“Yes. I’m aware of that.”
He looked to his computer monitor, away, and then back to me shyly. “The FAA is considering shutting down American airspace. I take it you were aware of that too?”
I wasn’t. But it wasn’t surprising to hear of it, either. “But they haven’t done so yet, correct?”
“Well, no, but I imagine it’s forthcoming. Is that why you want to leave?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, sir. I was just curious,” he replied, and then began typing on his keyboard. “I’m guessing by the looks of things, lots of people are trying to flee the country now.”
I smiled at him while trying to gauge if he was really this simple or if he was just this stupid. I’d killed men before over less. I figured I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, though. His coffee-stained tie, eyeglasses that had been repaired with scotch tape a few times too many, and pants coated in a thin layer of cat hair made me feel a bit sorry for him. He looked, if anything, lonely. And I didn’t exactly know how to charter or fly my own jet. At this juncture, I needed him around. Kind of.
“My wife and I flew in a few days ago, and I wanted to fly her home on a private jet as a surprise.”
He adjusted his glasses. “You say you’re a pilot?”
“No, I didn’t say that at all.”
“My mistake. Did you fly in on a private jet?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“I see. Is this a special occasion, then? Your anniversary or something?”
“Sure.”
“Well, which one? Anniversary or something else?”
I rolled my eyes. “Anniversary.”
“That’s nice. How many years have you been married?”
Okay. I was certain. He was both simple and stupid. I didn’t answer him, even after he looked up at me and practically begged me to.
“Okay, well…looks like all we’re going to have available for you is our G550. It can depart tomorrow morning at the earliest. Where did you say you were going again?”
“Munich,” I said, even though I was certain it had been the first time I’d mentioned it.
He spelled the letters out one by one to himself tediously while typing them. When he finished, his eyes grew wide. He cleared his throat and began to appear very uncomfortable. “Um, sir, we can have that charter ready for you and the bird fueled up by eight o’clock tomorrow. The total’s going to be kind of steep, though. You want me to write the estimate down or just give it to you?”
I motioned for him to verbally convey the number.
“Well, for that bird, you’re looking at ninety-seven thousand dollars. And sixty-two cents.”
My jaw hit the floor. “I’m sorry, but there must be some mistake. I’ve chartered dozens of flights before, and they’ve never been that expensive.”
The man nodded, his eyebrows raised. “Yes, sir, I understand that. But this charter is for a G550, the largest bird in our fleet. If you’d like to wait a few days for a smaller jet, we might be able to—”
“No. That’s fine,” I said. “I take it you require all funds up front?”
“If you want to reserve it and lock in the price? Yes, sir. If I’m guessing right, the price of gas is going to shoot the moon in the next couple of days because of the attacks, and jet fuel along with it. The charter might cost darn near a half-million dollars by then. Who knows…”
I hated being sold. But Natalia and I needed to get out of here while we still could. The op was complete. Our mission was over. We’d been paid in full, and the time had come for us to return home.
I unzipped the rolling luggage at my feet and opened it enough to pull out several bundles of American dollars, then stacked them on the desk to the utter astonishment of the attendant. “Do you take cash?”
After leaving the airport, I swiftly concluded that I’d all but exhausted my supply of cash in this most recent venture. Previous experiences, especially those in third-world nations, had taught me that a country under siege wasn’t the best place to be without steady access to funds. So, unenthusiastically, I made stops at our two remaining safe deposit locations in the District and liquidated our assets from them, effectively closing our accounts.
My outline of tasks having reached completion, I wove the Audi through the horrendously dense city traffic and back to the Mayflower Hotel. Along the way, I couldn’t help but notice that a black late-model Range Rover appeared to be following me. I thought I’d noticed it earlier while on my way into Crystal City, but passed it off since it was a rather prevalent choice of vehicle here. It might as well have been a Toyota Prius.
I made a few evasive turns to the chagrin of the A8’s navigation system, which was deadlocked on the Mayflower’s address. While the computerized voice chastised me, I checked the rearview mirror for the behavior of my newly discovered tail. Sure enough, it followed me several cars behind after the first and second turns, but fell away after the third. This wasn’t cause to lose vigilance, however. Those proficient at vehicular surveillance would perform this tactic purposefully to prevent exposure.
While keeping a sharp eye on my six, I pulled the car to a stop between two parked SUVs on the right side of H Street and waited. Two minutes passed, and nothing. Five minutes passed, and still nothing. Maybe I was seeing things. It was completely possible, considering how sleep-deprived I was at the moment. Rest was something I desperately needed to find.
Once I arrived at the hotel, I left the Audi with the valet after securing the items in the trunk, made arrangements at the front desk to extend our stay until tomorrow morning, and then headed back up to our suite.
When I walked in and made my way into the bedroom, I saw Natalia sitting with perfect posture and legs crossed on the bed, almost in a meditative lotus position—but she wasn’t meditating. Her eyes were fixated on the television screen and the news broadcast it was displaying.
She turned to me and smiled upon my entry. I smiled back at her, noticing immediately that all the color had returned to her skin. She looked recovered and refreshed, and that in itself took a massive load off my mind.
