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The Company
Time: Wednesday, March 9, 2011 (afternoon).
Place: Darmstadt, Germany.
Last Event: Recovering!
The Agents gather to talk about their next operation: A move against a drug cartel in Central or South America, or perhaps even a dictator? The possibilities are endless! Shortly after the meeting begins, however, Anabel's phone rings. It's Schreiber.
Schreiber informs Anabel that someone is asking for her at the front desk. He tells her to look at the security monitor, where she sees "V" of the FSB. When Anabel fills in the others, there's a lot of "Why?" and "How?" After a brief discussion, the Agents decide that they want to speak with V, and tell Schreiber. They request a room that's hardened against surveillance and wired for recording. When he says that he can manage one or the other, but not both at the same time, they choose the shielded room.
A short time later, Anabel – with Qoqa for backup – enters the shielded room where Schreiber has V waiting. Anabel tells V that the room is hardened but that she intends to record the conversation, and then sits a recorder on the table. V's opener is that she knows about the team's ordeal in Canada. Strangely, she also seems to recognize Qoqa.
With the pleasantries out of the way, V states that the Agents' extraction from Canada was hardly subtle, and that every intelligence service that matters – and several that don't – has officers watching Darmatech. The CIA has the largest presence, meaning that it would be unwise for the Agents to leave the campus. However, V has a proposal . . .
V declares outright that she knows that Anabel speaks for a team of freelancers. She reminds Anabel of the arming device that the Agents recovered from Grandfather's island off Greece, and thanks her for that. She goes on to explain that the nuclear weapon that goes with the device is at large. She says that her bureau fears that it's headed from Afghanistan to the U.S.A. via Mexico – probably with a replica of the arming box.
As V puts it, a lot of Russian property has gone missing in Afghanistan over the years. Russian gangsters, like Grandfather, can be blamed for much of that. However, different gangs are engaged in narcotics production in Afghanistan, and some have ties to organizations bringing drugs into the U.S.A. from Mexico. It seems that somebody who has contacts on all sides of the situation is using them to get the bomb and replica arming box together and smuggle them into the U.S.A.
It doesn't take much imagination to guess who would like to nuke the U.S.A., but V hasn't come to hire mercenaries for that battle. Her concern is that of saving American lives . . . and avoiding a terrorist blast that bears a Russian isotope fingerprint. What she's offering is a freelance assignment on Russia's behalf. She wants the Agents to find the bomb, seize it from the dangerous people who presently control it, and return it to Russian hands.
V tells Anabel and Qoqa that her people can provide significant clandestine backing. They can supply hardware – electronics, optics, weapons, and whatever else the group needs. More important, they can offer serious intelligence assets, including the fruits of Russian HUMINT and ELINT, satellite surveillance, and even flyovers (likely out of Cuba) once the team is in Mexico. This operation is the big time, not a sideshow.
The obvious question is "Why not use your own people?", and Anabel asks it. V explains that in her world, "our people" and "their people" are rarely citizens. In plain language, Russian spies are agents handled by Russian personnel but are rarely Russians – much as few American spies are Americans. Her bureau can't risk having a failure laid at its feet in a situation like this, so it requires distance. A clandestine operation is the first line of defense, with less-deniable interventions (like Spetsnaz raids) as backup plans.
The other major issue is that of compensation, and Anabel brings that up, too. V offers cash, of course, because she believes the Agents to be mercenaries. However, she's aware of their difficulties with the CIA and can offer something more: If the group succeeds, she's willing to pull in high-level favors to get the CIA off their back! Anabel tells V that she'll need to discuss the proposal with her associates, and requests that V wait here while she does. V agrees, but reminds Anabel that the clock is ticking.
Anabel and Qoqa rejoin the others – including Chaturvedi and Schreiber – down the hall, and play back the recording of the discussion with V. Anabel explains that as far as she could tell, V was telling the truth. Qoqa concurs with Anabel on that point, but adds that when dealing with a professional spy, "the truth" is subjective. Schreiber mumbles something snarky about the truth being overrated anyway.
Chaturvedi and Schreiber, speaking for the Company, are fine with the idea of "going Russian" for an operation. Saving lives threatened by clandestine or criminal activity is what the Company exists to do, and this mission has that as its goal. Chaturvedi is certain that Staedert would approve. Schreiber agrees but warns that he knows the Russians well and is positive that they're hiring mercenaries for expendability and deniability. He says that V might not be lying about being willing to warn off the CIA, but it's likely that she doesn't expect ever to have to do that, as the team's odds of survival are lousy. Given the stakes, however, nobody has a problem with that.
