The Company

[dr_kromm]

On November 20, we had Bonnie ("Xiang Wen," a.k.a. "Wu Xie Zhi" and "Dot"), Marc ("Anabel Windsor," a.k.a. "Abigail Wilson" and "Vicky"), Mike ("Vincenzo Calliente," of many aliases), and Torsten ("Qoqa Ramazanov," a.k.a. "Zoya Petrovna Sidorov").

Time: Thursday, October 4, 2012 (late night).
Place: Palermo.
Last Event: Tackling mysterious would-be plane robbers.

In the aftermath of the violence aboard the team's cargo plane, the three Agents left behind as guards move to secure the area. Wen slips out into the night to search for further hostiles, while Lev and Qoqa remain with the aircraft and the five prisoners. As nobody is carrying a cell phone (for security reasons), there's no easy way to summon the rest of the group.

Wen sneaks toward the airport perimeter, where her keen eyes make out a ragged hole about 100 metres down the fence. Approaching cautiously, she finds nobody lurking in the shadows, just evidence that somebody used cutters to break in. She easily picks up a trail in the crushed vegetation, and follows this a few hundred metres to the side of a service road, where she spots what appears to be a large car (a hasty camouflage job involving handfuls of scrub makes it hard to be sure). Seeing nobody standing guard, she moves in to investigate. The vehicle proves to be a good-sized SUV. While there's nothing of interest inside, there are clear signs that the ignition was tampered with – this is a stolen ride.

Meanwhile, back on the plane, Lev ties up the prisoners while Qoqa stops the bleeding of the intruder who was shot and his comrade who was slashed. With that done, Qoqa cleans up the blood and other evidence of violence as well as she can (which proves to be impressively well indeed). Meanwhile, Lev searches the captives for clues. He finds ammo for their suppressed handguns, as well as knives and night-vision gear – and one man is wearing body armor (ironically, the one who was shot in the face). The prowler with the armor has a cell phone, too. Lev finds no ID, wallets, or car keys on any of the five.

Lev and Qoqa discover one other interesting thing about the intruders: all have tattoos. Qoqa recognizes these as mafiya ink. Based on what she has seen in her time as a Company interrogator, the specific markings suggest that these men are (or were) part of Grandfather's mob! She informs Lev, who mumbles something to the effect of, "I expected as much."

When Wen returns, she decides to examine the kitbag that the men dragged aboard the plane, which all three Agents fear might be a bomb. She skillfully neutralizes an anti-tamper measure and then cuts away the bag, revealing a good-sized thermobaric charge – by Wen's estimate, twice the boom needed to take down a plane of this size. It has not one but three fuses: cell phone, time, and barometric. She carefully removes them in that order. The timer proves to be set for late the next day, while the barometric trigger turns out to be a jury-rigged military device, set to go live when the pressure falls and detonate the bomb when the pressure rises again.

With all that done, the three guards make plans to rotate watches, keep a wary eye on their prisoners, and await the arrival of their allies in the morning. Qoqa opts not to interrogate her captives right away, as an airport worker might conceivably hear the screaming. The rest of the night passes uneventfully.

The rest of the team arrives just after dawn on Friday. Once again, the papers the Company provided get them past security and onto the airfield. As soon as they reach the plane, Wen, Qoqa, and Lev fill them in on the previous night's events. After a brief discussion, the Agents decide not to mess with holes cut in airport fences or stolen vehicles abandoned on airport service roads – not in broad daylight. There's much talk about how the intruders found the group, but the most plausible theory is Paul's: When a fixer of shadowy Eastern European origins (Schreiber) exploits Cold War-era criminal connections to procure Russian weapons (like the group's new AK-103s and RPG-18s) and load them aboard a Russian military-surplus plane crewed by ex-Stasi (Schreiber's colleagues), the Russian mob is likely to hear about it.

Vinnie mostly ignores the talk and examines the plane. Fortunately, it looks as if stray rounds from the previous night's hostilities damaged nothing vital. He chalks that up to suppressed 9×18mm pistols being woefully underpowered for destroying vehicles. (Vinnie knows a lot about destroying vehicles.) He doesn't think that any repairs are needed before getting airborne.

The others talk about what to do with the prisoners. Qoqa wants to interrogate them, but is willing to do so in the air. Consensus is that once she's done, the best way to murder her victims would be to dump them out of the plane, if the aircrew will cooperate. While waiting for the crew, the rest of the team examines what Lev and Qoqa found on the intruders. Jili warns everyone to leave the phone alone, as it may have something to do with the bomb that Wen disarmed, and still be dangerous in some unpredictable way.

