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The Company
Time: Saturday, March 9, 2013 (evening).
Place: Tampa, Florida.
Last Event: Recovering Anabel and discussing findings.
After analyzing what they've discovered about John Talbot Deringer and Emerson Tactical Solutions, the Agents decide that Deringer's security is too good for them to take on without Company support in the form of covert-ops gear. That means it's time to call Chaturvedi. Anabel does the honors. Chaturvedi says that he'll have to consult with his superiors to learn what assistance is feasible under the circumstances, and asks Anabel to write an executive summary that he can pass up the chain. Anabel agrees, bids Chaturvedi good night, and gets to work. About an hour later, she fires off a report to one of the numerous single-use e-mail addresses that Jili has set up for such purposes.
Opting to keep a low profile while awaiting the Company's decision, the Agents play at being tourists, visiting the beach and so on. After returning to their rented condos that evening, Anabel's phone rings. It's Schreiber, not Chaturvedi. Schreiber explains that their "mutual employer" cannot easily support the group while they're operating in the U.S.A., and that "the chief" has expressed concern regarding Deringer's associates (implying the ex-CIA men, though he never says "CIA"). He explains that he wants the team back in Europe as soon as possible, and has arranged a flight to Amsterdam in the morning. With that, he ends the call.
Somewhat taken aback at being withdrawn, the Agents make preparations to leave. Some of them duck out to do a little late-night shopping for clothing suitable for Northern Europe in March. The rest, led by Qoqa, see to the arduous task of "cleaning." Qoqa is still hard at work on this long after the others are exhausted and sleeping in the areas she hasn't yet evicted them from and doused with disinfectant.
The morning of Monday, March 11, the Agents hop in their vehicles and drive to the airport. Leaving the SUVs in long-term parking, they march inside to collect their tickets. Their somewhat flimsy identities cause no obvious problems, and check-in is uneventful. Before long, everyone is seated aboard the jet, split up into ones and twos. With a long flight ahead of them, they try to get some extra sleep.
The group arrives in Amsterdam late that night. Despite the hour, they decide that it wouldn't hurt to get out of the city in order to throw some extra ice water on the trail. The Agents' chosen destination is Paris, and it's well into Tuesday morning when they get there. They manage to find a hotel easily enough, but since nothing is open and everyone is exhausted, the next order of business is sleep.
Late on Tuesday morning, the team ventures into the city to go shopping. This is mostly at the insistence of Anabel, who has no interest in walking around Europe dressed in the clothes she picked up on the group's late-night Walmart trip in Tampa. Qoqa, too, is keen on spending some time in Paris, and Wen insists that there's little point in visiting the City of Light if you don't stay for long enough for a good meal. All goes well, and Anabel even buys a gift for Ms. Chang, to reciprocate the one Chang sent her via Ben. Klas and Lev find this last point amusing, and tease Anabel about her "girlfriend."
Eventually, it's time to head to Darmstadt. The Agents buy train tickets for a one-way journey via Frankfurt, which should get them to Darmstadt before 18:00. Immediately prior to boarding, Anabel picks up a prepaid phone and checks in with Schreiber. After that, everybody settles in for an afternoon on the train.
It's toward dusk when the Agents disembark at Darmstadt Hbf. Anabel calls Schreiber again to let him know that the group is in town. He replies by saying that he has arranged transportation to Darmatech. True to form, this isn't anything normal, but pickup by a stationery delivery truck in a nearby back lane. Schreiber describes the vehicle logo to Anabel in some detail, and has her confirm the rendezvous spot before ending the call.
As the Agents have plenty of time, they decide to walk to the meeting spot. They have no trouble finding the lane, which is narrow but hardly dark and creepy – this is Darmstadt, not New York. After a short wait, the promised stationery truck turns down the alley. An instant later, though, it's clear that there's a problem: as soon as the vehicle rounds the corner, it starts to accelerate. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that the driver intends to run them down!
In the close confines of the lane, the Agents' options are limited. Qoqa and Anabel dash left toward a shallow doorway, the side of the truck scraping Qoqa's knuckles as she drags Anabel to safety at the last instant. On the right, Paul likewise leaps for an alcove, Vinnie following close behind and just making it in with Paul's help. Wen dives between the truck's wheels and goes flat, letting the vehicle pass overhead; Jili and Klas see this and do the same. Lev and Zhang decide to run for it, barreling toward the far end of the alley as fast as they can, counting on its narrowness and the chaos behind them to limit their pursuers' speed.
