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Entry tags:
The Company
On September 8, we had Bonnie ("Xiang Wen," a.k.a. "Wu Xie Zhi" and "Dot"), Marc ("Anabel Windsor," a.k.a. "Abigail Wilson" and "Vicky"), and Torsten ("Qoqa Ramazanova," a.k.a. "Zoya Petrovna Sidorova").
Time: Monday, August 4, 2014 (afternoon).
Place: Near Mazatlán, Mexico.
Last Event: Awaiting a reply to a message.
Their message transmitted, all the Agents can do is wait. For Anabel, this means a cheap motel room and cheaper tequila – to keep up appearances, of course! Paul and Wen check in at the same place, posing as a dirty old man and an altogether-too-young girl seeking an anonymous encounter. The creepy couple keep an eye on Anabel from a safe distance.
The rest of the group stays with the team's rolling base. A truck graveyard provides a convenient hiding spot for the big rig. Jili sets up surveillance cameras while Qoqa camouflages the vehicle. The two of them, Klas, and Lev take shifts keeping watch and resting in the sleeper cab.
These arrangements prove more than adequate for avoiding trouble while the Agents await a response to their transmission. This arrives on Thursday, August 7, in the form of compressed data rather than voice. It's on the correct frequency – and also encrypted. Fortunately, Jili knows the cipher: it was formerly used by NATO forces, suggesting that the people on the other end are using surplus military crypto-tech.
A combination of knowledge of the cipher and the excellent gear in the truck lets Jili decrypt to message by late that night. It isn't much to go on: a time (23:00 tomorrow) and a set of GPS coordinates for an isolated locale south of Mazatlán. The whole setup looks incredibly dangerous, but at least the team has a potential contact. Jili calls Wen via secure phone, relays the message, and adds, "Make sure Anabel gets there." Wen writes down everything on a greasy food wrapper, slips outside, and stealthily slides the note under Anabel's door.
On Friday morning, Anabel decides to check out the rendezvous spot by daylight. Her theory is that if the people she'll be meeting believe she's a local criminal, they should expect her not to trust a risky meeting without scouting the site. Paul and Wen follow Anabel as far as the nearest major road, and then cruise the area near the turnoff. Anabel soon discovers that the last stretch of secondary highway before her destination is blocked by construction. She pulls up to talk to the workers.
It doesn't take Anabel long to realize that the "construction" isn't what it appears to be. As she approaches the nearest piece of heavy equipment – a backhoe – she peers into a mirror and spots a submachine gun stashed out of direct sight. Nobody sees her notice this, but the laborers move quickly to tell her to turn around and leave the area. In her brief exchange with them, she hears a lot of SoCal accents but no Mexican ones. Feigning frustration, she returns to her car and drives off.
When Paul and Wen see Anabel pull back onto the highway, they resume shadowing her. As far as they can tell, she isn't being tailed. They reach the motel without incident. There, Anabel burns one of her cell phones to report in to Jili. Jili relays the information to Wen and Paul via secure phone.
That night, Anabel buys a flashlight and drives back toward the rendezvous. Figuring that a tail would only endanger her, her associates let her go alone. Just before Anabel reaches the construction site, she pulls out her AKM and sets it on the seat next to her. She isn't surprised to find the heavy equipment abandoned, or a convenient lane through the middle of the roadwork. She pushes on and reaches the final turnoff.
A short distance up the dark road, Anabel's car stalls. When she can't restart the engine, she immediately suspects a car-stopper. Then she notices that her vehicle is being engulfed in smoke. She grabs her rifle and gets out, moving quickly and keeping her head down. She can't see a thing, however.
An instant later, she encounters the people who've come to meet her. The meeting involves an electric stunner, a bag over the head from behind, handcuffs, and finally a stab in the arm. Anabel knows the effects of M201 all too well. She strains to hear something before she falls unconscious, but her assailants remain silent.
Anabel's consciousness returns abruptly. It seems that her abductors have the antidote to M201. The bag over her head is gone – as are her clothes – but not the cuffs. Taking stock of the situation, Anabel sees that she's shackled to a steel chair in a bare concrete room. The glare of a bright light prevents her from seeing what's in the corners, but she can hear whoever injected her with the antidote leaving the room, talking to someone else in what she identifies as the accent of an educated person from the American Northeast.
As soon as the door clangs shut, a distorted voice addresses Anabel over speakers in the room. The voice informs her that it would be in her best interest to tell the truth. To emphasize this point, a masked man in body armor steps into sight, pointing a shotgun at Anabel's head. Anabel decides to lead with her prepared story: she knows the location of a Russian nuke, she was going to sell it to a group she assumes is somehow associated with the people currently holding her, and would be happy to make the deal.
