by David Archer
“That sounds good,” Moose said. “Give me a couple of them, and a couple of the dart cameras.” He picked up the air rifle as Neil opened his bags to get the gadget, then opened the door and peeked into the hallway before slipping out. He was back in less than ten minutes. “Got one camera facing the parking lot entrance, and one focused right on our car. The microphones are in place in the lobby, too, one of them stuck under the lip of the front desk and the other on the wall by the door.”
Neil pushed a button on a small black box and then turned to his computer. A couple of minutes later, he had a split screen showing the views from the two cameras, and had told the computer to listen to the microphones for their names.
“That’s as close as we can get to setting up a perimeter of security,” Noah said. “Neil, you take first watch while Moose gets some sleep. Wake him up in four hours and let him take over. Moose, that will put your shift ending at about seven. We’ll plan on going down for breakfast around seven thirty.”
Moose and Neil left the room, taking the computer with them. As soon as they were gone, Sarah got up and began stripping. “I’m headed for the shower,” she said. “Come with me?”
Noah didn’t answer, but stood up and began taking off his own clothes. The bathroom simply had a tub with a shower curtain, and it was a little tight. They spent a couple of minutes just holding each other under the spray.
“Noah, I’m scared,” Sarah said. “Nicolaich is good, we probably won’t see them coming.”
Noah pulled her a little tighter to his chest. “It’s me he wants most,” he said. “And he seems to be just a little bit crazy about it. Crazy people make mistakes, that’s what I’m counting on. We’re going to get him this time. I want him dead so that he can’t ever cause us problems again.”
Sarah held onto him for another moment, then let go and turned to pick up the bottle of body wash. Noah took it from her hands and squeezed it into one of his own.
* * * * *
The hotel had a continental breakfast, but none of them were in the mood for waffles that morning. Neil had studied the view from the two little cameras and concluded that no one was sitting outside, watching for them, so they walked out and got into the car. The GPS said there was a Bob Evans restaurant not far away, and Sarah started in that direction.
They sat at a table so that each of them could watch in a different direction as they ate. The breakfast was good and they lingered over it for a bit, finally leaving at just before nine. The drive into DC took most of an hour, so they arrived at the Dexter Reedy office building just a few minutes ahead of schedule.
Sarah found a parking space that was almost in front of the entrance, and they walked inside. Two security guards at a desk in the lobby looked up with smiles on their faces.
“Good morning,” one of them said. “Can we help you?”
Noah smiled back. “Yes, I’m Wyatt Wilson, I have an appointment to see Molly Hanson this morning.”
“No problem, could I see some identification, please?”
All four of them produced the IDs they were using and the guard looked at them as he scanned a list of scheduled visitors on the computer. Satisfied, he handed them back and then passed each of them a visitor’s badge on a lanyard.
“Just hang those around your necks,” he said. “I’ll call Ms. Hanson and she’ll be down to get you in just a moment.”
They did as they were told and Molly appeared only a couple of minutes later, stepping out of an elevator. “Yoohoo,” she called. “Come on up.”
They followed her into the elevator and she pushed the button for the fifth floor. “How’s the sky looking out there?” she asked. “There’s a rumor going around that there might be a storm coming.”
Sarah blinked. “Looked pretty clear to me,” she said, and then it dawned on her that Molly was actually asking whether the situation was likely to blow up anytime soon. “But you never know, sometimes lightning can strike out of what looks like a clear blue sky.”
“Don’t I know it,” Molly said. “I swear, sometimes things you just couldn’t possibly expect come at you from your blind side. It’s a weird feeling, almost like somebody coming back from the dead, you know?”
The twinkle in her eyes caused Sarah to smile, but she didn’t respond. The elevator stopped and opened, and they followed Molly down the long hallway and into a conference room. She closed the door behind them and then held up one finger as she crossed the room to a cabinet that held a coffee urn. She opened a drawer that was apparently full with an electronic device of some sort, pushed the button on it and then turned back to face Noah.
