restrooms’ door. It couldn’t have been but it wasn’t that far; the restrooms must have another door. As he pushed to go in, a gruff voice stopped him.
“That’s for ladies and men with no pee pees!” laughed the large and overbearing soldier. Sean guessed he was a soldier because he was wearing a uniform with lots of medals on it and had a ceremonial sword swinging from his belt.
“Just going to check on someone,” said Sean.
“Ah American,” he said, offering Sean his hand. “General Yuri Borodin.”
“Sean Fox,” replied Sean taking the hand which had seemed to stop mid shake and remain awkwardly motionless.
Borodin’s smile dropped just for an instant but was back as he recovered his composure. Although the reaction was quickly covered up, Sean knew that Borodin was familiar with his name. Too familiar.
Before Sean could ask, the Governor reappeared, refreshed and once again looking presidential with Katherine at his side. He tapped his watch. It was time for the meeting.
“Oh General, do you know where the drawing room is?”
“Of course, second door down on the right,” replied Borodin, raising his eyebrow at the Governor and Katherine’s exit from the Ladies restroom. The door he had pointed to was the one beyond where Sean thought he had seen the Governor.
Sean led Katherine and the Governor down to the door as directed by the General and knocked. The door opened to reveal a stunning woman, blonde and perfect in every way. Sean bowed and stepped aside to allow Katherine who, Sean noted had a tear in her eye, to enter first. The Governor followed behind. Sean managed to see the room was otherwise empty.
“I’ll just wait down here,” said Sean, pointing to a row of chairs that lined the corridor a few yards further down.
“Of course,” replied the Governor.
Yolana Gagarin shut the door, Sean just hearing her explain how Alexey had just nipped to the restroom before the solid wood door drowned out any further conversation.
As Sean made his way to the chairs, a young waitress ran past as fast as she could, holding herself, and disappeared into the Ladies at the far end of the corridor. She reappeared, only a minute later, and walked gracefully back towards him, as though nothing had happened. She walked past the first door and then the second door.
Sean thought back to what he had seen earlier. The head coming out of the door nearer him. If that were the Ladies, the waitress would have taken the first door, it was a good 15 yards closer to her. Even if she hadn’t, she would have used it on her way out. Sean stood up and walked towards the first door and without knocking, turned the handle and pushed it open.
Alexey Gagarin rushed through the state bedroom, almost knocking Dr Surkov over as he ran desperately into the en-suite bathroom. He had been like this most of the day, public speaking had never been his thing and he was due to deliver one of his most important speeches, to the biggest audience he had ever addressed.
As he emerged from the bathroom, he noticed the bedroom door to the hallway open. He turned to see who would be coming through the door. He immediately turned to Dr Surkov, who was also staring at the door along with Rick.
“Oh my God, Sean, where have you been?” said Rick rushing towards Sean.
Alexey, seeing Rick’s reaction did the same and rushed past Surkov. “Jesus, Sean, how the hell are you?!”
“Alexey, Rick, stop!” commanded Surkov.
As the door opened, Sean recognized two of the three men in the room. The Governor was talking to an old man. While the president of Russia, a man he recognized from TV, was exiting the bathroom pulling up his zipper.
As they had heard him open the door, they had all turned to see who was coming in. Initially, silence filled the air before the Governor and the Russian president began rushing to him. There was one major problem, however, that required a significant amount of explanation.
They were all speaking to him in what sounded like Russian! And he had never met President Gagarin but he had just said Sean’s name and was rushing to him like a long lost brother.
As the old guy shouted something to Alexey and Rick, he pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Sean and motioned for him to take a seat.
Chapter 78
Vincent couldn’t get the thought of Sean and his imminent incarceration out of his mind. He had called just about every Senator and Congressman that had owed him a favor, which was not an insignificant number, but the message was the same every time. There was nothing they could do. The US Attorney was on the warpath and Sean was in his sights; all had been warned to stay well clear.
Vincent buried his head in his hands. He had reached the end of his call list. Sean, it seemed, was destined for prison and certain death. The $30 million bounty offered by the Los Zetas was going to ensure Sean did not last long, wherever he was incarcerated. That concern had also fallen on deaf ears. The government, once it got its guilty verdict, would not afford Sean any special dispensation.
“The Director’s secretary just called, they’re waiting for you,” buzzed Jane, interrupting Vincent’s thoughts.
Vincent stood up and despondently grabbed his jacket and headed to the daily briefing and no doubt another jibe at his being late from Charles, his boss, the Director of the CIA.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t the case. Vincent joined another heated discussion, which appeared to be a continuation from the previous day’s disaster. All hell had broken out with each agency blaming the other for the mess. From what Vincent could work out, it seemed that a terrorist cell had been identified by the CIA. The CIA had asked the NSA to track all calls and they had then passed back information, which ultimately led the CIA to uncovering a domestic terrorist base in Chicago. The CIA has passed the information to Homeland who had liaised with the FBI and local agencies. From there, everything had fallen apart with various agencies fighting for ownership and initiating surveillance, which ultimately spooked the terrorists and none had been seen for days. They had literally disappeared into the wind.
As the meeting was drawing to a close, a phone call was put through. An extremely pissed off President was put on speakerphone.
“Mr President, you are on speaker with my team,” offered Charles, alerting the President to the other attendees.
“Team of what?” asked the President sarcastically. He was not a happy man.
“Sorry, Sir?” asked Charles surprised.
“I’ve just had Homeland and the FBI in here telling me about the screw up in Chicago, six fucking terrorists escaped under our noses!”
Charles shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He didn’t expect his counterparts to sink so low as to try and blame him for their screw up.
“Mr President, we did everything we could, Sir. We passed on the intelligence as soon as it fell outside of our jurisdiction!”
“I don’t fucking care whose fault it was, Charles,” shouted the President. “You guys cost me billions, fucking countless billions and you can’t catch the guys with their fucking home addresses! We can catch Bin Laden in fucking darkest Pakistan but we can’t catch six guys in fucking Chicago??!!!”
“But we can’t operate on US soil!” argued Vincent, he was fed up with the injustice.
“That’s all I get! We can’t do this, we can’t do that! I’m fed up with it! FBI and Homeland will be contacting you. And don’t worry, I tore them new assholes as well. I want to start hearing what we can do, not what we
