by Terry Toler
“Chastity gave her sister my number and told her to call me when she got to America,” Jamie continued. “Or if she ran into any problems. I have a missed call and a voicemail. It’s a local number. I have a weird feeling those women aren’t going to America. They’re going to be sold into sex trafficking.”
“Don’t jump to any conclusions,” Alex said. “Let’s listen to the message.”
Jamie dialed the voicemail and put it on speaker. A woman’s voice in obvious distress blared through the phone.
“This is Olga. Daria’s sister. I’m in real trouble. Belles of Belarus is a scam. I’m in Russia. I think. On a train. We’re headed north. Please help me if you can.”
They could hear women screaming in the background.
23
CIA Safehouse, Minsk, Belarus, 7:15 p.m.
“I have to find a way to rescue Olga and the other girls,” Jamie said.
She and Alex had just listened to the voicemail from Olga, and a somber mood came over them as the stark reality of what the girls must be going through was hitting them like a hammer hits a nail.
Alex took Jamie’s hand. “That’s not the mission,” Alex said gently. “You know what Brad said. You are only to gather intelligence. You’re not to intervene with the girls.”
“I know what Brad said,” Jamie responded angrily, pulling her hand away from his. Not angry at Alex, just frustrated with the helplessness of the situation.
Tears were welling up in her eyes. As much from anger as anything else. She turned away from Alex so he wouldn’t see the tears. Not that it would matter. He certainly could hear the emotion in her voice.
“You heard the message,” Jamie said, her voice cracking. “That’s my friend’s sister. The girl is scared to death. I have to do something to help her.”
“What can you do, even if you wanted to do something? The message said they are already in Russia. You have no idea where they are.”
Alex was right. She didn’t know where the girls were, and even if she did, she had no way of getting them out of Russia. Not by herself. She couldn’t ask Brad for help, because he’d tell her to stand down.
“All I know is that I have to try. I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Look, your mission has been a huge success,” Alex said. “You’ve found the pipeline. Brad can shut it down. Expose it for what it is. Belles of Belarus will never kidnap another girl again. Even if you can’t do anything for these girls, you’ve helped hundreds of girls. Maybe thousands.”
“I can do something for these girls,” Jamie said emphatically. “Olga has a phone. I can call her and find out where she is.” Jamie took the phone in her hand and scrolled to the number.
Alex stopped her.
“Think about this for a minute. Olga is obviously hiding the phone. So, her kidnappers don’t know she has it. If you call it, and it’s not on silent, it will ring. They might discover it. You might be putting her life in danger. Unknowingly. There are other ways to track the phone.”
“Not without Brad knowing what I’m doing,” Jamie retorted. “He can track it, but you and I both know he won’t. If I tell him what I’m doing, he’ll order me to stand down. They’ll want to handle it through the proper channels,”
Jamie mimicked Brad’s voice. “They’ll contact Russia. The President or Secretary of State will make a big deal about it to Yokov. He’ll deny it. The girls will disappear. I have to think of something else.”
“Well, I can’t help you. I have my own mission to worry about,” Alex said.
Jamie furrowed her eyebrows. “What mission? I thought I was your mission.”
Alex paused. “I was sent to Belarus to work the terrorist thread. You’re gathering intelligence on the pipeline. I’m gathering intelligence to find out how the pipeline is funding terrorism. I wasn’t sent here to watch you.”
“Then why have you been following me?”
“I met with the contact a few days ago. He gave me the name, Omer Asaf. He said that Omer was trying to buy a nuclear briefcase bomb. He also told me you were in grave danger. I followed you because I was worried about you.”
“You were worried about me? You weren’t sent to watch me?”
“Yes… I mean, I was sent on the cruise to watch you. No, not watch you… What am I trying to say?” He was stuttering, probably afraid of making Jamie angry again. “I admit it. I was sent on the cruise to meet you. Make contact. But only to see if I thought we could work together. I didn’t know I was going to fall for you on the cruise. But I wasn’t told to watch you here in Belarus. It’s just when the contact said you were in danger… ”
“You were falling for me?” Jamie stared at Alex closely, looking for any indication he might be lying. Somehow playing with her emotions. Trying to get her to trust him again. He seemed sincere.
“I never told Brad about us. That I have feelings for you. He never would’ve let me come on this mission.”
“You have feelings for me?”
“Will you quit responding with a question to everything I say?” Alex said, raising his voice in a playful tone.
“I’m just in shock. I didn’t know you had feelings for me. I thought you did on the cruise. I felt it. But then when I saw you here. Following me, I thought I was just part of your mission. That you were just trying to get close to me.”
“I was trying to get close to you. Not for any reason other than I like you.”
“You like me?”
“You asked another question.” Alex said with a wide grin as he stepped toward her like he was going to give her a hug. They were still standing. Both too amped up to sit.
“You haven’t answered any of them,” Jamie said, playfully pushing him away.
“Let me answer it this way.” Alex put his arms around her, pulled her close to him, and kissed her on the lips. Hesitantly at first.
