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The plane was in the air again. The sun was just breaking the horizon when they had landed. The window shades had been pulled and both Rachel and Colby had been gagged to prevent them from calling out. Several of the men had left the plane while it was being refueled. They returned with bottled water, coffee, and a sack of breakfast sandwiches.
With their mouths gagged, Colby and Rachel could only exchange looks. The smell of the food made both of their stomachs rumble. Once back in the air the gags were removed and each was given a bottle of water. It was hard for Colby to not gulp it down. Telling himself that he needed to drink slowly, he made himself count to twenty between each drink. There was no telling when more might be given. He wasn't counting on receiving too much in the way of favors from the Prophet.
The drone of the motor and headache that still plagued him made sleep seem like a blissful escape. The eye that was not swollen shut fluttered and closed. Rachel saw his head bob slightly. Knowing that he most certainly had suffered a concussion, she was worried about his sleeping. She decided that she would give him a half an hour and then wake him.
The shades had been raised and looking out the window at the sun's position she could tell that they were flying north. The mountains below looked closer than she had ever seen them. They were flying much lower than a commercial airliner would. Rachel had listened to the conversations the best that she could. The only real information that she had been able to glean from the bits and pieces she heard was that they were headed for a church settlement in Montana.
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Once they had determined that Rachel and Colby were aboard a plane, each available agent began compiling the information that would aid in locating the destination and ultimately the missing agents.
Don had contacted Amita and had requested her aid. She had initially hesitated; worried that she would be unable to assist. "I'm not sure Don. I mean it's one thing to help Charlie and let him bounce ideas off me. But to be responsible for pinpointing the search, I'm afraid I'll make a mistake that could be…." She trailed off, not wanting to voice her worries. "You should use one of your own experts."
"Amita, Charlie has faith in you and so do I. Colby and the other agent need someone who can help us narrow our search. I don't want someone else, I trust you." Don's voice was firm.
She weighed his words. "Alright, can you get me the data down loaded to Cal-Sci's computers? I think once I have all the variables it shouldn't take me long to get you a list of possible targets."
"Thanks Amita. I'll have Megan start feeding the information." Don rang off and let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Looking at his watch he hoped that time was in their favor.
Don walked into the office where Megan was helping to coordinate the search. "How's it going?"
Megan leaned back and rubbed her face, trying to erase the fatigue. "I've got people contacting every airport in a five hour radius going on the top mileage that the plane could have gotten. The big problem is that they could be short hopping. They are probably flying below the radar so that FAA won't be able to track them. It's going to be like finding a needle in a really big haystack. Plus, once we find where the plane landed we then have to find where they've went." Her voice cracked slightly as she thought about the difficult odds facing them.
Laying a supportive hand upon her shoulder, Don informed her of Amita's decision. "You'll need to start downloading the information to the computers at Cal-Sci."
"No problem. That will give me more time to keep interviewing some of the women. David is trying to get more information on other locations that have followers of the prophet. The problem is none of the men have said anything. He did mention that one of the men, Eli Ross has injuries consistent with fighting. David had a technician run some DNA swabs to see if we can tie him to the fight that Naomi Ross mentioned."
"Good. I'm going to talk with Andrew Ross again and see if I can get any more out of him." Don went to leave, giving on last squeeze on Megan's shoulder. "Don't worry, Colby's tough."
Megan smiled slightly, "I'm sure that Granger has them eating out of his hand."
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The plane hit a little turbulence. The sudden drop brought Rachel out of a light sleep. She hadn't realized she had nodded off. Looking over at Colby she noticed that his breathing seemed to be normal, so she decided to let him doze a while longer. They had cleared the mountains, the land beneath the plane was flattening out somewhat. She leaned over and nudged Colby awake.
Without opening his eye, Colby turned towards her and murmured quietly, "We there yet?"
"I think we might be getting close. I heard them mention Montana and we've crossed the mountains."
"Taking us out of state, this is really going to get them into trouble." Colby deadpanned. "Make a little more difficult to find us." He looked at her and gave her a tight smile.
"I'm not holding out a lot of hope for the good guys coming to the rescue. Unless the Prophet made some mistakes along the way. Most of his followers would rather die than divulge information." Rachel's voice was shaking.
"Hey, the people I work with, are some of the smartest agents in the FBI. Sometime I'll tell you about them." He cast his gaze towards the front of the plane. Seeing that no one seemed too worried about them, he continued. "We've got to have a plan ready to go when we get to where ever. Any ideas?"
"If I had a good plan I would have gotten away back in California."
"I think that the best we can do right now is cooperate. Hopefully they relax a little around us and we will get our chance to get away. We'll just need to wait for the best time."
"Not much of a plan." Rachel pushed her hair out of her eyes.
Colby leaned his head back and shut his eye again. "Right now, it's as good as it's going to get."