Sleeper Seven (11 page)

Oh shit,
she thought. She had figured it wasn't a big deal to be out here at this small regional airport, but clearly she had been wrong. The cart spun sideways, skidding to a stop a few feet in front of her. The passenger, closest to her, spoke first.

"Jessica Armitage?"

"Yeah, how...?" she stumbled, but then noticed this was not airport security, but some private security company. The name
PremierJet
was embossed in black and gold on the side of the cart.

"You're supposed to walk
outside
the fence. There's a whole sidewalk and everything," he said sternly, sliding over to make room for her. "Get in before you get into some real trouble." She squeezed in, holding her duffel awkwardly on her lap as they sped off.

They skidded to a stop a minute later next to a small black jet, apparently waiting solely for her, just as Sylvia had promised. The two men stepped aside, allowing her to ascend the stairs to the fuselage first, then boarded behind her. The inside was opulently appointed in creamy white leather, with only a few rows of standard seating, two seats per side. In the rear were seats configured with small tables between them, and all the way in the back was a large conference table flanked by custom leather couches.

She chose the first seat, while the surly guy chose the one across the aisle from her. The golf cart driver had disappeared into the cockpit, and she didn't realize until she heard the whine of the jet engines spinning up that he must be also the pilot.
Close-knit operation,
she thought to herself.

"Wow, golf carts and jets, he does it all, huh?" Jess joked. The man turned to her, stared for a moment, and faced forward again without responding. As they ascended into the North Carolina evening sky, Jess addressed him again. "Ummm, by the way, where are we going?"

He turned again, and this time smiled at her with a row of dazzling white teeth. "
Vegas,
baby."

For all its luxury, the jet ride was still, well, a long jet ride. She was provided a granola bar and, strangely, a chocolate milk, dearly missing the food of the Adams Center already. After 'dinner' Mr. Surly Teeth Whitener Guy fell asleep in his seat, so she unbuckled and went back to lay down on the couch. She awoke a short time later to the sound of two dings, and assuming that was the landing signal, returned to her seat and buckled in.

They began to descend, and a few minutes later the chirp of the tires announced their arrival at McCarran International airport. A few more minutes of taxiing, and they finally stopped as the engines powered down. The pilot appeared, and the two men led her off the jet to a black SUV that was waiting for her.
Why is it always black with these guys? So obvious,
she thought to herself. The surly man handed her duffel off to the driver who was leaning against the truck. Stowing the duffel in the back, he returned to greet her.

"Hope you had a pleasant flight. Welcome to Las Vegas. Please," he entreated, opening the back door and motioning for her to get in. She felt like a celebrity, and not wanting to ruin the moment by revealing her ongoing ignorance of their destination, kept her mouth shut and got in.

It was prime time in Vegas, and as they inched through bumper-to-bumper traffic, Jess observed the masses of humanity flowing up and down the sidewalks from one casino/bar/show to another.
I was one of those people, once,
she thought to herself. The driver, like the other two men before, remained silent.
Were they instructed not to speak to me?
she wondered.
If so, was it because they
knew
about her, or just because they were told she was a VIP?

Turning off the strip, the driver meandered on the service roads behind the casinos, finally emerging onto the circular drive of the grand entrance to the Mirage. The volcano out front was attracting a crowd at this time of the night, and she wistfully recalled the last time she stood at that fence a few years prior, until the driver stopped the SUV and turned to her.

"Here's your room key, this is where I drop you," he announced, passing her a small envelope. Then, leaning out the passenger window, he motioned to a waiting porter, and while whispering something to him, slipped him a fifty-dollar bill. She got out while the porter retrieved her bag from the back seat, and after stowing it on a push cart, he led her into the hotel lobby. Passing through the entrance, she navigated around a group of drunken young women heading out to celebrate someone's 21st birthday. A part of her wanted to run and join them, without a care in the world, as she turned and rushed to catch up to the porter.