There's a pause, and then the voice asks Anabel why she thinks her offer would be of interest here. Anabel replies with, "Would you rather that terrorists get hold of it?" After another pause, the voice asks Anabel how to reach her people about the nuke. Anabel tells a convincing lie. A third pause is followed by, "We represent freedom, and we find your proposal interesting. You will be our guest for a while."
With that, the guard with the shotgun approaches, unshackles Anabel, and leads her to the corner. Behind her, she hears dragging and creaking noises. Then the door clangs shut again and the light dims. When Anabel turns around, she sees that she's alone and that there's an uncomfortable-looking bunk attached to one wall and an exposed lavatory in the opposite corner. Her attempts to address the voice that interrogated her earlier are met with silence.
Eventually, an orange jumpsuit is pushed through a slot in the door. Anabel pulls it on, doing her best to make it look sexy. In the course of doing so, she surreptitiously confirms that her hidden tracking device survived whatever medical examination she received while unconscious. She paces her cell for a while, but cannot locate the sound system, much less the cameras she's certain are present. About all that happens in the next few hours is the arrival of a lukewarm meal ripped straight out of a military ration pack.
After what seems like several more hours, the distorted voice speaks again. It offers Anabel $10 million to hand over the nuke, no questions asked. Anabel dickers a bit for show, but ultimately agrees to the offer, which doesn't seem to be one she that could refuse anyway. The only concession she gets is an agreement to relocate her so that her former allies won't be able to track her down.
Moments after the deal (such as it is!) is sealed, the door opens. Three guards move into the room, two of them pointing carbines at Anabel while a third shackles her again and puts a bag on her head. She's escorted out at gunpoint, her jailers calling her "terrorist" a lot, muttering about "fighting for freedom," and doing their best to establish that they're in control. Anabel goes along peacefully.
A minute or so after leaving the cell, Anabel can make out the sound of a helicopter starting up in the distance, and the smell of outdoor air. She also hears someone talking on a mobile phone. Realizing that this is her chance to activate her cell beacon, she asks her escort to be given the chance to use a lavatory before departing on the chopper that's obviously revving up. The guards agree.
Despite being watched by what sounds like at least two guards, Anabel manages to extract and palm the tracking device from insider her. She activates it at once and stashes it in her jumpsuit, concealed between her buttocks. Her captors don't appear to notice – and given their conduct so far, she imagines that if they had, she's know about it. Then Anabel is led out of the room and shoved aboard a helicopter.
Late on Sunday, August 10, Jili alerts the others that she just picked up Anabel's signal! The transmission is coming from South Texas. Jili immediately pulls up a map and attempts to find satellite imagery of the region. Nobody is surprise when she finds out that there isn't any. Wherever Anabel is, People In High Places don't want the world to know about it . . .
Time: Monday, August 4, 2014 (afternoon).
Place: Near Mazatlán, Mexico.
Last Event: Awaiting a reply to a message.
Their message transmitted, all the Agents can do is wait. For Anabel, this means a cheap motel room and cheaper tequila – to keep up appearances, of course! Paul and Wen check in at the same place, posing as a dirty old man and an altogether-too-young girl seeking an anonymous encounter. The creepy couple keep an eye on Anabel from a safe distance.
The rest of the group stays with the team's rolling base. A truck graveyard provides a convenient hiding spot for the big rig. Jili sets up surveillance cameras while Qoqa camouflages the vehicle. The two of them, Klas, and Lev take shifts keeping watch and resting in the sleeper cab.
These arrangements prove more than adequate for avoiding trouble while the Agents await a response to their transmission. This arrives on Thursday, August 7, in the form of compressed data rather than voice. It's on the correct frequency – and also encrypted. Fortunately, Jili knows the cipher: it was formerly used by NATO forces, suggesting that the people on the other end are using surplus military crypto-tech.
A combination of knowledge of the cipher and the excellent gear in the truck lets Jili decrypt to message by late that night. It isn't much to go on: a time (23:00 tomorrow) and a set of GPS coordinates for an isolated locale south of Mazatlán. The whole setup looks incredibly dangerous, but at least the team has a potential contact. Jili calls Wen via secure phone, relays the message, and adds, "Make sure Anabel gets there." Wen writes down everything on a greasy food wrapper, slips outside, and stealthily slides the note under Anabel's door.
On Friday morning, Anabel decides to check out the rendezvous spot by daylight. Her theory is that if the people she'll be meeting believe she's a local criminal, they should expect her not to trust a risky meeting without scouting the site. Paul and Wen follow Anabel as far as the nearest major road, and then cruise the area near the turnoff. Anabel soon discovers that the last stretch of secondary highway before her destination is blocked by construction. She pulls up to talk to the workers.
It doesn't take Anabel long to realize that the "construction" isn't what it appears to be. As she approaches the nearest piece of heavy equipment – a backhoe – she peers into a mirror and spots a submachine gun stashed out of direct sight. Nobody sees her notice this, but the laborers move quickly to tell her to turn around and leave the area. In her brief exchange with them, she hears a lot of SoCal accents but no Mexican ones. Feigning frustration, she returns to her car and drives off.
