Chapter 15: Conflicted?; designated driver; no more
Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...
Dakar, Senegal, late December, 2014
Later in the day, after they'd had some time to relax in their rooms – have some lunch, read a newspaper, catch a nap, the three of them reconvened in Greer's room for tea.
Kara had ordered the local coffee instead, café Touba. At first, she hadn't liked the drink, strong dark-roasted coffee with cloves, Guinea pepper and sugar. But then, she couldn't stop drinking it. It reminded her of Turkish coffee, bitter, but with the added spice and sweetening. On the street, vendors poured the drink from one cup to another, over and over, moving their hands further away as they poured, frothing the drink before it was served. It was everywhere in Dakar, dark and addicting.
Her colleagues were drinking tea from bone china cups. Not Kara's style.
They pulled three chairs together, facing one another in a circle around a coffee table. Greer brought the envelope out, the one with their papers inside, from the U.S. Embassy. He pulled out three folders, neatly arranged with names on the tabs.
"Study these - our new identities until we return to New York," he said, glancing at the name on the first folder.
"Camille Gibault," he said, reaching across the coffee table to Martine. She nodded and took the folder from him, dropping it down onto her lap. Inside the cover was her picture, and on the other side, typewritten, was her bio in two pages. After that, a passport, credit cards, employment records, apartment lease, and other documents that tracked with her bio. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to create this new identity.
While she read and re-read her bio, Greer handed the second folder to Kara.
"Ulla Hansen," Greer said, reaching over the table to Kara. She noticed Greer wince with the motion. She looked him over, carefully. At his age, his field days should have ended long ago. But, Greer was not the type to retire quietly to the English countryside. Greer was a warrior, and would undoubtedly die with his gun in his hand, she thought. As it should be. There were not many left like him, not many who could earn her loyalty like this.
It was more than the fact that his people had rescued her, saved her life back in China. If he succeeded, and his machine changed the world, there would be a place for her. Greer would need people around him he could trust, and everything she'd done for him since China, she'd done to earn it. Samaritan would allow few humans in the inner circle – and Kara Stanton was going to be one of them.
Blood would need to be spilled to change the world, and as it happened, she was very, very good at that. She smiled to herself as she thought of it.
No one would stand in their way – not John Reese, and least of all, not Harold Finch. Samaritan would rise, and the rest would fall, by her hand. John Reese had escaped her in China but so, too, had she escaped – call it a draw, then. And in Manhattan, both of them were wounded, both escaped. Another draw.
But not this time. This time, she would put him down. She'd thought of a special treat first, before she retired him. She would take his little girlfriend, Shaw, apart – in front of him – a fight she'd enjoy with this worthy adversary. And then Harold Finch would be next. Once he'd surrendered his Machine to Greer, he would crumple like paper in her hands. Poor big-hearted John. It would break him to see it. She could never understand why he'd volunteered for black ops. He'd had the skill, yes, but not the attitude. She could feel it about him. He never got used to it. He was never at ease with what they did.
Conflicted? That doesn't work in black ops. It only makes you weak.
His lackey Fusco would never even see her coming. She'd hand him off to Martine, to even the score for the bullet she took in Manhattan.
And the crazy one called Root - she might just be convinced to join them – once she realized they had the best tech around. With the Machine dead, Samaritan was the only game left, and Root could choose to join them and play, or die.
Kara stopped and looked up to the others.
It was time to do this, to get on with it, she thought to herself. Greer was a patient man. He saw the big picture. But, she was not so patient. They were free of Manhattan, free of the Machine's eyes. Now was the time to act, put their plan in motion before they returned to New York and the Machine's meddling.
"Alright, let's get started," Greer said. "These new identities will allow us to travel freely, with no one tracking our movements – except for our government. We must assume that our friends at the NSA will see us every time we use one of these," he said, holding up his passport, and credit cards. Greer saw the two women nodding, following his logic.
"With Samaritan so close to going online full time for them, the NSA will want to know where we go, what we do, who we contact. They'll be tracking us. And we have to get Samaritan back before they know we were attacked. We must get Samaritan back online, whatever it takes," he said, his eyes cold, icy blue.
"I'll need to meet with some associates. We'll be going into Nigeria. And no one must know." Greer stopped and looked at each woman, emphasizing his last statement. He could see them considering the implications.
"Kara, you will come along with me. Martine, you'll stay, and get the next steps ready." He watched each one nod as he set his instructions.
"We'll need a way in that won't be tracked," he said, looking for ideas. Kara spoke up.
"Plane is the only way. It's too far to drive in this part of the world – fifteen hundred miles, at least. But, like Steele said, it's not the best time to be in West Africa. Ebola," Kara said. Then, looking at the two of them, "I'll check into it. We'll find a way."