The small envelope holding her keycard was unmarked, and as they waited for an elevator, she pulled it out. Turning it over in her hand, she found
'PS One'
embossed in gold on it. Once in the elevator, the porter pressed the button for the top floor.
Penthouse Suite!
she thought to herself.

And indeed it was: the size of a large apartment, it contained separate kitchen, dining, and bedroom areas, along with an expansive view of the strip below. The porter gave a quick but thorough tour of each area, and then closed the door behind him before she could even rifle through her bag for a tip.

It was strange there was no one to greet her — after all this careful chain of custody, she was now apparently dumped here and left to her own devices. A creeping thought niggled at her: this was all going to cost her, somehow — monetarily or otherwise.

Pushing that thought away, she collapsed on the king size bed and grabbed the room service menu from the side table. Unsure if someone would come for her tonight, she didn't dare leave the room, so she ordered a substantial dinner. It was just as well, considering she was too exhausted to even consider going out. Before long, she lay passed out on the bed amongst an array of room service plates in various states of gluttonous dishevelment.

Vegas, baby.

~ 24 ~

R
ising above the mountains over Lake Mead to the east, the Sun's rays streamed through the floor to ceiling windows, and slowly made their way up the bed and onto her face, awakening her. There still had been no visitors, no notes slipped under doors, not even a phone call. She checked her phone and found Gavin had texted, asking how her trip had been.
Long and strange,
she replied, then perused the breakfast options on the room service menu.

As she waited for her food, she watched a parade of Bail Bondsman, nightclub, and liquor store ads on the wall-mounted flatscreen until a knock at the door signaled breakfast had arrived. Opening the door, she expected to see a waiter with a tray, but instead found a tall dark-haired woman in business attire standing before her.

"Jess. Holly," she said abruptly, grabbing Jess' hand and squeezing. "Good to finally meet you. We've heard a lot about you, and we're looking forward to seeing what you can do for us. Come on down to breakfast with me."

"Actually I just ordered room service..."

"That's alright, they'll just leave it in the hall," she replied with a joyless smile as she held the door open for her.

"OK, but I haven't even showered or changed yet, I'm sorry, but I didn't know what was on the agenda today."

"Plenty of time for that later, right now it's time to get to work," she said, then added somewhat awkwardly, "for the country." The woman led her back down to the lobby, explaining in the elevator that they shouldn't talk in her suite, for obvious reasons. Jess wasn't sure what was so obvious, but didn't question it.

After foraging through the breakfast buffet, Jess returned to the table, her tray piled high with pancakes, eggs, and various cooked meats. Holly had collected only a slice of buttered toast and coffee, and gave Jess a sideways glance after seeing her tray.
Lack of self control,
Jess could almost hear her mentally noting to herself. After taking a sip of coffee, Holly got down to business amidst the bells and clangs of the nearby slot machines.

"There was a bit of a rush to get you here, I know. And I apologize. But there is something happening in town today, and we wanted to test out your abilities in gaining certain information. This is a situation we are particularly concerned with regarding certain materials and business transactions in the Far East having to do with national security. Two parties are meeting today just down the street at the Wynn. What we are looking for are product numbers, quantities, and especially dates of shipment and delivery. What's your range?"

Jess, trying to keep up with this rapid fire data download, took a moment to respond.

"Uh, my range?"

"How close do you need to be?" Holly replied, impatient with her new charge's inability to keep up.

"How close...to do what?"

Holly let out an audible sigh. "My understanding about you people is there are limits to recall at certain distances."

Boy, she's getting downright pissy now,
Jess thought. "Yes, of course, I understand. Let's see..." She thought about the distance from the dome to the house, where she lost her focus, back at the Center.

"Maybe two hundred feet?"

Holly set her coffee down hard, almost spilling it.

