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The Company
Time: Thursday, March 17, 2011 (00:00).
Place: Mazatlán, Mexico.
Last Event: Leaving the cartel warehouse at high speed!
Zhang drives the lead car, with Klas riding shotgun (or in this case, rifle) and keeping an eye out ahead. The cube van follows, with Vinnie at the wheel and Hamid in the passenger seat; the recovered nuclear weapon is stowed in the cargo compartment, along with the team's spare gear. Bracketing the van from behind is Qoqa in the second car, accompanied by Jili and Lev. Paul brings up the rear in the third car, with Anabel sitting up front with him and Wen glued to the back window, an RPG-7 ready nearby. Via radio, the Agents agree to drive north for at least an hour, taking great care to avoid the police.
There are no unexpected interruptions on the road. An hour after leaving the cartel warehouse, the Agents slow down and look for an isolated place to pull off the road, set up one of the satellite radios, and contact V about extraction. After a few minutes, Klas spots a suitable area. The convoy rolls to a stop behind some scrub beside the highway.
Jili hops out and gets to work on the comms equipment, with Anabel waiting nearby to put in the call. Klas, Lev, Wen, and Zhang arm up and stand sentry. Hamid, Paul, Qoqa, and Vinnie do their best to strap down the nuke more securely and build a "castle" of footlockers around it. Qoqa recalls that the lockers have heavy, X-ray-resistant liners for smuggling, which should absorb low-level radiation that could be used to track the bomb. If nothing else, this measure will conceal the glaringly obvious Russian military crate from casual inspection!
Jili establishes contact with V surprisingly quickly, whereupon Anabel takes over. Anabel confirms that the team has recovered the nuclear bomb and then follows with a quick situation report. V acknowledges this and orders Anabel to get her people to a set of coordinates on the Pacific coast in two hours' time. As that location is perhaps 40 minutes away, this leaves time to kill. Anabel asks V whether the team should open the case to verify its contents. V agrees that this is a sensible idea and adds that there's no special danger in doing so, but warns that the lock is military-grade while the case is intended to survive bombardment, so taking a look might not be easy without the key.
After signing off, Anabel brings her associates up to speed on the extraction plans and what V said about the nuke. Vinnie decides that since there's time, he should at least try to open the crate. While the others keep watch, he takes out his tools and gets to work on the lock, taking extra time and doing the best he can with what he has. Unfortunately, it isn't going to happen – in Vinnie's professional opinion, opening the box demands a few hours' work in a machine shop, and isn't something to do in the back of a truck with a pocket kit.
Around when Vinnie gives up in frustration – a little less than an hour after the Agents stopped to call in – Wen sees a vehicle approach from the direction of Mazatlán, switch off its headlights, and leave the road a short distance away. When she radios this sighting to the others, Lev and Zhang move up to join her. After conferring briefly, the three decide to sneak through the scrub on the side of the highway and investigate the situation. Everybody else remains with the vehicles, keeping watch and packing up the team's gear.
After stalking about 50 metres through the brush, Lev, Wen, and Zhang encounter the newcomers. Wen is on point, and on a clear spring night with the full moon just two days off, her naturally superior night vision is all she needs to size up the situation: Six men sneaking through the bushes toward the Agents' vehicles, two with RPG-7s at the ready and four with AKS-74U carbines. Strangely, one of the latter has his carbine's stock folded and is relying on a strap, freeing his other hand to hold some sort of high-tech gizmo that sports an antenna and a night-lit display. Wen falls back stealthily and warns the other two.
Knowing that close-combat ambush is Lev's specialty, Wen and Zhang await his signal. Lev estimates that if these guys continue at their current speed, they'll spot the team's vehicles in the next 10-15 seconds; thus, he has no time to plan anything fancy. From the way the enemy is moving, though, it's clear that they didn't notice Wen. With a hostile patrol a few metres away, Lev is reluctant to whisper into his headset and risk losing the advantage of surprise. Instead, he taps Wen and Zhang and gestures a hasty plan: Hold position, lights out, and engage at closest approach, hitting the RPG carriers first.
The ambush is quick and brutally efficient. Wen drops one of the RPG-toting men with a headshot, Zhang blasts the other with a long burst from his submachine gun, and Lev double-taps the man with the electronic device, taking care to miss the gadget so that it will be intact for Hamid and Jili to examine. As their surviving opponents turn to shoot, all three Agents fire again, ending the engagement before it can become a firefight. Then Lev radios in a report to the entire team, while Zhang makes sure that nobody is playing dead and Wen fetches the dropped gizmo.
As their associates start their engines and get ready to roll, Zhang, Wen, and Lev stalk back to the vehicle that delivered the armed men: a rusty old pickup truck. Once they're certain that nobody is guarding it, they move in. They find nothing of interest, however – just spare ammo and personal effects. From things like cigarette brands and clothing, they deduce that these guys were yet more Afghans, likely in-country backup for the ones back at the cartel warehouse. With that, the three Agents return to the others.
Wen hands Jili the gadget that the Afghan gunmen were carrying. It takes Jili mere seconds to confirm that the thing is receiving a signal from a tracking device in or on the bomb crate. Relieved that the beacon isn't on one of the team's vehicles (which would suggest a complicated double-cross involving local gangsters) or even in an FSB footlocker (which would be a sure sign of Russian betrayal), the Agents decide that it's safe to continue to the extraction point. As there's no way of knowing whether anyone heard or saw gunfire beside the highway, everybody stays sharp and drives carefully.
