Lian got up promptly after her alarm went off, and ignored her exhaustion as she got dressed and checked over her gear. When she was ready 15 minutes later, she headed to the military airfield the Agency always used for transporting personnel in and out of Washington.
When Lian arrived, she found out that Gabe and Teresa already left. Gabe intentionally changed their departure time so Lian would show up late.
You won't get rid of me that easily, Logan, she thought and set out to catch a plane to Berlin.
Mara Aramov took her combat knife out of its sheath. She rarely used knives; it generally wasn't her style to kill someone up close if she could just as easily shoot them from afar. Still, this little blade had saved her life on more than one occasion, so she always wore it.
She pulled a sharpener out of her duffle bag and ran it along the knife's edges, humming to herself as she did so. Mara was in a good mood. Her prey had taken the bait and were on their way. The only thing that dampened her mood was that her source reported that Xing was not with Logan and Lipan. She wondered what Logan's top field agent was up to. Not that it mattered, anyway. Logan was going to die. Aramov would have plenty of time to finish off the annoying Asian woman later.
Aramov held the knife up to the light, watching it shine as she drew her finger along its edge. Blood immediately spurted from the cut. Perfect.
For the fifth time that morning, Teresa opened her mouth to ask Gabe what the hell was going on, and for the fifth time she closed it again. He didn't exactly have an expression on his face that invited conversation.
He hadn't said a word to her since she asked Gabe where Lian was, when they were still at the airport. He had simply said, "She's not coming," and walked away. Teresa wondered what he was so pissed off about, but finally decided not to ask. It was his problem.
"Teresa, do you think that this is a bad idea?" he asked suddenly, breaking the silence.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean do you think this is a trap and we shouldn't bother?"
Teresa Lipan had never lied to a friend in her entire life. "Yes I think it's a trap and I think it's a bad plan to raid this place without Lian or any backup. Why are we alone, anyway?" There, she asked him.
"I figured this was a trap, so I wanted as few people involved as possible. But I still had to try Teresa. This is our only lead."
"So Lian isn't here because you don't want her to get hurt?"
"No, Lian isn't here because… because I already hurt her." He looked down and started to inspect his rifle.
"What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
Gabe sighed. "We got in an argument and I lost my temper and told her not to come."
"And then you changed the departure time to make sure she didn't come," Teresa finished for him. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked before she checked her naturally volatile temper.
"Hey, I was really pissed off right then," Gabe responded in a half-hearted attempt to defend his actions.
"But you're not now?"
"…No. I'm not. I was just remembering our conversation and thinking that I sounded like a complete ass."
"Well, you were being an ass. Lian cares about you, and doesn't want to see you get hurt. That's why she kept on insisting that this was a trap and that we proceed more cautiously. And you were too big of an idiot to heed her advice and managed to hurt her feelings in the process. Way to go."
"Okay, okay. I promise to apologize as soon as I see her."
If you see her, Teresa couldn't help thinking. She considered tormenting Gabe some more, but one look in his eyes told her that he was already sufficiently sorry for what he did. Teresa grabbed a stick of gum from her bag and began making final checks on her weapons and communications equipment.
Three hours later, they reached the drop zone. The general plan was quite simple: find the mainframe and download as much information as possible, and eliminate Aramov if she's on site.
Gabe tried to concentrate on the job at hand rather than think about a certain woman with dark brown eyes. He wasn't really succeeding. He hated himself for going off on her about something so trivial. Teresa was right, after all. Lian said what she did because she didn't want anyone to get hurt. If he had acted like a civilized human being, he would've tried to explain his own actions to her. Instead, he let the lack of sleep and the overabundance of stress get to him. That bothered him, too.
Now Gabe was able to focus as his combat instincts kicked in. He had reached the perimeter of the complex. There were three warehouses on the site; Gabe was to search the north and west buildings while Teresa took the south. He scanned the area around the fence while hiding behind a bush. No guards were in sight. Warning bells immediately went off, but he forced himself to ignore them. There was no turning back now.
