Chapter 3

“ETA in four minutes, ma’am!” Captain Dimmek shouts over the roar of the engine.

Samantha nods her head in acknowledgement. She is a little nervous at having to parachute out of the plane and potentially into the ocean. She was given the basic on how to parachute, given that there wasn’t much time to learn much more than a crash course. She had parachuted once when she was a child. Her father had jumped from an airplane once in his life and decided it was an experience that everyone should do at least one time. So he took Samantha parachuting. She can’t remember much, except the feeling she had. It was a feeling of both fear and exhilaration. Afterward she decided it was fun but vowed never to do it again unless it was necessary. Never did she think the necessary part would ever come up.

She knows that a difficult task lay ahead of her and is a bit daunted by it. Here she is, a lone agent against two entire armies, not including the Goji. And without knowing what condition Spencer is in, how is she going to pull off a rescue? Her resolve is strengthened at the thought of the man. She loves him and misses him so dearly and is prepared to go to the ends of the earth form him. She also knows that he would do the same for her, and her only regret is waiting this long to do so. Damn the bureaucracy of it all. I should have gone AWOL and went after him a long time ago. It is always should have. It is a conflict she has struggled with every day for the last two months—two long months of hell.

“Ma’am?” Captain Dimmek asks again.

Samantha comes out of her thoughts, blinking as if just now realizing where she is. “Yes, Captain?”

“You have twenty seconds, ma’am,” he informs her, looking at his watch.

“I’m ready, Captain,” she says calmly. Standing up, she makes her way to the back of the place. Captain Dimmek presses a button and the cargo door begins opening. The wind whips at Samantha, the cold stinging at her skin. Thank goodness I put my hair up. She watches the lights above her head turn from red to yellow. She takes a calming breath. When the light turns green she releases the breath and without hesitation, leaps.

Samantha plummets, the wind howling in her ears. The ice cold air prickles at her face. But none of this bothers her as she lets the fear subside and her training take over. She releases her grip on all her worries and expectation. It is time to let her training and experience take over. The woman falls in what seems like forever. Once she clears the cloud cover, the Gidra comes into view. At the sight of the ship, she pulls the cord, releasing the chute. The yank of the chute catches the air and is enough to make it feel like her stomach drops to her feet.

The agent descends at just enough speed to match that of the ship. There is one guard on the top deck and she knows if he just happens to look up and spot her, the mission is over before it even begins. She angles her chute, lining up for a direct line with the guard. The soldier lights a cigarette and is taking a long drag when she releases the chute to land right on top of him. With the guard out cold, Samantha turns to see the chute disappear into the night. So far, so good.

­-

Mike Grines sits in a rundown black van on the corner of the street that Senator Rustlin’s home is located on, the late night breeze feeling cool on his face. He looks at his watch in anticipation. Any minute now. And as soon as the thought forms, the senator is walking out of his front door. He doesn’t know how Roger pulled it off, but it happened. The envelope that was left untouched contained everything Grines needs to perform his own little investigation. Everything from money to several passports, should the need to leave the country arise. What amazes him the most though is the instructions to wait here at this specific time. At first, Grines didn’t believe the senator would be leaving at this time of night, but here he is.

Senator Rustlin rushes to his car, moving with a sense of urgency. As the senator speeds off, Grines begins to exit the van when the passenger door opens. He is caught off guard for a moment, his instinct screaming danger. Before he can react, a voice catches his attention. “Relax Grines and close the door.” He doesn’t recognize it, but quickly turns to match the voice to a face. He doesn’t recognize the man either, yet he has the feeling that he isn’t in any danger. So Grines closes the door right as the man begins to speak. “Major Duncan Graves, Army Intelligence.”

“There’s an oxymoron,” Grines chuckles.

“Yes, yes,” Graves says dryly. “All you TDF guys are jokers.”

Grines frowns. “You’re not here by mere coincidence.” He isn’t sure why Army Intel is here and with technically being a fugitive, he doesn’t like it.

“Relax, I’m not here to arrest you or anything,” Graves says, noting the other man’s uneasiness. “I’m actually here to assist you.”

Grines is now bewildered. He is unprepared to see any representative from the government here, especially one saying that he is here to help. “How can I trust you?” he asks, thinking that is the best question to ask first.

“Roger called in a favor, that’s why the senator is in such a hurry to leave. He just received a phone call about his office being broke into. You don’t have much time.” Graves pulls out an ear piece and hands it to Grines. “I’ll be in contact with you. We need you to collect data off his computer while you’re in there. Use this flash drive. When it has completed its task, push this button and the device will do the rest.”

Without wasting any more time, Grines jumps out of the van and race to the house.

Samantha methodically makes her way to the first deck. The ship doesn’t seem heavily guarded, but the fact it is patrolled means the Russians are being cautious. She has a few hours before the ship docks, but she doesn’t want to waste time searching for information. So she decides it is best to just ask someone.

The deck is mostly dark, except for the place lit up by the moonlight. Hiding by a dinghy, she waits and watches the movements of a couple guards. The opportunity to strikes comes in a matter of minutes. As one of the guards walks toward the stern, the other stops to gaze out at the open sea, lighting a cigarette. Quickly and silently, the agent suns u and grabs the man in a choke hold.