Within the hour, the plane's pilot, copilot, flight engineer, and loadmaster show up. Anabel gets the job of raising the subject of dumping the previous night's visitors out the cargo door while the plane is in flight. The men aren't thrilled with the prospect, but it's clear that they have a history of black ops (including disposing of prisoners); they respond with, "Hey, you people are paying the bills." The pilot further assures Anabel that he was trained to drop paratroopers, years ago, so he knows what to do – mostly. Anabel returns to her associates and fills them in on this, whereupon Vinnie ropes the prisoners together and fastens the disarmed bomb to the line for extra weight.

Eventually, it's time to fly to Rwanda. Schreiber's people wait at the foot of the cargo ramp for the Italian inspectors sent to examine the plane and its crew, passengers, and cargo. A large bribe buys a thumbs-up. The Company's paperwork for the aircraft and the flight also work as advertised. Before long, the plane is airborne.

In the air, Qoqa interrogates the Russian gangsters. The other Agents remain nearby for security, but don't exactly watch. Qoqa's methods can be unpleasant.

Q: "Who sent you?"
A: "Chenkov."

Q: "Where is Chenkov?"
A: "Somewhere in Georgia right now."

Q: "How does Chenkov contact you?"
A: "He calls up and we meet, always in a bar somewhere."

Q: "Was Chenkov part of Grandfather's organization?"
A: "Yes, he was Grandfather's nephew."

Q: "Do you know who we are?"
A: "You're a bunch of mercenary assholes hired by the FSB to do their wet work."

Q: "Do you know what we have done?"
A: "You killed Grandfather and a lot of his guys!"

Q: "Who were you supposed to report to after last night?"
A: "Chenkov."

Q: "When were you contacted for the job?"
A: "Two days ago."

Q: "Where is your crew based?"
A: "Moscow, but we travel for work."

Qoqa concludes that the whole affair smells of vengeance. Her theory is that whoever Chenkov might be, he got wind of the team and decided to cement his position in the mob by whacking Grandfather's killers. As Chenkov's men are clearly the usual low-level stooges sent to do dirty work, Qoqa doubts that she'll get anything else useful out of them. She shouts for Vinnie.

Vinnie goes forward to the cockpit and tells the pilot that it's time for the "airdrop" that Anabel requested. The pilot brings the plane down low and level, whereupon the loadmaster opens the door and Qoqa asks her prisoners a final question: "Can you fly?" They answer with screams as Klas and Vinnie eject them from the aircraft, weighted down by the heavy bomb and each other. Then the loadmaster closes the door and the flight resumes at its planned altitude. Qoqa can't help but notice that the loadmaster seems to find the whole episode amusing; when she asks about this, the man explains that this reminds him fondly of his work in the 1980s.

It's night when the plane touches down in Kigali and comes to a halt at the edge of the rain-slicked airfield. A couple of jeeps full of armed men roll up to the aircraft almost at once, encouraging the Agents to keep lights out and heads down. Wen sneakily peers out a window, however. She sees the pilot and copilot meet with an imposing man wearing the insignia of a full colonel. Schreiber's chums hand the colonel a bulging briefcase and several bottles of high-end liquor. There's some mock-comradely shaking of hands and slapping of backs, and then the Rwandans pile back into their jeeps roll off.

A minute later, the pilot pokes his head into the cargo compartment and apprises the Agents of the situation: "Colonel says you have 40 minutes to pack up your gear, get off his airfield, and leave the city. Once the guard changes at the airfield gates, you'll be stuck, and then there will be nothing he can do. He suggests that you drive fast."

Qoqa and Vinnie get to work unlashing the group's jeeps. The crusty old loadmaster seems to like Qoqa, so he's willing to help out with this. The three get the job done quickly, and soon the jeeps are rolling off the plane. Vinnie drives the lead vehicle, with Anabel and Klas aboard; Paul follows him, with Jili and Lev as passengers; and Zhang brings up the rear, with Qoqa and Wen. As promised, the guards ignore the convoy, taking a perfunctory glance at the group's papers and then waving them through the gate. Just to be sure, though, Klas, Jili, and Qoqa keep a close eye on the tarps over the cargo, making sure that the soldiers don't catch a glimpse of the guns, ammo, explosives, and so on underneath.