Twenty-two left. Lian smiled down at the aircraft list that was considerably shorter than when she had taken it from Gabe two hours before. The smile was short lived, however, and faded once she realized she had no idea where to go from here. Hoping to kindle some inspiration somehow, she went over to the dry erase board and wrote all of the flights on it.
Sure enough, she had an idea. Grabbing more markers from her desk, she re-wrote all of the flights, color-coding them to which continent they arrived at. Most went to Europe and North America, but there were a few flights to Asia and Africa.
Africa?
Lian knew that this detail was important somehow, but for the life of her, she couldn't get her muddled brain to jump to the conclusion she knew was in there somewhere. She was so deep in thought she nearly screamed when someone put their hand on her shoulder.
"I didn't sneak up on you, did I?" Gabe taunted drowsily. He was stifling a yawn when Lian turned to face him. She knew she'd never be able to convince him that she knew he was there, so she decided to change the subject without rebuttal and punched him in the arm. "Hey, what was that for?" he asked, rubbing his arm.
"You're supposed to be sleeping," she replied, glaring at him crossly.
"You told me to take a nap," he answered innocently, "I think two hours constitutes a nap, don't you?"
"Don't give me that. You look exhausted." Her voice softened slightly.
"I'll get some coffee and I'll be fine. No, I'm not going to sleep, Lian," he added when she opened her mouth to protest. "So how's it going?"
"I've got it down to twenty-two, but I've run into a brick wall."
"Twenty-two, huh?" He favored her with a smile. "Damn, you're good. So what's with all the colors?" Gabe asked, indicating the dry erase board.
"I didn't know what to do, so I color-coated them by continent."
"Wait a minute, Lian, I think you're on to something. Only two of these flights were en route to Africa. Remember Aramov's connection to ARC Industries?"
"That's it!" Lian exclaimed happily, "ARC Industries participates in humanitarian projects in Africa."
"Where Syphon Filter outbreaks have also been taking place."
"So Aramov has a base in Africa, using ARC Industries as a front to test another strain of the virus."
"And so Teresa will be there," he finished, smiling at his partner again.
Lian smiled back. "We really do work well together, don't we?"
"Since day one."
"I'm glad you agree, because now you're going back to sleep while I go move some spy sats."
"Am not."
"Are too."
"Am not!" Gabe repeated in a juvenile fashion.
"Are too!" At that, Lian took her dry erase marker and went for his face. Gabe now had a bright red dot on the tip of his nose.
"Alright, you asked for it!" Gabe grabbed a green marker and slashed it at her. Lian parried with ease and thrust her own marker at his unprotected abdomen. Gabe jumped back, causing her to miss, then grabbed the wrist of her armed hand and held it uselessly off to the side while pulling her closer.
Lian was strong, but Gabe was stronger. She crashed into him, and Gabe moved his hand, still holding her wrist, to the back of her neck, immobilizing her as he drew whiskers on her face. She glared at him for a few moments, then, realizing just how close he was holding her, laughed and raised her free arm in surrender.
Gabe laughed too, and held her wrist for a few more heartbeats before wrenching the marker out of her grasp and letting it go.
"What?" Lian asked, "Don't trust me?" She batted her eyelashes innocently before she realized that she was coming dangerously close to flirting with her best friend. "Don't answer that," she added quickly and went to her desk to grab her mirror. "I hope this stuff comes off."
"You should've thought about that before you attacked me with a marker."
"Alright, alright, you win. You don't have to go to sleep. God, how did your mother ever get you to go to bed?"
"She slipped some sedatives into our dinner." Lian gave him a confused look. "Joking," he added.
"Oh." She smiled to conceal her thoughts.
"What?" he asked. Obviously not fast enough.
Lian debated whether or not to tell him the truth. One look into his eyes and she decided he didn't deserve to be lied to. "It's just that…" she paused to think of the words. Her English always failed her when she was tired or nervous. Right now, she was both. "It's something my mother would've done. The sedatives, I mean," she stumbled through the words, knowing by the look on his face she probably wasn't making much sense. Lian took a deep breath and continued. "My mother was a complete psycho. I wouldn't be surprised if she was schizophrenic, but of course there was no way of diagnosing or treating that in China. She actually tried to kill me and my sister once." She looked up from the floor to Gabe's face to gauge his reaction. He was sad, but she didn't see much in the way of surprise. Did he know?
"I'm sorry. It must've been rough living with someone like that."
"Yeah, well, I got over it," Lian replied, removing all sentiment from her voice. Now wasn't the time to think about her childhood. "I'm gonna go move those satellites. With some luck we'll be able to figure out which one of the airfields Aramov landed in and have some recon of the general area in a couple of hours. Are you sure you don't want to get some sleep?"
"Positive. I'll keep myself busy and out of your hair, I promise."
"I didn't mean it like that…"
"I know. I'll keep ya informed, okay?" she turned to leave.
"Lian?"
"What?" she asked him, mentally bracing herself for another question about her mother and childhood.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" After she shot him another confused look he ran his thumb over her marker whiskers.
"Oh! Thanks. You're forgiven," she smiled in relief and headed towards the bathroom to clean her face off.
"Your progress, Doctor?" Mara asked the younger blonde.
"Good. Her blood sample is being processed, and the virus should be ready for infection in about six hours," Weissinger replied in a businesslike tone, but Aramov could see the hatred in her eyes. Maybe, she thought, kidnapping the daughter of one of the top biological weapons researchers in the world wasn't such a good idea. Mara quickly dismissed the thought. There was no other way. Like it or not, I need the bitch's help, and she wasn't likely to give it after what happened in Australia, even at gunpoint. Aramov turned her full attention once more to the topic at hand.