“You look nice,” she said coyly, paying close attention to my rather overindulgent attire. “Looks like you’ve been shopping.”
“Yeah…I wanted to blend in a little better at the bank and at the airport.”
“And were you successful? You look like quite the executive.”
I shook my head as I pulled off my jacket, folded it neatly and placed it on the bed. “Not really. The Wells Fargo people couldn’t’ve cared less, and I wound up putting down a small fortune to get us a charter, but we’re set to go wheels-up at zero eight hundred tomorrow morning.”
Natalia half-smiled while turning her head and her attention away from me and back to the television. That was when I noticed the empty plates and juice glasses on the room-service cart.
“Did you get enough to eat?”
She nodded slightly. “Yes, I did. It was delicious, too. The steak was cooked perfectly. Thanks, Q.”
“Did you get any rest?”
She shrugged. “A little.”
I took a seat on the bed next to her and ran my fingers through her hair. “You look like you’re feeling better. Your skin isn’t as pale as it was.”
“I do feel better—just a little weak. And my arm is still throbbing like a son of a bitch.”
I reached for her arm and she presented it to me, rolling up her sleeve so I could examine the bandages. In doing so, Natalia wouldn’t turn her interest away from the television. I tried taking a listen, but she had the volume down so low, I couldn’t hear what was being said.
After a moment, I gestured to the screen. “Has anything else happened?”
“You could say that,” she said. “There’s been sporadic accounts of possible shootings and suicide bombings here and there, but nothing conclusive. People are panicking and calling in everything…journalists can’t cover all the reports, so they’re sifting. But the FA
A just announced about a half hour ago that air traffic controllers have reported two missing airliners. Both 747s.”
Jesus. It was 9/11 all over again. American Flight 11, United Flight 175, American 77, and United 93. My mind began to spin with the possibilities. Tomorrow morning couldn’t get here soon enough.
Natalia tilted her head slightly to the side and fidgeted with her injured arm after I’d let go. “One flight was en route to LaGuardia out of Chicago Midway. They stopped receiving flight data and the plane went off radar not long after, somewhere near the Great Lakes. The other departed Atlanta several hours ago and was headed here when they lost track of it over North Carolina.”
They lost track of it.
I’d heard that phrase uttered a thousand times in my lifetime with regard to aircraft, and it still never ceased to astonish me. There were a host of methods with which domestic flights could be tracked while airborne. Radar, global positioning satellites or GPS, in-flight transponder beacons, and ACARS—the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System being among them. Most commercial airliners these days had at least two or more of these systems in place and active, some having all of the aforementioned.
Disabling GPS is easy. Find the transponder and remove the power source, or just sever the coax or trash the antenna. The same goes for the beacon and ACARS—a good saboteur would just need to know where to find and how to incapacitate the circuitry.
Evading radar is a completely different animal. Airliners aren’t stealth aircraft. A Lockheed F-35 Lightning II or a Russian Sukhoi T-50 PAK FA or even a Chinese Shenyang J-31 all have the signature of a flock of geese on radar, but an airliner looks like an airliner. Radar sends out light-speed radio waves and waits for the echoes to return, doing so in direct line of sight. If anything gets in the way, whether environmental in nature or otherwise, the signals are prevented from echoing back what’s beyond. Evading radar in a jumbo jet necessitates taking control of the aircraft and flying low. Very fucking low.
A lump was beginning to form in my throat and as my thought processes settled, I asked Natalia what the latter flight’s destination was.
“Sure you want to know?” she asked.
I nodded affirmation.
“Reagan National.” She turned to me, her eyes crowded with concern. “Where you just were.”
While my mind filled with awful imaginary visions of another plane crashing into the Pentagon or other tall buildings close to our location, she reached for me and rose to her knees, straddling my lap while her arms tied a knot around my neck.
Placing my arms around her waist, I pulled her close to me as a feeling of apprehension loomed beyond that of her warm body converging on mine. “Hey, is everything okay with you?”
I felt the motion of Natalia’s head nodding affirmation beside mine as some dense strands of her hair fell over my face. “Other than the world disintegrating around us, as usual? No…no, I’m just glad you’re back.”
The embrace lasted several minutes before she eased away, kissed me, and returned gracefully to her spot on the bed. She sat silent for a moment, then turned to me. “Q, I know you’re exhausted, and I appreciate you making arrangements for us. But there’s something I need to say, and I know you’re not going to like it. I don’t want you mad at me.”
That was odd. Natalia hadn’t prefaced a conversation with me like that in years. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d heard her say those words—or the last time I’d been mad at her, come to think of it. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”
“Yeah. I do know that. But this is marginally different.”
“Marginally different or not, it can’t be that bad, can it?”
Natalia displayed a very grim yet strangely complacent expression. Her current mindset was difficult to gauge, but there was definitely something of note occupying her mind. She didn’t reply or say anything to me for at least a minute. Then, as her eyebrows flattened, she said resolutely, “I…don’t want to go home yet.”
“What?” I blurted out, though it sounded more like a figurative retort.
She smiled uncomfortably and hung her head for a second. “I knew you wouldn’t agree.”
