by David Archer
Jefferson had met with them the night before, after Noah and Sarah had dropped Felicita off at the DOJ and made it back to the Holiday Inn. He collected all their fake IDs and phones, gave them back their own, and gathered up the weapons and other equipment. While they would be flying back, Jefferson would have to drive in his big van. It had special government plates that prohibited it from being stopped or searched, which was how the organization could move equipment around the country so easily.
“Good work on nabbing the nuclear material,” he said to Noah. “How did the rest of the mission go?”
“It went slambang,” Neil said. “Pablo Ortiz collapsed five minutes ago in the bar, and Valdes is administering CPR. Eduardo the bartender called an ambulance, but God knows how long it will take one to get there. From the way everyone is panicking, I’d say they already know he’s gone.”
Jefferson nodded. “Excellent. Is anyone making any comments about Mr. Baker? Is there any suspicion?”
Neil shook his head in the negative. “None that I can see,” he said. “Eduardo called someone, a woman, and he’s been telling her that Uncle Pablo dropped dead, just like everyone had been warning him he was going to one of these days. It actually sounds like everyone is happy about it.”
“I got the impression that maybe old Uncle Pablo was the money behind the bar, and probably took a lot of money out of it,” Noah said. “If I’m right, then maybe Eduardo gets to keep the place all to himself now.”
“Valdes is probably happy, too,” Jefferson said. “He’s probably going to step right into Pablo’s shoes.”
Noah nodded. “Yeah, about that,” he said. “He’s got Pablo’s bank account info, so if he takes over, all that money becomes his, right? What happens when it all disappears in a few days? If we’re planning on keeping him as an asset, we need to be thinking about that.”
Jefferson grinned. “Other people are way ahead of you,” he said. “Allison talked to somebody at the NSA, and they decided to make the payment for the nuclear material a real one. That way, the actual suppliers get paid, and Valdes doesn’t come out looking like a bad guy. Well, no worse a bad guy than usual, anyway. NSA gets to keep him as an intelligence asset, and the sudden disappearance of millions of dollars doesn’t make people start wondering what really happened to Pablo Ortiz.”
“Okay, good. So what’s next?”
“I got you all on a flight back to Denver in the morning,” Jefferson said. “You should be back home around noon, and you can rest up tomorrow, but you go for debriefing at nine the next day. The conference room at Allison’s office. Which reminds me, Noah, she wants you to call her. Now.”
Noah raised his eyebrows, and took out his phone and called his boss. She answered on the first ring.
“Put me on speakerphone,” she said, and Noah did so.
“Okay, everyone can hear you,” he said.
“Team Camelot, I just want to tell you—well, those of you who are there—that your first mission has been an unequaled success. We’ve never had a first mission go so well, let alone produce so many side benefits.”
“Side benefits?” Noah asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I just got word from another agency that Raul Delgado was found dead this morning. It appears that someone he owed money to was quite upset that the money wasn’t available. Delgado was one of the major distributors of methamphetamines coming across the border into the USA. Excellent work, Camelot. I’m looking forward to debriefing you when you get back.” The line went dead.
They went to their rooms after that, to get packed and ready to leave in the morning. All of them were tired, as much from the stress of the last two weeks as from anything else. They went down to dinner a little later, and when they came back up, Sarah walked into Noah’s room with him.
“Would you mind if we didn’t have sex tonight?” Sarah asked him. “I’d really just like to cuddle with you, if that’s okay?”
He turned down the covers and slipped out of his jeans and shirt, but left his underwear on as he got into bed. A moment later, she shed everything but her panties, and slid into bed beside him. Noah turned on his side and wrapped her in his arms, and just held her until she drifted off to sleep.
Once he heard her breathing slow, he allowed himself to go to sleep, as well. They awakened the next morning, shoved down a quick breakfast, and then climbed into Jefferson’s van for the ride to the airport.
Noah came back to the present. He had been sitting in his library for a few hours, reading Swiss Family Robinson with part of his mind, while he was going over the mission with another part. He wasn’t concerned about the debriefing, but wanted to be sure he had the mission firmly fixed in his memory before he got there.
As the sun was going down, he decided to go and grab a shower, so he walked into his room and stripped. In the bathroom, he turned on the shower so that it was hot and filling the room with steam, then stepped into it a moment later.
The tap on the glass of the shower door came as a slight surprise, and he pushed it open, ready for violence if it came his way, but it was only Sarah. “The door was unlocked, I hope you don’t mind.”
She was standing there naked, and he swung the door wider so that she could step inside with him, then pulled her close and kissed her under the spray. They washed each other, and when they were done, Sarah took Noah by the hand and led him to bed. She pushed him back onto the bed, then climbed into it beside him, pulling herself up onto him.
