Come on…
“Galkin, Leonidovich here. You have been sent the pictures of two men and a woman. A few hours have passed, but they might still be there. Nikitin and Ryabov will join you shortly. Sift the airport, find the two men and bring them to a safe place where we can handle it quietly. As for the woman, she is working in the cafeteria, but she may have finished her shift. If you find her, just keep an eye on her movements. Use utmost discretion and extreme care: the targets may have biological weapons.”
A click follows the last words of Leonidovich. Galkin isn’t the kind of man who likes to get lost in conversation. He’s cold, rational, fast and with a determination as hard as obsidian. Leonidovich has thought more than once how Galkin is more akin to a robot than to a human being. He is considered one of his best agents.
Meanwhile, in one of the footages they see Zaytsev heading resolutely for the door of the bathrooms. After a few minutes, he is followed by the same man he was talking to in the hall.
“I said it, damn it!”, exclaims Leonidovich. “That man is an accomplice. Still no response from the facial analysis?”
“Negative, sir. That man isn’t registered in our database.”
“Go ahead with the footage, I want to see when they come out.”
The footage goes on at high speed. The operator slows down the reproduction as soon as they see Zaytsev out the door. No sign of Amr.
“Jump ahead, he must come out sooner or later”, says Leonidovich.
After almost ten minutes, Amr reappears on the clip, he comes out from the bathrooms, walking slowly in a different direction than Zaytsev.
“Something seems wrong, sir: the way he moves…”
“Zoom the picture as best as you can”, says Leonidovich while nearing his face to the display in order to see better, despite the pixellation caused by hard-zooming the view.
“He seems unsteady on his feet, like a drunk or someone with vertigo…”
An icy shiver runs throughout Leonidovich’s back.
“Trace his movements too, I want to know where he’s gone.”
“Here it is! The man who was with Zaytsev, sir.”
Leonidovich, visibly panting, approaches the operator, abruptly urging her to continue.
“He boarded on a scheduled flight. Heading for Paris.”
“How many people are on board?”, asks Leonidovich, while cleaning some drops of sweat from his face with a starched handkerchief. The operator types on her keyboard, then gives the answer.
“Two hundred forty two passengers, plus the crew, sir.”
Another agent reaches the group.
“Sir, we have the list of the departures of private jets and the GPS tracks of their flights.”
The eyes of Leonidovich dart on the newcomer’s face.
“Go ahead!”
“Actually there are only three jets. Two have done a relatively short trip and they have already landed. We tracked their data. They are big local entrepreneurs, whose flights occur regularly. We have their flight histories, if you want to consult them…”
“Go ahead, where’s the third plane headed to?”
“There is no information on the third plane, it’s plausible that its data have been purposely wiped off. We don’t know whom it belongs to, there is no flight plan. However, we have a satellite track. We can estimate with good accuracy where it’s going.”
The look of Leonidovich seems almost throwing flames, the agent swallows before continuing with a trembling voice.
“New York, sir. We believe with good approximation that it’s heading for New York. Right now it’s flying over the Atlantic.”
They spend moments of silence while Leonidovich feels like the entire world is crumbling under his feet.
Holy Christ, not the Americans…
The man takes a deep breath, then regains control of himself, turning to the staff. “Call the President and bring Ivanov here. Right now, damn it!”
WASHINGTON
“I always wonder what you think, when I see you so focused with that faraway look…”
The eyes of John Ironside, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security of the United States, seem to light up as he turns to look at the face of his wife Taisha. “I’m sorry honey, sometimes it’s hard to blow off some steam.”
The man is tall, his physique is lean, hardened by years in the Marine Corps. His blond hair is perfectly ordered. He watches his wife with clear and limpid eyes. She is slightly shorter, but she also has an athletic body and a face that vaguely remembers that of Whitney Houston. Her hand slips on her husband’s cheek, then both turn to look at the scene before them.
The garden of their home is a small chaos of children chasing each other, streamers, bass precincts overflowing with balloons that move slowly lulled by the wind, small groups of guests, mostly mothers, who chat peacefully.
Smiling faces, peace and quiet, things that everyone wants, but that only a few people are able to enjoy when they arise, setting aside for a few minutes the anxieties and thoughts of everyday problems, large and small.
“Don’t worry about me, I am aware of how important and stressful your job is, even if I think that I’ll never get used to it…”, answers the woman “But today is a special day for our daughter. You know how much Darla cares to spend her birthday with you.”
He turns to watch her, his eyes are half-closed in a provocative look. Then he shows off a chilling smile while he girds her waist with one hand, slightly lower than how it’s convenient in public. She pretends to rebel against his unexpected gesture of affection and intimacy.
“Mr. Ironside, maybe I have to remember that your position doesn’…”
“You said position? Go on, things are getting more interesting…”, he interrupts her, further lowering his hand and pulling her closer.
Before she can react, the man adds: “Taisha, did I ever tell you how much I love you?”
Their faces almost touching, she looks at him pretending a formal expression, but the color of her cheeks seems to turn more intense, betraying her emotions. “A lot of times, Mr. Ironside, I’m afraid you have to strive a little more this time.”
Then she suddenly frees herself from his grasp, raising her hands in surrender and adding a smile. “Go and hug our daughter, you dodger. I’m really sorry but today you’re entirely hers.”
He still smiles and winks at his wife before turning around and descending a few steps toward the huge back garden of their villa, heading toward that jubilant chaos.
John Ironside has walked only a few steps when the ringing of his cellphone intrudes abruptly. He replies nonchalantly, moving on, but his pace slows down gradually. After a few moments he stops, almost frozen in place.
His wife, watching him from the back entrance area under a large canopy, feels that the air is getting colder when she sees him turning around, exchanging a few words with his interlocutor and finally nodding slowly. The man puts his phone in a pocket of his gray pants, then he heads back to his wife. It’s no longer John, but the Deputy Secretary of DHS, who comes to talk to her.
He doesn’t smile anymore.
“Thompson. I have to get ready, they’re sending a helicopter.”
The woman stays impassive, stern looking, as he kisses her forehead.
“I’ll be back ASAP, I promise ”, he whispers to her before entering the house.
“Sure! You say the same words all the times. But today…”
Taisha stops in mid-sentence, listening as for confirmation of her thoughts. At that precise moment she notices the roaring swish of a helicopter rapidly approaching.
WASHINGTON
Two men walk briskly through a corridor lit by fluorescent tubes. John Ironside walks beside Richard Thompson, his immediate superior. The latter is shorter than the other. His head is bald and his body is wiry, almost ascetic. His dark, penetrating eyes look at the world with the sleek look of a bird of prey. “I’m sorry I bothered you, John, I know how much Taisha cares about it, but the situation is very serious. If old Vlad has bothered to contact the President, at a time like this… he must have really good reasons.”