The Indian Ocean, 27°25'26.14" S 71°27'17.34" E
ETA in four minutes, ma'am!" Captain Dimmek shouts over the roar of the engine.
Sam nods her head in acknowledgement. She is a little nervous at having to parachute out of the plane and potentially into the ocean. She was given the basics on how to parachute, given there wasn't much time to learn much more than a crash course offered.
Sam had parachuted once when she was a child. Her father had jumped from an airplane once in his life and decided it was an experience that everyone should do at least one time. So he took Sam parachuting. She couldn't remember much, except the feeling she had. It was a feeling of both fear and excitement. Afterward, she decided it was fun but vowed never to do it again unless it was necessary. Never did she think the necessary part would ever come up.
Sam knows a difficult task lay ahead of her and is a bit daunted by it. Here she is a lone agent against two entire armies. And without knowing what condition Spencer was in, how she was going to pull off a rescue.
Her resolve is strengthened at the thought of Spencer. She loves him and misses him so dearly and is prepared to go to the ends of the earth for him. She knows he'd do the same for her. Her only regret is waiting this long to do something about it.
Damn the bureaucracy of it all. I should have gone AWOL and went after him a long time ago.
It was always should have. A conflict she struggles with everyday for the last two months. Two long months of what she considered hell.
"Ma'am?" Captain Dimmek asks again.
Sam comes out of her reverie, blinking as if just realizing where she was. "Yes Captain?"
"You have," Dimmek looks at his watch, "twenty seconds ma'am."
"I'm ready Captain," she says.
Standing up, she makes her way to the back of the plane. Captain Dimmek presses a button and the cargo door begins opening. The wind whips at Sam, the cold stinging at her skin.
Thank God I put my hair up.
Sam watches the lights above her head turn from red to yellow. She takes a calming breath. When the light turns green, she releases the breath and without hesitation, leaps.
She plummets, the wind howling in her ears. The ice cold air prickles at her face. But none of this bothers her as she lets the fear subside and her training take over. She releases her grip on all her worries and expectations. It was time to let her training and experience take over.
She falls in what seems like forever. Once she clears the cloud cover, the Gidra comes into view. At the site of the ship, she pulls the cord, releasing the chute. The yank of the chute catches the air and is enough to make it feel like her stomach dropped to her feet.
Sam descends at just enough speed to match that of the ship. There is one guard on the top deck and she knows if he spots her, this mission will be over before it begins.
Sam angles her chute, lining up for a direct line with the guard. The guard lights a cigarette and has just taken a long drag, when Sam releases the chute to land right on top of him. With the guard out cold, Sam turns to see the chute disappear into the night.
So far, so good.
——
Mike
Grines sat in a rundown black van on the corner of the street that Senator Rustlin's house is located on, the late night breeze feeling cool on his face. He looks at his watch in anticipation.
Any minute now.
As soon as the thought forms, the senator is walking out his front door. He doesn't know how Roger pulled it off, but it happened. The envelope that was left untouched contained everything he needed to perform his own little investigation. Everything from money to several passports, should the need to leave the country arise. What amazes him the most though is instructions to wait here at this time. At first he didn't believe the senator would be leaving at this time of night, but here he was.
Senator Rustlin rushes to his car, moving with a sense of urgency. As the senator speeds off, he begins to exit the van when the passenger door opens. Grines is caught off guard for a moment, his instincts scream danger. Before he can react, a voice catches his attention. "Relax Grines and close the door."
He doesn't recognize it, but quickly turns to match the voice to a face. He doesn't recognize the man either, but he has the feeling he isn't in any danger. He closes the door as the man begins to speak.
"Major Duncan Graves, Army Intelligence."
"You're not here by mere coincidence," Grines says with a frown. He isn't sure why Army Intel is here and with technically being an outlaw, he doesn't like it.
"Relax, I'm not here to arrest you or anything," Graves says, noting Grines' uneasiness. "I'm actually here to assist you."
Grines is now bewildered. He was unprepared to see any representative from the government here, especially one saying he was here to help. "How can I trust you?" he asks, thinking that was the best question to ask first.
"Roger called in a favor, that's why the senator is in such a hurry to leave. He just received a phone call about his office being broke into. You don't have much time." Graves pulls out an ear piece and hands it to Grines. "I'll be in contact with you. We need you to collect data off his computer while you're in there. Use this Flash Drive, when it has completed its task, push this button and the device will do the rest."