"
Two hundred feet!
Are you kidding me? We're a
quarter-mile
from the Wynn. Christ on a cupcake. Gimme a minute." She got up just as Jess' custom-ordered waffle arrived. Jess could see her near the slots making a call; it was clear she was angry, and that she was giving the unlucky person on the other end of the line a pretty hard time.

Jess knew this was finally the comeuppance she had been expecting — those flakes at the Adams Center had built her all up, and now, to someone in the real world, she wasn't as great as she thought: she was a fraud. She suddenly lost her appetite, and watched the whipped cream slowly melt onto her waffle.

"We're moving," Holly said curtly, returning to the table. She didn't even bother sitting back down; it was clear she was still simmering. "We're getting you a room at the Wynn. Go back to your room, get your stuff and meet me there in forty-five minutes. We've got to work fast, the meeting is a working lunch scheduled for noon, and possibly going well into the evening."

She abruptly walked off, leaving Jess with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. At this point, she just wanted to go home. This was important, though, she reminded herself — she couldn't let her own feelings of inadequacy, and her distaste for some of the people involved in this, get in the way of the big picture. Retrieving her things from the penthouse, she gloomily returned to the lobby, still un-showered, unchanged, and with an aching hunger, but zero appetite.

As she left the hotel entrance, two tourists emerged from a limo in the circular drive: a large middle-aged man, and presumably his wife. Both of them were adorned with matching American flag shirts and shorts, USA baseball caps, and flag sunglasses, tags still attached. They clumsily blocked her way, and annoyed, Jess maneuvered around them with an audible sigh. Swiftly repositioning themselves, they blocked her way again.

"Excuse me young lady, can you help us out, we need to find our way to our hotel, this one here ain't it," the woman asked her in a deep southern drawl, grabbing onto Jess' arm and pulling her towards the limo.

"It'll take just a minute, sweetie."

"T'would be real helpful, like," the man added, taking her other arm.

"Really, I don't have time for this..." Jess protested, struggling from their grasp. It had been a tough morning already, and she was fed up. Pausing, the woman lowered her sunglasses and looked into her eyes.

"Please. Come with us," she asked earnestly, the drawl suddenly gone.

~ 25 ~

T
here was something familiar about this woman. Confused, Jess looked closer, trying to place the face, as she reluctantly handed the bag to her male companion. While climbing into the back of the limo, he gently pushed down on the top of her head, ensuring she wouldn't bump it. That was the giveaway — these were cops.

The man entered after her, slamming the door as the driver chirped the tires and sped off. Ensconced in the protection of the tinted town car, he removed his sunglasses and cap then turned to face her.

"Sorry about that, we had to disappear you," he said, also suspiciously losing his southern twang. "You have been deceived, young lady."

Taking a closer look, there was something familiar about this man as well, but she couldn't place it.

"Well, I'm pretty much being
abducted
now, so which is worse?" she retorted, and turning back to the woman, watched her also remove her getup. Suddenly she knew why they looked so familiar.

"Hell no!
Kal?
" she exclaimed, as Kal smiled back at her. Jess turned to the man and recognized him as well, even though he was freshly shaven. "Len!" She felt like Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz. "What the hell is going on here! Who
are
you!" she cried, slumping into the black leather seat and holding her hands over her eyes. "Holy cats, this is
too much!
"

"They told you they were the Feds, right?" Len asked.

"Well they're not.
We
are," Kal explained.

Looking back, she hadn't seen — nor had she asked for — a single piece of identification from Sylvia, other than her business card; and the jet she arrived on
did
appear to be more commercial than government-owned.

"So the thing about bin Laden...?" she asked weakly.

"I have no idea what she told you, but I can almost guarantee it ain't true. They really suckered you in, huh?" Len teased.

"But how do I know
you're
not the ones lying, and
they
really are the government?"

"Think about it Jessica," Kal replied slowly, "how much paperwork did they have you sign? Now here's
our
proof," she offered, handing over a manilla envelope filled with documents, followed by a pen.

"If you really want to serve your country, we need your John Hancock on all of these."