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The Company
Time: Saturday, January 29, 2011 (night).
Place: Edmonton, Alberta.
Last Event: Hiding out at a cheap motel.
While waiting for an update from Darmstadt on extraction plans, the Company personnel in Edmonton stay out of sight, resting and following the news on the "training accident" outside Irricana. They also discuss how the assassins found them. Forensic evidence (blood, prints, etc.) and traffic cameras spotting the old school bus are offered as possibilities, but consensus places the ultimate blame on Alfred's shopping habits. Buying crates of MREs, ammunition by the case, gray-market firearms, black-market explosives, etc. tends to garner police attention . . . and the CIA almost certainly has access to Canadian law-enforcement intelligence.
Still, because the bus isn't exactly subtle and might attract the wrong kind of attention, Paul goes out late on Saturday night to move it away from the motel. He does his best to park it out of sight of thieves and police alike, choosing a spot under overhead cover a 20-minute walk away. He hugs the shadows on the way back, just to be sure.
Sunday passes uneventfully, with Ben caring for Jili, Klas, and Lev while Paul keeps an eye on the window and Chaturvedi watches the laptop for news from Germany. Monday looks to be going the same way when e-mail arrives on one of the team's many one-off accounts: "ETA +5:00. Be ready to move. S." Attempts to reach Anabel about this get responses from "S." People do prepare to move, but they decide to be cautious about it, just in case. Paul heads out at once to keep an eye on the bus.
Toward evening, new e-mail arrives on yet another throwaway account, again from "S." It's nothing but a telephone number, which Chaturvedi says is German and probably for a cell phone. Since all of this seems rather mysterious, the group decides not to call in until everybody is aboard the bus. Paul then drives to a payphone, where Chaturvedi whips out a calling card and punches in the number. A man with an East German accent answers, says, "Ambulance pickup in 15 minutes. Be at your motel. Look sick. Code is 'Red Llama,'" and then hangs up.
Paul drives back to the motel, where he, Ben, and Chaturvedi help their wounded colleagues into one of the team's three rooms. Despite their injuries, Klas and Lev dig out and load their rifles. Indeed, everybody but Jili is armed and expecting trouble. For now, though, there's little else to do but wait.
About 15 minutes after the phone call, two ambulances – lights and sirens off – pull up outside. A moment later, there's a knock at the door. With Klas and Lev covering him with rifles, and Ben and Chaturvedi doing the same with pistols, Paul goes to the door, his own handgun hidden behind his back. There, he's greeted by a man who identifies himself as "Schreiber" and who's accompanied by four muscular "orderlies." Paul admits Schreiber and tells the burly gents to wait outside, which they do.
Schreiber explains that he's here to get people to Darmstadt. He proves able to identify the crew by name on sight. With Paul's permission, he starts digging things out of his satchel: forged identity cards and passports for everyone; bogus medical charts for the wounded, showing them to be ill with terminal cancer; and fake medical credentials, a white coat, and a stethoscope for Ben. He also has props to help make the wounded look sicker, including razors for shaving heads, body paint in unhealthy colors, and concealable emetic capsules ("just in case"). He even asks Chaturvedi to remove his prosthetic leg and be ready to lie about losing a leg to cancer.
When everyone is satisfied that Schreiber is who he claims to be, Paul admits the other four men. As they load the wounded into the ambulances on stretchers, Schreiber outlines his plan: On paper, the injured Agents are cancer patients being flown to Germany for experimental treatment. All the falsified documents support this. As long as everybody plays along, remembers his or her cover identity, and lets Schreiber do the talking, things should be fine. Ben is the only one who might have to speak; he should review the fake charts so that he can deliver believable medical gobbledygook as needed.
Once the ambulances are loaded and the guns are hidden aboard the bus, which is to be abandoned in the motel parking lot, it's time to head to the airport. The first test of Schreiber's plan occurs at the gate to the airfield, where Canadian security personnel search the vehicles for contraband and check everybody's ID. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, they admit the ambulances onto the tarmac so that they can ferry the "patients" to their plane. This proves to be a medium-sized private jet of the same model as the one the Agents took from London to Canberra.
When everyone is aboard the plane, there's a wait of about 30 minutes for Canadian medical officials. Eventually, some inspectors arrive, check IDs and medical charts, and have Ben fill out a stack of forms. These officials, too, seem satisfied with Schreiber's forgeries and everyone's acting. Around an hour later, the plane is cleared for takeoff.