“Okay, we’re secure. That’s a signal generator that can jam any transmitter within a hundred yards, so nobody’s going to be listening in on us. Let’s sit down, shall we?”
All three of the men got themselves a cup of coffee, but the girls declined. Once they were all seated, Noah began to explain to Molly how he had been railroaded by the Army’s justice system and then recruited by E & E. He told her about the mission that took him to Russia to rescue a kidnapped girl, and how Nicolaich had been stripped of his authority in Russia and gone rogue after trying to get revenge on Noah for the death of his son. She listened with rapt attention as he told her about the mission that had led to the situation they were in, and then about the attacks on Neverland.
Molly listened in silence until Noah was finished, then leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. “So Uncle Sam found a way to turn your problems into an asset. Not surprising. Noah Foster, super assassin: almost sounds like a movie.”
Noah shrugged. “Noah Foster is dead,” he said. “He died in the prison cell in Leavenworth, and I was resurrected. My name is Noah Wolf, now, and that’s partly because of you. You’re the one who showed me that I was a lot like a wolf, remember?”
She grinned. “Oh, I remember. We were at Mrs. Connors’ house.” She suddenly leaned forward and put her chin in her hand, her elbow on the table supporting it. “Now look at you. You’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You look like one of us, you act like one of us, you move among us completely unnoticed—but all the time you’re simply waiting for the chance to strike.” She sat back again and shook her head. “Andropov—he’s after you personally, right?”
“It appears that way,” Noah said with a nod. “The thing I don’t understand in all this is why he attacked Neverland. According to everything we’ve been able to learn, he already got into the personnel files before that happened. He would have already found everything he needed to try to come after me.”
“You’re not looking at it the right way,” Molly said. “He’s not just after revenge, he wants to hurt you even worse than you hurt him. Look at the things he’s done up to now.” She pointed at Sarah. “He abducted this girl and used her for bait to draw you into a trap, but you managed to turn the tables on it. He tried to use his Russian agents and assassins to take you all out, but that only led to him being exposed as a rogue factor, someone they could control. He was ousted, so to his mind he’s lost everything that was important to him. He can survive in the world just fine; I mean, he’s got God knows how much blackmail material on God knows how many powerful people, so he can make a lot of money trading in information, assassinations, whatever his market happens to be looking for.”
Noah was nodding as he looked into her eyes. “So, you’re saying that’s what he wants to do to me, take away everything that’s important to me.”
“Yep. You thought he was planning to kidnap me to use as bait, the way he used Sarah the last time, but that wouldn’t make sense. If he really got your files, he knows that you won’t be tricked into sacrificing yourself over some emotional attachment to your old friend Molly. That wouldn’t work, and he’d know it. What did work, though, is that he made you think that’s what he wants so that you’ll turn those tables again, and it worked: you didn’t come here to protect me as much as to use me to help you get to him.”
“That isn’t fair,” Sa
rah said suddenly. “As soon as I pointed out that Nicolaich was more likely to come after you than anybody else, Noah was all about getting here to make sure you were safe, even had surveillance put on you until we could arrive.”
Molly turned to face her. “Oh, my God, you’re in love with him,” she said. “Look, Sarah, I’m not pissed at him for wanting to use me as bait, but you need to understand that I know how he works. I psychoanalyzed him when we were kids, I’m the one who taught him to mimic the way other people act so that he wouldn’t end up in an institution somewhere. I’m not saying there isn’t some part of him that’s willing to do what it takes to keep me alive, but I know him. His mission—whether it’s a government mission or one that he sets for himself—is always going to be more important to him than I am, and right now, that mission is to kill Nicolaich Andropov. If I happen to be in the way, if Nicolaich threatened to kill me if Noah didn’t back down or surrender, Noah would simply consider my death to be collateral damage to the mission. You might as well wrap your head around that, because the same would be true for each of you. If he’s put in the position of having to choose between saving you or accomplishing his mission, the mission is going to win. He might feel some kind of regret that he lost you, but that Vulcan brain of his is hardwired to do whatever has to be done.”
