Neither of their vehicles, a twenty-year-old jeep and a ten-year-old van, had bullet-resistant glass or armor. They didn’t have run-flat tires either, so, as Grace explained, she and Freeman had been busy lining both sides of the vehicles with thick phone books — the poor man’s vehicle armor. She made it clear to the group that she wasn’t expecting any trouble, but if trouble arose they’d need to escape using whatever means necessary.
Sophia knew why. They simply weren’t equipped to take fire, or dish it out with much effect either.
‘If the Fifth Column catch wind of Schlosser splitting for Manila,’ Damien said, ‘and they’re suspicious of him jumping in bed with us, what sort of surveillance team — or grab team — should we be bracing ourselves for here?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Grace said. ‘It could be anything from a standard Blue Beret surveillance unit to a few Mark II shocktroopers.’
‘Mark what?’ Nasira said.
‘Upgraded,’ Grace said.
Jay folded his arms. ‘Nothing we can’t handle.’
‘Very few people meet a Mark II shocktrooper and live to talk about it,’ Grace said. ‘So when I talk about it, you should listen.’
Chickenhead started laughing nervously. ‘If a Mark I shocktrooper like Grace can’t handle a Mark II shocktrooper, how are we going to go?’
‘Quickly,’ Big Dog said. ‘One round to the head, I reckon.’
Chickenhead shook his head. ‘Mate, we’re so fucked.’
‘This is worst-case scenario,’ Freeman said. ‘Chances are, we’ll never see one.’
‘That’s ’cause we’ll never see ’em coming,’ Nasira said.
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Chickenhead said.
‘We plan for the worst-case scenario,’ Grace said. ‘When you’re outside the airport, you’ll need to keep from view as much as possible. Depending on the neighborhood, there aren’t many white people,’ she eyed Nasira and DC, ‘and certainly not many black either.’
‘Then why don’t you go on foot in the airport?’ Jay said to her. ‘I’m sure you’d do a good Korean tourist.’
‘If there are shocktroopers out there — and I hope there aren’t — they could recognize me from recent encounters,’ Grace said. ‘I can take care of any logistics, buying supplies such as disposable phones on the way in. But once we’re in position, I need to stay in the van. Same goes for Sophia.’
‘I haven’t run into any Mark IIs,’ Sophia said. To be honest, she’d never heard of them until now. It sent a hard shiver along her back.
‘They’ll know you well enough, that’s for sure,’ Grace said.
‘What about us? Won’t they recognize us?’ Damien said.
‘Doubtful,’ Grace said.
‘We’re not famous enough?’ Jay said.
‘Borderline,’ Grace said. ‘We’ll give you sunglasses and caps just in case. And don’t shave.’
‘Can I wear a mustache?’ Jay said.
‘No.’
It seemed to Sophia that this operation was enough to handle picking up a scientist who might be under surveillance, but it wasn’t enough to handle an ambush or a trained team of operatives planning to intercept the scientist. Grace had mentioned several times already that she wasn’t expecting operatives or shocktroopers, but the more she said it the more Sophia started to believe that she was.
‘Can I speak with you for a moment?’ Sophia said to Freeman. ‘Outside?’
Freeman brandished his cigarette pack. ‘Sure.’
She followed him out.
When she was certain even Grace’s sensitive hearing couldn’t pick up their conversation, she said, ‘Do you trust Grace?’
‘Implicitly,’ he said.
Cigarette smoke curled into the darkness around them.
‘Well, I don’t,’ Sophia said.
‘Do you trust me?’
‘Yeah. Of course.’
‘Then you trust my judgment,’ he said.
Sophia folded her arms. The night was cool on her skin. ‘Was she really deprogrammed?’
‘Thoroughly. I can personally attest to that. She’s the real deal, Sophia. You need to accept that.’
‘That’s the part I’m having a problem with. She’s not exactly forthcoming, and that concerns me.’
‘I put her in charge of this operation because I know she’s capable,’ Freeman said. ‘If you have a problem with that, you should tell me now.’
‘I just have,’ Sophia said, and walked back inside.
