t answer him at all and he let it slide.
When they were safely ensconced in the Land Rover they’d rented, Chyna looked in the rear view mirror at the rest of her team and finally she spoke to them.
“I just listened to three messages that Ilea left for me just before she was abducted.”
There was hushed murmuring from everyone.
“It seems that the intern, Moira got herself mixed in with Petrovik’s plan and drugged Ilea when she thought she had found her out. The intern had been sending emails to Aziz instructing him on what to do.”
“Oh, dear,” Sirita said, “That’s no good.”
“Not at all,” Chyna agreed. “We’re going to have to move on Petrovik ourselves and we have to do it before anyone knows we’re in Paris.”
It was obvious from the determined look on her face that Chyna had spent the past hour since they had passed through immigration thinking up her plan. Now, she was ready to issue their orders.
“Demetri, Thorin; I need you to arrange for the weapons. We don’t have the FBI or the military to stock us out this time. I know you have people in the city that will be more than happy to help us out; rented and legal is preferable.”
Both men nodded appreciatively and smiled.
“Oscar, I’m going to need an address and schematics for his house. We need to know what we’re doing before we even think about doing it. Locate the breaker too. I want to go in under darkness and we have to be prepared in case things get hot in there.”
“Already on it, Boss,” he replied as he flipped open his laptop.
“Lana and Sirita, you two have to get on your phones and get us into an embassy or consulate or safe house or whatever right away. There’s no way we can check into a hotel without the risk of being detected, unless one of you knows a really, really secure one.”
“On it,” Sirita replied immediately.
With everyone busy making the arrangements Chyna turned her concentration to the road, they would keep driving until the girls had found somewhere for them to base the team. The first ones to reap success were Demetri and Thorin. They had arranged with a friend of theirs that owned a military surplus store in the Latin Quarter to give them the pick of his used merchandise. Of course, he was curious what they needed such heavy artillery for, but Demetri had ensured him that they would be able to provide adequate credentials to keep him on the right side of the law. Gun laws in France were just about as rigid as in the United Kingdom but with both the bodyguards’ credentials as well as their UNESCO clearance papers, Chyna had no doubt that they could legally arm themselves for what was to come. Still, she wondered if they should alert the local police.
Almost immediately, she dismissed the thought. It wasn’t an option. Petrovik was a man who had made strong links with Iraqi paramilitaries and a less than kosher Ukrainian billionaire. Chyna was more than aware that people like Petrovik’s buyer, who commanded that kind of money, had a way of getting everything they wanted; even if it meant getting someone to disappear.
After they left the surplus store, they went to the La Défense area of Paris where Sirita took Oscar’s thumb drive up to an architectural firm that she used to freelance for and got the plans of Petrovik’s house printed for them. They drove around for another half an hour before deciding to stop for a bite to eat.
As Chyna had hoped, before they had finished their meal, the call they had all been waiting for came through on Lana’s phone.
“We’ve got a safe house right in the city we can use. It’s on the Rue de Rosiers,” she announced proudly. “The locks are electronic and we’ve been assigned codes for both the doors and the alarm system to use while we’re here.”
“Awesome!” Chyna exclaimed, “Alright people, let’s go find our home away from home. I don’t know about you guys but I could use a hot shower in more ways than one.”
That night, when they were all refreshed and adequately rested, they stood hunched over the dining table studying the plan of the house. They had all agreed that the best thing to do was to go in just before the man went to bed. They would cut the lights to the house from th
e external breaker and ambush him in the dark. The whole operation was meant to be non-violent, but they would be prepared for the worst-case scenario.
The whole extraction happened in less than ten minutes. It was clearly one of the easiest operations that Chyna had ever participated in. The man was a coward who ran and hid under his bed when they broke down the back door to his house. Demetri and Thorin couldn’t stifle their laughter as each of them grabbed one of Petrovik’s ankles and hauled him out from under it. They handcuffed him and just to pay him back for his ridiculousness, they cuffed him in the back of the head, knocking him out for the entire trip back to the safe house.
