We were no closer to finding Annalisa however her kidnappers had moved up their timetable. We previously had another 8 days to find her but they must have been feeling the pressure and reacted by shortening the amount of time they gave us to meet their demands. So we were down to only two days. This called for us to alter our plans significantly!
When we started out, I was tasked to interview her friends to see if we could find out anything that might produce a lead. The only thing it did was produce her possible abductor's name and a phone number that led us nowhere. The name was probably bogus. And the phone was one of those prepaid cell phones. The phone's record of calls didn't reveal anything. Dead ends. But I met Sheila and Betty in the process and spent a wonderful evening with Sheila (see chapter 1!!!) so all was not lost!
However, one thing that we learned in the process was that the bad guys were out looking for Annalisa's friends. Possibly to kidnap them also and use their lives as leverage against Annalisa to make her tell them about her contribution towards the development of an agricultural vaccine that turned into a deadly nerve agent under certain conditions. I managed to intervene in two instances and it looked as if they may have been spooked by that. Perhaps thinking that we were on to them.
Anyway, the reduction in the amount of time we had to meet their demands forced us to change our tactics. Instead of trying to hide Sheila and Betty from them, our plan was to now use me and Sheila as bait to draw our tails into a trap. Once detained, we could then use some "gentle" persuasion to get more intell. So Sheila and I were in my car, headed to Alexandria, with our tails not too far behind. My control, David Betno, was supposed to merge with our little parade enroute with reinforcements.
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"David." I spoke into my cell phone as David Betno answered his.
"Yeah, we're in place."
"We're on the George Washington Parkway. Just passed the turn off for Reagan National."
"Ok. We're less than a minute in front of you."
"Right."
We continued to cruise down the highway, glancing periodically in my rear view mirror to check on our playmates who trailed us by four or five cars. We were in the middle of a three lane highway and our tails were in the same lane but keeping their distance and trying to look inconspicuous.
"Our friends are in a white 4 door sedan about four or five cars back from us. Two playmates in the front seat."
"You just passed us. We'll join up and check on your friends."
I saw a couple of cars shoot out of an onramp as we passed it. They merged with traffic and slowly caught up to the white sedan. Looked like three cars. One in the middle lane, one in the left lane and one in the right lane. Looked slick. But speed and execution were needed to pull it off.
"Hey Tim."
"Yeah?"
"We need a lid for our box. You game?"
"Shoot! Say when."
"Ok start easing back on the speed and we'll keep our friends moving along."
So I started to gradually decelerate. As I did that, the cars behind me moved into one of other two lanes to pass me. All of a sudden the white sedan was right behind me.
"Ok Tim, the lid is on."
"What's next?"
"Keep on trucking while we immobilize their vehicle. When you hear a loud bang, accelerate and get out of there. We're going for their tires."
I told Sheila to hunker down a bit and keep watch on the car behind us, and to let me know as soon as she either hears or sees something fishy happening. Just as I was finishing up saying that, a loud explosion was heard and the white sedan started to fishtail back and forth as the driver fought to maintain control over his car! Not wanting to get rear ended, I floored my gas pedal and sprinted forward!
Sheila had spun around in her seat and now had a death grip on my right arm as she kept watch on the action happening behind us!
"Timmy, did you see that?" She practically screamed in my ear!
"Can you see what happened?" I asked her? I had heard the bang also but was too busy trying to keep my eyes on the road in front of us.
"The other cars are forcing him off to the shoulder! Looks like a couple of guys have jumped out of one car and are pointing guns at the white car!"
By that time I had pulled over to the shoulder myself. Just curious to see how things were going myself. Then my phone rang again.
"Got em. You're clear to proceed to the lab. But just to make sure, keep a look out to see if you have any more tails."
"Right."
So we got back on the road and headed over to the lab.
"What happens next?" Sheila asked?
"Well, we need to go visit a certain facility in Alexandria and drop off some stuff that I found. We probably need to stay there for a little while. Plus we're probably going to exchange this vehicle for another so keep your things together."
"Ok. Think there's going to be time for dinner?"
"Yeah, we should have time to do that. Any particular things to stay away from?"
"Not really. I like pretty much anything so long as it's edible."
"Me too. Let's see what we can dig up in the neighborhood when we get there." So we continued on to the lab.
When we got there, we found the building to be just some sort of warehouse in an industrial area. At first I didn't think we found the right place however I finally remembered that I had to call David to let him know so he could alert whoever was at the lab, and he confirmed that the lab was there. After I hung up, I gathered up the items that I had retrieved from Annalisa's lab and we left to enter the lab.
I knocked on a door set off to the side of the building and was greeted by an armed Army officer, "Sergeant Culver?" he asked?