About halfway to the coastal extraction point, Vinnie has the convoy pull over again so that he can give the bomb crate one last, hasty try. This, too, proves fruitless, so the Agents get back on the road. Approximately 15 minutes before their 03:00 deadline, the team reaches the coordinates that V gave Anabel. The location is extremely isolated, with no artificial lights visible down the beach in either direction – just moonlight reflecting off shimmering water and glistening sand.
The Agents drive onto the beach and park the vehicles in a square. Anabel and Klas watch up the shore to the north, while Hamid, Lev, and Qoqa cover the strand to the south. Wen and Zhang monitor the inland approach. Paul and Vinnie keep an eye out to sea – the direction from which the Russian extraction team seems most likely to come. While the others stand sentry, Jili stays on the radio to listen for V. Everybody is armed to the teeth again, just in case.
At 03:00 sharp, Paul spots a powerful directional signal lamp out at sea; someone is flashing a message shoreward. He alerts the others, and Anabel reads the code: P-O-L-E-D-A-N-C-E-R. Her call sign! She uses the bright tactical light on her submachine gun to flash a confirmation back over the waves. The response comes back in Russian, telling Anabel to expect a boat extraction in five minutes. She shares this information with her allies.
Everybody gets ready to move out, with Klas, Lev, Paul, and Wen standing sentry as the others unload the van. Right on schedule, a few large, inflatable motorboats pull up on the beach and disgorge a dozen armed soldiers clad in night camouflage. Several team members identify the men as Russian Naval Spetsnaz. Possibly as a joke between Anabel and V, the leader asks the group to identify itself by having Anabel flash her underwear . . . which prove to be bright red and highly inappropriate for a tactical operation. This seems to satisfy the squad leader, who orders his men to get the Agents' gear aboard the dinghies.
It isn't long before everyone is ready to move. The Agents and Spetsnaz men get the boats in the water with the nuke and footlockers of FSB gear aboard, and start motoring out to sea. Just before the last soldier hops in, he tosses some sort of beacon next to the vehicles on the beach. From what Qoqa can make out, this has something to do with "sterilizing" the extraction site.
After an uneventful boat ride, the Agents find themselves hustled aboard a large submarine waiting offshore. As soon boats, crew, and cargo are aboard the sub, one of the Spetsnaz men asks for a few witnesses to accompany him. He leads Anabel, Qoqa, and Wen to a monitor that displays a periscope view of the beach, and then barks an order. A few seconds later, there's a momentary flash as the team's vehicles are incinerated by a small high-explosive missile. One of the Russians remarks, "Evidence destroyed," and then makes an entry in a log.
With that, it's time to head to Russia. The Agents receive isolated quarters aboard the sub and are told politely but firmly to remain in their assigned area, where they encounter far more FSB personnel than sailors. The ranking FSB officer, a rather mannish woman, explains her orders: She's authorized to put the "freelance operators" ashore by boat at any non-U.S. destination along the sub's route across the Pacific, if asked to do so, but her commanding officer counsels disembarking at the end of the run, in Vilyuchinsk, Kamchatka.
In the end, the Agents decide to go all the way through to Kamchatka, if only to show good will and let the trail cool in Mexico. The submarine voyage is a new experience but ultimately not a terribly exciting one, given that the team doesn't have free access to the vessel. Moreover, Anabel, Jili, Qoqa, and Wen find the all-male crew staring at them constantly, which is somewhat disconcerting. And Zhang, especially, feels cooped up by the close quarters.
The sub makes port in Vilyuchinsk on Saturday, March 26. Vinnie does some mental math and concludes that the journey took surprisingly long for a nuclear submarine, suggesting that the boat's commander emphasized stealth over speed. The FSB officers have the Agents witness the unloading of the nuclear weapon, and then usher them from the sub pen to a waiting military cargo jet, giving them only the briefest glimpse of the naval facilities. They're airborne within the hour.
It's Sunday, March 27 when the Agents are finally on solid ground in Moscow. Their FSB escorts show them to a hotel and tell them that V wishes to meet with them shortly. The meeting takes place in a private dining room at a restaurant, well away from Lubyanka Square.
V thanks the Agents profusely for their work in Mexico, explaining that while she could have used Russian operators, "internationals" are preferable for such wet work in 2011. She says that while in another era, there would have been formal (if quiet) recognition for this kind of work, the best she can do today is keep her word: She tells her guests that she has had the FSB pull strings and call in favors to get the CIA off their backs. In addition, because of their involvement in wiping out Grandfather's organization in Greece, she has secured permission to liquidate assets seized during operations against his mob in Russia, which she can deposit in an account of the group's choosing. She further adds that she can fly the team anywhere in the world; the papers won't be a problem. She concludes with a hint that this is the start of a relationship – not a goodbye.
Toward the end of the meeting, the Agents confer briefly and decide that they want to be dropped off in Milano, Italy. V says that she can get them on a plane in the morning. On learning this, the Agents figure that since they have a night to kill, they'll take in some Moscow nightlife. V is halfway through a warning about Moscow being a rough town when she remembers what the team does best. Then she just smiles and suggests a good club.