“They know that,” Noah said. “You’re absolutely right, my original plan was to simply tail you until Nicolaich made his move, then try to take the bastard out. I would have done what I could to keep you out of the line of fire, for whatever that’s worth.”
“Of course you would've, because that would be logical. Avoid collateral damage if possible, right? Noah, I understand. The thing is, I get paid a ridiculously high salary because some of my professors figured out that I have an extremely analytical mind. I seem to have developed the ability to combine lots of random bits of information and come up with a pretty good prediction of what’s going to happen. Looking back, I probably owe a lot of that to you. Trying to keep you out of trouble meant always being one step ahead of everybody else. I had to watch everything so that I could predict where the next problem would come from.”
Noah nodded. “I remember,” he said. “You kept everybody else from figuring out what a mess I really was.”
Molly made a sad smile and looked at Sarah. “See what I mean? He acknowledged what I said, but it never even occurred to him to feel any gratitude. He just doesn’t have that part of the normal human programming.” She turned back to Noah. “The thing is, when I apply that analytical mind of mine to the things you’ve told me, I get a picture of what is likely to happen. You showed up here, just like Nicolaich thought you would. His people have reported back to him that you have arrived, so he’ll be looking at putting his next phase into operation. The first thing he’ll want to do is make sure you understand that he isn’t playing any games, this time.”
Noah cocked his head to the side and looked at her. “Then he’s going to try to kill you. You weren’t in any actual danger until I got here, but now that I am, he’ll try to kill you as a way of sending me that message.”
“No doubt about it,” Molly said. “He’s probably already got it in motion, and it’s not likely I’ll be able to spot it in time to duck.”
Noah looked at her for a moment. “I’ve got four DEA agents on loan, so I’m going to put them on you as personal security, two at a time.” He took out his phone and called two of the agents immediately, telling them to come directly to the Dexter Reedy office building. “First shift will be a man and a woman, Bill Lassiter and Carmen Sanchez. Both of them will be armed and Ms. Sanchez will be staying with you even if you go to the bathroom. Combined with your own security, they should be able to keep you alive. We’ll be taking another tack on this, to see if we can get to Nicolaich before he gets to you.”
Molly grinned. “Well, I certainly hope you can,” she said. “You owe me, Noah, for all the crap I had to put up with when we were kids. You keep this guy from killing me and I’ll be happy to call it even.” She turned her eyes to Sarah. “As for you, I don’t know whether to cheer you on or warn you off. Knowing Noah and his habit of being ridiculously honest, I’m sure you’re fully aware that I was the first girlfriend he ever had, so I know exactly what you go through.”
Sarah looked startled. “He told me, but the way he said it was that it wasn’t a real relationship, just a way to keep people from wondering about the two of you.”
Still grinning, Molly said, “Of course that’s what he told you, because that’s what I told him at the time. We were in our early teens, if I had told him that I was in love with him he would’ve wanted me to explain those feelings, and I didn’t have a clue how to do that. It was easier just to tell him it was all a pretense. I got what I wanted, which was him doing everything he could to act like my boyfriend, and he didn’t have to worry about trying to fit into the teenage romance scene. I was crazy about him, of course, but I don’t think he ever knew that.”
Sarah was looking from Molly to Noah and back. “Are you still…”
The grin spread even wider and suddenly burst into laughter. “Am I still in love with him? Good Lord, no! We kept up that relationship for close to four years, and by the time it was over I was having to force myself to keep up the act. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him anymore, it was just a matter of being tired of keeping up a pretense for so long. Two weeks after I moved away I had a brand-new boyfriend, one who thought I was the dream girl he’d been looking for all his life. There’s a big difference between someone kissing you because it’s ‘appropriate,’ and someone kissing you because he wants to so badly he can’t see straight. Sooner or later, you’re going to realize that Noah can’t give you what you really want and need. It isn’t his fault, he just doesn’t have it in him.”
