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The Company
Time: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 (wee hours).
Place: Bush near Gisenyi, Rwanda.
Last Event: Is that a Mil Mi-24 over there?
Klas, Vinnie, and Wen emerge from the darkness after about 10 minutes and return to the truck to tell their associates what's concealed nearby: an operational Mil Mi-24, with fuel. Vinnie explains that given the helicopter's configuration – sporting auxiliary tanks rather than weapons – it would let the team hop 900 km in a pinch. That leads to a long discussion of long-range transportation options during the drive back to base. Consensus is that the best possibility would be to wait for Ben to arrive in the morning, and then have him use his strong false identity and access to Company funds to charter a cargo flight on which the group could stow away.
Despite drizzle, darkness, and mud, the drive back goes well. On arriving at the Darmatech site, the group posts watches; once again, that's Qoqa and Wen, then Klas and Lev, and finally Paul and Vinnie. Those who aren't on watch try to get some sleep. The night is thankfully uneventful.
First thing in the morning, Vinnie sets out for Kigali to fetch Ben, taking Paul with him for backup. The drive into the city goes amazingly well, and gets Paul and Vinnie to the airport early enough that they spend 90 minutes awaiting Ben's arrival. When Ben's flight finally arrives, Paul stands in plain sight holding a Darmatech-logoed sign. Ben somehow misses this, forcing Vinnie and Paul to hail him – but if anybody else is watching, there's no sign of it. Before long, the three Agents are on their way back in the truck.
It's mid afternoon when Vinnie and Paul return with Ben. The first order of business is to bring Ben up to speed on recent events, as he hasn't been in touch with Chaturvedi since Anabel last checked in. With that done, the subject changes to the possibility of Ben chartering a cargo flight from nearby Gisenyi to Monrovia, Liberia so that the team can track down the assassination squad that Col. G claims left for there. Ideally, Ben would accompany his "shipment," allowing the team to take advantage of his false papers and the fact that the enemy might not know about him. Ben says that should be easy enough to organize – he just has to call Sakata to set it up – but warns that Sakata told him that such things take 48 hours to arrange. Nobody has a problem with that.
Ben goes off to make his phone call, leaving the others to discuss how to smuggle nine people and their gear aboard a cargo flight. Qoqa and Vinnie claim that they could easily design crates that are safe enough for passengers yet capable of passing a casual freight inspection. Design isn't the limiting factor, though – that would be construction. Anabel comes to the rescue, assuring her associates that she should be able to get some of the laborers here at the Darmatech site to do the work without asking too many questions.
While Sakata works his computer magic from his current hideout, the carpenters conscripted by Anabel, under Qoqa and Vinnie's supervision, spend two days hammering away at fancy smuggler's crates. Otherwise, the Agents focus on rest, recovery, and travel preparations. Attention to security is high, however – rest doesn't preclude armed patrols and watches to thwart prying eyes and would-be assassins. As well, Anabel does her devious best to keep the workers in the dark about exactly what's going on.
Come the evening of Thursday, February 21, it's time to ship out. Everyone agrees that it would be best if Ben were to arrive at the airport in a truck bearing his shipment, meaning that the other Agents and their gear would have to ride there in crates. Qoqa and Vinnie get people into their special containers (which everybody but Anabel finds fairly comfortable), and then shut themselves in. Once that's done, Ben has a few laborers load the cargo aboard one of the larger trucks. Then he asks a worker named Armand to drive him to Gisenyi.
The drive to the airport goes well, though Anabel finds it bumpy and uncomfortable. The crated-up Agents can't see or hear what's going on, but stops and starts hint that the truck has reached the airport, and then various thumps and bumps suggest unpacking and inspection. Takeoff is obvious. Once the plane is in the air, Ben visits the cargo compartment to let his associates out for the duration of the flight. He informs everyone that between the clever crates, Sakata's hacking, the false papers provided by Chaturvedi, and liberal bribery, there were no problems.
