pushed it back down, but knew it might be the last time the effort would work.
“Please,” she said, the word not much more than a squeak.
From a seat nearby, the older guy said, “Olsen, let her through.”
“Sir, the orders.”
“Let her through, unless you want her to puke all over you.”
With a disapproving look, the young man moved out of the way. “Hurry up. Don’t take long.”
His instructions might have been the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. Hurry up? Of course she’d hurry up, but she had no control over how long she’d have to stay.
She rushed past him, threw open the door, and dropped to her knees just in time. For the next five minutes, the only thing in her world was the toilet. It wasn’t until the retching finally slowed that she became aware of her surroundings, and realized that while she had shut the door, it was still unlocked. Weak from her ordeal, she reached over and turned the handle, engaging the OCCUPIED sign.
At some point, she stood again. That’s when she realized the turbulence had stopped. She cleaned up as best she could, and did the same with the bathroom. She wished she’d been aware enough when she’d left her seat to grab her toothbrush and paste, but that was something she could take care of once she returned to the front.
Someone knocked on the door. “Miss, you need to go back to your seat.” It was the voice of the guy who’d blocked her way-Olsen, the other one had called him.
“Just a second. Almost done,” she said.
She checked her hair and face once more to be sure she hadn’t missed anything, then opened the door. The man was standing a few feet outside, looking impatient.
“Sorry,” she said. “Thanks for letting me by, though.”
“Please return to your seat,” he said.
“Sure.” She paused. “I, uh, would avoid using that bathroom if you can help it.”
Now that she was at least seventy percent herself again, her view of her world was no longer limited to whatever had been immediately in front of her. She could see the other guards spread out in the last three rows of seats. The prisoner was in the second-to-last row, up against the window on the same side of the plane as her seat. While the metal collar was still around his neck and the hood remained over his head, the pole had been removed. As she neared his row, he twisted in her direction.
“Please, please, help me,” he said, speaking rapidly. “My name is Thomas Gorman. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m-”
The guard sitting next to him touched a handheld device against the prisoner’s arm. By the way the man started jerking, she knew the device must be a Taser or something similar.
“Keep moving,” the older man said to her.
Mila picked up her pace. When she reached her seat, she retrieved her small bathroom bag, and used the forward facilities to brush her teeth. She then sat again.
Though weak from throwing up, she couldn’t get the prisoner’s outburst out of her head. She had a hard time falling back to sleep. After thirty minutes, she finally gave up, and stared out the window at the dark.
It wasn’t like the hooded man was the first prisoner to proclaim his innocence. That wasn’t what had disturbed her. It had been his accent-American. Midwest or even West Coast.
Why would an American prisoner be on a flight to Europe? As far as she knew, the US was not in the habit of extraditing its own citizens. He could have been a foreigner who was just good at accents. Maybe, but it didn’t sit quite right.
Thomas Gorman.
Why did that sound familiar? She knew that name, didn’t she? Not a friend. A movie star? Politician? Neither of those felt right, either. There was something there, though, some little itch of familiarity.
Whatever the answer was, it wasn’t coming to her.
When the plane finally landed, she was instructed to stay in her seat while the prisoner was removed. Unsettled by what had happened earlier, she turned on the hidden camera in her bag.
What she captured was even more than she’d expected. As the guards walked the prisoner down the aisle, he started shouting again. “Please, someone, anyone, help me! My name is Thomas Gorman. These people have taken me from my home, have violated my-”
This time the electric shock came through the collar.
Something her camera also caught.
CHAPTER 25
WASHINGTON, DC
Peter was finally alone. Olsen had just left, claiming a dinner meeting. He didn’t say who he was seeing, but Peter was sure it had to be Mygatt and Green.
“Inform me the minute anything happens,” Olsen had said on his way out the door.
“Of course,” Peter had lied.
“When you find her this time, make sure your men have her. I don’t want any more fuckups.”
Peter had yet to decide when he should tell Olsen that Mila had already been detained. There was a growing part of him that was wondering if he should at all. What he needed to do was make a rational decision based on facts he didn’t currently have.
Once Olsen was out of the flat, Peter joined Misty at her desk, and leaned over her shoulder as she brought up the security system. They could monitor the whole street via over a dozen cameras, including one directed at the nearby parking lot where Olsen always left his car.
Right on cue, Olsen stepped out of the building, walked down to the lot, and drove off in his shiny BMW 535i.
Peter leaned back. “Keep an eye on him. I’ll be upstairs.”
With a nod, Misty activated the software that would track Olsen’s movements by way of a tiny chip she had sewn into the lining of his coat while he was in the office with Peter. There was also a second chip affixed to the undercarriage of the BMW. And if those weren’t enough, three freelancers Peter trusted were doing a rotating tail so that there were actual eyes on Olsen at all times.
Peter climbed the secret staircase to the hidden apartment. Misty referred to the three-sided desk in the middle of the main room as mission control. On each side was a different computer. The one on the right was tied to the network downstairs and mirrored a machine in one of the unused offices, so if someone did a search, they wouldn’t realize the computer was actually in a different room. It could access any of the other machines in the flat without the need of a password. Unfortunately, that didn’t cover Olsen’s private laptop since he’d taken it with him when he left. That was probably for the best, anyway. Peter would have been tempted to try to hack in, something that could have triggered an alarm alerting Olsen.
The other two computers were not linked to those below. In fact, neither was using the same Internet access as the rest of the office. Each was hardwired to a different, neighboring building.
One was used for accessing the public Internet, or the occasional hack into something a bit more private. The other had backdoor access to several divisions within the US intelligence community-not full access, but close enough.
This last was the computer Peter woke from its slumber.
When Mila Voss showed up alive in Tanzania, Peter had thoroughly gone over the file on her termination. As happened with most projects, many of the finer details were deemed unnecessary to the task at hand and were held back. It was a perfectly logical thing to do. In fact, Peter liked it that way. If he didn’t need the big picture, he didn’t want it. It made it easier to focus on what did need to be done. Mila’s removal was one of those situations. Why she had to die was none of his business.
Not anymore.
Though Mila had worked for him a few times, he’d never had any direct contact. Hiring and briefing her had all been handled by subordinates. Peter had gone back and checked those records, and found that she had done her