She didn’t resist, so he kissed her more passionately.
“Wow!” Jamie said letting out a huge breath when the kiss finally ended.
“So, you’re not still mad at me?” Alex said.
“Oh yeah. I’m still mad at you. You lied to me. But I’m getting over it.
Kiss me again.”
He did.
“That will help… me get over… ” she said between kisses.
Alex took her more deeply into his arms and kissed her again, stopping her from being able to talk at all.
A satellite phone on the desk rang and echoed through the room.
They ended the kiss abruptly. Just in time for Jamie. She felt bad that they were kissing while the girls were in trouble. Didn’t seem like the right time to be making out.
“That must be Brad,” Jamie said. “He probably knows about Liberty
Square by now.”
Alex walked over to the desk and picked up the phone.
“It is Brad. What do you want me to say?” he asked.
Jamie shrugged her shoulders.
Alex pushed the answer button and put the phone to his ear and said, “Shadow is dead.”
Shadow was the name of the contact. Even on a secure line, they avoided using real names.
“She’s all right. I saw the whole thing. She was amazing. Shadow was compromised. Those Middle Eastern men were sent to the square to kill him. She tried to save his life but couldn’t. She did get all of them, though.”
Jamie could only hear one side of the conversation. The phone wasn’t on speaker.
“I don’t know where she is,” Alex said, putting his hand to his forehead and brushing roughly across it, obviously pained from having to lie to him. “She probably went dark until everything settles down,” he added, while looking at Jamie.
Jamie mouthed the words, “Thank you,” to him.
He nodded in agreement and then turned his back to her. “I’ll call you back once I find out more. I do know she’s alive and wasn’t hurt in the gunfight.”
He hung up the phone.
“What did he say?” Jamie ask
ed.
“He was relieved that you’re okay,” Alex answered. “That’ll buy us some time until we can figure everything out.”
Jamie walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She suddenly felt an intense hunger. The only thing in there was some leftover Chinese food and two six packs of Diet Coke.
“You can tell a bachelor has been living here. Do you have any food at all?”
“There’s some power bars in the pantry.”
Jamie opened the pantry. The bars were the only thing on the shelves. She took out three, opened one, scarfed it down, then threw one across the room to Alex.
He snatched it out of the air with no effort.
Jamie opened the other and finished it off in seconds. By the time she walked back across the room, Alex’s bar was gone as well.
“Thanks for covering for me,” Jamie said sincerely.
“What are you going to do now?”
“You mentioned a briefcase bomb,” Jamie said getting renewed energy from the bar. “The contact mentioned a briefcase to me. I thought he was talking about the briefcase he was carrying.”
“No. Asaf is trying to buy one of their briefcase nukes. I told Brad about it, and he told me to just keep gathering intelligence. He won’t let me do anything else. I’m in the same boat as you. I can only gather intelligence. Not intervene in the situation.”
“I can’t believe I risked my life for that briefcase. I actually went back for it. It’s probably just filled with work papers.”
“We might as well find out,” Alex said, walking over to the briefcase still sitting by the door to the garage. He picked it up and carried it over to the table. “It’s locked,” he said. “We don’t have the combination.” He pulled out a knife like he was going to pry it open.
“Wait!” Jamie said. “The lock’s no problem. You don’t need the knife.”
She pushed him aside, sat down in the chair and set the briefcase on her lap as she would if she were going to open it normally. One latch was in the center with a combination to the right of it. She held the latch down in position with the thumb of her left hand, while lightly rolling her fingers of her right hand down over each numbered wheel to identify which one was the tightest. The way she gauged tightness was by gently tugging down on each one with her fingertip while applying pressure to it.
“What are you doing?” Alex asked.
“Opening the briefcase,” she responded. “Shh. I need silence.”
Once she determined which lock was the tightest, she set it to zero and checked the other two wheels again for tightness. They still felt loose, so she clicked the zero lock to one and then felt the two wheels again. She kept increasing the number of the tightest wheel until another wheel felt tight. As soon as it did, she knew the tightest wheel was on the correct number.
She then set the second wheel to zero and checked the third wheel. Repeating the same process until the third wheel felt tight. The second number was then on the correct combination. Once the third wheel felt tight then all three numbers were on the correct combination.
482.
Jamie released the latch, and it popped open. She raised her arms in the air in victory, shot Alex a satisfied look, and then shook out her hands to release the tension. Chin up, shoulders back, her lips closed and tightened together smugly.
“I’m impressed,” Alex said. “Where did you learn to do that?”
She shrugged her shoulders and started going through the contents.
“What do we have here? A passport and plane ticket,” she said, answering her own question. “He was getting ready to run. He already knew they were on to him.”
“Denys Onufeychuk,” Alex said, opening the passport. “I finally know his name,” he said soberly. “He was the Minister of Transportation,” Alex added a few seconds later. He pulled up Deny’s name on his phone and showed it to Jamie. It had a picture of Denys next to his title.
“And he almost made it out alive. He was a very brave man,” Alex said with a pained look on his face.