The soldier lets out a startled gasp just before she squeezes, crushing his windpipe. She drops him just in time to turn and catch the other guard. Sliding her knife from its sheath, she presses the cold blade against the man’s throat, forcing him to back into the wall. “Poniztye oruzhiye,” she says forcefully. “Drop the gun.” The man does as he is instructed. Fear takes hold of him and he stays silent if only because his fright prevents him from speaking. Urine begins to run down his leg and forms a puddle on the deck. Samantha shakes her head in disbelief. “Skachitye mne, ged kompyuter sudna,” she says more forcefully than the last time. “Tell me where the ship’s computers are.”

The soldier stammers and prompts her to push the blade deeper into his throat, causing it to cut into the skin. “Tretya paluba, Komnata DVA DVA Odin,” the man says after gathering up his courage to speak. “Third deck, Room Two Two One.”

“Dvizhenie,” she says, motioning with the knife. “Move.” Samantha guides the man to the railing. She feels a tingle of empathy for the young man, but she can’t leave a chance for him to sound the alarm. Raising the knife, she strikes him in the back of the head. The soldier falls overboard into the water. The splash is easily covered by the sound of the ship’s engines.

Grines uses a bathroom window to enter the house. Senator Rustlin isn’t married and doesn’t have anyone else living with him, so there isn’t a reason to worry about noise. One of the items that were in the envelope provided by Roger was a map of the senator’s house. The first stop is the home office.

Following the map, the office is located directly across the hall from the bathroom that he just broke into. A large locked door blocks the way into the office. Normally, if the situation called for no noise or the owners never having an inclination of an intruder, he would use stealth and pick the lock. In this situation though, he doesn’t care one way or the other. The flash drive he carries, he figures will do irreversible damage to the senator’s computer, so it will be useless to go through the motions of stealth.

Getting his footing, he kicks the door with all the force he can muster. The door splinters, but doesn’t move much. What the fuck is this door made of? It takes him three more solid kicks before the door breaks apart, flying off its hinges.

“What’s going on in there, Grines?” Graves asks over the ear piece.

“Just a battle with the door,” Grines replies.

“You can’t pick a lock?” the other man asks. “It sounds like a battle from out here.”

“Well, it’s a little late now,” Grines says. “How much time do I got?”

“The senator is just now arriving at his office,” Graves replies. “You have twenty minutes max.”

“Plenty of time.” Grines races over to the computer. Pushing the monitor button, the screen pops up. The computer is already running and ready. He doesn’t know exactly what the device Graves gave him will do, but he is certain that if he uses it now he won’t retrieve any information for himself. Instead, he pulls out a flash drive of his own. Like everything else, Roger had him prepared for the task of finding information. The flash drive he uses will seek out the information he needs without having to perform any work himself.

He slips the drive into the port and the program on it goes to work. Within moments, a green light pops up on the drive. He pulls it out and inserts the other one. As the drive goes to work a noise comes from another part of the house. “Graves, I’ve got a noise in the house. You got any eyes on it?” he asks, his attention focused at the entrance to the office.

“I’ve got nothing,” Graves replies. “Get the job done and get out.”

Footsteps begin to fall in the hall, which leads Grines to believe the person in the house entered through the front door. As Grines begins moving toward the doorway, a sizzling noise erupts from behind him. He turns to see smoke rising from the port where the flash drive used to be. The monitor is no longer working and the computer is eerily silent. Fuck. That’s one bad ass device. He turns back just in time to see a man in front of him.

“Who the hell are you?” the man roars.

Grines doesn’t waste time with idle chit chat. With a quick movement, he grabs the man, yanking him forward and slams his head into the door frame. The force exerted from the blow is enough to knock the man unconscious. Grines lets the man fall to the floor as relief courses through him. The fact that the man doesn’t have gun is a relief beyond his being caught off guard. “The task is complete,” he whispers over the hidden microphone. There is no response. “Graves, do you copy,” he says louder this time. Still no response. “God damn it,” he curses softly to himself.

Suddenly headlights flash through the house’s window. Grines can hear the screech of a car as it comes to a halt in the drive way. Twenty minutes my ass. He races to the window he entered the house through. As the front door opens with Senator Rustlin walking in cursing to himself, he is diving out the bathroom window into the cool night.

Samantha finds her way to the ship’s computer room without incident. The room is lit by the monitor of the computers that sill it. There are several work stations available to her as she enters. Moving to the closet, she slips the flash drive into the port and while the program on it goes to work, she sits in front of the next computer and begins looking for information on Spencer.

Two minute later, the flash drive sends its information to the satellite uplink before disintegrating in a flash of light. Samantha isn’t able to find anything on Spencer before the virus uploads into the computer’s system, shutting everything down. She moves toward the door, ready to make her escape from the ship, but before she can even reach it, it flies open. Soldiers begin filing into the room. She turns to head out the only other door, when that one flies open as well. Samantha and the soldiers are shocked to see a woman standing in the doorway.

“Stryelya! Stryelya iskh oboikh!” the commander yells, pointing at both women. “Shoot! Shoot them both!”