By the time they arrived in the briefing room, Jackson was already there, sitting at the table finishing off his brown-bag lunch. O’Reilly was pacing the room with his hands together behind his back; a deep look of frustration and displeasure was etched on his face.
“Now that we’re all here,” said O’Reilly gruffly as he looked over at Mitchell, “we can get on with Mike’s brief about our missing personnel.”
Feeling the bite from O’Reilly’s words, Mitchell knew he only had himself to blame. He reached into his pocket and turned his phone back on, vowing to himself to never turn it off again, no matter where he was or what he was doing.
Mitchell took a seat and turned his attention to a screen mounted on the wall at the far end of the room. A couple of seconds later, a map of the Gobi Desert came up. For the next five minutes, Donaldson went over Sam and Cardinal’s mission parameters and what they were doing when they disappeared. Bringing up the pictures emailed back to him from Sam, Donaldson pointed out the abandoned parking lot and its location on the map.
“Do you think they could have been overcome by chemical agents when they went to investigate the missing students’ vehicle?” asked O’Reilly.
“Sir, I honestly don’t know. I sent them state-of-the-art respirators and chemical agent detectors. What I do know is that after investigating the parking lot, they did not return to their hotel as they had originally planned, and that they have not contacted Polaris in over thirty-six hours, which is contrary to our operating procedures,” explained Donaldson.
“What about the GPS tracking device hidden in the heels of their boots? Are you still receiving a signal from them?” said Mitchell.
“Yes, we are,” replied Donaldson, changing the picture on the screen to show a satellite image of a factory out in the middle of the desert. “Gents, their tracking devices put them both right smack-dab in the middle of a factory complex just over one hundred kilometers west of the abandoned vehicles.”
“That’s an odd place for a factory. Who owns it?” asked O’Reilly as he intently studied the image on the screen. There was a large structure in the middle of the complex, surrounded by a dozen smaller buildings all enclosed inside a tall fence undoubtedly covered in razor-sharp concertina wire.
“Sir, the factory belongs to Cypher Industries.”
“The Swiss arms manufacturer?” said Jackson.
“One and the same,” replied Donaldson.
“Cypher Industries opened this factory almost four years ago. According to what I have been able to find out about it off the Web, the factory is not used for the manufacture of arms, but for the production of computers and computer software,” explained Donaldson.
“Why the hell would you put a factory in the middle of nowhere to build computers? It makes no sense. Apart from a cheap labor force and perhaps generous government tax breaks I can’t see why it is there at all,” said Mitchell.
“Ryan’s right. Something isn’t right about this. I’m no businessman, but I would have built my factory near a seaport so I could export my goods all around the globe without having to pay the extra costs involved in shipping the computers to a port,” said O’Reilly as he absentmindedly twirled a pen like a baton around in his hand.
“Gents, I can only tell you what is available from open-source sites,” said Donaldson. “I have placed a few calls to some old friends in the Commerce and State Departments. I’m waiting on them to call me back to see what they know, if anything, about this factory in Mongolia.”
“Could they have gone there as part of their investigation?” queried Jackson.
“Perhaps, but I can’t see a connection between the factory and the abandoned vehicles they were investigating when they disappeared,” answered Donaldson.
“Well, gents, I think we can draw the following conclusions from what we know,” said O’Reilly looking over at Jackson and Mitchell. “For reasons unknown, Sam and Cardinal are probably being held inside that factory complex. Or they could be already dead and buried somewhere in the Gobi and all we are seeing is the signal from their boots still emitting their signal from inside the factory.”
“General, I refuse to believe that they are dead. All they were doing was looking for some missing kids,” said Mitchell. “Why would anyone from Cypher Industries want to kill them?”
“I’m with Ryan on this one,” said Jackson. “Until I see their bodies, I also refuse to believe that they are dead.”
“Mike, what do you think?” said O’Reilly, turning to face his intelligence chief.
“I hate to make guesses without having first had a chance to review all of the available information, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’m with Ryan and Nate on this one. I also believe that they are alive… for now,” replied Donaldson ominously.
“Sir, Nate and I could be on a plane to Mongolia this evening if you give us the go-ahead,” said Mitchell.
O’Reilly knew that with or without his permission, Mitchell and Jackson would be on their way to help their friends the instant he left the room. Neither man would ever abandon their friends, not when they felt that even the slimmest possibility existed that they could get them out alive.
“Don’t forget, gents, Sam and Cardinal are my people as well,” said O’Reilly. “I want them both brought home safe and sound just as much as you do.”
Mitchell went to stand.
O’Reilly looked his youthful friend in the eye and told him to take his seat. “I figured that this would be the outcome of the meeting, so I’ve made a few arrangements. Yuri has been told to meet Nate in Ulaanbaatar. He will be waiting at the airport for you. I want you two to scout out the factory complex, try to find a way in without being detected. You, however, do not have my permission to mount a rescue attempt until Ryan has met up with you.”
Mitchell scrunched up his forehead. “What will I be doing, sir?”
“You will be flying to Hong Kong to meet Taro Satomi. He wishes to discuss his daughter’s kidnapping with you.”
“Sir, can’t this wait a couple of days? Each hour that we waste could bring Sam and Cardinal closer to death,” said Mitchell, trying to control his temper.
“That is why Nate and Yuri will be heading there right away to lay the groundwork for a rescue attempt.”
“Sir—”
O’Reilly raised his hand, and said, “Ryan, I’m not asking, I’m telling you what to do.”
Seeing the mood in the room turn tense, Nate gently placed his hand on Mitchell’s arm and gave it a slight squeeze. “Sir, with all due respect, I’m just as baffled as Ryan. Why does he have to go to Hong Kong?”
“Mister Satomi’s request didn’t come through the normal channels,” explained O’Reilly. “An old friend of mine who runs a company like ours in Japan gave me a call this morning. It would appear that Taro Satomi reached out to my friend and requested that he arrange a meeting between himself and Ryan in a secure location outside of Japan. Mister Satomi believes that he is under surveillance by the people who staged Atsuko’s kidnapping.”