He contacted Teresa over the radio. "I've reached the fence. All is quiet," he whispered. Just because he couldn't see anyone didn't mean that they couldn't hear him.
"A little too quiet?" Teresa's voice whispered in his ear. He had the earpiece set on a low volume, too.
"Yeah. Keep your eyes open, okay?"
"Sure thing, boss. And watch your six," she responded and signed off.
Gabe scanned the area once more before he climbed the chain link fence. He didn't really like dealing with barbed wire while on top of a 10 foot tall fence, but a patrol was bound to spot a cut in the fence. Gabe luckily managed not to get stuck and jumped down on the other side. He was in.
"He's in," Wan Li, Aramov's lieutenant, reported from her station on top of the north warehouse. Li had been one of Shi Hao's people before he was assassinated. At the time Li had been working with Aramov to help with the sale of Syphon Filter and decided to stay after her organization crumbled. Mara rather liked the girl, and she was a lot smarter than any of Rhomer's idiot henchmen.
"Excellent. We'll grab him when he's in position. I just got a report from Team Two. They have caught sight of Lipan and will take care of her shortly," Mara responded, smiling.
"Why wait? He's just one man, and we know he's alone. We could take him…"
"I've learned over the years to never underestimate Gabriel Logan," Aramov interrupted, her smile fading as she thought of how many times that nezakonnorozedennee[1] had screwed up her plans. Not this time. He was walking into her hands, and she wasn't going to let him slip through her fingers. "I'm sure I don't have to remind you of the importance of patience in our line of work," she added, allowing a subtle hint of reproach in her tone.
Li caught it. "Of course not, Miss Aramov. I will not question your orders again."
"Questions are the only way we learn. You may question, Li, as long as you obey." Aramov smiled at her protégé again. She was in a good mood.
Li caught that too. "Yes, Comrade General," she replied in a rare jest. Both had given up the life of good little communists years ago. All they both wanted was the money to retire in the luxury they were denied throughout their lives. Communism was just a way for the government to enslave the weak.
Mara and Li could get all the money they wanted from the sale of Syphon Filter. The only thing standing in the way of that sale was Logan and his pathetic excuse of an Agency. And today he was going to die. Yes, Aramov was in a very good mood.
Teresa decided that it was women's intuition that caused her to duck behind a large boulder a split-second before the first shot was fired. Thanking her lucky stars, she turned her weapon towards the area where the shot was fired from and risked a peek over the top of the rock. Damn, she still couldn't see her assailant.
Another shot passed by her head, this one grazing her cheek. Immediately, Teresa ducked back down again, this time thankful that the shooter was an amateur. A still target from that range was an exercise shot for any seasoned soldier.
"Gabe," she yelled into her headset, "I've been spotted and I'm pinned down by an unknown number of tangos."
No response.
"I'm gonna need some help here!"
Static.
"Dammit, where the hell are you?"
"Freeze!" an unfamiliar voice shouted from her left. That wasn't exactly the response she was looking for. Teresa's mind ran through dozens of options, from kneeing the guy in the crotch and running for it to going full automatic. She narrowed it down to one. With a sigh, Teresa surrendered.
"Teresa, I've reached the north building." The all too familiar sound of background noise was Gabe's only response. "Teresa, do you copy?"
Nothing. She was gone.
He started thinking of all of the things that could've happened to her, but he didn't get very far before he found himself surrounded by terrorists. Gabe ducked behind a large crate, spraying the area around him with HK-5 bullets to keep the enemy from advancing while he tried to figure out how the hell he was going to get out of this one. Aramov's men had him completely surrounded.
"It's over, Logan," a familiar, taunting female voice announced from a loud speaker. "Drop your weapons."
Sorry, Aramov, but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, was his unspoken response. Gabe pulled a grenade off his belt, armed it, and threw it at a batch of terrorists. Then he charged the other flank.
He didn't get very far. All he heard was the sound of something large dropping to the floor right behind him. Before he could turn around, the world went black.
1. My Romanized approximation of the Russian word for "bastard." Sorry, my Cyrillic is a little rusty.
[1] Russian approximation for "bastard." Sorry, it was the best I could do.