Chapter Twenty
Fog was lifting from the mountains as Grace’s team packed their vehicles. Jay arrived in time to offer to help Chickenhead and Big Dog load up. His offer was overlooked as it seemed they had everything under control. There wasn’t much to pack. Jay had his daypack filled with his bottle of barely used pure oxygen from their submarine insertion, a single EMP grenade, a single flashgun, and his first-aid kit. Fortunately that was the one thing the Akhana had plenty of. He’d packed two twenty-five-gram packs of QuikClot, a chest seal, decompression needle, a tube of Surgilube, morphine auto-injectors, a couple of bandages, gauze, a SOFTT-W tourniquet, nitrile gloves, scalpel handle and blades, a couple of sterile wound dressings, a roll of med tape, a little packet of travel tissues, a packet of material bandaids and alcohol wipes. He’d also packed some tylenol, ibuprofen and Entrostop, in case any local food gave him trouble.
Chickenhead and Big Dog were packing the full-sized backpacks with weapons and larger first-aid kits. They included Jay’s oxygen tank, which he didn’t particularly want to lump around inside his daypack.
‘I hope you showered for the occasion,’ Nasira said, appearing beside him.
She removed her P229 pistol from the waistband of her jeans, rewarding Jay with a glimpse of her midsection. He was disappointed to see she had better abs than he did. He pretended not to notice as she handed him her pistol.
‘If you get one scratch on that I will end you,’ she said, and went off in search of more luggage.
Jay slipped the Sig into his jeans and turned to find Grace behind him, lost in thought as she studied the contents of the van.
‘I think she likes me,’ he said to her.
‘My surprise knows no bounds,’ Grace said.
Jay spotted Damien from the corner of his vision. He was walking down the cobblestoned road to the main intersection. He got there just as Freeman, Sophia and DC emerged from the post office-cum-convenience store, and they all moved in single file toward the vehicles.
‘We’ll track everyone’s GPS receivers with these phones,’ Freeman said, waving a militarized Android in a shockproof rubber casing. ‘I’ll be carrying one, Grace will have the other.’
‘An Android?’ Jay said. ‘Seriously?’
On the screen, he could see a street map of their current location. He knew it was their current location because there weren’t many streets showing. He wasn’t too comfortable relying on a smartphone to track their whereabouts. He and technology tended not to get along.
‘Won’t that be traceable?’ Damien said.
‘We’re staying off cellular and wi-fi networks,’ Freeman said. ‘The military-grade GPS antenna is bloody powerful, in the mountains and in the city.’
Jay took the phone from him and inspected it. It looked like any other Android, except that it was ruggedized.
‘There’s a wrist-connected radio kit,’ Freeman said. ‘The touchscreen’s glove-friendly.’
‘We only have five GPS tracking receivers,’ Freeman said. ‘Since you boys will be on the ground, you’ll each have one. One stays with me, one for each driver, and the last one goes on Schlosser as soon as we have him in the van. In the unfortunate scenario we lose him, we can track and recover him.’
Jay took the receiver that Freeman handed him. It wasn’t much different to the smartphone, except it was smaller and had no front buttons, just a color screen.
‘Change of plan,’ Grace said, turning from her contemplation of the
van. ‘Damien, you get the extra receiver. I need you to place it on Schlosser’s person without him or his bodyguard knowing.’
‘That’s a tall order,’ Damien said, inspecting his receiver. ‘This is bigger than an iPhone and it’s heavy as a brick.’
‘Create a diversion,’ Grace said, shoving the spare receiver at him. She poked a finger into his chest. ‘I don’t care if you proposition the man with a suggestive twirl of your body hair as long as you don’t compromise the operation.’
‘I don’t have chest hair,’ Damien said.
‘I wasn’t talking about your chest.’
Jay stifled a laugh.
The others dispersed to prepare their kit. Nasira lingered, eying his daypack.
‘You really wanna do this?’ she said.
‘Yeah, I guess I do.’ To be honest, he was as surprised as she was. But those were his words and he meant them.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Sober up and we shouldn’t have any problems.’
She started to walk away.