The entire group parades back into the shielded room to tell V their decision. They explain that they know the risks and are willing to accept the job, but that she'll need to spirit them out of the Darmatech facility unseen, get them into position, and provide equipment and intelligence as soon as they're in place. V says that getting the team from Germany to Mexico should be trivial, and that she can arm and equip them on arrival. However, she cannot provide much intelligence until the weapon makes landfall again.
Questioned on this last point, V explains that the FSB is hiring freelancers to cast the net wider because the trail ended in Afghanistan and her people have no idea what route the bomb is taking to Mexico. They know the end destination through HUMINT assets, and must bide their time. Right now, the weapon is shielded and undetectable, and no better localized than "en route from Afghanistan to Mexico." It could be trucking across Africa to some Atlantic port, taking a ship across the Indian Ocean and into the Pacific, flying, or any of 100 other things.
This raises the issue of detecting the weapon once it's being moved on land, and of dealing with it in general. V assures the group that she has access to "technical means" capable of locating the bomb and that she can provide the team with portable sensors that serve the same purpose. She can supply manuals on disarming it, and even a black-box de-arming device, if desired. For now, though, all she can say is that the nuke is a reduced-blast/enhanced-radiation design, the size of a large suitcase and barely man-portable, with a distinctive radiation signature that's the primary means of tracking it.
The eventual deal that the Agents cut with V is that the FSB will smuggle them out from under the collective nose of the spies watching Darmatech; get them into Mexico undetected; equip them with armor, electronics, optics, tools, and weapons when they arrive; supply all hardware needed to locate and disarm the bomb; share whatever they know of the thing's location as soon as they know it; and extract them and the device if they request it. Afterward, V will remunerate them and do whatever it takes to settle things with the CIA. If V can agree to all that, then she has a team to go after the bomb.
V agrees to everything, and as far as Anabel and Qoqa can tell, she really means it. She reiterates that success is necessary for her to pull in the favors needed to deal with the CIA. She also restates that she cannot provide much intelligence before the bomb surfaces, which depends on real-time HUMINT coming out of Mexico, by and large. Finally, she makes clear that there will be no briefing on the background story or politics – the Agents should think of this operation as a purely tactical matter and leave the rest to Russia. (Although V adds that she couldn't share this information if she wanted to, because she's mostly in the dark, too!)
With that, V stands to leave. She tells the group to be ready to move in 24 hours, and to pack light. Then she walks straight out the front door. It's clear that people are watching, but nobody makes a move – not on the property of a legitimate corporation in broad daylight. The presence of scary FSB men in the area no doubt helps.
Once V is gone, Chaturvedi admits that he's nervous about the FSB simply walking in the Company's front door and asking for assistance. On the other hand, he recognizes that the team has been building a relationship with V's people – and also that V may feel she can trust them after they turned over the arming box found in Greece without asking for favors in return. He reluctantly acknowledges that the mission is worthy if it's legitimate. And since he has no way to confirm the authenticity of anything V said, he heads upstairs to tell Staedert that he's willing to take the gamble.
The Agents get ready to leave everything behind and travel to Mexico. They pack light, get a good meal under their belt, and hit the hay early. They can only assume that Staedert approved of what Chaturvedi told her, since there's no follow-up on that.
At dawn on March 10, the Agents are awakened by Schreiber pounding on doors. He has Zhang in tow. Zhang explains that he was exercising in the gym when Schreiber came running up, shouting something about it being time to leave. Eventually, everybody is awake (more or less). Schreiber herds them down to the corporate cafeteria, where a bunch of laborers are working on the place's big wall of vending machines.
It soon becomes evident, through accents and code words, that the "laborers" are V's people dressed in the uniforms of a local company that stocks and maintains vending machines. They outline an elaborate plan: They've wheeled in a dozen vending machines to replace the ones in the cafeteria, but in reality intend to leave the existing machines in place. The replacements are dummies with hollow compartments inside, each large enough to hold someone sitting down – even a person of Klas' size. They intend to shut people inside, move a few stickers around, and roll them out the service entrance.
It's a nutty plan, but Vinnie and Qoqa agree that it could work – people have been smuggled in stranger ways! The group agrees to go along with the arrangement. The FSB men seem to know what they're doing, and soon have everybody hidden inside vending machines. After that, it's a matter of faith . . .