Rome, Italy, late December, 2014
It was bright sun as Reese and Shaw de-planed in Rome, mild for December, in the low 50's. The black van was waiting for them, and Shaw slid into the back seat, next to one of Reese's soldier-friends. Reese limped around to the passenger side, in front, and hoisted himself in.
"You two look like crap," his buddy said, grinning, and then leaned over to clasp hands and bump shoulders with Reese in the van's tight quarters. Reese grinned back and reached, left-handed, to bump fists with the soldier next to Shaw.
"Nothing a little coffee and food won't fix," Reese said, as they drove off into the traffic cycling through the airport loop.
They talked all the way back, headed for a district in the southeast of Rome where their headquarters were located, near Grace's school. On the way, they stopped for sandwiches and some coffee for Shaw and Reese, but kept going.
"Four-eyes is waiting for you. He's been upgrading our communications while he's been here. Some kinda engineer, or something?" the driver asked Reese.
"Or something," he said, sipping coffee. "How's he doing?"
"He's good. I think he's a little shaken up. He thought he could just show up, drop in, and get out before anyone'd notice. But, it's not like that now. The place is crawling with bad guys. They're keeping watch, and they're just waiting for the time we fall asleep on the job. They think they're gonna get past us." Reese could see the easy way he had of speaking.
He remembered how they'd spent many a day and night, sweating into their clothes in the desert heat, talking like this, back in Afghanistan. Brody was from Texas, Reese recalled, a mixture of that quiet Texas patriotism and a big dose of hardheadedness. Solid. Likable. Uncomplicated. His father had served, his grandfather, and his younger brother, too, all military. They came from one of those small towns in West Texas, where every house flew the flag proudly, along with the Star of Texas. And he was right. No one was going to get past him and his men. That's why they were here. Grace's safety depended on it.
"So, what was he doing here?" Reese asked.
"Some kinda Christmas thing for the school, he says. Maybe you can get more outa him. He's pretty tight about it."
They swung around a wide loop and entered what looked like an old campus, with lines of multi-story buildings, dorms perhaps, when the place was functioning. Now, the buildings had been taken over by refugees swarming out through border countries along the Mediterranean. They were here from Syria, West Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria. And now, they were packed in like fish in cans. And more coming all the time.
When Grace had heard of this place, she'd decided to leave the comfort of her former art school, close to the Vatican. Now she was here teaching and living nearby the refugee towers.
She had set up another school, where some of the children even lived with her, away from the desperate conditions of the towers. She was their teacher, and like a mother, too, to so many of them. She'd worked with the local hospital and now they were sending a doctor each week to care for the people in the towers. Not enough, but at least it was something. It was like living at the edge of a powder keg here, next to the refugee towers. At any moment, it could destabilize and blow up in her face.
It was never intended to go this far. Harold had arranged a comfy teaching job in an art school in Rome. He'd wanted to give Grace a place to go after she thought he'd been killed in the ferry boat bombing. He'd thought it would be safe there, a steady job where she could surround herself with the art she loved, the architecture of the Old City, the quiet life she'd always lived back in New York. And, of course, where Greer would never find her. But it hadn't worked that way. Greer had found her, taken her, wrecked her life in so many ways.
Kept in a cellar for months, handcuffed, blindfolded, sleep-deprived. She was drugged, tortured, and then left blank by Greer's techniques. Harold was the enemy now. So thorough was this re-programming of Grace, that she could no longer bear to see Harold's face.
Grace had no memory left of the life they'd shared, before Italy. So she couldn't stay there in New York. Her life was back in Italy, with her refugee children.
She'd flown out of New York, alone, and returned to her school in Rome. Back to her teaching, back to the children she cherished. But once back, she'd taken on this new school near the towers, drawn in by the plight of the children she taught. Once she'd learned of the towers, her path had changed - no quiet life in the comfort of the art school near the Vatican. She was here in the thick of it. And now, Harold was, too.
Brody raced down the access road with the towers alongside, like dreary haunted ruins, then onto a narrower road, then a cobblestone street at the end of the loop. There were a few businesses here, selling bread, and some Middle Eastern food, but most of the shops were boarded and empty for blocks around.
They swung through the streets, and finally pulled into an opening in a high wall. Brody stopped just inside, and let his man jump out from the seat next to Shaw. He hustled back to the opening and shoved a heavy solid gate across, while Brody drove further up the driveway and parked. The three of them got out and stretched, while they waited for the other soldier. Then they leaned in to pull their luggage and walked the path to the rear door.
Harold had his back to them when they walked in and Reese shot a look toward Shaw. Harold straightened up a little, and turned around, a screwdriver in his hand.