“Look at this,” Jamie said excitedly. She fingered through dozens of pieces of paper. All in Russian. Most were marked with a red stamp at the top of the document.
SAKRETNY MIEMARANDUM
Top Secret Memorandum.
“Brad is going to want these documents. No telling what’s in here. This could be a treasure trove of information.”
Jamie held up a key. “I wonder what this it to?”
Alex took the key in his hand. “Looks like it’s to a lock.”
“How long did it take you to figure that out, genius?” Jamie said mockingly.
“I mean, a key to a storage locker.” He gave her a playful glare.
“I wonder what’s in the locker?” Jamie asked.
“It might not have anything to do with us. It may be just his own locker with personal items in it.”
“Maybe. Doesn’t matter. We don’t know where the locker is or the number of the locker. There must be several thousand around here. I wouldn’t know where to begin finding it.”
Alex sat the key down on the table as Jamie pulled a thumb drive out of the briefcase and held it in the air.
“What’s on this?” Jamie said.
“Let’s find out.”
A high-end CIA computer system with a number of cords and accessories sat on the desk. Jamie made a mental note to look at the computer more carefully. She might be able to access information herself. Without Alex’s help.
Alex plugged the thumb drive into the side. When an icon came up on the screen, he checked it for viruses. Satisfied, he clicked on the drive and started thumbing through the files.
“There’s a video on here.”
Jamie stood behind Alex, looking over his shoulder. “Play it,” she said.
He clicked on the file, automatically starting a video application. A few seconds later, Denys appeared on the screen. He was sitting in a chair in what looked like a personal residence. A bookcase was behind him, a picture of a woman and two kids on the first shelf. He leaned forward and adjusted the camera and began speaking in English.
“I have been compromised. I am not proud of betraying my country. I love Belarus, and everything I did was for her best interest. Including now. When the Soviet Union fell, I oversaw the shipment of four briefcase nukes which were brought to Belarus and hidden inside of our country. They have been stored at UE Ekores which is a nuclear waste management facility located two kilometers from Minsk. There is a map of the facilities and a layout on this drive. We have denied the existence of the briefcases for years. Omer Asaf has agreed to buy one of these nukes. He intends to smuggle it into the United States and to use it as blackmail to have the sanctions lifted against Russia.”
Alex looked up at Jamie with his eyebrows raised.
“I have taken the briefcases from the warehouse where they were being stored,” Denys continued. “And I have moved them to a storage locker inside the facility.”
Denys held up a key. It appeared to be the same one Alex had in his hand.
“This is a key to the locker. The locker number is 156. If you can, you must go to the facility and take the nukes from the locker. The handoff to Omer is to be on Monday. You must get them by then. They will be discovered missing, and the facility will be locked down. Time is of the essence. I wish you Godspeed. I hope you are successful. I’ve done everything I know to do.”
The screen went blank.
“What do we do now?” Jamie asked.
“I’ve got to get the nukes.”
“Shouldn’t you call Brad?”
“He’d tell me to stand down,” he gave her a sideways grin. “He’d have to get permission for me to go in and get them. I know what they’ll say. The mission needs to be planned. They’ll want to send in a team. Probably Seals. Undercover. A whole big operation. I can’t call him. He’ll say I’m only here to gather intelligence.”
He shook his head. “No. I have to get them myself.”
“How is that any different than what I’m doing?” Jamie asked strongly. “Before you were arguing that I can’t go after the girls. I have to get permission from Brad. Now that it’s your mission, you want to go off the track and disobey orders.”
“They aren’t the same thing. In your mission, we’re talking about three hundred girls. While that’s important, with this, we’re talking about nukes. The lives of three-hundred-million Americans are at risk. With all due respect, I think this is a lot more important.”
The words stung Jamie like a dozen wasps. She bit her upper lip to keep from saying anything. Alex must have realized it, because he stood from his chair and took her hand. She looked away, unable to look him in the eye.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Those girls may not be important to you,” Jamie said with intensity, “but they mean everything to me. That’s my job. I get that yours is more important. I hope you get the nukes in time. But I have to go after the girls. That’s who I am. If you don’t get that, then we can never be together.”
“I do get it. Totally. I wish there was something we can do. We don’t know where the girls are. We do know where the nukes are. You heard the man. We have until Monday. Then the nuke is going to be in the wind. We might never find it. I have to go get it. I hope you understand.”
“I do. Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure out something.”
“I just wish there was a way to get to Omer. He would know where the girls are.”
“There is,” Jamie said, as excitement radiated from her demeanor and her voice.
“What do you mean?” Alex asked.
“I can get to him,” Jamie answered.
“How? He’s always surrounded by bodyguards.”
“Turns out, I happen to have a date with him,” Jamie said smugly.
“A date!”
“Tomorrow night. He invited me to his hotel suite. At the California
Casino.”
“Well, you do get around. How did you manage a date?”
“He saw me at Splash. I guess he liked what he saw. Invited me over and then asked me out.”
“You can’t go to his hotel room. It’s too dangerous.”