Chyna had debated long and hard about whether it was wise to conduct the interrogation there until she had stepped into the eight by eight safe room that was built into the middle of the main floor of the townhouse. That’s where they brought Petrovik, blindfolded and gagged. When he had regained consciousness, they had handcuffed him to a chair and left him there in the dark for four hours until he had started screaming and crying like a baby for them to turn on the lights. At that point, the two bodyguards knew he was ready for questioning.
They turned on one light in the room and went in. Chyna had thought it best for Demetri and Thorin to interrogate Petrovik; they knew what they were doing and he didn’t know who they were. He was such a weak man that it didn’t take long for them to get everything they needed out of him. The one question he couldn’t answer was about Ilea. He swore he was just as much in the dark as they were. None of them believed him, of course, so his interrogators finally got the chance to beat some answers out of him. Still he swore he didn’t know where she was but he seemed to have a sudden epiphany.
“That mongrel bitch!” he said and received another slap across the face from Thorin.
“Mind your fucking language,” Demetri said.
“It’s Moira, the intern,” he continued, reeling from the slap, “She must have done it. I didn’t tell her to, but she must have taken Ilea.”
Chyna frowned at the monitor she was watching everything on.
“Uncuff him,” she said over the microphone to her bodyguards, “Time to take him in to Morris.”
She turned to the others and said, “We’ve got to find that bitch, right now.”
Chapter Five
Moira Finch could have been the dumbest person Chyna had ever encountered. On a hunch, they had gone up to Ilea’s office after they left Petrovik with Morris Norman, the UNESCO security chief. Demetri had practically lifted her from behind her desk where she was busy typing away on her computer as if it were just a normal day. Inside Ilea’s office, Chyna told her that they had apprehended Petrovik and turned him over to the authorities. Briefly, she narrated about all the possible charges that could be brought against him in court and watched as the girl’s face turned pasty with fear and realization of what she had done.
“Of course, everyone will understand that you were just a pawn in this, Moira. You were manipulated by Petrovik; weren’t you?”
The girl nodded in agreement and Chyna smiled.
“Good, that’s good. So now all you have to do is tell us where Director Le Gal is and we can let you go.”
“She…she’s in the ninth floor supply closet. No one ever goes in there. That’s where I put her. I tied her up and gagged her, but I’ve been taking her food and making sure she’s okay. There’s even a bathroom in there, you know, for a janitor.”
Chyna stood up and looked down at the pathetic girl in front of her. After a few minutes, she just turned, took Oscar and Thorin and went to find the room where Ilea was being held captive.
***
“So, fill me in Chyna,” Ilea said, as they both sat looking at the six monitors on the wall of the crisis room at UNESCO Headquarters.
“I honestly don’t know what their plan is, Ilea. I’m just as much in the dark as you are on this one. I know Oscar is running their tech in the field but outside of that none of us were included in the STING.”
They sat back and continued to watch the video feed from Agent Anthony Stewart’s wireless button camera. He and Petrovik seemed to be approaching the front door of a rather lavish mansion. They knew that Tony and some FBI agents had taken Petrovik to Kiev to deliver the stolen Babylonian idols to Ionesco, his billionaire buyer. Everything else had been kept top secret; so they sat and watched.
“Oscar, do you have audio?” they heard Tony ask under his breath.
“You’re coming through loud and clear, Agent,” he replied.
“That damn cowboy must be so loving this,” Lana scoffed.
“Jealous, much?” Sirita teased.
“I am not jealous!”
“You so are.”
“Stop it, you two,” Chyna chided. Then with a smirk on her face she turned to Lana and said, “Your ‘Damn Yankee’ is showing, girl. Cover it up!”
“That is so what he would say,” Sirita laughed.
“It is,” Chyna agreed, turning wistfully back to the monitors.
