Freedom's Promise: Task Force 125 (2 page)

Nikolai spat the word from his mouth.  "Bullshit."

Chapter Four

Just as their host left the suite, Will's phone chirped from the breast pocket of his silk suit.  He slipped it out quickly and looked at the caller I.D.

Sarah stared at him, anxious for any word about Vince.  “Who is it?”

Will smiled and spoke softly.  "It's Chris."

She sighed and set her Louis Vuitton handbag on the leopard print sofa and continued to pace nervously.

"Hey, Chris.
  Where are you?"  He walked over to the silver platter laden with fruit and plucked a strawberry from the top.  "Okay.  It's on time?  Good.  Call me when you land."  He slipped his Blackberry back into his jacket pocket and the strawberry into his mouth.

"Where are they, Will?"

"They're in
London
.  They got a nonstop flight so they'll be here tonight."

Sarah rolled her head from left to right to work out a kink in her neck.  “Good.”

Will picked an apple from the fruit tray and took a bite.  “Take a load off and have some fruit.”  He gestured with the apple.  “This is amazing.”

“No thanks.”  Sarah paced the large traditional Arab receiving room lined with plush sofas.  She listened to the tap-tap-tap of her shoes on the marble and willed Chris and Brian's flight to travel at the speed of light.  She plucked her gold cigarette case from her handbag and slipped a cigarette out, then tapped the filter end repeatedly against the gold trinket just to keep her hands busy.  "Jesus, Will.  Nikolai could be beating the shit out of Vince right now."

Will grabbed her by the arm and stopped her pacing.  He spoke slowly.  "Sarah, it's an eight-hour flight.  I know you're upset but you're going to have to get a grip and keep your head in the game, otherwise you're no good to us or to Vince.  We're going into this with a skeleton crew as it is.  We need all hands on this." 

Jason bounced into the room with a smile from ear to ear.  “You gotta check out the can in this joint.”  He stopped when he saw the look on Will’s face.  “What’s going on?”

Will tipped his head toward Sarah and threw back an imaginary
shot,
giving Jason the universal signal for "Get that woman a couple of drinks" and Jason nodded.  "I'm gonna go make some phone calls.  Why don't you guys order some room service?"

Jason checked the bar in the corner of the room and picked up the house phone.  "Yeah, can we get a pitcher of Margaritas brought up?"  There was a pause.  "No, we don't need a bartender, thank you."  He bobbed his head.  "Yeah, that'll be perfect.  Thank you."

Jason hung up the phone and walked over to Sarah, who was standing with her arms across her chest, looking out to sea.  He wrapped his arms around her in a reassuring hug.  "Vince knows how to survive, Sarah.  He's gonna be just fine."

Sarah slumped, leaned back onto Jason's chest, and sighed.

"I don't know how to do this, and I hate it." 

"Sarah, he's a Marine.  He's Force Recon.  He spent his entire military career behind enemy lines.  He's done this before."

"I know, but I haven't."

The butler returned.  Sarah wondered how many black morning coats and white gloves a Burj al Arab butler went through in a week.  He set a silver platter containing a crystal pitcher of mixed margaritas, several glasses, and an ice bucket on the bar.  He nodded to Jason.  “Shall I serve, sir?” 

Jason smiled and slid a couple twenty dirham notes into his hand.  "Thank you.  We'll serve.  That'll be all."

The butler bowed slightly and slipped away as quickly and as quietly as he'd come in.

Jason poured a drink for Sarah and one for himself.  "Come on, girl.  Let's have a drink and enjoy this view."

Sarah gazed out over the
Palm islands
and wondered where in the real world Vince was.  Her heart ached to think he might be in pain while she and the rest of the team were living in the lap of luxury.  "I don't want a drink.  I want to be clear."  Sarah pressed her right hand to her left shoulder and rolled the shoulder slowly with a grimace.

“All right, talk to Papa. 
How’s that gunshot
wound healing?  You want something for the pain?”

“Nah, it’s just a little stiff from the travel.  A little yoga and I’ll be good as new.  Don’t you feel guilty, Jase?  Here we are in the lap of luxury and who knows where Vince is or what he’s going through?”

“Guilt isn’t a productive emotion.  When you stay in this sort of business long enough, you learn to shut it off.”  He handed Sarah the Margarita.  “Nikolai speaks the international language of money.  He wants something only Vince can give him, probably you, and that means he’ll keep Vince alive and happy.  Trust
me,
living with his ex-wife was more threatening than a few days with the Russian will be.”

Sarah remembered her own experience with Vince’s ex-wife, commonly referred to by her teammates as “The Hell Bitch.”  She nodded slightly.  “You could be right.”  

“It’s been known to happen
.”  Jason
smiled
like
a Cheshire cat.  "Sarah, we can't do a damned thing until Brian and Chris get here so you've got a full eight hours to get foggy and clear up again."  His voice dropped an octave and seemed more commanding than friendly.  "Sit down and have a frigging drink, woman."

Sarah sighed and followed orders.  Jason rarely gave them, but, when he did, she knew it was in her best interest to pay attention.  "Okay."  She parked herself on the leopard print sofa and sipped the cold, tart beverage. 

“You know what I love about the
Middle East
?”

Sarah watched Jason as he took a seat beside her and swallowed half his drink in one gulp. 
“The dry heat?”

He glared at her. 
“Hell no.
 
It’s humid most places except the Rub’ al Kali.
  What I love is the fact that smoking is still accepted and non-smoking hotel rooms are the exception.”  He slipped two cigarettes out of his pack and lit them at the same time, handing her one of them.

She recalled the cigarette she’d taken from her case earlier and looked into her hand to see the tragic remains in her sweaty palm.

Some secret agent I am. 
Can’t even handle a little job-related stress.

