Chapter 6: The Repair
Sarah walked out of the washroom and into the war room proper wearing her disguise gown of skin-skimming light peach silk, her hair caught up on the top of her head in a thin diamond-studded circlet, some loose strands of hair cascading out from under it in narrow curls to frame her temples. Thin diamond strings dangled from her ears, and a simple yet elegant choker of diamonds circled her throat ending in two loose ropes of diamonds hanging down her back and sparkling against her bare skin, which was revealed by the low cut of the gown. Some two-sided tape kept it securely in place and confined any indecency to the mind of the observer.
Concentrating on smoothing the wrinkles out of her elbow-length gloves, Sarah stopped and stood in the middle of the room. She was intently reviewing some last-minute details running around inside her head and hadn't yet realized that all conversation had slowly dwindled until the room had fallen silent.
When Sarah finally became aware of the change in the room's atmosphere and raised her head, one arm still in the air with the fingers of the other hand circling the wrist, a long, low wolf whistle sounded from a far corner of the room.
Sarah turned her face to the floor for a moment so she could smile smugly before raising her head again, once more looking cool and in command.
Casey had come jogging over to her side to lend moral support, but when he saw the self-assured look on her face, he mock-leered instead and whispered, "Not bad for a skinny CIA broad, Walker," then leapt to one side as she aimed a swat at his arm, laughing at his remark.
"You're such a gentleman, Casey," she said sarcastically, and took a moment to admire his disguise, a black tuxedo-like waiter's uniform, complete with white gloves. Sarah would never say it out loud, but she had to admit to herself that he filled it out nicely, and from the current look on Casey's face, she suspected he was thinking the same about her outfit.
She straightened her shoulders to give him a better view of the merchandise and to let him know he had been found out trying to take a peek. When his face turned a bit red and he spun away, mumbling something about getting on with it in a too-grumpy voice, Sarah thought, Well, at least he has the good grace to look embarrassed, and she followed in his wake, accepting the wrap that he held up behind her shoulders before they made their way to the elevators.
They drove in silence in a nondescript car to the service entrance gates of the embassy building. It wasn't large compared to some of the other embassies in town but the Perogian government had made up for it with old-world flash, and as Sarah looked up at the gargoyles on the roof with their Medieval snarls and long claws and obscenely pointed tongues, a shiver went down her spine.
Don't lose your nerve now, Walker, she thought. Like you told Chuck, quick in-and-out, then back home in time for hot chocolate before bed.
Casey, watching her out of the corner of his eye as he drove, said in a mild voice, "Don't worry, Walker, I'm nervous too."
She turned her head to look at him straight on.
"You are?" she asked, her voice full of surprise.
"Yeah," he answered. "What if I spill the gravy?"
Sarah felt her temper rise.
"Casey, how can you not take this seriously when you know it's so important, and –"
Breaking off when she saw his smirk, Sarah realized what he had just done. He had gotten her angry and feisty to take her mind off of her fear.
All she said was, "Thanks. Remind me to punch you later, though," and all Casey did was some more smirking. Insufferable man, she thought. But she smiled afterwards.
When the two agents entered the Perogian Embassy by a back door, as arranged, Nadia was there to greet them. She was petite but curvy, her handsome face and striking figure displayed to best effect by a rather severe hairstyle, a minimum of jewelry and a serviceable but unremarkable black evening gown. Sarah guessed that this allowed her to blend into the background, as a good servant should, without looking too dowdy.
Before Sarah could even say hello, Casey had moved forwards and begun speaking to Nadia in Russian. As he spoke, he took one of the agent's hands and raised it to his lips, bowing slightly as he did so, perhaps to be gentlemanly, perhaps because of the difference in their sizes, but the effect was suave and gracious and took Sarah a bit by surprise.
She could only stand and watch in amusement as Nadia answered back in Perogian, a close dialect of Russian that still allowed the speakers to understand each other perfectly, and Nadia smiled warmly, her eyes traveling up and looking boldly into Casey's before she ended their private greeting on a note of finality, as though she had made a decision, and turned to Sarah.
"Sarah, how lovely to see you again," Nadia began. "I'm afraid we haven't much time as the prince is about to arrive. I think we should have you both waiting in the dining room. That way, the prince's retinue can be dismissed in the hall and we can keep the number of people who see you here to a minimum. All right?"
"It's wonderful to see you again, Nadia, and, yes, that would be perfect, thank you," Sarah replied, following behind Nadia as she turned to lead them through the embassy proper.
When they got to the dining room, Casey took Sarah's wrap from around her shoulders, then positioned himself to one side of the room at a long serving table while Sarah stood by the chair at the end of the dining table where the prince was to sit. When the silence had stretched out for a couple of minutes, Sarah began to feel a bit nervous again and shifted around, pulling at one side of her dress and biting her lower lip.
Casey, noticing her distress, said, "It'll be okay, Walker. Remember, I've got your back."
Sarah calmed down at his reassuring words and they waited again in silence. After another couple of minutes, Sarah's curiosity finally got the better of her and she turned to Casey.
"What were you talking about with Nadia out there?" she asked, a puzzled look on her face.
"Oh, I just asked her for a date," Casey answered in a very offhand sort of way.
"Casey, you didn't!" Sarah responded. "You just met her!"
Casey, looking very self-assured, simply stood at his post and smirked a bit in reply.
After a moment's consideration, remembering Nadia's tone of voice at the end of the exchange, Sarah continued. "Nadia refused, of course," she stated.
"No, as a matter of fact, she accepted," Casey said. "We're getting together in a few weeks when she's back in town, assuming the mission is concluded by then, naturally."
Sarah was a bit bowled over by this information. And by Casey's audacity in asking for a date in the first place.
