Jackson stopped at a fork in the trail and looked over at Mitchell. “Which way, Captain, left or right?”
Mitchell turned the map around in his hands. “Left, I think.”
“Are you sure?” asked Jackson. “There’s nothing as dangerous in the army as an officer with a map.”
“Not that old line again,” said Mitchell, pointing down the trail. “Don’t forget, map and compass training is taught by non-coms, so if you have an issue with my map reading, remember, one of your friends taught me how to read a map.”
“Touché,” responded Jackson, turning the wheel hard over to the left.
Less than a minute later, they came out into clearing. Suddenly, a blinding light lit up their truck.
Jackson jammed his foot on the brakes. The truck came to a sliding halt.
Instinctively, Mitchell reached for a weapon; however, neither he nor Jackson was armed.
A man called out in English, “Get out of the truck nice and slow with your hands held up in the air.”
“What are we gonna do?” Jackson asked Mitchell.
“We don’t have much choice,” replied Mitchell. “I guess we’re going to do as the nice man suggested and step outside nice and slow with our hands up.”
Mitchell and Jackson stepped out into the rain with their hands up in the air. The bright light prevented them from seeing what was going on in front of them. A second later, a couple of men emerged out of the dark. Mitchell could see that they were dressed in a mix of military and civilian clothes. Both men were in their early twenties and carried rusty-looking AK-47s. While one man covered Mitchell and Jackson, the other quickly searched them and their truck.
“Jesus, I hope we didn’t stumble across a bunch of guerillas,” whispered Jackson to Mitchell.
“No, you did not, Mister Jackson,” said a voice in the dark.
The bright light turned off, plunging the jungle back into darkness.
A couple of flashlights were switched on.
Mitchell watched as a slender man in a rain-soaked flight suit walked towards the truck. He had short, white hair and a weathered face.
“You heard me?” said Jackson to the man.
“Yes, I have incredibly good hearing,” replied the man. “You have nothing to fear. Please lower your hands.”
Mitchell dropped his hands by his sides. “I take it you’re our contact?”
“Correct. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Fred Jones, and I used to work for the company down here,” said the man, offering his hand in greeting.
Mitchell kept his hand by his side. “Mister Jones, if you are who you claim to be, what color am I thinking of?”
Jones chuckled. “O’Reilly and his games. Mister Mitchell, you’re thinking of the color red.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Mitchell, shaking Jones’ hand. He was certain that Jones wasn’t the man’s real name; it was probably one of dozens the man had used when he worked for the CIA.
“I take it that we are in Colombia?” said Jackson to Jones.
“Yes, but this is a hotly contested area. Both countries and the narco-traffickers around here claim this as their turf. We had best get moving before we run into a patrol.”
“What’s your plan?” asked Mitchell.
“Leave your truck where it is. My men will take it with them when they leave. As for you two, I have another truck waiting for us. It’s only short drive from here to Cucuta. I have clothes, passports and plane tickets waiting for you at one of my safe houses. You’re scheduled to fly out first thing in the morning to Bogota. From there, you’ll catch a flight back to the States.”
“Sounds like you have it all in hand,” remarked Mitchell.
“I aim to please,” replied Jones with a smile on his narrow face. “Besides, your boss is paying me a fortune to get you both back home safe and sound.”
“God bless General O’Reilly,” said Jackson.
“Yes, indeed. Now, if you will both follow me, we’ve got to get going.”
They fell into line behind Jones and a couple of well-armed men who had been waiting in the dark. Mitchell and Jackson were thankful for the deep pockets and almost inexhaustible supply of people O’Reilly seemed to know all around the globe.
“Man, I can’t wait to have a shower and a decent meal,” said Jackson.
“Yeah, sounds good,” replied Mitchell. “I hope wherever we’re going has a phone. The battery on my cheap cellphone died hours ago. After we check in with the boss, I’m going to give Jen a call and see how things are going with her and the rest of the gang in Russia.”
“I bet they’re all at the bar in some swanky hotel in Saint Petersburg drinking beer and telling stories about us and having a good laugh about it, too.”
“Yeah, no doubt,” replied Mitchell, chuckling to himself.
29
Military Hangar - Pulkovo International Airport
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Jen bit her thumbnail and glanced down at her watch for the hundredth time in the past hour. She was growing antsy. She pursed her lips and stood up. It had been nearly four hours since Michaels had departed for the consulate. Ready to explode, she began to pace the room.
“Pretty lady, please sit down,” said Yuri. “They’ll come for us when they are good and ready and not one minute before.”
“I can’t sit anymore,” replied Jen. “All this waiting is driving me out my mind.”
“You learn to get used to it,” said Sam.
“Hurry up and wait was how the army did business most days,” added Cardinal.
Jen kept pacing. “I don’t know how you can all take things so calmly. What I wouldn’t give for an hour at the gym to burn off all this nervous energy.”
“You’re welcome to do some calisthenics in the corner if you think it will help,” said Sam.
