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The Company
Time: Wednesday, July 7, 2010 (dawn).
Place: Shores of Kent, U.K.
Last Event: Barely defeating a second abduction squad.
Qoqa is the only one standing after the team's particularly close and brutal brawl with three more would-be abductors in a coastal village somewhere in Kent (she didn't even catch the place's name). Jili, Paul, and Wen are present but useless, having been zapped by stun guns and TASERs. Vinnie is on the ground nearby, completely unconscious. Anabel is simply missing. Nearby is parked yet another black SUV, identical to the two driven by the men who came for the Agents during the night.
As Qoqa assesses the situation, she hears the crackle of a radio inside the SUV, and then notices the vehicle rock a little, as if somebody were moving around inside. She snatches a stun gun from the ground and stalks over to the open rear gate. Peering in stealthily, she sees a fourth man holding a pistol to Anabel's head as he speaks into a handset, frantically requesting backup. Anabel appears to be unconscious . . . and turning blue. Qoqa looks down at Vinnie and sees that he, too, is cyanotic, and has evidence of a needle-prick on his neck.
Realizing that Anabel and Vinnie have been injected – and possibly overdosed – with some sort of dangerous chemical, Qoqa knows that she needs to neutralize the remaining abductor swiftly. That's the only way she'll be able to treat her allies before they suffer brain damage or death. She steels herself and then lunges from concealment, hurling herself through the open gate. Before the man with the gun can react, he's stunned and disarmed. Qoqa grabs not just his gun but also his radio, over which she hears a voice: "We're 30 seconds out."
Looking back out in the street, Qoqa sees Wen, Paul, and Jili getting up slowly. She hauls them to their feet as she sums up the situation. Wen confirms Qoqa's concerns about enemy backup, stating that she hears another vehicle approaching at high speed. It's time to move!
The group hastily loads Vinnie into the SUV next to Anabel. Then Jili, Qoqa, and Wen jump in the back, while Paul slides into the driver's seat. As soon as all the doors are shut, Paul starts the engine and heads toward the highway at high speed. The other SUV, the four unconscious men, and the goons' dropped weapons are left in the street – there's simply no time for cleaning or interrogation. However, Jili confirms that she has the hard drives she took from the attackers' laptops.
In the back of the SUV, Qoqa looks for clues as to what happened to Anabel and Vinnie. She deduces much from the contents of a small aluminum carrying case standing open nearby: several ruggedized injectors; an empty slot that suggests that an injector is missing; numerous vials of liquid; and English instructions that bear the title "Rapid Incapacitation System, Human, M201." Reading the latter, Qoqa learns that her allies were injected with a powerful and not-very-safe experimental drug that isn't identified by name. There are no clues as to the manufacturer or country of origin, either. Fortunately, though, some of the vials apparently contain a specific antidote.
Qoqa knows that injections that can drop somebody in seconds without being more-or-less lethal in the short term only exist in the movies. Her guess is either an overdose of paralytics, which would have the side effect of respiratory paralysis, or some terribly unsafe opioid like etorphine, which would severely depress breathing. Either would explain cyanosis. The instructions don't enlighten her, but do explain how to mix the binary antidote and inject it into the heart with a long needle. It seems that she has no choice.
Of course, with Paul driving evasively, mixing precise quantities of a drug and injecting people in the heart is easier said than done. Fortunately, Qoqa is cool-headed and has steady hands – she prepares an injection for Vinnie, aims carefully, and stabs him in the center of the chest. Vinnie's eyes open instantly, and he draws a deep, sharp breath. With Paul now shouting something about another SUV having pulled into sight behind him, Qoqa treats Anabel, who also comes to almost at once. Neither patient is in any state to talk. Once Qoqa is done with it, Wen photographs the "M201" kit and then bags it safely for later examination.
With Vinnie and Anabel out of the woods, the group's priority becomes fleeing the pursuing SUV. As Paul drives and Qoqa monitors her patients, Wen calls up maps on her phone and Jili squirms forward to mess with laptop anchored to the dash. Unfortunately, Wen discovers that there's no way out of the area but the highway Paul is following, while Jili can't hack a computer in mere seconds to learn anything useful about the pursuers. Paul floors it, but his shadow is riding higher and faster; he warns that things might get very close and very ugly very shortly. Jili, Qoqa, and Wen cock their pistols . . .
Suddenly, Wen's Company phone bleeps. It's Chaturvedi, shouting, "Keep left!" Wen tells Paul, who dutifully steers the SUV to hug the shoulder. When the vehicle rounds the next bend, everybody sees a large transport truck coming the other way at high speed. As it passes just to the right, the Agents notice that the driver is wearing a crash helmet and is strapped into a harness. An instant later, the truck crosses into the wrong lane just behind the team's vehicle and crunches into the pursuing one!
The collision is loud and horrible. The pursuing SUV is flattened. Qoqa thinks she sees somebody's head go airborne. The transport truck comes off far, far better, and rolls to a controlled stop after steamrollering its prey. Paul pulls over and the Agents jump out.