Without wasting any more time, Grines jumps out of the van and races to the house.
——
Sam
slowly makes her way to the first deck. The boat doesn't seem heavily guarded, but the fact it is patrolled meant the Russians were being cautious. She has a few hours before the boat docks, but she doesn't want to waste time searching for information. She determines it is time to ask someone.
The deck is mostly dark except for the places lit up by the moonlight. Hiding by a dinghy, she waits and watches the movements of a couple guards. The opportunity to strike comes in a matter of minutes.
As one of the guards walks toward the stern, the other stops to gaze out at the open sea, lighting a cigarette. Quickly and silently, she runs up and grabs the guard in a choke hold.
The guard lets out a startled gasp before she squeezes, crushing the man's windpipe. She drops the man just in time to turn and catch the other guard. Sliding her knife from its sheath, she presses the cold
Mythril
blade against the guard's throat, forcing him to back into the wall. "Poniztye oruzhiye," she says forcefully. "Drop the gun."
The guard does as he is instructed. Fear takes hold of him. He stays silent only because his fright prevents him from speaking. Urine begins to run down his leg and form a puddle on the deck.
Sam shakes her head in disbelief. "Skachitye mne, ged kompyuter sudna," Sam says more forcefully than the last time. "Tell me where the ship's computers are."
The guard stammers and prompts Sam to push the blade deeper into his throat, causing it to cut into the skin.
"Tretya paluba, Komnata Dva Dva Odin," the man says after gathering up his courage to speak. "Third deck, Room Two Two One."
"Dvizhenie" she says, motioning with the knife. "Move"
She guides the man to the railing. She feels a tinge of empathy for the young man, but can't leave a chance for him to sound the alarm. Raising the knife, she strikes him in the back of the head. The man falls overboard into the water. The splash covered by the sound of the boat's engines.
——
Grines
uses a bathroom window to enter the house. Senator Rustlin isn't married, so there isn't a reason to worry about noise. One of the items that was in the envelope provided by Roger was a map of the senator's house. The first stop is the home office.
Following the map, the office is located directly across the hall from the bathroom he just broke into. A large locked door blocked the way into the office. Normally, if the situation called for no noise or the owners never having an inclination of an intruder, he would use stealth and pick to lock. In this situation though, he doesn't care one way or the other. The Flash Card he carries, he figures would do irreversible damage to the senator's computer, so he figures it would be useless to go through the secret process.
Getting his footing planted, he kicks the door with all the force he can gather. The door splinters, but doesn't move much.
What the hell is this door made of?
It takes him three more solid kicks before the door breaks apart, flying on its hinges.
"What's going on in there Grines?" Graves asks over the ear piece, he'd given him.
"Just a battle with the door," he replies.
"You can't pick a lock?"
"It's a little late now. How much time do I got?"
"The senator is just now arriving at his office. You have twenty minutes max."
"Plenty of time."
Grines races over to the computer. Pushing the monitor button, the screen pops up, the computer already running and ready. He doesn't know exactly what the device Graves gave him would do, but he is sure if he uses it now, he wouldn't retrieve any information for himself.
Instead he pulls out a Flash Card of his own. Like everything else, Roger had him prepared for the task of finding information. The Flash Card he uses would seek out the information he needed, without any having to perform any work himself.
He slips the card into the port and the program on the card goes to work. Within moments, a green light pops on the card. He pulls it out and inserts the other card. As the card goes to work a noise comes from another part of the house. "Graves. I've got a noise in the house, got any eyes on it?" he asks, his attention focused at the entrance to the office.
"I've got nothing. Get the job done and get out," Graves says sternly.
Footsteps begin to fall in the hall, which leads him to believe the person in the house entered through the back door in the kitchen. As Grines begins moving toward the doorway, a sizzling noise erupts from behind him. He turns to see smoke rising from the port where the Flash Card used to be. The monitor was is longer working and the computer is eerily silent.
Damn, that's one bad ass device.
He turns back just in time to see a man standing in front of him.
"Who the hell are you?" the man roars.
Grines doesn't waste any time. With a quick movement, he grabs the man, yanking him forward and slams his head into the door frame. The force exerted from the blow is enough to knock the man unconscious. He lets the man fall to the floor as relief courses through him. The fact that the man doesn't have gun is a relief beyond his being caught off guard.
