“Where are you now?”
Ferguson had to ask the driver for the highway name. Amanda didn’t answer when he relayed it.
“You around, Beautiful?” he asked. He saw the panel truck turn off behind them, but couldn’t tell what car was following them.
“We think the Russians are watching the airport,” said Amanda, returning. “We’re checking.”
“All right, let’s go over to plan B. We’ll drive right out to the second pickup,” said Ferg. “I think it’d be better if we had the security teams meet us en route.”
“I agree,” said Amanda.
“I knew you were easy.” Ferg glanced at the mirror, trying to make out if there was another car. The Marines were edgy in the back, and even the driver had checked his pistol, snugged into a shoulder holster beneath a sports coat. “Let me think on this a second. Keep the line open.”
“What’s going on?” asked Guns over the com set.
“People at the airport. Probably pissed that we didn’t choose Aeroflot.”
“We going over to the field?”
“Maybe. Let’s do another loop, what routine are we up to driver — C?”
The driver nodded. They had worked out a series of streets to follow to lose trails without executing high- risk maneuvers.
Assuming those were the Russians behind him, Ferguson realized they’d invested an awful lot of resources into the operation. Given that, they might have staked out the backup airfield as well — it was, after all, the next best choice, and pretty obvious.
Back to the embassy then. Have a helo come in. Too bad they couldn’t just land the C-12 on the roof.
“Hey, Beautiful, our airplane ready to go?” Ferguson asked Amanda.
“Yes, of course.”
“Tell him to take off.”
“Huh?”
“Tell him to take off. He’s going to pick us up.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet. I have to talk to the driver and look at a map.”
“Ferg—”
“See, I told you I’d grow on you.”
Once they were sure the C-12 was in the air, the driver in the lead car pulled a sharp 180 on the highway they were driving on. As the others sped on, he rammed into the panel truck, taking out the only vehicle they’d spotted that could be carrying a sizable force of troops. Veering as he was sideswiped, the driver of the van tipped over his truck, smashing into an oncoming car. Meanwhile, the Mercedes with the prisoner and the van sped off the road back onto city streets, racing through a series of alleys and lots to a stretch of warehouses at the eastern edge of the industrial section.
“You with us?” Ferg asked Amanda back at the airport. She was the only one whose radio could communicate with the pilot of the plane, which had taken off and was spinning back toward the edge of city.
“We’re ready.”
Ferg saw the plane overhead.
“Do it,” he told the driver.
The Marine slammed on the brakes as they turned the corner to Swvard Avenue, cutting off the station wagon following them. Ferg jumped from the truck as the Marines piled out in the back, brandishing weapons. The station wagon and a black Russian Lada behind it slammed to a halt; a large truck stopped behind them and men started coming out of the back. Someone got out of the Mercedes — a man in a yellow sports coat.
“Ah, the FSB,” yelled Ferg over his com set as the Marines with him in the van piled out, weapons as obvious as they could make them. “Amanda, honey, you guys have a serious security problem at your end of the operation. You have to watch that pillow talk.”
At the other end of the long, wide street, Rankin slammed against the prisoner as their car veered across the roadway, blocking off the path of traffic. He pushed to his left as Guns jumped from the car, brandishing his MP-5 at a small vehicle that had stopped twenty yards away, waving at the dazed driver to pull off into the lot on the left. Out of the car, Rankin grabbed the prisoner’s side and started pulling him along with Conners.
The C-12 roared down onto the pavement, so close to Ferguson that it knocked him off his feet. It veered slightly to the right, then the left on the long roadway, bouncing in a pothole and nearly tilting too far forward before finally stopping. By the time Ferguson reached the door of the plane, Rankin and Conners were dragging their prisoner around the wing. Guns, taking up the rear, was coming on a dead ran.
“Go, just go!” yelled Ferguson as he pushed Kiro into the airplane. “Get this thing up.”
Conners crawled over Kiro into the C-12; on his haunches, he pulled the prisoner up and pushed him toward one of the two military crewmen. Belatedly, he realized that the soldier had a gun at his belt. Conners jumped up and pushed his way between the prisoner and the man; even with his prisoner handcuffed, blindfolded, and doped up, Conners knew better than to take a chance he might get the gun.
Rankin jumped in. The plane started to move. The door slapped shut, then flew open. Guns’s head appeared in the doorway, followed by Ferguson’s.
The plane was already lifting off the ground. As they struggled to close the door, Guns suddenly slipped and for a split second felt as if he were going out headfirst.
Ferg grabbed him, hauling him back as the plane lifted, then tilted over on its wing, sending them sprawling inside.
“That’s another one you owe me, Marine,” the CIA officer told his team member.
The door slammed, then opened, then slammed again as the pilot banked hard over the abandoned factory, narrowly missing a chain-link fence before finally stabilizing and heading southwestward.
Ferguson went over to one of the windows, looking down on the scene they had just left. The Marines had jumped back into the van and were speeding off. There were a dozen troops standing near the truck behind the Mercedes; at the head of the knot was the man in the yellow jacket.
“Doesn’t have much taste in clothes,” said Ferg. “But otherwise he knows his business.”
ACT II
Wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,
But presently prevent the ways to wail.
1
Corrine Alston checked her watch as she finished with the last of her e-mail, trying to decide whether she’d sneak out for a “normal” lunch or just send for a sandwich. Finally, she got up and took her pocket-book, slipped her Blackberry communicator inside, and went to the outer office to tell her secretary, Teri Fleming, she’d be gone for a while. Teri gave her an all-hold wave.