Amazingly, nobody is hurt! The truck blasts past Anabel, Paul, Qoqa, and Vinnie – and over Jili, Klas, and Wen – without anybody getting clipped, crushed, or otherwise mangled. As soon as it passes, the seven of them get up and run after it, figuring that if it slows, stops, or tries to reverse, they'll clamber aboard. Meanwhile, Lev and Zhang manage to escape from the lane ahead of the onrushing vehicle and take up positions to either side of the exit. They, too, have mayhem in mind.
The truck slows as it reaches the end of the lane, either to block the exit or simply to turn safely. Zhang and Lev seize the opportunity to grab the door handles and pull themselves up onto the driver-side and passenger side running boards, respectively. They see two men inside, neither of them Schreiber or any of the other Darmatech "security staff" they know. The driver is intent on guiding the wide vehicle out of the narrow alley, but the passenger is handling a pair of G36 carbines outfitted with C-Mags. It seems that the assassins planned to hose down anyone who survived the ramming attempt!
Realizing that things will get extremely bad if the attackers bring their weapons into play, Zhang and Lev explode into action. Zhang notices that the driver-side door is locked, so he carefully lines up a shot at the window, using his jacket-covered elbow to smash the glass without injuring himself. Glass fragments fly everywhere, clearly unnerving the driver. Lev sees that the passenger-side door isn't locked, doubtless because the goon behind it was getting ready to leap out and shoot people, and takes advantage of this fact to yank open the door and dive on top of the man handling the carbines. From the rear, the other Agents see the truck swerving and know that Lev and Zhang must be causing havoc.
In the cab of the truck, Lev and his opponent struggle. The gunman tries to bring one of the carbines into play, but it's far too bulky – all he manages to do is ventilate the roof of the vehicle. Lev doesn't relent, and manages to shift his grip to the man's arm. His foe, unable to shake him off, reaches for a handgun. Lev preempts this by rolling backward out of the truck, stretching his rival's arm across the jamb, and then kicking the door shut.
Meanwhile, Zhang deals with the driver in his own fashion. After demolishing the window, he reaches through and throws a couple of punches. When his victim recoils, trying desperately to keep the vehicle under control, Zhang grabs the roof of the cab and launches himself inside with a gymnast's finesse. Both feet connect with the driver's face, knocking him out. As his opponent crumples, Zhang sees the passenger screaming, his shoulder mashed against the half-closed door. Zhang decides to smack him around some, too.
By the time the rest of the Agents catch up, the truck has rolled to a halt, Zhang is behind the wheel, and Lev is standing next to the vehicle, brushing himself off. Both of the attackers are unconscious, obviously the victims of a severe beating. Fortunately, there are no witnesses in the immediate area. The group has no desire to wait for onlookers to show up; Klas, Lev, Wen, and Zhang drag the two assassins and their weapons into the back of the vehicle, while Qoqa does a quick cleanup, sweeping away broken glass and making it look as if the broken window is merely rolled down.
With that done, Vinnie slides behind the wheel, Paul takes the passenger's seat, and the others pile in the back and shut the door. As soon as Vinnie hits the road, Anabel and Klas start searching the unconscious thugs. Klas finds some sort of fancy cell phone with gizmos attached, which he gives to Jili, who immediately pops out the battery and starts examining it. The two killers also have a wide variety of weapons on them: handguns (each man is packing a large-frame pistol and a backup piece), knives, garrotes, collapsible batons, stun guns, and incapacitant spray. They also have rigid hypodermic injectors that look disturbingly similar to the ones used to dose Anabel and Vinnie with "M201" back in July 2010, when the group was waylaid in that seaside village in Kent.
As the others inventory weaponry, Jili pokes at the phone that Klas handed her. After examining this for a while, she suddenly exclaims, "O-M-G!" Before her associates can respond, she launches into a breakneck lecture about what she's found. In her opinion, this isn't a phone as such, but miniaturized hardware for intercepting and triangulating on cell signals. She excitedly explains that only a First World intelligence service would be able to cram all that into such a tiny package, and starts speculating wildly about the thing's software, which she can't examine while the battery is out.
By now, the team is far enough from the lane where they were attacked that Vinnie feels it's safe to pull over for a moment. He stops to let Paul hop out and call Schreiber on a landline. Schreiber demands to know what's taking so long. When Paul explains, Schreiber's tone changes. He's worried about the driver he sent for the group, a man named Heinz, who's apparently a personal friend. He asks the Agents to get to the Darmatech building at once.
Paul gets back in and tells Vinnie to make for Darmatech. Both of them keep an eye out for a tail, just in case, but they see no one following. Before long, Vinnie is pulling up at the rolling doors to the Darmatech parking facility, which slide open at once. While the Agents have no reason not to trust Schreiber – it seems likely that the group's enemies followed the rather obvious trail pointing from Kigali, back to Darmatech's school near Gisenyi, and from there to Darmstadt – they hand around their captured weapons all the same.