‘What about you?’ Jay said.
‘What do you mean?’ She eyed him with suspicion.
‘You’re in with Sophia for the long run. What makes you do it?’
She stepped in close, almost uncomfortably so, and spoke under her breath so only he could hear.
‘She can’t do it alone. The guilt inside her, ain’t no one person can handle that.’
* * *
After the twisting descent from the mountains and the long drive to Manila, during which they had to make two stops so Benito could vomit from motion sickness, Sophia was glad to have a room to herself at the hotel. Well, not entirely to herself. She was sharing it with Nasira.
She woke early after a disturbed sleep, took a shower and dressed, then sprawled on her single bed while Nasira showered. Every time she closed her eyes she could almost convince herself Adamicz was close by, along with her friends she’d lost at Desecheo Island. Even her family, who she hadn’t seen since she was six. She could convince herself, as she relaxed on the bed, that no one had died and everyone was still here. That nothing had changed. But when she opened her eyes, she knew they were gone. They didn’t exist except in her mind and it was enough to drive her crazy.
Nasira opened the door, towel wrapped around her. Her hair was short, and she let it dry naturally, which wouldn’t take long in Manila’s humidity. Sophia remained deep in thought while Nasira dressed herself. She could feel Nasira’s gaze on her.
‘What’s your worst fear?’ she said.
It was the last question Sophia had expected. It was probably the most serious thing Nasira had ever asked her.
‘Why are you asking me that?’ she said.
‘Call me curious.’
Sophia knew the answer, of course. It was saying it aloud to someone else that took the effort, even though Nasira was the closest thing she had to a sister now. She didn’t know what Nasira thought about her; whether she was the sister Nasira had never had, or whether helping Sophia was Nasira’s penance for her dirty work as a Fifth Column operative.
‘What if I can’t stop the Fifth Column?’ Sophia said. ‘That’s my greatest fear.’
Nasira looked surprised, as though she hadn’t expected Sophia to answer the question. ‘And if you can’t? What then?’
‘Then I’ll have failed.’
‘No,’ Nasira said, ‘I don’t think it’s that. If you fail then you’re still just Sophia the terrorist, enemy of the human race. That’s why you want to pursue this. That’s why you need to pursue this. You need to be Sophia the savior not Sophia the terrorist.’ She paused to light a cigarette. ‘I kinda liked Sophia the terrorist better. She was edgy.’
Sophia pulled herself to her feet and checked her watch: 0714. Everyone was moving out in fifteen. She just wanted to get on with the job and see what this Schlosser guy had in store — one way or another.
‘I want to make the Fifth Column burn,’ she said.
‘And if you don’t?’ Nasira said, slipping her knife into her holster.
‘Then everything else burns.’
She turned away to check her kit. It was basic. Her original jeans that she’d escaped from Australia with, along with a plain gray T-shirt and paratrooper belt. Like Nasira, she carried her Gerber knife in a holster below her armpit, the bottom tip of the holster resting at her belt. But where Nasira had just the one knife, Sophia had two, a holster under each arm. Everyone asked why two — did she wield both at once? She had on some occasions, but the real reason she carried two was simple: she liked having a backup.
They met up with everyone at the van and jeep in the parking lot. Jay was leaning against the jeep, sipping a takeaway coffee. He winced at the taste and immediately handed the cup to Damien. The back of the van was open and Grace and Freeman were going over a few things. Sophia joined them. Freeman didn’t look like he’d slept well either. She hoped the others had fared better.
‘DC and I recced arrivals at the airport last night,’ Grace said. ‘I’ve marked out our positions on both maps.’
‘I’ll tag them on the GPS for you,’ Freeman said, flipping out his Android and tapping the screen with his big fingers.
‘The only potential issue is we can’t park outside arrivals for too long,’ Grace said. ‘Taxi-only zone. So we need to dig in further back and advance at the right time.’
‘You’ll need Damien to count you in,’ Sophia said.
Grace nodded. ‘And you’ll remain in position until we have the scientist and his bodyguard.’
‘Unless we ID some unwanted company,’ DC said, joining the group with a yawn.