When Paul and Wen see Anabel pull back onto the highway, they resume shadowing her. As far as they can tell, she isn't being tailed. They reach the motel without incident. There, Anabel burns one of her cell phones to report in to Jili. Jili relays the information to Wen and Paul via secure phone.
That night, Anabel buys a flashlight and drives back toward the rendezvous. Figuring that a tail would only endanger her, her associates let her go alone. Just before Anabel reaches the construction site, she pulls out her AKM and sets it on the seat next to her. She isn't surprised to find the heavy equipment abandoned, or a convenient lane through the middle of the roadwork. She pushes on and reaches the final turnoff.
A short distance up the dark road, Anabel's car stalls. When she can't restart the engine, she immediately suspects a car-stopper. Then she notices that her vehicle is being engulfed in smoke. She grabs her rifle and gets out, moving quickly and keeping her head down. She can't see a thing, however.
An instant later, she encounters the people who've come to meet her. The meeting involves an electric stunner, a bag over the head from behind, handcuffs, and finally a stab in the arm. Anabel knows the effects of M201 all too well. She strains to hear something before she falls unconscious, but her assailants remain silent.
Anabel's consciousness returns abruptly. It seems that her abductors have the antidote to M201. The bag over her head is gone – as are her clothes – but not the cuffs. Taking stock of the situation, Anabel sees that she's shackled to a steel chair in a bare concrete room. The glare of a bright light prevents her from seeing what's in the corners, but she can hear whoever injected her with the antidote leaving the room, talking to someone else in what she identifies as the accent of an educated person from the American Northeast.
As soon as the door clangs shut, a distorted voice addresses Anabel over speakers in the room. The voice informs her that it would be in her best interest to tell the truth. To emphasize this point, a masked man in body armor steps into sight, pointing a shotgun at Anabel's head. Anabel decides to lead with her prepared story: she knows the location of a Russian nuke, she was going to sell it to a group she assumes is somehow associated with the people currently holding her, and would be happy to make the deal.
There's a pause, and then the voice asks Anabel why she thinks her offer would be of interest here. Anabel replies with, "Would you rather that terrorists get hold of it?" After another pause, the voice asks Anabel how to reach her people about the nuke. Anabel tells a convincing lie. A third pause is followed by, "We represent freedom, and we find your proposal interesting. You will be our guest for a while."
With that, the guard with the shotgun approaches, unshackles Anabel, and leads her to the corner. Behind her, she hears dragging and creaking noises. Then the door clangs shut again and the light dims. When Anabel turns around, she sees that she's alone and that there's an uncomfortable-looking bunk attached to one wall and an exposed lavatory in the opposite corner. Her attempts to address the voice that interrogated her earlier are met with silence.
Eventually, an orange jumpsuit is pushed through a slot in the door. Anabel pulls it on, doing her best to make it look sexy. In the course of doing so, she surreptitiously confirms that her hidden tracking device survived whatever medical examination she received while unconscious. She paces her cell for a while, but cannot locate the sound system, much less the cameras she's certain are present. About all that happens in the next few hours is the arrival of a lukewarm meal ripped straight out of a military ration pack.
After what seems like several more hours, the distorted voice speaks again. It offers Anabel $10 million to hand over the nuke, no questions asked. Anabel dickers a bit for show, but ultimately agrees to the offer, which doesn't seem to be one she that could refuse anyway. The only concession she gets is an agreement to relocate her so that her former allies won't be able to track her down.
Moments after the deal (such as it is!) is sealed, the door opens. Three guards move into the room, two of them pointing carbines at Anabel while a third shackles her again and puts a bag on her head. She's escorted out at gunpoint, her jailers calling her "terrorist" a lot, muttering about "fighting for freedom," and doing their best to establish that they're in control. Anabel goes along peacefully.
A minute or so after leaving the cell, Anabel can make out the sound of a helicopter starting up in the distance, and the smell of outdoor air. She also hears someone talking on a mobile phone. Realizing that this is her chance to activate her cell beacon, she asks her escort to be given the chance to use a lavatory before departing on the chopper that's obviously revving up. The guards agree.
Despite being watched by what sounds like at least two guards, Anabel manages to extract and palm the tracking device from insider her. She activates it at once and stashes it in her jumpsuit, concealed between her buttocks. Her captors don't appear to notice – and given their conduct so far, she imagines that if they had, she's know about it. Then Anabel is led out of the room and shoved aboard a helicopter.
Late on Sunday, August 10, Jili alerts the others that she just picked up Anabel's signal! The transmission is coming from South Texas. Jili immediately pulls up a map and attempts to find satellite imagery of the region. Nobody is surprise when she finds out that there isn't any. Wherever Anabel is, People In High Places don't want the world to know about it . . .