—
The plane arrives in Darmstadt at 14:00 local time on Tuesday, February 1. Admission to Germany is trivial – Darmatech is clearly a good corporate citizen, with all that implies for smoothing over bureaucracy. By late afternoon, the group from Canada is reunited with the Agents recovering from cosmetic surgery at the clinical wing of Darmatech's research center. Anabel, Wen, and Zhang are up and about, and constitute the primary welcoming committee; Qoqa is lurking there as well, wearing dark glasses and making everybody nervous. With the travelers tired and sorely wounded, discussion is put off until the next day.
On Wednesday, those who haven't yet met Staedert are introduced to her. She and Chaturvedi then disappear for closed-doors meetings. Meanwhile the Agents share notes on recent events. Most everyone agrees that if you have to spend days in bandages, it's better to do so for elective surgery than for gunshot wounds!
Toward evening, Chaturvedi rejoins the Agents to brief them on the Company business that he and Staedert discussed. The first item he shares is that Staedert has ordered him to leave the field and return to being a handler. Apparently, she chewed him out for putting himself in harm's way and retaining Alfred as his driver and bodyguard without Company clearance, claiming that those actions might even have triggered the fatal shootout in Alberta. He adds that Staedert instructed him to take one of the cleared Agents as his new assistant. After some discussion, the group chooses Ben: physically imposing, drives well, shoots adequately, and could probably save Chaturvedi's life, need be.
The second agenda item is team size and identity. Chaturvedi says that Staedert and her peers have revisited their decision to assign teams of four to six Agents to operations. After reviewing Röttwalkyr and Sharkmeat's work to date, and sizing up the resources that the CIA and criminal organizations threw in their path, the higher-ups have concluded that something closer to 10 operators would be wise. In this case, that means Anabel, Hamid, Jili, Klas, Lev, Paul, Qoqa, Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang. The Agents are welcome to split up into smaller, mutually supporting teams as needed, but the Company believes that the ability to operate in strength and unmolested offsets the difficulty of concealing a large group.
Not that a large group doesn't need a cover story, which is the next order of business. The Company wants to relaunch the stronger, reorganized team with a better background story to go along with the new faces and identities. Chaturvedi explains that the Company backers are looking to those in the field for suggestions as to what would work. After some brainstorming, the Agents come up with something that just might fly: a team of corporate troubleshooters – accountants, administrators, computer security consultants, efficiency experts, motivational speakers, etc. – sent around the world to help businesses with their problems. Chaturvedi thinks that would go over well with his bosses, and takes detailed notes.
The final issue on the table is that of returning to work. Chaturvedi passes along that Staedert has decreed that until everybody has a new face and has recovered from that and being shot, the Company doesn't want anybody so much as stepping outside the doors of the Darmatech clinic. Staedert is willing to pay for tutors, counseling, entertainment, and whatever else it takes to keep people sane, but not to compromise the team relaunch by letting the Agents wander around before all 10 are in good shape and their new cover story is rolled out. Chaturvedi adds that Staedert suggested that the group use their time to dream up an operation against a wealthy bad guy – say, a corrupt dictator or a drug lord – whose assets could be confiscated to offset recent expenses.
After consulting with Darmatech's physicians, the conclusion is that with intensive rehabilitation, even the most sorely wounded Agents could return to the field with their new faces in about five weeks. With that break agreed upon, everybody makes good use of this time:
• Given that many of the world's drug lords and dictators dwell in Spanish-speaking parts, Hamid, Klas, Lev, Paul, Qoqa, Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang all strive to learn a little Spanish.
• Anabel, fluent in Spanish, catches up on world news and political developments.
• In light of recent events in Canada, Qoqa teaches first aid to anybody who cares to learn. Jili and Paul show the most interest, although even Chaturvedi sits in on some lessons.
• Jili mostly focuses on her recovery, throwing herself into physiotherapy and trying out Darmatech's new therapeutic technologies. Once Qoqa's eyes are up to the task, she takes over as Jili's personal physician.
• Ben, Chaturvedi, Jili, Klas, Lev, and Paul all get new faces, courtesy of Darmatech. Klas has his naturally rugged good looks enhanced, while Ben, Lev, and Paul go for variations on the theme of generic, nonthreatening appearance, tailored to their specific areas (respectively, "being Chaturvedi's assistant," "not looking like a thug," and "tailing people").
• Ben gets tips on how to be a bodyguard from everybody who has an opinion on the matter.
Everybody is careful to watch diet and sleep, doing his or her best to recover quickly and fully. This goes well, and people stay busy enough not to go nuts – sometimes very busy, if the rumors about Lev and Qoqa are to be believed! Come the afternoon of Wednesday, March 9, everyone has a clean bill of health from the Darmatech medical staff. Even Jili looks strong and ready to go.