From what the Agents can tell from inside machines intended for candy, coffee, and sandwiches, they're rolled out the service entrance on carts and then loaded aboard a vehicle. After that, there's the sound of tires on asphalt for a short time, followed by a stop and the tell-tale beeping of a truck's reverse signal. There's some thrashing around as the machines are loaded onto another vehicle, and then after a wait, there's movement again – this time along train tracks. Fortunately, nobody is claustrophobic!
When the Agents next see the sky again, the chap who lets them out tells them that they're in Kiel. They're led to a dingy warehouse, where they see several armed men walking around and a car with a corpse slumped over the wheel. No explanation is given for any of this. The people in the warehouse simply verify that they're V's team, offer the group a smoke and a bite to eat, and inform everyone that the next step is a boat ride to Norway, from where they'll be flown to their final destination.
The team's cover story for the boat ride is that they're a low-rent tour group from the Middle East. A man called Tariq is to be their "tour guide," and everyone will wear burqas – even big ol' Klas. Tariq assures the Agents that the boat's operator won't be looking closely and is in fact on the FSB's payroll. The burqas aren't meant to be believable, only to hide faces from anybody keeping an eye on things through a lens.
Eventually, the Agents board a rundown passenger vessel, where they receive nasty steerage accommodations. There are rats, bugs, and unpleasant smells, and most things just don't work. However, it's private and out of sight. Qoqa occupies her time cleaning the team's quarters, while Anabel does her best not to touch anything. Tariq shows up periodically to hand off a bite to eat, but otherwise, nobody so much as looks in on the group.
It's nighttime on March 11 when the Agents are finally in the Oslo area. After a short jaunt by road, they reach a hotel downtown. There, Tariq has clothing and toiletries ready for everyone. He tells them to clean up and get some rest, as their flight leaves early in the morning and they'll have to be ready to pass as tourists going to Mexico on vacation.
The morning of March 12, Tariq points the Agents to a small bus parked out front. He says that he's ducking out and that everything they need is aboard the vehicle. Wen searches the interior and finds only a small satchel. This contains forged passports and other ID (in Wen's professional opinion, these are the best fakes she has ever seen), a cell phone, and a folded note with nothing but a street address in Mexico City written on it. Wen distributes the documents, pockets the note, and gives Anabel the phone.
Then Vinnie takes the wheel and drives to the airport. Leaving the bus parked outside for the FSB cleaners to find, the Agents stroll into the terminal. Their false passports scan flawlessly at the self-service machines in the departures area, and soon everybody has a boarding pass for a plane to Mexico. Given the looks of the other people in the gate area, it's clear that this is a tourist flight. Since there's time to kill, the Agents decide to try out the credit cards that V provided as part of their ID package, picking up some clothing better suited to Mexico than Norway.
The flight to Mexico City is uneventful, and touches down early in the afternoon local time. The Agents' first order of business is to procure ground transportation. They decide to rent three cars: Paul will drive one, with Jili and Klas as passengers; Vinnie will chauffeur Anabel, Lev, and Qoqa; and Zhang will take the wheel of the third, with Hamid and Wen aboard. With this arranged, the team heads for the address on the little slip of paper that Wen found.
The team's destination proves to be a one-storey building in a rundown commercial area, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with many others like it. The unusually sturdy door is locked, while the two small windows are barred and shuttered. A few locals lounging nearby look over the Agents, decide that they're businesspeople (perhaps criminal ones, but still), and shout that the place has been abandoned for months. And indeed, there's no answer at the door. A quick trip around back reveals another solid, locked door that nobody answers.
At this stage, Anabel tries the cell phone Wen found in the satchel aboard the bus in Oslo. When she dials the only number in its directory, Zhang hears and sees the front door of the building pop open. Zhang steals inside carefully, ready for trouble, but sees only a small, one-room shop with an attached washroom, the whole place looking empty and abandoned. However, there is a 2×2×2 stack of heavy footlockers in the center of the floor, each held shut by a lock.
Meanwhile, Anabel takes a closer look at the cell phone and the lock on the door. It seems that the lock was triggered by the phone; in effect, the telephone was rigged as a remote door opener. This suggests that it might be the key to the whole place, which gets Anabel prying at it, looking for hidden buttons and compartments. In the course of doing so, she turns up a small-but-expensive-looking key, like the sort that goes with solid, expensive padlocks. She tosses it to Zhang.
Zhang tries they key on the locks on the footlockers. To nobody's surprise, it works. The Agents lug the eight heavy crates the edges of the room; each weighs the better part of 200 kg and needs two people to shift it. On opening the crates, it's apparent that V has lived up to another part of her promise. Inside are firearms, ammo, hand grenades, RPGs, and a bewildering array of electronics, optics, and tools.