Sarah stared into her eyes for a moment, her own face showing that she was controlling her anger. “Let me tell you something,” she said. “A couple of months back, Nicolaich Andropov managed to infiltrate our group and kidnap me. I’m the one he used as bait that time, to draw Noah into a trap where he planned to kill him. Noah knew that, knew good and well that coming to get me would probably get him killed, but he came anyway. Maybe he doesn’t have feelings the way the rest of us do, but when we were all being debriefed and he got asked why he came after me even though it violated protocol, do you know what he said? He said he came after me because he didn’t like the thought of a world that existed without me in it. Just because he never had those feelings for you, don’t you sit there and try to tell me he can’t have them for me. I know I’m expendable, I know that if it came down to me or the mission, the mission would probably win, you’re right about that. But at least I know that up to that point, he’ll do anything it takes to protect me.” She leaned forward until her face was only inches from Molly’s. “Now, if that isn’t some kind of love, then you tell me what it is.”
Molly’s grin was gone, replaced by the sad smile she had used earlier. “In his case, Honey, it’s simply selfishness. He obviously enjoys you, and he doesn’t want that enjoyment to come to an end, so he’ll do his best not to let you get away. But if you do—if he loses you, no matter how it happens, he’ll move on without ever suffering any grief or remorse. As long as you can handle that, then maybe you can survive being in love with Pinocchio.”
FIFTEEN
Lassiter and Sanchez showed up a half hour later and were introduced to Molly. They were informed about Andropov and the likelihood that he was planning to kill Molly, and Noah made it clear that he expected them to do everything possible to keep that from happening. Both of them seemed quite dedicated to their duties, and to have the skills necessary to accomplish their goals.
“Okay,” Noah said, “it’s time for us to go do a little tree shaking. Molly, we’ll be in touch later. You stick with your bodyguards while we do everything we can to take Nicolaich down.”
“And what are you gonna be doing?” Molly asked.
“I thin
k it’s time we turn the tables a bit. He’s got people watching you, now watching us whenever they can; they think they got the easy job, so I think it’s time we engage them.”
The team left the building and walked to the car. Moose and Noah spotted a Ford sedan parked at the end of the block at the same time.
“Three men in that Ford,” Moose said. “They’re eyeballing us pretty intently.”
“I see them. Let’s take them for a cruise in the countryside.” They slid into the car and Noah turned to Sarah. “Just head toward Clifton. We’re looking for somewhere isolated.”
Sarah looked at him and swallowed hard, then punched “Clifton, Virginia,” into the GPS and put the car in gear. Noah pulled down the sun visor and used the vanity mirror to watch the Ford pull out behind them.
Sarah pulled the car onto Interstate 66 a few moments later and the Ford followed them up the ramp. The driver was carefully keeping them in sight, while trying to keep one or two cars between them. Sarah made it slightly difficult, weaving in and out of traffic and keeping her speed close to eighty-five miles per hour. The Ford’s driver had to work a bit to stay close enough, but that was what Noah wanted.
Following the directions on the GPS, she took the I-495 loop south to North Springfield and then peeled off onto State Route 620. A couple of minutes later she bore left onto 645 for the eight-mile drive into Clifton. The Ford stayed with them.
“Up there,” Noah said as he pointed through the windshield. “Looks like some kind of burned-out old building. Turn in there, but make it sudden. I want it to look like we’re trying to dig them. As soon as you get off the highway, floor it and try to get around behind the building. I need a few seconds where they can’t see us. As soon as we’re out of their sight, stop long enough for me and Moose to bail out, then go on a hundred yards and stop again. Turn the car so that you and Neil can get your own guns out the windows. Keep them aimed at the Ford, but do not fire unless you absolutely have to.”