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The Company
Time: Sunday, July 17, 2011 (late afternoon).
Place: Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A.
Last Event: Hanging out at a cheap motel, examining captured intelligence.
In light of strong evidence that the men at the ranch in Wyoming were checking in with someone here in Las Vegas on an hourly basis, the Agents discuss how best to hunt down the gangsters' contact, who might well be Georgi or Toru! Consensus is that if the FSB wants Georgi as badly as they let on – it was they who put the team on his trail, after all – then V should be willing to lend a hand. It seems both practical and poetic to call V on the satellite phone captured at the ranch. Hamid and Jili claim that the phone is a difficult-to-trace military model, and quite "clean," but they still recommend driving across town before putting the batteries back in.
With that, Hamid and Anabel catch a cab to the far side of Las Vegas, where they find a large parking lot, stroll to an isolated corner, and set up the phone. Once everything is ready, Anabel dials the contact number that V gave her. It takes a while to get through, but eventually, Anabel is speaking with V. Anabel wastes no time – she immediately passes along the number of the other satellite phone, the one that is or at least was in Las Vegas, in the hope that V has access to the resources necessary to get a fix on it. Hamid supports this with excellent technical data on both the phone and the phone calls.
Amazingly – or completely unsurprisingly, depending on how you look at it – V has access to technical means capable of tracking the phone in real time, if it's switched on. After a brief wait, she informs Anabel that the phone is presently idle but powered-up in Tokyo. Given that the last call to it was at 06:00 on July 16 and it's now 18:00 on July 17, it's plausible that somebody carried it across the Pacific while the Agents were on the move. V tells Anabel that her people can keep an eye on the phone, and track its location to within 10 metres.
Anabel is a little surprised that V isn't merely willing to share signals intelligence with mercenaries, but is also volunteering updates. She suspects that V must have some personal investment in the matter – it definitely seems as if V has good reason to believe that Georgi owns the phone and is traveling with it in Japan. There's no way to know for sure, but given that Toru is more than wealthy enough to own a large private jet, it's conceivable that he decided to leave the U.S.A. before word of the Wyoming battle reached the American authorities, and that Georgi hitched a ride. Certainly, once the FBI, DHS, and a dozen other agencies see the carnage at the ranch, Japanese and Russian gangsters on American soil are going to feel some heat.
As V's support is vital, Anabel decides to share everything she knows with the FSB. She delivers a brief-but-complete report on the events in Wyoming, and sums up the group's present situation. Gambling that V is willing to go out on a limb to nab Georgi, she then asks whether the FSB could arrange the false papers and airline tickets necessary to get the seven unwounded Agents (everyone but Klas, Lev, and Paul) from Las Vegas to Tokyo in a hurry. After putting Anabel on hold again for a moment, V says that she can put the team in touch with people who should be able to help out, but that Anabel and friends will need to front $500,000 in clean bills. Anabel says she has to make a call to see about that, and hangs up.
The next call is to Chaturvedi. Anabel repeats her report to him, with the addition of the FSB angle. She then asks Chaturvedi whether he can arrange for the group to withdraw $500,000 from its accounts on Monday – and while she's at it, whether he could spare Ben to come care for Klas, Lev, and Paul. Chaturvedi says that he can get Ben on a plane to Las Vegas in a matter of hours, and that he can transfer the funds to a local bank in the morning. He also confirms that $500,000 is about right to put together false IDs for seven people and get them on a flight to Tokyo on short notice, and warns that V will almost certainly be using local criminals for this arrangement.
After concluding her call with Chaturvedi, Anabel calls V again. She confirms that she'll have the necessary funds by morning, and requests that V set up a meeting with her Las Vegas associates. V says that she has already taken care of the preliminaries, and asks Anabel to name a location for the transaction. Looking through a telephone book, Anabel picks a random restaurant parking lot, and informs V that her contacts should look for a large RV parked there at 11:00.
Once the phone calls are done, Anabel decides that to fill the role of the sort of person who walks into a bank to pick up $500,000 in cash, she'll need suitable clothing. She heads directly to one of the most exclusive casino shopping areas – the sort of place that's open late all week in case a woman of means has to have a fashion original for tonight's party. She ditches Hamid at an electronics shop and proceeds to hunt down a lovely dress and shoes to go with. Then since she's running up charges on the Company card anyway, she picks up some special duds for Qoqa: a cowboy hat and a pair of boots. These items cost almost as much as her own gear!
The night passes uneventfully, with Qoqa looking in on the wounded while everybody else catches up on their rest. The morning of Monday, July 18, Anabel dresses very nicely indeed. When she steps out the door of the motel to hail a cab, she finds Vinnie waiting in a vintage Aston Martin. It's evidently a rental, but Vinnie won't comment on where he rented it on short notice, or for how much. Be that as it may, Vinnie's move ensures that when Anabel arrives at the bank to which Chaturvedi has transferred the funds, she does so in style.
Aside from the usual ogling, Anabel has no difficulty at the bank. The biggest fuss is waiting for the cash to be counted and recounted, although Anabel is sure to create a little fuss to stay in character as a spoiled rich girl: "I sure am glad that Daddy wired me this money. Vegas is so expensive." She even makes one of the bank's clerks run a coffee out to her chauffeur.
By the time Anabel and Vinnie return to the motel with the cash, it's perilously close to 11:00. Ben pulls up in a cab at almost the same time, looking tired and jetlagged. Qoqa quickly briefs Ben on the status of Klas, Lev, and Paul's injuries. An instant after Qoqa finishes, Vinnie tosses Ben the keys to the Aston Martin and asks him to return it to the agency, and then hops into the driver's seat of the RV. Anabel, Hamid, Jili, Qoqa, Wen, and Zhang chuck their bags into the Winnebago and pile in, and then Vinnie hits the road before Ben can say, "Aston Martin?"
Thanks to Vinnie's skillful driving, the Agents make it to their meeting on time. V's people turn out to be Mexican gangsters of some kind – it seems that the FSB has a lot of interest in such groups. Fortunately, these guys are professionals: They come aboard the RV, confirm that they have tickets for four women and three men matched to passports, and then make sure that the cash is all there. Once they're satisfied with the deal, their technician pulls out a big case full of cameras, computers, and printers, and start taking photos and doctoring passports. Wen knows something about this art, and is impressed with their skill and setup.
It's a little past noon when the deed is done. The Mexicans leave $500,000 richer, while each of the seven Agents has a valid ticket to Tokyo in the name that appears on a passport bearing his or her photo. As their flight leaves in just over two hours, there's no time to do anything but rush to McCarran International Airport. Vinnie puts the RV in long-term parking, Qoqa hastily cleans it, and then the group dashes into the terminal. There's some apprehension regarding the papers provided by V's contacts, but this proves unfounded – by early afternoon, the team is flying to Japan.