In addition to Tony’s video feed, they had a view of the house from the sniper that was positioned on a rooftop about a quarter of a mile away, an extremely detailed satellite image that was streaming live as well as video from several angles out in the massive yard courtesy of the wireless cameras Oscar had made the covert operatives install the night before. If all they could do now was watch, Chyna was happy that at least they had a pretty good show being put on for them. In her heart, she was worried but she decided to keep that to herself.
She had turned the questions over and over in her mind all morning and since she still couldn’t answer them she decided she wouldn’t ponder them anymore, but still they were in the back of her mind. What if something happened to Tony? What if he got shot or killed?
Then suddenly Lana shouted, “Look, it’s started.”
They could see Ionesco coming down the front steps from the house and walking towards Tony and Petrovik. He extended his hand; first to Petrovik, then to Tony before taking a few steps back.
Seeing the skepticism in his eyes, Tony decided to speak up first.
“Having some security problems?” he asked the billionaire.
Ionesco raised his eyebrows and took a second appraising look at Tony.
“How would you know?”
“You wouldn’t be doing business outside if you didn’t have some sort of concern.”
“You’re a smart man,” Ionesco conceded. “Who did you say you were?”
“I didn’t. I’m Lance Granger, I work security for Mr. Rebane here; been keeping his merchandise and his person safe for over five years now.”
Ionesco looked to Petrovik, clearly he expected the man to confirm the claim. Chyna could feel the tension as every single person watching or listening waited for his response.
“He’s very good at what he does, Ionesco. Maybe you should have Lance help you get your security concerns ironed out over here. I can guarantee you wouldn’t have any problems in the future.”
“I’ll consider it, being such a generous offer from a good friend.”
“Good,” Petrovik concluded.
“Well shall we see what you have brought to entice me?”
“Indeed, this way.”
They led the billionaire to the back of a trailer where three men were waiting to open the heavy doors and lower a hydraulic tailgate for them to get inside. One of the men deftly opened a crate with a crowbar and removed packaging to reveal the hooded head of the cobra like basilisk and a broad smile spread across Ionesco’s face.
“Bravo, Petre,” he said, calling Petrovik by a common nickname. “I am very pleased. The others are what, you say?”
“The large one in the back there is the Ninurta of King Hammurabi, the wide one is the cockatrice and that short one there is the whole backdrop of the altar. We had to take it down in four panels but when properly mounted, it will go back together like so many perfect pieces of a puzzle.”
“You’ve outdone yourself
again, Petre,” Ionesco said, clapping him on the back.
They all went back to the tailgate and were gently lowered to the ground.
“Follow me,” he said to them. “Time for business.”
The three men went around the house and deeper into the garden where a sprawling gazebo stood over an array of plush chairs and mahogany tables. The men sat and a neatly dressed woman approached them from out of nowhere.
“May I offer you something to drink?” their host asked.
“I will have coffee,” Petrovik replied and Tony agreed to the choice.
Ionesco nodded to her and the woman went off toward the house presumably to fetch the coffee for them. As soon as she was gone, he snapped his fingers and a man approached toting a large briefcase which he placed on the table in front of his boss. He immediately backed away to resume his position with Ionesco’s little army of four guards.
Tony looked at the men carefully. They knew he had a compliment of sixteen security guards on the property and six house staff. They weren’t concerned with the staff; they were always unarmed and were generally civilian. Tony smiled at the thought because whether Ionesco was aware of it or not, his security nightmare stemmed from his seemingly neutral house help. They were all Russian FIS operatives.
Oblivious, the billionaire proceeded to open the briefcase and turn it around for Petrovik to inspect the contents. As instructed, he lifted several of the packets from random parts of the case and flipped through the bills to ensure the money was good.
“Everything is to your satisfaction, I presume,” Ionesco said impatiently after a few minutes.
He was beginning to feel insulted. Tony shot Petrovik a warning look and he replaced the money and shut the briefcase, clicking the locks shut.