‘Are we doing breakfast?’ Jay called out. ‘I’m a man of few needs and this is one of them.’
‘A man of few thoughts too,’ Nasira said.
‘I’d like to do another recce this morning,’ Sophia said.
Grace looked at her.
‘If that’s OK with you,’ Sophia added, the words forced.
‘Agreed,’ Grace said. ‘Let’s move.’
On the way to the airport, they stopped to pick up breakfast at Jollibee, the Philippines’ answer to McDonald’s. The chickenjoy—fried chicken — kept Jay quiet for most of the four-mile ride to the airport. The traffic en route was congested, which bothered Sophia. What if they had a tail and needed to evade? That would be difficult in a van or a jeep.
When they arrived at Ninoy Aquino International, Sophia checked the laminated map Grace had given her to confirm their holding position. It was inside a cluster of short-term parking spaces on the lip of the multilevel parking lot, a short distance from Terminal 1 arrivals. They could pick a spot and hold tight while Schlosser’s flight landed.
For now she navigated Benito past Terminal 1 arrivals. It didn’t look good. On the left there was a public pick-up zone with long queues and guards manning the exits.
Sophia directed Benito to the right, through the undercover area. Here, there were zebra crossings for pedestrians and curbside parking for taxis only.
‘We can’t park here,’ Benito said.
‘Outside is a fucking joke though,’ Jay said.
‘The guards let you through once your driver’s arrived. Grace can pull up early and it won’t take long,’ Sophia said. ‘But it’s less than ideal.’
As Benito drove through the taxi-only strip, she surveyed the crowd. People filtered out of the arrivals lobby with bags on wheels and trolleys. No security with assault rifles, which was a good sign. Or a bad sign, she couldn’t decide which.
She guided Benito back out onto the main road. Checking the GPS, she recalled Grace’s instructions. The road from Terminal 1 arrivals looped around the parking lot, past the airport hotel and out onto Imelda Avenue. From there it was one main road to another: Roxas Boulevard. Roxas was the road they’d traveled in on. It would take their convoy north along the coast, back to metro Manila. Damien and Jay would disembark there and go on their merry way, while the convoy threw in a few countersurveillance
maneuvers and headed further north.
Sophia made sure Benito was clear with the plan before directing him back to the parking lot. Grace’s van was already there. Sophia alighted from the jeep and approached on Grace’s side, only to find she wasn’t there. DC was sitting in the driver’s seat so she walked over to speak to him.
‘Grace got herself some big sunglasses and a hat. She’s checking the arrivals lobby,’ he said. ‘Once she’s done, the boys need to head in and plot their stuff.’
Sophia nodded. ‘Fine.’ She checked her watch: 0838. They had some time up their sleeve.
‘You look worried,’ DC said. ‘I mean, more than normal.’
‘I just want this over with. I need to speak with this scientist.’
‘We’ll have him soon enough. Just keep an eye out.’
Sophia returned to the front seat of the jeep. Benito’s fingers drummed the steering wheel, a little too fast.
‘I meant to tell you,’ he said. ‘I made those Interceptors. They’re in the backpack. But I only had time to make two.’
‘Thanks,’ Sophia said.
‘Interceptors?’ Jay asked.
‘I’ll explain later,’ Sophia said.
‘Whatever,’ Jay said. ‘So what’s the go?’
‘Grace is checking out the lobby. Once she’s done, you and Damien are up.’
‘Speak of the devil,’ Jay said.
Sophia looked up to see Grace crossing the lanes to the van. She continued past it and approached the jeep. Sophia wound her window down.
‘This is the oldest part of the airport,’ Grace said. ‘It’s fine now, but at 1100 it’ll jam up pretty quick.’
‘Great,’ Jay said.
‘We’ll put your gear and daypacks in one backpack and load it in the back of the jeep,’ Grace said, removing her sunglasses. ‘Keep your weapons in the footwell so no one sees them.’
‘We have done this before,’ Sophia said.
‘I know.’ Under that calm, neutral expression of hers, Grace looked anxious.
The Seraphim Sequence tfc-2 Page 16
