Back again! Busy weekend and now on to Chapter 11. Mike and Kate are finally getting read into this op... and so are you! Hopefully, this will clear up what's going on. Partly. And guest starring in this "episode" and appearing in this chapter... Gary Sweet as Don McAllister!
Enjoy and please review.
Chapter Eleven
Kate woke the next morning in a comfortable position against Mike's chest. Her phone was buzzing on her table, and he was stirring beneath her. Switching off the alarm, she slid down his muscular side and out of the bed. It took Mike far longer to wake, and she had finished showering and was drying her hair as he climbed out of bed. She heard a door close, and then, quite unexpectedly; open again just two minutes later.
"Mike?" she called out with a trace of concern. She really hoped that it was him.
Her intruder followed her voice into the bathroom, approached her and slunk his hands fervently around her waist. She leaned into his touch as he kissed her neck.
"There's a bathroom in your room, you know," she mentioned.
He shrugged and she found herself ushered out of her own bathroom. His freshly dry-cleaned suit was still in plastic on her bed, next to her own hand-picked clothing for the day. A simple grey business suit with a white blouse would suffice. She was a little disappointed by the fact that she couldn't wear her whites. It always commanded such a greater aura of respect whenever she stepped into a room. Especially when most of the people in that room were men.
A knock at her door came not long after she changed.
"It's your XO."
That answer came before the question did. You had to love an Executive Officer that could anticipate an order.
Kate walked towards the door and permitted him entry. She knew he was more observant than anybody she'd ever met, and he'd probably work out quickly that a man had spent the night and was in the shower as they spoke, but she didn't exactly care. If Raffy Rodrigues didn't already know about her relationship with Mike, then she had overrated his skills. Big time.
"Something the matter, Rafael?" Kate asked, using his full name, as she sorted through what she needed for the day. "Or are you just checking up on me?"
"No, ma'am, my visit is actually professional," he replied with a smug smile.
"Kate, please. While we're not working, I'd prefer it if you called me that," she told him.
Raffy opened his mouth, apparently to answer her first question, when he was interrupted by a rather loud and strange noise coming from the bathroom.
"Have I told you lately that I love you…"
The deep masculine voice could actually sing and rather well.
"Ignore that," Kate advised, a voice inside her head screaming embarrassment.
Raffy looked with a confused and amused expression in the direction of the closed bathroom door, but, never one to disobey a direct order without good reason, continued with what he had come to say. "We're taking a chopper to Jakarta. The car downstairs will leave for Ngurah Rai International Airport in thirty minutes, so if you plan on eating breakfast or having a coffee, I would suggest you do it soon."
"Are you coming with us to the Embassy?"
"I… uh… I'm flying with you to Jakarta, but I'll be meeting with a friend of mine in the central part of the city," Raffy told her.
Kate gave him a knowing smile. "Sharing intelligence with the Japanese?"
He looked at her with a stroke of admiration.
"It was a fairly educated hypothesis. When it comes to Southeast Asia, we rely a lot on our friends from the north."
"You catch on quick."
"You know, Raffy, I am not completely without direction on these matters. Sometimes I do know what you're talking about."
He heard the shower switch off and took it as his cue to leave. "And so you do, Kate. I'll see you downstairs in twenty-five minutes."
She was glad that Raffy had gone by the time that Mike walked out of the bathroom with towel wrapped securely around his waist. Kate had the temptation to determine just how securely. She needn't have bothered—Mike removed the towel himself and discarded it in a heap on the floor.
Testing her inner strength and will, she snuck up behind him and pressed a kiss to his bare back. Her left hand snaked around the front and trailed down the scar on his leg—a memoir left from a horrific explosion just two years earlier.
"Raffy says we have twenty minutes until the car leaves," she whispered to him.
"I thought I sensed another man in your room," he replied with playfully and turned around to face her.
"Mm, you have ten minutes to get dressed," she advised. "If I'm going head-to-head with a government representative this morning, I want a brew."
A smile remained on his handsome face. "Or we could skip the coffee…"
"No, Mike." Her tone was firm and inflexible. "I need the coffee."
And so she went back to her hair and make-up, tying the former in a tight bun and placing just enough make-up to cover the dark circles forming under her eyes. Mike was blow-drying his hair and, she suspected, using her straightener. If he'd left the gel wax in his room, then that was likely.
Twenty minutes later, they were downstairs and Raffy was already in the dark town car. His grey suit was similarly cut to Mike's black one and he wore a green shirt and tie with it. Mike, on the other hand, was wearing a light blue shirt and tie combo.
After a silent and speedy trip to the helipad at Bali's international airport, they were rushed through security and safety procedures with an English-speaking native of the Army and in the air minutes later. If Kate had wanted to hold a discussion with either of the men she travelled, it would be a difficult venture—the movement of the rotors was far too loud. And while the journey itself was not long, the agony of anticipation lengthened each moment as Kate, without any intelligence or specific knowledge, planned what she wanted to and needed to say to this 'official.'
When the Mil Mi-17 arrived at Sukarno-Hatta International Airport, the three naval officers were ushered off the helipad and into an empty hangar rather quickly. An Australian-flagged vehicle was waiting for them, as well as an unmarked small silver sedan. Kate assumed that her and Mike would be taking the former.