"Mr. Reese, Miss Shaw. I trust you had a good flight?" When they didn't answer, Harold dropped his eyes down, uncomfortable with the silence. A reckoning would have to come, an explanation for his trip here - unaccompanied and unannounced. His Team was less than impressed with his stunt.
"We need to talk later," Reese said, and then the long moment passed, as more of Reese's men came in, throwing their arms around him, slapping him on the back, and pulling him into the next room. They'd planned a surprise for him, a celebration of survival. They'd all heard the story of Grace's rescue in Washington, the return to New York, the ambush on the road by the Zheng, and then the one in the hospital just as Reese had cornered Greer. Next door there was the sound of bottles opening, glasses clinking.
That left Shaw standing there, looking at Harold. He looked up at her, but couldn't read her expression.
"Are you well, Miss Shaw?" he asked.
"Well?"
"I mean, after the ambush – are you recovering well?"
"Yes, thanks for asking, Harold. You?" Shaw sounded like an automaton, no emotion in her voice. It just trailed off.
Harold smiled, amused by her attempt to sound grateful. She just looked at him, uncertain why he was smiling.
"I know I have some things to tell you both. There'll be time, later, as Mr. Reese said. For now, just accept my thank you, for coming all this way." Harold's eyes were soft, like his voice.
Shaw just stared at him. This felt like some kind of game they were playing. It was as if he were trying to tell her something with his eyes - but she had no idea what it was. She felt her frustration rising.
Breaking his stare, and circling with her eyes, she asked, "Is there any food around here?"
Harold started to answer but just then Reese leaned in through the doorway - with a glass in his hand. He was smiling, and his face looked flushed.
"Come on in here you two. We're having a toast."
Shaw rolled her eyes at Harold.
"Someone's gotta be the designated driver tonight. I guess that's me," she said, and followed him in.
Dakar, Senegal, late December, 2014
"We're ready for take-off. Please fasten your seat belts," the steward told them. Minutes later, the jet taxied toward the runway. They sat back in supple leather seats, and watched through the window, as the engines began to rev faster, and then they felt the brakes release. The jet picked up speed down the runway, and they were pressed down in their seats as it lifted off. It climbed quickly in the evening sky, banking and heading East - toward Mali. The sunset would be spectacular up here.
They would fly directly overland to the capital of Mali, Bamako, stop to refuel and then head off on the longer leg of their journey. Over Burkina Faso, skimming by Ghana and Togo, then across the width of Benin. On to Abuja, capital of Nigeria. In just four short hours or so, they'd be standing in Abuja, with no one else the wiser.
Kara leaned forward to look out the window. It was still green below them, full rivers feeding the land, and trees lush now that the recent rainy season had ended. She noticed the color of the soil down there, out in the outskirts of the city, far from the bustle and flair of town. Far from where chic women dressed in long flowing dresses drenched with color; and men wore wide shirts cut long, below the knees, over wide-legged pants.
Where she had gone, there were few people visible at all. The homes had seen better days. The soil looked dry and red there, dusty at the top where vegetation was thin. She'd gone there to the outskirts of town for a meeting with a bush pilot, someone who might be willing to take them to Abuja. He sat on a wooden chair in his yard when they walked up. Children played in the dirt nearby.
Most people spoke French here, and Kara had brought Martine along. Her French was better, and it was best, too, in this country, for women to travel together. Kara didn't mind walking the streets alone. She could certainly take care of herself. But, here, it would attract unwanted attention for her to walk alone, especially so far from the tourist spots.
She'd listened as Martine and the pilot were talking and understood every word. His plane was small, one engine, and the trip to Abuja would take a whole day. There would be refueling stops needed, and long stretches with no place to land. They could see in his eyes that this wasn't going to work. People were afraid here. Afraid of the threat of infection. They all talked of Ebola. It was all around them, and no one wanted to take a chance.
A jet, he'd said. They'd need a jet charter, instead. Expensive, much faster, and for Greer's purposes, justified. Their trip from Senegal would take just four hours, plus one stop to refuel. And then Greer would have his meeting - with men who could bring Samaritan back from its coma, before the NSA found out, and before Harold Finch knew what had happened.
From the window, Dakar was a striking city, sitting astride land jutting out into the sea. She could see the arrowhead shape of it, pointing West.
Dakar, the city where so many had come through her port, chained, heading on slave ships out to the West. A Memorial stood near the beachfront in Dakar, a memorial to the vast numbers taken from their homes, sold, and sent through this harbor far away. Dakar was the last look at their homeland they'd ever see.
Kara had no plans to see it. Such things were for tourists.
They were here on business, on a deadline, just brushing against this city briefly. It would serve their purpose, meet their needs. They would use it and leave it behind, like so many others, with no more thought.
Then back to their civilized world - Europe, England perhaps.
Yes, quite a striking city, from this far away.