While the Agents look on, the driver of the transport truck – clad in a crash helmet, mask, body armor, and elbow- and knee-protectors over a mechanic's coverall – climbs out of his vehicle, walks to the end of the trailer, and opens the rear gate. A ramp drops down, and then an ordinary passenger van drives out and slowly approaches the group. After that, the masked man tosses a couple of grenades into the wrecked SUV, and a few more into his own truck. As the mysterious assassin turns and strolls up the road behind the van, the grenades ignite and turn the wreckage behind him into an inferno.
The Agents relax when the van stops and Chaturvedi himself hobbles out. He explains that the other man is "Alfred" or just "Alfie," and that this was the best rescue he could arrange on short notice. When Alfred arrives on foot a minute later, he introduces himself and tells Vinnie he's a fan of his work. As he leans over Vinnie, speaking, Anabel catches a Latvian accent.
Chaturvedi explains that the van is an ordinary, "clean" van, and won't stand out. He asks the Agents to get in, and instructs them to toss anything that might conceivably bear a tracking device – like the hard drives that Jili snatched and the "M201" system that Wen bagged – into the shielded box in the back. As Alfred helps Vinnie out of the SUV, he hands Vinnie two incendiary grenades and says something about respecting Vinnie's right to torch his own ride. Vinnie gets the message, and sets the SUV ablaze.
With both SUVs and the transport truck burning merrily, and doubtless attracting attention by now, Alfred pulls away. Chaturvedi is seated up front as well, while the other six keep their heads down in the back. Alfred – who, without his mask on, proves to be extremely scarred – explains that his hope is that the wreckage will be burned beyond easy forensic identification before the authorities reach it. Then he falls silent and drives.
During the drive, Chaturvedi explains that he knew the squad needed backup, so he grabbed Alfred and put together this hasty extraction plan. As he tracked the group's movements via phone, he realized that perhaps it was the Company phones themselves that were drawing unwelcome attention – while their transmissions are encrypted, enemies with major SIGINT resources could possibly use them as tracking beacons. This explains the shielded box, and Chaturvedi asks the Agents to toss their phones in there as well. He adds that he has issued a Company-wide warning about this, and that there are people working on replacement phones. Jili comments that she has a list of specs, and might be able to help with that.
Chaturvedi goes on to explain that he and Alfred will bring the group to a London safe house, where they can spend the day, and that he has arranged a flight out tonight – to be discussed later. Then he introduces himself to Paul and welcomes him to the Company. He points back down the highway and explains to Paul that the story will be that he died in a flaming wreck. Paul is rather taken aback by the whole thing, and has a number of questions about the Company's motives and methods. It seems that Chaturvedi's answers are to his liking, because his eventual conclusion is "Sign me up!"
Alfred takes a circuitous route that reaches London around noon, and eventually pulls up in front of an unremarkable-looking place in a working-class residential area. The safe house is hardly luxurious, but it has food, medical supplies, and cots. Everybody washes up, changes clothes, and gets something to eat. Qoqa checks up each team member, starting with Vinnie and Anabel. Nobody is severely hurt, and most of the bruises and scrapes will heal quickly enough. Anabel and Vinnie mostly need rest, although Qoqa plans to monitor them carefully over the next few days.
By evening, everybody is rested and feeling much better. Even Vinnie and Anabel are up and about, and feel no worse off than if they had a terrible hangover. As the team breaks bread, they watch a TV report about a nasty flaming collision down in Kent, which is all over the news. The authorities are saying little, although it's hard to say whether that's SOP or something more sinister. Shortly after that, Alfred and Chaturvedi return from their errands.
As Alfred hands around business attire for everyone – conservative suits and skirts, and matching attaché cases and the like – Chaturvedi explains that the Agents (now officially including Paul) will ship out on a private business flight late tonight. This will get them to Canberra, Australia, with a refueling stop in India. He chose Australia on the basis of the Cephalopod being headed for Australia, and Canberra on the strength of that being the only corporate flight to Australia that the Company could swing. As usual, he has false papers to match, identifying the group as U.K. citizens.
Chaturvedi directs the group to "go with the flow" during their flight but to volunteer no information; suggests that they head to the airport by cab; and then bids them farewell and departs with Alfred. At Heathrow, the team's falsified IDs don't raise an eyebrow – in fact, the whole security check looks suspiciously lax and paid-off. Everyone is soon seated aboard a private jet that's otherwise filled with Germans on their way to some big meeting in Canberra. Through casual conversation, the Agents learn that they've been passed off as employees of the British office, traveling on separate business, and that the starring act in Canberra is a huge deal involving some sort of high-end biomedical equipment.
The plane touches down in Canberra the morning of July 9, local time. The Agents grab cabs to the business hotel where Chaturvedi has already made reservations. They use the afternoon to shop for personal items. Qoqa also makes sure to purchase some medical gear. After that, the team gathers to discuss options. The first order or business is to establish where to go meet the Cephalopod, and what to do with the yacht after that.
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