Chapter One
The ringing still pounded in her ears as she sat on the hotel bed the next morning. She had been through a lot in her life but the events from the previous night were some of the worst things she experienced. The bombs the loss of friends, just made it that much harder. Alex." Sean's voice gently greeted her, "Why are you up so early?"
Running a hand through her sleep-tangled hair, Alex replied, "I couldn't sleep."
Sean sat up in the bed beside her, wrapping an arm carefully around her shoulders. "We will fix this."
"There was just so much carnage." Alex shuttered at the reminder of last night.
"We will find them, we will rescue everyone and we will kill Amanda." Sean replied, "She will pay for all the damage she caused."
The images from the night before were burned into her mind. Bombs exploding everywhere, screams of those injured and killed, allies disappearing one at a time- Sonya, then Birkhoff, then Ryan, Michael, Owen, and lastly Nikita until there was no one left besides Alex and Sean. At that point Sean suggested they retreat so there was someone left to rescue the others. While Amanda had not been there directly, it is clear that she was behind the attack. She and the Shop were pretty much the only options for who would try to pull this off. "What do we do now?"
Sean thought for a minute. They had to figure out a starting point- a plan- for the rescue. Yet it was such a huge task, a massive undertaking, so picking a beginning point would prove difficult. Do we have access to Shadow Net?" he questioned Alex.
Scanning the room Alex found the laptop bag. "Yeah. As long as it wasn't destroyed in the bombing, I have Birkhoff's laptop."
Confused, Sean questioned, "I thought I had heard from Nikita that the hard drive fried if the laptop was too far from Birkhoff."
Alex smiled. "His laptop, the main one, yes. This is a different one- one he gave me access to. It fries it the wrong password is entered and the retinal scan is negative."
Rolling his eyes, Sean replied, "Birkhoff and his security procedures. Anyway." He changed the subject, "First we run a surveillance sweep- see if they were caught on camera anywhere. Also, we can check video around Division at the time of the attack and see if there is a vehicle or vehicles we can scan for."
"Sounds good." Alex immediately climbed from the bed to grab the laptop.
Grabbing the bag, she returned to the bed as she pulled the laptop out of its bag. Sean just watched, amazed at her dedication. "Don't let you want breakfast first? A shower?"
As she frantically typed, Alex shook her head. "We don't have any time to lose. The longer we go without finding them, the further away they get and the more they can hide." She replied.
Knowing she was right, Sean laid back on the bed to watch her work. Since she only had one computer there was nothing he could do at the moment other than watching her work and make suggestions if he thought of anything. She pulled up pictures of their missing friends and fed them into Shadow Net before using her friends. It was unlikely- Amanda's goons would be too smart to let any of them appear on camera.
While Alex worked, Sean got on the phone to order them some breakfast. He didn't know quite what to do for Alex. She was completely distraught that her friend had been grabbed. She worked frantically trying to find any sign of them. Sean wanted to comfort her but he knew at this point there was no accomplishing that- not until all her friends were back safe and sound. Instead he just sat back and watched her work, silently crossing his fingers in his mind that she would find some sort of clue the follow up on.
A few hours passed with no sign of anyone. If they weren't already all dead according to the government it would have been like they disappeared off the face of the earth. He knew it would do no good to be negative but at this point things were beginning to feel very hopeless. Sean was pacing the hotel room, trying to come up with something that could help, something that would lead them to their friends. It was unusual for him, he was a navy seal after all, but he could not think of a single solution. Sean was drawing a complete blank. "Bingo!" Alex suddenly shouted, causing Sean, who had his back to her, to jump.
"What?" he asked, hand on his chest in the startled position.
"Gas station camera." Alex turned the computer so Sean could see it. "Birkhoff is in the backseat. You can barely pick it out but Shadow Net found it."
Sure enough Alex had a picture on the screen zoomed in to show Birkhoff. Where was he?"
"This is from about 2:30 AM last night. Heading west toward Pennsylvania." Alex replied.
"But six hours ago? They could be anywhere by now." Sean hated to be so realistic.
"We have a car license and type. " Alex confidently replied.
Seeing Alex so happy and excited, Sean didn't want to pop her bubble by pointing out they could have switched cars or took off between exits. He watched as she continued to work, tracking the car she managed to follow it into Pittsburgh where it finally stopped at a motel and was still sitting in the parking lot. The only issue would be that by the time they got there it was more than likely they would be gone. "So what do you think we should do now?" he asked her.
Alex thought for a few moments. "We had that direction. It's the only lead we have and hopefully we can catch up to them. We can't let them get further away."
"But what if we find out that Michael is closer to here and we could get to him versus chasing taking after Birkhoff to maybe get closer." Sean questioned.
"We'll keep looking, but we have to follow the lead we have. Any time possible we have to get another person- another person on our side to help us find the others."
Sean couldn't disagree. They needed help one way or another. Right now with two people it was going to be a challenge. The more people they could rescue the more people on their side to help. The first couple were going to be pretty difficult,, but it could only get better. "Alright. How about we fly to Columbus and go from there?"
Nodding agreement,, Alex was excited to get this mission on the road. Even after everything their group had accomplished together up to that point, this was absolutely the most important mission of all. Columbus, a little further south and west from where the motel was in Pittsburgh- allowed them to be ahead of the team who had Birkhoff- leading them to come towards them.
It took about ten minutes for them to pack up the few things they had grabbed on their way out of Division and headed for the airport. Luckily Alex had access to Division's funds through her credit card. Once they had arrived at the airport they got tickets and waited for their flight which would be leaving in about an hour. "So do you think they are going to keep them all in one location or all over the place?" Sean asked.
After thinking for a minute, Alex shook her head and said, "I think Amanda will spread them out to make it harder."
Sean just nodded in agreement. "That is what I would expect. I would guess she will have them all over the world by day's end and I bet that she is going to make it a massive game to find them."
"I can't wait to find her and kick her ass." Alex replied through her angrily clenched teeth.
"Me too. We're going to get them all back safely." Sean started.
"Or die trying." Alex added.
It was about two hours later when they were finally at the rental car place in Columbus. While Sean was working on getting their car, Alex was on the computer trying to track the vehicle to find where they had Birkhoff. As Sean finished up, he left the counter with a smile and a wave, car keys securely in his hand. As he turned around to face Alex, she was grinning. "We got him." Alex was giddy. "I show that they are heading to Columbus."
Sean was stunned. "You're kidding. In everything bad luck that was going on,, he was surprised that finding and getting ahead of the group that had Birkhoff was so easy.
Shaking her head, she replied, "They are about fifteen minutes outside of Columbus, heading in this direction."
"So how do we approach them?" Alex questioned.
Sean thought for a minute. It was early afternoon,, so there was too much traffic to try to hit them and take them out. "I guess we follow them." Sean suggested, "Then we strike them the next time they stop."
"Hopefully that's not too long." Alex thought about how far they might be able to go without stopping. They did need food and gas, so that would help somewhat. When Sean didn't move, standing in front of her, Alex stated, "C'mon, let's go get Birkhoff."