“Hold on. Wait a second. I didn’t say I didn’t agree. I just don’t understand fully.”
“Q, babe—don’t you get it? We can’t leave now,” she said while pointing an index finger to the flat screen mounted to the wall. “Something momentous and life-altering is happening here. Something you and I were accessory to.”
“Whoa,” I said, holding up a hand. “You and I had no direct influence on this—end of days thing. You heard it yourself from Jonathon’s pal from the pickle factory—this was inevitable. It would’ve happened even if we hadn’t intervened. Besides, there’s no way we could’ve known there’d be fallout this severe, or consequences at all, for that matter.”
Refute. Deny. Disavow.
Natalia huffed and crossed her arms. “Jesus, Quinn. You can’t seriously be that coldhearted and apathetic. This is your country, and people are dying—and you’re just dismissing it all effortlessly, as if it didn’t matter a single fuck to you.”
“It’s not that it doesn’t matter a single fuck to me, Natalia. It does. It’s just that I don’t believe what we did can in any way be construed as direct involvement.”
Elude. Evade. Persevere.
“And because of that, you don’t feel the least bit responsible?”
I shook my head. “No. No, I don’t.”
Natalia rolled her eyes and stared away from me blankly. “Fine. Let’s litigate semantics. What about indirect involvement? As in, we acted in customary fashion and served as an ancillary catalyst. Would you agree we are at least culpable for what’s happening in that regard?”
I summed my thoughts for a moment and hesitated. I already knew the remedy to her question. If any operation Natalia and I had ever been involved in resulted in bleak aftereffects or collateral damage, we’d always been an indirect cause or factor. It came with the territory. It’d just never mattered before. We’d complete the task, collect our honorarium, take some time off, and move on to the next. It never mattered before.
Natalia was now scowling at me, as if testing me to see if I had any decency or integrity or compassion remaining in my congealed soul. For a moment there, I supposed I was testing myself.
“Yes,” I said finally, feeling some of the bulk. “Clearly, we are, in some part, indirectly responsible for this.”
She turned away from me and formed a pained expression I couldn’t fully read using the mirror across from us. On her face, I saw signs of anxiety, regret, and as well, distinct irritation. But I couldn’t tell if the latter was directed at me, the present circumstances, or both.
Natalia sighed heavily and spoke in a mutter. “These animals are targeting and killing children, Quinn,” she said, her voice low and reserved, as if she were holding back from crying. “Kids. For the love of God, babies. These people…these Islamic State Arschlöcher have no soul. They don’t vet their targets—they don’t care who they kill. They’re incapable of deciphering the contrasts in who or what they destroy. A tactical target or a daycare—it’s all the same to them. It’s just the latter gets the most attention and delivers a stronger message, making it the more favorable one.
“They don’t know pity or remorse or any emotion but hate, and their only desire is to incinerate the world into ashes.” She paused for a moment. “I watched Germany transform into a playground for terrorist radicals and fundamentalists…my own people terrified to live their normal lives, powerless to defend themselves after parliament disarmed them a long time ago amidst cheers and praise. And now they’ve come to America and started an Armageddon they’re hell-bent on seeing through to the bitter end. I can’t just sit back and watch another civilization be slaughtered. And I can’t, in good conscience, go back home now—not yet.” She paused and looked at me, her eyes welling up. “We have to stop them, Quinn.”
>
I had no means to argue with her, and I really didn’t want to either. Every point she’d made was a valid one. Natalia was the only person in the world who’d managed to show me time and time again what integrity was all about, even though I still felt far from perfecting the concept.
We were killers, it was as simple as that. Both of us, born and bred. One gifted with an innate sense of right and wrong, the other merely devoid of the same.
“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “You’ve made your point. We’ll stay. And we’ll make some calls and work the system and see what can be done about this. But it’s not safe here, Natalia, even for us. We need to formulate some semblance of a plan.”
She nodded. “I know that. And I know it won’t be easy.”
I let Natalia talk through her emotions for a few minutes before I put a stop to it all and did the one thing I knew she appreciated me for more than anything: I suggested a change to our venue. I knew it might take her mind off things, even if only for a short while. It was a strategy that had always worked for me in the past when she’d felt overwhelmed.
We decided to head downstairs and outside to get some fresh air and go for a short walk along Connecticut Avenue. We both agreed it wouldn’t be a long one, knowing the city and others like it were on high alert, and a good night’s sleep for us both tonight was going to be vital in the days to come. Natalia and I were both exhausted, and I was beyond so, having caught myself already imagining things.
She held my hand tightly while we strolled amongst droves of harried, inattentive pedestrians. After a couple of minutes had gone by, I decided to continue our conversation in a more carefree manner. “You know…this whole situation is a lot to consider. It’s bigger than anything we’ve ever encountered before. It’s bigger than both of us.”
Natalia smiled. “Nothing’s bigger than us, Q. We’ve never come across anything we couldn’t manage. The two of us have prevailed over extraordinary odds before, a number of times. Both professionally and personally, if you get my meaning.”
Until Nothing Remains: A Hybrid Post-Apocalyptic Espionage Adventure (A Gun Play Novel: Volume 1) Page 17