"Lunch?" Raffy offered as he moved towards his transport.
Kate was confused. "Lunch?" They had just eaten breakfast.
"As in, I will meet you for lunch and we'll share and discuss," he clarified with that twinkling smile.
Kate nodded a 'yes.' It was actually the first time since she arrived in Indonesia that anyone had offered her anything of substance. Mike, beside her, was thanking the Army pilot and his crew in broken Indonesian. Admittedly, she spoke the language better than he, but neither was nearly as fluent as Raffy. All three had received language training in Bahasa Indonesia as Royal Australian Navy officers, but to varying degrees based on deployments.
An Australian official was driving them to the embassy. Kate intentionally kept this trip silent, not because of noise or lack of pertinent discussion, but because she did not want anything to be recorded or repeated to a superior, either in Jakarta or at home. Her thoughts on this matter were going to remain hers—not the property of the Australian government.
She was surprised to find her transport waved through at the security checkpoint. It was, after all, S.O.P. to manually inspect and clear all incoming vehicles, regardless of who was inside. Obviously someone important inside the embassy was pulling strings to get things moving, possibly even the Ambassador herself.
"This way, ma'am, sir," their driver indicated as they stepped from the car and walked through the extravagant outdoor façade. The atrium was intricately decorated and perfectly ordered. There were no errand-runners, distressed tourists or important officials to be seen—it was empty.
They were led down a hallway and cascading staircase, followed by another, albeit narrower, corridor. The door at the end was securely locked and their guide, driver and, it appeared, security contact opened it via a retina scanner. Mike was left wondering when the embassy had gone so high-tech and he could bet that his colleague was wondering the same thing. He was pretty sure that this hallway wasn't here six years ago when he had visited. Or perhaps he was just not granted access.
"Please," the driver beckoned, allowing them passage into the secure area. "Don McAllister is expecting you."
Kate did not ask about this Don McAllister. Obviously they were about to meet him. The driver did not follow them and, as they walked through the plain entrance, she soon discovered why this room had been kept so secret from upstairs. Truth be told, it was similar to NAVCOM's main information collection and analysis area, except it was darker, the computers were obviously more expensive and the walls were wrapped in, she guessed, touch-screen monitors. At the front was a large projection screen and a man stood alone in the centre, a headpiece attached. He appeared to be finishing up a video conference call on the main screen with another Australian. Kate could only guess where.
"Commander Flynn, Lieutenant Commander McGregor," he welcomed as the screen cut out. "Please join me."
They walked down the cinema steps and met him in front of the blur of colours. Don McAllister was a thin man with a startling and imposing disposition, grey balding hair and a stance that made Kate think he was as much an embassy official as Ethan Saunders was a delegate.
"We haven't got a lot of time," he continued, "and I need to read you in. Now, officially your duties here will be to coordinate the search for Lieutenant Commander Watson with the appropriate Australian and Indonesian authorities."
"And unofficially?" Kate asked.
"We may require your skills in one of the most vital operations this station has ever committed to."
They were getting somewhere, Kate recognized, but he was still being awfully vague.
"There is a faction of JI working its way through the Java Sea. Its leader's a man Filipino-born Syrian by the name of Abdul Malik Hussein. I know you've heard the name."
They just nodded and McAllister continued his story.
"We know for sure that there is a training camp on an Indonesian island, but we have not been able to track it yet. This faction moves by sea and the Navy is stretched thin enough as it is."
"What does this have to do with Marc Watson?" Kate asked pertinently.
"When your Executive Officer sent my IO a photo of that body you pulled out of the water three days ago, I knew this faction was making its move. Chatter between Iran, Pakistan and here has tripled in the last month. We tracked a senior JI operator from his hometown of Bandung to Denpasar and straight on to Tehran and later Esfahan before trekking back to Denpasar. An associate was spotted in Rawalpindi."
"Definitive links?" Mike questioned. This all seemed like a lot of guesswork to him, and it was the kind of information that led nowhere. "Do you actually know what they are planning?"
"Two weeks ago, a warehouse here in Jakarta was raided by the Indonesian anti-terror squad, Detachment 88. A large amount of ethylene oxide was unaccounted for. Industrially, it's used to produce polyester or polyurethane plastic, but it is a major component of a thermobaric weapon."
Kate flashed back to the discovery her crew had made just days ago in Australian territorial waters. That bomb may not have existed, but the threat certainly did. She had a very bad feeling about this.
"I know what they're planning, Commander," McAllister concluded. "But I don't know when or who."
"No idea who they're targeting?" Kate asked, masking the concern and fear in her voice. This was not the job she signed up for. Not exactly.
"No," he answered simply. "Intel hasn't gotten that far and we are running out of time. And now this officer is missing, and I'm not sure how he fits into this."
"So months of research, information collection and covert operations, and this station has nothing?" Mike said with a certain air of authority and abhorrence.
"Be careful with your tone, Commander," McAllister warned. "We are working. Hard."
Mike did not say another word. In the months following the 2002 Bali Bombings, ASIS and the Australian intelligence community was found to be insufficient, inexperienced and ill-advised. They had worked to correct that, and he could only hope that it was enough to prevent the same atrocity from happening again.