The flight itself is long and uneventful. Everyone is thankful that Ben took Vinnie's recommendations to heart and had Sakata arrange for an aircraft with a pressurized and reasonably insulated cargo compartment. As the plane approaches Monrovia, however, it's time for everybody to get out of sight again. This goes well – even if Anabel does complain a lot – and the crates are resealed with the Agents inside by the time the plane is making its landing approach.
From inside their crates, the Agents can feel the landing. This is followed shortly by another round of thumping and bumping. After what seems like hours, there's more shifting around and then the telltale rattle of a truck drive. This goes on for a short time, after which the engine noises stop. Moments later, Ben opens Qoqa's crate, the two of them get Vinnie out, and then all three release their remaining associates.
Ben informs everyone that it's just before noon local time, and that the group's location is an isolated side road not far from Roberts International Airport. The Agents survey the area carefully and approve of Ben's choice – there's nobody around and there's a moderate amount of concealment in the form of scrubby brush. The group gears up and then breaks apart the smuggling crates. After hiding the rubble, it's time for a huddle to plan the next move.
The Agents decide that the first order of business is to send someone back to RIA to glean whatever can be learned about the assassins' arrival earlier in the week. This is clearly Anabel's forte, so Ben gives her a large wad of U.S. dollars for bribes. Paul volunteers to be her shadow. With that settled, Vinnie hops into the truck and chauffeurs Anabel and Paul to the airport. The other seven conceal themselves in the brush to wait, weapons at the ready just in case.
It doesn't take Vinnie long to reach the airport, where he stops only for long enough to drop off Anabel and Paul. Anabel struts into the terminal building, with Paul skillfully shadowing her, and seeks out the administrative center. Whenever she passes a window looking out onto the airfield, she checks the registration numbers on the aircraft, but she doesn't see the plane identified by Col. G. Eventually, Anabel finds the office she's looking for and puts on her game face.
Anabel decides to spin a slightly unorthodox yarn: She's a freelance entertainment reporter who's following the shooting of a big-budget action movie based loosely on the Rwandan Genocide and Congo Wars. In the course of doing this, she has learned that several stuntmen were badly hurt on location, and that the film's production company is covering this up. For instance, they flew the injured men to Monrovia to hide them from sight. Anabel's angle is that she's trying to unearth information about the plane and its passengers in order to reveal the studio's dishonesty.
Delivered with charm and accompanied by a bribe, the crazy story does the trick, getting Anabel past a secretary and into the office of an official with full records access. Anabel shows off printouts of the aircraft registration and flight plan that Col. G sent the group. After some negotiation and further bribery, she manages to learn that the plane in question landed late on Sunday, February 17, with 17 passengers aboard. Further finagling convinces the bureaucrat to let Anabel make copies of the airport's images of the passports used by these men, which are from seven different countries and bear photos of several people she recognizes from the attack at the hotel. The names and nationalities might be false, but pictures don't lie.
With that done, Anabel asks a few more questions. She learns that these men didn't fly out of Liberia – at least, not on the same passports – but that the aircraft that brought them departed the next day. Figuring that someone at the airport might have seen where the passengers went, she wheedles an introduction to the supervisor of the ground crew that handled the plane's arrival. This costs yet more bribe money, but before long Anabel finds herself being whisked through a security door by her bought bureaucrat.
The crew supervisor, a man named Robert, is clearly smitten with Anabel. Doing his eager best to help, he explains that he saw the "beat up" men disembark – some of them hobbling, others on stretchers. He says that they were met by a creepy-looking man who drove up in a large truck with no license plates. What made the man sinister, in Robert's mind, was the fact that he was clad in a spotless coverall, wore gloves and heavy boots despite the heat, and kept a watchful eye on the airport workers. Robert says that the injured passengers seemed to know this person, as they greeted him verbally and with salutes. Unfortunately, Robert didn't see where they drove off to.
Anabel thanks Robert and asks him for a phone number at which she can contact him if she needs further details. She explains that she would give him hers, but that she doesn't have a local phone yet. Robert laughs and says that his brother has lots of phones, so she can have his current one. She accepts the gift, which clearly makes Robert happy – he now has an easy way to reach a truly hot woman! After dramatically begging Robert not to let anybody know what they talked about, so that nobody scoops her story, Anabel takes her leave.