"Splendid. Remember, the faster you get this done, the sooner you can see your daughter. I'll leave you with your work." Dr. Weissinger nodded and returned her attention to a chart and Aramov left the room.
There was something about the whole situation that bothered her. The good doctor was making no effort to conceal her hatred for Mara, and had more than once expressed the desire to kill her. Aramov decided that she couldn't let Weissinger live any longer than absolutely necessary. Once the virus was ready for shipment, she'd shut the blonde up for good.
"Teresa?" Eva's small voice came through the wall. Teresa wasn't usually a light sleeper, but spending day after day on the cold concrete floor had just about worn her muscles, and her nerves, to a frazzle. The voice was enough to wake her up. She had grown used to waking up to her name being called through the wall. Eva kept even earlier hours than she did.
"Hey, Eva. How you doin'?" she asked, making her voice as cheerful as possible for the sake of the scared little girl.
"Okay. Can you tell me about your friends?"
"My friends? What do you wanna know?"
"What are they like? I don't have a lot of friends. We moved around a lot."
"Yeah, I know how that goes. My father was in the military. We moved all the time, too, when I was little."
"So you don't have any friends either?" the girl asked sadly.
"No, I have friends. My best friend's name is Lian."
"Lian? That's a pretty name."
"Yeah, it is. It's Chinese. She was born there."
"What is she like?"
"Well," Teresa paused to think. How, exactly do you describe Lian? "She's smart, and funny, and kind. The type of person you can rely on, no matter what. One of my other closest friends is Gabe." Teresa winced. Gabe. What had happened to him? Had he made it out? She remembered calling him when she was about to be captured and not receiving a response, which meant that Aramov probably got him, which meant that he was probably dead. Teresa choked back tears. She had been trying not to think about him for the past three days, so now the realization that he was gone struck her full-force.
The little voice with the German accent interrupted her grief. "What is he like?"
"Well," Teresa started, pitching her voice low to avoid betraying her emotions. She knew she wasn't entirely succeeding; she wasn't as good at it as Lian, who was the only person Teresa knew that could appear calm when her life was crashing down around her. She could almost picture Lian using every mask she knew when she found out Gabe was dead, which brought on a fresh batch of tears. Teresa hoped the wall muffled her voice enough so the girl wouldn't notice. "Gabe's strong, and caring, and friendly." Teresa finished her response before the girl asked her if something was wrong.
"Do you miss them?" Eva asked.
"Yeah. Yeah, I miss them. Maybe Lian will be able to get us out," Teresa replied, changing the subject.
"Really? Will she find my mommy, too?"
"Yeah." Teresa decided that she wouldn't tell the girl that she'd seen Weissinger. Eva couldn't have been older than six or seven, and she wouldn't have understood why her mother didn't come for her. And explaining that her mom had been coerced into developing a biological weapon by a psychotic Russian terrorist hell-bent on killing as many people as she could because she thought it was fun was one conversation Teresa didn't want to have. "And when we get out, we'll all go for ice cream, how's that?" Teresa had discovered after a few conversations that Eva loved ice cream. A child after my own heart, she thought.
"Yea!"
Just then, one of the psychotic Russian terrorist's lackeys came for Teresa. "Let's go," he ordered without ceremony. She tried, and failed (for probably the first time in her life), to come up with an appropriate sarcastic response, so she quickly dried her eyes and followed the guard without a word.
"Alright, I've finished analyzing all this crap," Lian said in a rare display of exasperation. He knew she had been pouring over satellite photos, intelligence reports, and (his personal nemesis) maps for hours. Then her irritation was gone and she was all business again. "Spy sats were able to confirm a settlement in the mountains of Ethiopia, about 100 clicks outside Addis Adaba. Intel says the compound was inhabited by ARC Industries personnel as a shipping and staging area for distributing AIDS cocktails to the local population, but it was abandoned six months ago when a slip in profits forced ARC to temporarily suspend the project." She rolled her eyes to show what she thought of that explanation. "Anyway," she continued, "Recon now shows that the structure is inhabited. Armed guards patrol the perimeter, and they obviously weren't worried about attracting attention from the locals, cuz the place is locked up tight. That, combined with the terrain, will make a direct assault impossible."
"So what about a covert assault?" Gabe asked, more to show that he was paying attention than anything else. He knew Lian had everything taken care of.
"The building backs up against a mountain that is riddled with caverns. ARC Industries had mapped most of them, and I just happened to stumble on a map. There's a series of caverns that go through the mountain and lead right into the fortified area. The going will be rough, but I believe we can get a small team through there unnoticed."
"Or it could be a trap."
"It could be, but I doubt it. Even if Aramov has a complete map of the caverns, it's not likely that she'll have them guarded. There's lot's of climbing involved to get through, and it'll take several days. If anything, she'll have some thermal sensors in there or something, and those can be disabled pretty easily if we're careful."
"So we're going now, huh?" he asked her.
"Well, I know I am, and I'll have to take someone with me. I think a team of two would be best," she replied seriously. "I think this can work, Gabe," she added.
Gabe nodded. He knew he would never be able to convince her not to go. She and Teresa were close, and he had the feeling that she partially blamed herself for Teresa getting captured. Well, he sure as hell wasn't going to let her go without him.
"Alright, director, when do we leave?" he asked with a smile.
"So we're going now, huh?" she teased.
"Someone's gotta keep you out of trouble," he teased back.
"Alright, let's grab a Blackhawk, get our shit together, and go."
"Sounds good to me." At that, Lian left to see to the flight and insertion arrangements while he went to go pack. Now it was time for some action.
A/N: Sorry about the relatively action-free bunch of chapters. They had to be done, so I tried to make them as interesting as possible. Things will pick up after this, I promise. Thanks to Sam for the review!