The sun woke them as it came through his bedroom window, and Noah was surprised that he had slept so late. He chalked it up to being comfortable and secure, and decided he must have needed the extra rest. They got up and went to the kitchen and made coffee, but then they both said they were too tired to bother fixing breakfast. They went back to the bedroom and got dressed, then got into Sarah’s car and drove to Kirtland. A couple of fast food breakfast sandwiches hit the spot, and by the time they were done it was time for the debriefing.
They parked in the underground garage, and rode the elevator up to Allison’s floor. Jenny the secretary smiled as they came in, and told them that they were being awaited in the conference room. They went down the short hallway and entered the room, where Allison was waiting.
Neil was already there, and they sat down at the table across from him. Moose showed up only a minute later, and took the seat next to Neil.
“This is going to be one of the most informal debriefings I’ve ever done,” Allison said. “More than anything else, I just want to tell you again what a fantastic job you guys have done. You have lived up to my expectations, and even exceeded them. I’ve been hearing from every department head today, and they’re all saying the same thing.”
Noah raised his eyebrows. “Which is?”
Allison grinned. “That I’m a freaking genius for recruiting you, and then giving you three of our best for your support team. You guys have done more than just carry out your mission, you’ve also made the world a safer place for all of us, and in several different ways.” She looked at Neil. “That little program of yours is pretty exciting,” she said. “I’ve already had other agencies asking if I know anything about all of these drug dealers who are suddenly complaining that their money is vanishing. I’m telling them I don’t know anything, and I want to keep it that way. This is a tool that could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, and while I may be an egotistical bitch, I personally believe that the wrong hands would be any hands other than mine. We’re just going to keep that our secret, okay?”
Neil smiled from ear to ear. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “I’m actually very glad to hear you say that.”
Allison turned to Moose. “Moose, I want to give you a special pat on the back. You went halfway around the world into a completely unknown situation, impersonated an international arms dealer, secured and delivered a fissionable quantity of nuclear material, all without batting an eye, when you were ordered to do so by your team leader. As I recall, just a few weeks ago,
you pretty much hated his guts, didn’t you?”
Moose shrugged. “I guess it’s hard to stay mad at a guy who can kick your ass. Besides, I completely understood where he was coming from. We had the chance to get that stuff off the market, we couldn’t pass that up.”
Allison looked at him for another second, then turned to Sarah. “Sarah, I was particularly proud of you on this mission.”
Sarah’s eyes went wide. “Me? Why me?”
Allison grinned. “Because you handled it, my dear. And if you think about it, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Sarah turned pink, but grinned.
“Noah,” Allison said. “You surpassed every expectation I had. That logical brain of yours caused you to see and take advantage of opportunities that the rest of us overlooked. Because of that, the DEA has managed to take almost twenty million dollars worth of drugs off the street in the last two weeks, and we’ve managed to secure nuclear material that could have been used to make more than one small nuclear device. On top of that, we now know who that supplier is, a known antiquities dealer from Egypt. Moose actually carried the material out of that hotel, because it was packed inside an ancient leaden urn.”
Noah nodded. “It’s like I told you, Ma’am, I’m just here to do a job. We all are.”
Allison looked at them all for a few moments, and then smiled once more. “That’s very good,” she said. “That’s very good, indeed, because I’m already working on your next mission, and it’s one that all of us believe only Team Camelot can pull off. Unfortunately, you’re not going to get a lot of time to train.”
Noah looked at the other three, who all looked to him, then turned back to Allison. “Can you tell us anything about it?”
She looked at them for a moment longer, then nodded. “The president of an African country is being pressured to form an alliance with Russia and Syria. That’s an alliance the United States does not want to see happen, but we’ve just learned that the man’s daughter is being threatened by some outside force. If he does not agree to the alliance when the summit meeting on it is held in three weeks, our intelligence indicates that she will be murdered. In a moment of weakness, he confessed this situation to one of our diplomats over there, and when it was sent back to the State Department, our president got hold of it. He called me and asked me to step outside our normal operations, and send a team in to find out just what kind of threat it is, and eliminate it.” She paused for just a moment, looking at each of them in turn. “The problem is that you’ll be going in with less than optimum intelligence. At this point, we don’t even know for sure where the girl is, so this is as much an investigative mission as anything else.”
“I’m just curious, but wouldn’t this be something more suited to an outfit like the CIA?” Noah asked.
Allison gave him what he interpreted as a sad smile. “Normally, it would be,” she said. “Unfortunately, in this case, we cannot risk whoever is behind this pressure finding out that we even know about it. That means we can’t use any asset from an agency that our enemies know anything about, and so far, the only one they don’t know about is us.” She got to her feet, and stood there looking at them. “I’m afraid that this is going to be your next mission. Your briefing, such as it is, will take place the day after tomorrow.”
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Code Name Camelot
Copyright © 2016 by David Archer.
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Published by: David Archer