"Well done, Li," Aramov complimented her protégé.
"There was no challenge, Miss Aramov. He was facing the other way," Li responded humbly, but inside she was glowing. Aramov was far quicker to reprimand then to commend. She looked down at the crumpled form of the American man Aramov hated so much on the ground surrounded by men with PK-102s. "Now what do we do with him?"
"Have him taken to cold storage. See to it that he is heavily guarded. I will deal with him later. Now I must see to Lipan." At that, Aramov left the warehouse.
Li turned to her subordinates. None of them were particularly bright, but they knew how to follow orders. Rhoemer, and Aramov after him, was in the habit of executing those who didn't. "You heard her, move him. Let's go!" Some men grabbed the still unconscious Logan, while the remainder of the ambush team took up flanking positions around the prisoner. She stopped two of them. "Take care of the bodies," she ordered, pointing to their comrades who had fallen victim to the American spy. Eight corpses for one man. Aramov didn't seem to be upset about the loss of personnel, though. Not much, Li decided, bothered the Russian woman.
Drawing her own weapon, Li followed Logan and his escort to the cold storage area. She definitely didn't ever want to find herself in Logan's position.
At first, Aramov was going to take care of Logan personally, but, she decided, that Lipan would require her attention first. The woman, who had proved as difficult to kill as her colleagues, was still conscious, and would probably be trying to escape. Work first, then fun, she reminded herself. Logan would keep, and she would have plenty of time to make sure he suffered before he died after she had taken care of Lipan.
Just as Aramov expected, the feisty desert girl was giving her captors a hard time. The men were clearly giving her a wide berth. Mara hid a smile. One of Lipan's best talents was her ability to irritate the hell out of people. It made her seem tougher than she actually was.
Lipan spoke first. "So nice to see you again, Aramov. I see you haven't quite outgrown your taste in skanky clothes."
Aramov laughed sarcastically. "I just love that sense of humor of yours, girl."
"I aim to please. So what do you want with me?"
"What I really want is for you to die, but I'm afraid that will have to wait for the time being. I have some shipping deadlines to make, and you're going to help me make them," Aramov replied, smiling cruelly. She nodded to a man behind Lipan, who gave her a shot of tranquilizer.
One of the downsides of Syphon Filter was that it was most efficiently produced in a human being. Unfortunately for Lipan, Mara had run out of minions who were too stupid to follow orders. Aramov would've loved to watch Logan die slowly and painfully at the mercy of the virus, but holding him for the time required was just too dangerous. No, it was better to kill him quickly.
But not to quickly, she thought to herself with another smile. Turning from Lipan's unconscious form on the concrete floor, Aramov went off to check on her prize.
Gabe dreamed that he had a hangover. When he woke up, he wished that was the case. He had his hands chained to what looked like a meat rack above his head. His feet were just barely touching the ground. Gabe sighed, seeing his breath as he exhaled. Only then did he realize how cold it was. He was in a meat locker.
Great. This is going to be fun, he thought darkly. Aramov picked that exact moment to show herself.
"Ah, Logan," she said with a cruel smile, "good to see you. I trust that you have been treated well."
"If you call being ambushed then attacked from behind then waking up in a meat locker good treatment, then sure."
"Oh, don't worry, my dear friend, it will get worse before it gets better. When I'm through with you, you'll wish you were in hell."
"I'll meet you there. We can do lunch sometime." At that, Aramov punched him in the stomach.
"Is that all you've got, bit--" he was cut off this time by a kick to the jaw. It made a lovely popping sound. Gabe decided not to talk after that, and Aramov, too, said nothing, but he could tell by the look in her eyes that the sadist was thoroughly enjoying herself. After what seemed like hours, Gabe fell unconscious again. Lian! he called out with his last thought.
Lian woke with a start. She had the strangest feeling of someone calling her name. Deep in her heart, she knew Gabe was in trouble.
She looked down at her watch. The bus would be arriving at the town near the warehouses soon. Lian had opted for public transportation, just in case Aramov had people monitoring military traffic. From the village, it was only a 10 kilometer walk to the perimeter fence of the warehouse facility. Luckily, winter nights in this part of Germany were long, and there was no snow.
The bus finally arrived at the depot. Lian stretched and prepared for the last leg of the journey.
* * *
She found the fence about forty-five minutes later, barely out of breath. Not wanting to risk sneaking around the warehouses after dawn, she had run the entire way. Lian pulled out night vision goggles out of her backpack and used them to survey the area. She didn't see any guards along the fence, but there were some patrols near the gate and around the building. From this corner, things looked pretty quiet.