“Ha, ha,” replied Jen just as the door opened and Michaels walked in.
Before he could open his mouth, Jen said, “So, Mister Michaels, what’s the word?”
Michaels smiled. “The word is you’re all going home. The State Department has arranged for a military Learjet to pick you up here at the airport and then fly you on to Germany where another plane will be waiting for you.”
“Thank God,” said Jen, visibly relieved that the wait was over.
Sam asked, “When will the plane be arriving?”
Michaels glanced down at his watch. “In less than an hour.”
“That’s fast,” said Cardinal.
“The Learjet was already in Russia moving several government VIPs around,” explained Michaels. “It didn’t take much effort to have it re-tasked.”
Yuri looked over at Michaels. “Any word on a lawyer for poor old Yuri?”
“Mister Uvarov, I’ve been asked by the FSB to offer you a seat on the jet. It would appear that they’d like it if you disappeared for a few weeks.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Yuri smiling. “I think I’ll fly down to Florida for Christmas and visit Disneyland.”
“Disneyworld,” corrected Sam. “Disneyland is in California.”
“I don’t care what it is called as long as I get to see Goofy. He’s my favorite.”
“Somehow I knew you’d say that.”
Jen said, “Sir, what about our passports, wallets and cellphones, do you have them with you? I’d really like to make a call home.”
“Sorry,” replied Michaels. “I was only able to get your wallets and your passports. Don’t be surprised if they are a little bit light. It’s normal for a ‘departure fee’ to be taken from time to time. Unfortunately, the police, for some reason, are reluctant to return your cellphones. Not to worry, you can call home from the plane.”
“What’s another hour?” Sam said to Jen, trying to cheer her up. “You can talk for hours if you want once we’re on the plane.”
“I suppose another hour won’t kill me,” replied Jen.
“Okay then, sit tight,” said Michaels. “I’ll
have some food and bottled water brought in right away.”
“Can we leave the building to stretch our legs?” asked Cardinal.
Michaels shook his head. “Sorry, but the FSB asked me to tell you to remain inside the hangar until the plane arrives.”
“A small price to pay,” replied Cardinal cheerfully.
“I’m going to step out for a minute and tell them to hurry up with your food,” said Michaels as he left the room.
Jen walked over beside Sam and Cardinal. “Do you two still not trust him?”
“I don’t know,” answered Sam. “Something doesn’t feel right about this whole thing.”
“I’ll feel better once we’re out of Russian airspace,” added Cardinal.
Ninety minutes later, with Saint Petersburg behind them, everyone but Jen began to relax. The phones on the plane were all down for maintenance. She would have to wait until they landed in Germany to call home. The three-hour flight would carry them across Poland before stopping in Frankfurt, Germany.
“I could get used to flying in one of these,” said Cardinal as he stretched out his long legs.
“Dream on,” said Sam. “Unless you win the lottery or have a few million dollars stashed away that I don’t know anything about, this is as good as it will ever get for you.”
“A man can dream.”
Jen smiled at her friends’ banter, unbuckled her seatbelt, and stood up. She walked to the front of the cabin and saw the plane’s steward, a petite U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant, sitting down in her foldout chair reading a book.
“Excuse me,” said Jen to the steward, “I was wondering if I could have a drink.”
“Sure, what would you like, ma’am?”
“A Diet Coke would be great if you have it,” replied Jen. She was about to tell the woman—who was about her age—not to call her ma’am, but knew it would be useless. If a person in uniform didn’t know the person they were talking to, they always defaulted to sir or ma’am.
With a smile, the steward opened a tiny fridge and handed Jen a cold can of Diet Coke, and then asked if there was anything else she needed.
Jen shook her head, thanked the staff sergeant and walked back to sit down in her very comfortable leather chair.
In the cockpit, the pilot, a major with dark-brown hair and chestnut-colored eyes turned his head and looked over at his co-pilot, a young captain on his first VIP mission outside of the United States.
“Gary, please take over. I’m going to head back and check on our passengers,” said the pilot.
“Very good, sir, I have the stick,” replied the co-pilot, placing his hands on the plane’s controls.
The pilot unbuckled himself, stood up and reached down behind his seat where his flight bag was stored. He reached inside. His fingers wrapped around the pistol grip of the silenced Sig Sauer 9mm pistol he had smuggled on board. He could feel his heart racing wildly in his chest. His palms became sweaty. He had never done anything like this in his life. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, the pilot looked over at the young captain.
“Gary, could you place the plane on autopilot for a moment? There’s something I need you to see,” said the pilot.
“Sure, one second, sir,” replied the young captain as he reached over and placed the plane on autopilot.
Before the co-pilot knew what was going on, the pilot pulled out his concealed pistol and fired a shot at point-blank range into the co-pilot’s head, killing him. Blood splattered all over the plane’s controls. The bullet, specially designed, shattered on impact, lessening the possibility of it traveling through a body and damaging the skin of the plane. A sudden decompression at ten thousand meters would have been catastrophic.
