Chapter 46

Flashback – Major M – Undisclosed base

I was still waiting for the message from the Sgts. to decode when I received another e-mail from my Mossad contact - and I about crapped my pants. He informed me that one of our communication devices had been "found" by the Sedankina bitches. They turned it over to their handler who was almost killed by the auto-destruct mechanism. It was too bad it wasn't the Sedankina monsters who were injured.

The e-mail from the Sgts. finally showed up. At least it was somewhat good news - Sgt. Reynolds was sick and didn't deploy but since he couldn't find Sgt. Blaine, he assumed Blaine deployed with his team.

I called a translator in to make sense of what looked to be a medical report...

Flashback – Jack – In Moscow

Masha was a great help with falsifying my report; she even suggested I use the illness to cover the fact that my part of the report didn't sound 'normal'. We were lying together holding each other and I worried since she appeared to be a better liar than most women. I sure as hell hoped she wasn't lying to me!

Shit! What was I doing? I think I was actually falling...

Flashback – Masha – In Moscow

It was wonderful lying in Jack's arms, but I could tell he was somewhat troubled. I noticed it right after the report was submitted and I wondered if he knew I had lied to him. I was really caught in the middle of a stone and a rigid structure. Once lying commenced one had to prolong the lies or things frayed like inexpensive cloth.

I slowly slipped off to sleep and considered how I might extricate myself from this problem...

Flashback – Jack – In Moscow

Damn I hated nights like this! Some thoughts flooded through my mind. First was the woman in my arms - yeah I was in love with her. I didn't want to leave her but I knew what that meant! Life was going to get complicated, - no very complicated for me.

Next were thoughts of Banzai - I should have been with him to help keep him in line.

Third I considered the Major - I was sure he was going to be a Major pain over all of this.

While tried to manage my thoughts, I snuggled closer to Masha and slowly drifted off to sleep...

Flashback – Major M – Undisclosed base

The translator confirmed the records were medical reports and they stated that Sgt. Reynolds had a severe case of food poisoning. Then I went back to try and determine what was happening in Russia. Despite my efforts, nothing firm seemed to make itself known.

I leaned back in my chair and once again thought about the whole Baskerville quandary. If my staff Sgt. was right and Sgts. Reynolds and Blaine were knee deep in whole affair, and since Sgt. Reynolds didn't deploy, I could bring him back to America to grill him about it. I replied to Sgt. Reynolds' e-mail and grinned - he wasn't going to like it...

Flashback – Jens

OMG! I figured out what was going on in Russia. Terrorists (not separatists like the lying news liked to call them) had taken over a school and were holding everyone hostage. I sure didn't like the sound of this and was very worried for my Ben. I needed to go on the offensive and find out exactly where my Ben was and what he was doing. I sent an e-mail to all my computer friends. There were computers to be hacked!

Then I pulled a picture of Britney's cat off the net, added a payload to the alternate data stream, renamed the file Britney's_pussy.jpg, sent another e-mail to my hacker friends and told them not to open the picture but to upload it to as many sites as they could and sent them the doctored picture.

Then I sat back and waited. Sooner or later we would have the access we needed...

Flashback – Ben – Beslan

Dammit all! It sucked! I was being held in detention on the plane. Oh, Yuri and I went to the officers and told them what I heard and once again I was sold down the river. Yuri pussyfooted around and finally I had enough of that, got in the General's face called him a bunch of names and then clocked him.