Jason chortled as he wiped the tobacco mess from her hand into his.  "Now what the hell did that cigarette ever do to you to be treated like that?"  He dusted the tobacco and paper into a nearby potted plant.

Sarah took a drink of her margarita and a drag from the new cigarette and smiled weakly at Jason.  "I'm a mess, aren't I?"

He nodded.  "You're new to this.  You didn't train to be on the waiting end.  You trained to be
Action Girl
.  You're all tensed and ready for a fight but, it isn't going to happen today and probably won't even happen tomorrow."

Sarah set her drink on the table in front of her, leaned back, and closed her eyes.  She wished this were all a dream and she'd wake up in
Italy
to Vince bringing her coffee in bed.  A low groan escaped her lips.

"Sarah, you trust me, right?"  He picked up her glass and nodded for her to drink more.

"Of course, I do, Jason."  She took a sip of her drink while she listened.

"I'm gonna tell you a little something, and I hope you'll pay attention."

She turned to face him.  "Okay, shoot."

"That adrenaline high you're on isn't going to last.  It's a short-term drug and when it runs out, you're gonna crash.  You'll crash hard just like you did after we got back from that first mission against Hassan.  Remember all the adrenaline you rode to get yourself and Vince off that yacht when Hassan found out who you were?  And do you remember how long you slept afterwards?"

Sarah recalled their first mission.  Hassan was a major moneyman for Al Qaeda, and he had been hot for her.  She’d had a great cover as his girlfriend, and Vince as an arms dealer until Hassan figured out that Vince wasn’t just an arms dealer.  She managed to save Vince from execution on Hassan’s yacht, but she blew her cover in the process.  Hassan tried to use her as leverage against Vince but ended up shooting Vince instead.  Sarah had just enough time to stab Hassan in the heart, grab Vince, and jump off the yacht before it exploded.  She never would have been able to lift a big, muscular guy like Vince without the assistance of adrenaline, and lots of it. 
"Oh, yeah.
  I slept for two and a half days.  I woke up hungry as a bear."

Jason took a last, hard drag and stubbed his cigarette out in the crystal ashtray.  "That adrenaline sucks every bit of energy out of you.  You need to conserve that energy until we know what we're up against.  Save it.  Relax, have a few drinks, and then get some rest so you're fresh when Chris and Brian get here.”  He drank the last of his margarita and set the glass on the table in front of the sofa.  “Then we can take stock and get this operation going."

She nodded and took a long drink, collecting what thoughts she could.  "Jason, how can you be so calm?  We declared war on Nikolai’s organization when we smoked his top arms dealer.  Now he's kidnapped Vince and God only knows what he'll do to him to get back at us.  Every minute we waste could be Vince's last."

Jason chuckled and shook his head.  "It doesn't work that way, girl.  This sort of thing is a dance.  Vince has been doing what he does for a long time.  Force Recon guys train to operate behind enemy lines.  They prepare for capture.  It's a whole different world from what you’ve done, but he knows all the moves.  He's a master at tricks and mind games.”  Jason leaned back into the sofa and grinned wide.  “Trust
me,
Vince is king of the mind fuck.  If Nikolai knows anything about Vince, or us, then he knows he's sitting on a gold mine of intelligence.  He'll keep Vince healthy and alive unless Vince does something stupid."  Jason lit a fresh cigarette.  "And Vince is one guy who never does anything stupid."

~~~

Will walked into the sitting room and found Jason with his feet on the plush sofa and a satisfied grin on his face. 

"Where's Sarah?"

Jason took a drag of his cigarette, blew a smoke ring, and pointed to the empty pitcher on a silver platter nearby.  "Adrenaline crash plus tequila makes for a sleepy Sarah."

Will shook his head.  "I gotta hand it to you brother, for a guy who doesn't know jack about
women,
you handle that particular woman pretty well."

"What can I say?"  Jason shrugged.  "It's a gift.  Besides, she thinks more like a guy than a woman.  Where did you get on the phone calls?"

Will sat on the sofa and took his first look at the view they had from high above the ocean.  "My God, this place is spectacular." 

"It's fucking awesome.  I've never seen anything like it."

Will looked over at Jason who was waiting for news on Will’s calls.  "You know the work Vince and I did
allowed
us to put a few nest eggs away, right?"

"Yeah."
  Jason knew Vince and Will had skimmed a little off the top for
insurance
when they negotiated arms deals for the
U.S.
government.  It was the only way agents could cover their asses when working for a bunch of bureaucrats who might turn around and screw them without a moment's hesitation, just like Vince was being screwed right now.  That
insurance
was money they needed to fall back on now because the Agency had disavowed any association with Vince and refused to send in a rescue team when he’d been kidnapped.  The C.I.A. didn’t give a damn that it was their bad
intel
that left an opening for Nikolai Federov, the man they should have been after in their last mission, to get away. 

Will
continued
speaking in generalities just in case their stealthy butler happened to walk in on their conversation.  Their plan was to act like real estate investors while in the hotel.

"Well, I called my banker here in
Dubai
, and we have a practically unlimited budget for any purchases we choose to make."

Jason smiled wide.  "Excellent."

"I also made a call to a buddy of mine in
Las Vegas
.  Nikolai's mother lives
there,
and I thought she might help negotiations."

Jason leaned forward. 
"Yeah?
  What happened?"

"Official word at the University is she's taken a leave of absence for a family emergency back in
Russia
."

"Family emergency.
  You bet your babka it's an emergency.  There's no chance of getting to her there.  I've got to hand it to that
guy,
he knows how to cover his bases."

"Hey, it was worth a shot."  Will yawned and loosened his tie.  "I'm going to catch a nap before the guys get here.  What room did Sarah take?"