“I’m sorry,” whispered the major. “Where I am about to go, you cannot follow.”
After checking for a pulse, the pilot turned on his heel, grabbed his flight bag, opened the secure door to the cockpit, and tossed his bag at the steward.
With a stunned look on her face, the steward caught the bag out of the air just as the pilot stepped out of the cabin with his pistol aimed straight at the staff sergeant’s heart.
“What the hell?” said Cardinal, seeing the gun in the pilot’s hand.
“Stay where you are or I will kill Staff Sergeant Kim!” warned the pilot, his tone menacing and deadly.
The pilot grabbed Kim by the arm, hauled her out of her seat, and pushed her into the main cabin.
“I told you we couldn’t trust these people,” said Sam.
“Shut up!” snapped the pilot, turning his gun on Sam.
“Maybe I should have stayed in Russia,” moaned Yuri.
“I told you all to shut up!” hollered the pilot, turning his gun towards Yuri.
“It’s all right, stay calm, everyone,” said Cardinal, trying to defuse the razor-sharp tension in the cabin.
“Reach inside my flight bag,” the pilot said to Kim. “In there you’ll find four sets of handcuffs. Place them on our guests. Try anything foolish and I will blow your brains out.”
Kim reached inside the bag and pulled out the handcuffs. Her hands were shaking like a leaf in the wind. She moved from person to person, clicking the cuffs on everyone’s wrists. When she was done, she turned and looked at the pilot, tears filling her eyes.
Without taking his eyes off Kim, the major reached into a pocket on the outside of his bag and pulled out a small plastic box. Inside were four syringes filled with a sedative that would knock a person out within seconds. He handed her the needles.
“One syringe per person,” said the pilot to Kim.
“What the hell is going on here?” asked Jen. Confusion and anger filled her mind.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” replied the pilot.
“Sir, I don’t want to do this,” protested Kim, looking down at the needles.
“Don’t worry, it’s only a sedative,” said the major. “Now, do as you’re told.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Sam, seeing the fear in Kim’s eyes. Holding out her right arm for Kim, Sam glared at the pilot.
Walking from person to person, Kim injected the sedative.
It took less than five seconds for each person to fall asleep.
“Well done,” said the pilot to Kim as he quickly checked that the passengers were all asleep.
“Sir, I don’t understand. Why did you do that?” asked Kim, feeling as if she was going to be sick at any second.
“You wouldn’t understand,” replied the major, coldly, as he fired off one round into the staff sergeant’s heart.
With a look of sadness and disbelief on her face, Kim dropped to her knees. Less than a second later, she fell facefirst onto the carpeted floor of the plane. Blood began to trickle out from under her dead body.
The pilot tossed his pistol into his bag and glanced down at his hand. It was trembling. He had never killed another person before in his life. It had been harder than he’d expected. Taking a couple of deep breaths to calm his nerves, the pilot opened the door to the cockpit, stepped inside and sat down in his seat. He buckled himself in, reached down to a box on the floor, and switched off the plane’s transponder. Before taking the plane off autopilot, he inputted a new flight plan into the jet’s GPS and banked the plane hard over. As soon as he was on his new course heading, the pilot brought the nose of the aircraft down, forcing it to descend rapidly from the sky until he was barely one hundred meters from the ground. On radar screens across Russia and Poland tracking the jet, VIP Flight 743 suddenly and mysteriously vanished from their screens.
30
Camp David
Maryland
“Sir, I have a call for you from Mister Leonard,” said an immaculately dressed army colonel to President Kempt.
With a nod, the president took the secure phone from the colonel and answered the call.
The colonel came to attention, turned around, and left the room.
Leonard got straight to the point. “Sir, the flight carrying O’Reil
ly’s people has vanished.”
The news didn’t come as a complete surprise to the president. He was sure that it was all part of a bigger game being played out, one that he, unfortunately, knew precious little about. The one thing Kempt hated more than anything else was not knowing what was going on. He had the most powerful and sophisticated intelligence-gathering agencies in the world, yet more often than not, they failed to see things coming until it was too late to do anything about it.
“How large is the search radius?” Kempt asked Leonard.
“Just over three thousand kilometers, sir,” replied Leonard.
“That’s a hell of a lot of territory to cover.”
“Yes, sir. The Russians are cooperating fully. We do, however, have one clue: there was a course deviation before the plane disappeared,” explained Leonard.
“How much of a deviation?”
“The plane appeared to turn due south. That’s where the Russians are focusing their search and rescue efforts.”
“Dan, what do you think happened?”
“Sir, it’s far too early to draw any conclusions; however, I don’t like it. The very people we wish to debrief about the Luna 15 probe suddenly vanish. If I were to place a wager on this, I’d say Houston’s involved somehow.”
Kempt felt his jaw tighten in anger. “Speaking of Mister Houston, where is he right now?”
“Sir, he’s on his way to Rome,” replied Leonard. “He left several hours ago on board one of his private jets.”
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