Lian took her jacket off to keep it from snagging on the barbed wire. Since she used civilian transportation, she was wearing civilian clothes, a black tank top and a pair of jeans. It was a chilly night, but Lian ignored it. She'd endured far colder weather. Lian climbed the fence and landed on the other side with catlike grace.
Just in time. As soon as she landed, a patrol came into view from the far side of the north building. She immediately fell prone, not daring to move. The terrorist had a flashlight, but he wasn't particularly looking for anything, let alone a woman hiding in the grass. He passed her without stopping, and continued is route around the warehouse.
Lian left her hiding spot and headed for the opposite side of the building. When she reached the wall, she peeked around the corner. Damn, there was a guard in front of the door, and an overhead halogen light illuminated the entire area. She'd have to find another way in.
As quiet as a wraith, she left the door guard and followed the patroller's route to the other side of the building. This side was empty, except for a pile of boxes. No way in over here, either. Lian went to check out the fourth side. She was just about to peek around the corner, but then she stopped short when she heard a voice.
"Is the chopper ready?" a woman with a Chinese accent asked. Lian recognized the accent as someone from Heilongjiang, so she supposed the woman was one of Shi Hao's people.
"Yes, ma'am," was the response, this time from a man with the accent she'd learned to associate with Rhoemer's terrorists. "She's ready to go, the pilot is awaiting your instructions."
"Go to him. Tell him to wait for me, I'll be there when we're ready to move out."
"Yes, Miss Wan," the man said, and walked off. The woman started walking towards Lian. She flattened herself against the wall and hid in the shadows.
She had a plan.
When Wan passed her, Lian came out of her cover. One kick to the head and the woman was out cold. Lian quickly pulled her into the shadows, studying her. Yes, this might work, she thought. Wan looked enough like her to fool a casual observer, even though the girl was considerably shorter. Lian remedied that problem by substituting Wan's heeled boots for her own flats, but put on the rest of her clothes. The skirt was way too short for Lian's comfort; Wan must've been taking fashion lessons from Aramov. Stifling a giggle, Lian arranged her hair in a similar style and dragged the girl over to the boxes. She was able to open one and stash the girl and Lian's old clothes inside easily enough.
Wondering absently if Gabe would ever recognize her, she went again to the other side of the warehouse and didn't stop to look at the guard as she walked through the door.
Where the hell is Li? Aramov asked herself for the third time in as many minutes. The girl usually reported in every thirty minutes, but no one had seen her in forty. It wasn't like Li to be late.
"Stay here," she ordered Logan's guard. "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, finish him and head for the transport."
"Yes, ma'am."
"When I find that girl, I am going to give her a piece of my mind," Aramov mumbled under her breath as she headed off to look for her lieutenant.
Aramov stormed down the hall. Lian barely had the time to get out of sight. The Russian woman didn't look very happy, but at least she was out of the way. From what Lian gathered from Aramov's conversation with the guard, Gabe was probably in there. She could handle one guard, but Aramov was another story.
Once she could no longer hear Aramov's footsteps down the corridor, Lian stepped into the guard's view.
"Miss Wan! Miss Aramov just went looking for you! She seemed…" Lian shot him neatly in the head with her silenced pistol.
Stepping over the body, Lian opened the heavy door of what looked like some sort of cold storage facility. Gabe was hanging from a meat rack, his body limp. For a second, she feared that she had arrived too late, but then he moved, groaned, and opened his eyes.
"Lian… Am I dead?" he asked.
"You're talking, aren't you?" Lian responded, moving closer to remove the chains from his wrists. They were badly bruised. She didn't want to know where else he'd been hurt.
Detached from the meat rack, Gabe could barely support his own weight. He steadied himself on his shoulder, and after a few moments he looked stable enough to walk.
"Let's get out of here, Lian. Where's Teresa?"
Lian frowned. She was pretty sure that Teresa was the woman Wan was moving on the helicopter, but now wasn't the time to tell Gabe about that. "She's not here."
He probably knew she wasn't telling the whole truth, but he didn't say anything more about their friend as they headed for the perimeter fence.
The facility had been all but deserted. "Aramov must've known we had come after you and decided to pull out," Lian mused.
"Yeah, we'll find her."
"Together?" she asked.
"Together." he replied, as they headed for the gate.