“They just needed a way to get out of the country,” Hudson added.
“And if they got a private flight out,” Mason said, “there would be absolutely nobody left here to follow.”
“True.” With that, they sat quietly until they landed on base. As they got off, Baylor turned to Mason and said, “I want to be on the team that goes to Europe or beyond.”
“You will be,” he said. “We’ll pull out in four hours.”
“Good. Do we know where?”
“Not at the moment,” Mason said, “but we will by then.”
With that, Baylor turned and headed back to his apartment. It was an odd thing to be sitting here when he was technically on an op, when they should just head right out again. But it gave the IT guys time to find more intel, while it gave Baylor just enough time to shower and to get changed, to double-check his to-go bag and to get on the move. He could only hope that, for the family, all this jockeying around while the SEALs waited for intel would still get Baylor and his team there in time.
By the time of their scheduled flight, they were already back on the base airfield and in the back of a carrier, heading for Germany. As they crossed over the Atlantic, the team studied the notes in the case files.
Baylor turned to Mason. “Why Germany?”
“Landing place,” he said. “We’re still looking for more intel.”
“Nobody’s been able to find the family?”
“No, but we do have a line on a small Learjet with Russian businessmen aboard that left from Monaco shortly after our little boat arrived, when more packages were transferred,” he said. “It arrived in Germany.”
“Interesting that it was Germany.”
“Yes,” he said. “It did make a stop in London first.”
“Huh. It wouldn’t be too hard to have removed the packages at that time either.”
“No,” he said, “and we’re assuming that might have been part of it because, of course, somewhere along the way, there could be a decoy.”
“Which means the governor’s family could be anywhere,” he said quietly.
“Yes, that’s very possible.”
Hudson sat here and pondered it all for a moment. “So why not just take them straight back to Russia?”
“If,” Baylor said, “they were heading to Russia, they probably don’t want anybody to know that’s where they are, and they probably don’t want anybody to know if it’s a contract.”
“Meaning?” Hudson asked.
Mason went on to explain further. “Well, what if we hired a contractor, and we wanted our goods delivered to the US? Chances are the contractor would take them to a neighboring country first and then slip them across the border, right?”
“Sure,” Hudson said, “easier to evade detection that way. So?”
Baylor pointed a finger. “I’m just wondering if this is a contractor who is looking for final payment before delivery.”
“And making sure that the final payment isn’t a bullet?” Hudson asked.
“Exactly,” Baylor said. “Depending on what this guy is like to work with and on what level he’s involved, I don’t imagine pulling the trigger would be anything that would bother him. Particularly so nothing leads back to him.”
“Well, it should lead back to the Russians though, no matter what, right?” Hudson asked.
“And it will,” Baylor said. “But still it seems odd.”
“Maybe,” Mason added, “but this is what we’re looking at.”
Just then the cockpit intercom buzzed. “Fourteen minutes.”
They quickly packed up their gear and double-checked everybody’s numbers to make sure that their contacts were synched and that their timing was up-to-date. As they buckled in for the landing, Baylor looked over at Mason. “Are we picking up any more of the team here?”
“Dane and Nelson, the last I heard,” he said.
“Five?”
Mason laughed. “Evan is here too.”
“Six then,” Baylor said, with a nod. “That sounds good.”
“Maybe. We’re also supposed to do a stint over here, looking at some weapons.”
“Is that our cover or something?”
“Yep, sure is,” Mason replied.
“I still can’t help feeling like we’re in the wrong country,” Baylor said.
“Well, if we are, we’ll find out in a few minutes.”
At that, Baylor had to be content. Still, it just didn’t feel right. No sense of right to this. As if his team were still waffling around in the dark, and he hated that. Intel should be concise. It should be readily available, and it should be exactly what they needed, not this half-and-half stuff. He had a few contacts of his own. Baylor didn’t work in this industry as long as he had without picking up a few resources of his own.
He pulled out his phone and sent off a few text messages, looking for parcels, three packages, all of the same type, delivered to London, with a connection to the icy north. And, with that, he left it. Hudson looked at him, with an eyebrow raised. Baylor shrugged and said, “I’ll just drop a couple lines.”
“Sounds good,” Mason said. “Let me know if anything pops.”
“You’d be the first,” he said, “because it would change our direction.”
“We’re supposed to keep this to official lines.”
“That we are,” Baylor said, with a bright smile at Mason.
Mason just rolled his eyes.
They all played the game. Everybody had to know that everybody was following the rules, but within those rules was an awful lot of leeway. And sometimes, just sometimes, they had to take a little more leeway than anybody would like, in order to get the outcome that everybody wanted. Nobody really wanted to know how they made things happen. They just wanted to know that it got done and that the good guys would win.
Just as they were about to land, Baylor got a text message back, saying three packages were delivered to a riverboat-type cruise ship. He whistled slowly, then held the text for Mason to see.
“Shit,” he said. “For real?”
“Apparently. Let me get more details.” He quickly managed to get a response by asking for identification, for an additional ticket for the cruise. Then he pocketed his phone and quickly