"But you couldn't have said all that! You only spoke for a couple of minutes!"
"Sometimes that's as long as it takes, Walker. You should try it, like, for instance, with the Intersect. I bet if you asked Mr. Chuckles, he'd let you fool around with his joystick, maybe even the whole PlayStation."
Sarah couldn't think up a reply other than turning bright scarlet. The best she could do was open and close her mouth a couple of times before giving up and turning the spotlight back on Casey.
"So what exactly are you going to do on this date?" she asked in an accusing tone of voice.
"Well, dinner, of course. Nadia even suggested a restaurant we could go to first."
Sarah was thrown off balance again. "First? Then what?"
"Before we have sex, of course," Casey replied, as though this were obvious. "Haven't you dated before, Walker?"
Sarah was starting to do the fish-out-of-water thing again when the dining room door opened and the prince entered. She closed her mouth and curtseyed low as he approached, her cheeks still warm and rosy from her ridiculous conversation with Casey, and when a gloved hand appeared in her field of view, she grasped the fingers lightly and allowed the prince to raise her back up to standing height before him.
"Enchanted, my dear, absolutely enchanted," the prince declared as Nadia made the introductions.
"Your Highness," Sarah said, bowing her head gracefully on her long, slim neck, her cheeks still flaming from Casey's remark.
"I do admire the fresh coloring you American women have, so healthy and invigorating. Do you spend time in the outdoors, Ms. Walker?"
"As much time as I can, Your Highness," Sarah replied, taking his arm as he turned them to walk her down the table. She took a moment to glare at Casey behind the prince's back.
They continued their conversation in the same light vein for a few more minutes until the prince gestured for Casey to come over and seat Sarah before going back to his end of the table and sitting down.
As Casey pushed the chair back under Sarah's bottom, he whispered into her ear, "Men like the blushing thing, Walker. Makes you look virginal." Then he turned away to commence his serving duties.
Sarah had to quickly suppress the urge to laugh out loud at this statement and she distracted herself by removing her gloves and laying them on the table before Casey returned to her to unfurl and place a linen napkin on her lap.
When the main part of the meal was over, Sarah excused herself to go to the ladies' room. Of course, instead, Nadia directed her to a staircase leading down to the basement where the agencies' intel had indicated the disk was being kept awaiting transport out of America.
Sarah pulled a small but effective pistol from her handbag and cautiously crept around corners, checking first to make sure nobody was in sight. When she got to the room holding the disk, she was relieved to find that the door had a standard lock, easy to pick. Before commencing, she peeked through the glass top half of the door only to discover the room was empty.
Sarah thought this was a bit odd but put it down to the fact that The Brotherhood calculated that nobody would think the disk was in the embassy in the first place and a heavy guard would just draw attention to them. This tactic of hide-in-plain-sight was well-known and had been used by the CIA and NSA on many occasions. Just look at Chuck and the Intersect, for example.
Sarah made quick work of the door's lock and then cased the room. There were video cameras, of course, but she could be in and out very quickly at this rate and back with the prince, finish their dinner and be out of there before anybody really looked. Sarah knew that embassies were run by government employees who didn't like excitement, and she hoped that was the case here, but she still searched the room quickly and quietly, finding one locked drawer in a desk and opening it just as smoothly and quietly as she had the locked door.
The disk inside didn't have the words "Top Secret Brotherhood Database" written on it, but to Sarah's mind it might as well have, and she slipped the disk and its plastic cover into her purse, taking her pistol out again in preparation for leaving the room.
She had looked into the hall through the glass door again and was just pushing the door open when a booted foot kicked it from the outside, closing her left hand in the door and causing sharp pains to shoot up her arm. Crying out, Sarah quickly slipped her gun back in her purse, then pushed hard on the door again so she could get out of the room and not be trapped there. In the hallway were two compact but muscular men. They weren't wearing any kind of uniform other than all-black, the preferred color of hired muscle worldwide, and Sarah naturally assumed they were connected with The Brotherhood.
Try "Lost Little Girl" first.
"Oh, my hand," Sarah said, frowning and summoning up some tears as she rubbed the injured limb. "I don't know what you gentlemen must think, but I'm lost. Can you help me get back upstairs? I'm dining with Prince Wolodin."
"Lady, nobody gets lost down here ever gets un-lost," replied one of the thugs, a very ominous look on his face.
Next, try "Diversion."
Looking past the shoulders of the two men, Sarah waved a hand in the air and called out, "Yoo-hoo! Nadia! I'm right here!" and shifted her gaze back to the men momentarily to explain, "Nadia, the prince's aide, is here to get me, so I'll just say good-bye."
Sarah pushed between the men as they turned around to see who Nadia might be. Unfortunately, she didn't get very far down the hall before she felt a strong hand grip her upper arm, bringing her to an abrupt halt and spinning her back around.
"Not going to work, lady," the talkative thug said, almost tugging Sarah off of her feet.
She shook her arm out of his grip and said, "All right, all right, no need to get rough."
Step three, "Big Diversion."
Spotting a janitor's wheeled bucket and mop out of the corner of her eye, Sarah dropped her handbag to the floor and slipped out of her dress, adding it to the pile. If she had to fight, might as well keep the dress clean in case she got out of this to return upstairs. And it did make for a very effective diversion.
Sarah kept her gaze fixed on the now-bulging eyes of the thugs as they took in her well-muscled and shapely form, naked torso tanned and smooth and upper thighs outlined by lacy garters and stockings. Fortunately, they hadn't gotten as far in their inspection as her sharp high heel before it slammed into the cheek of first one thug, then the other in a controlled, graceful and powerful roundhouse kick that sent them both sprawling backwards onto the hall floor, hitting the backs of their heads.
Sarah knew that she would have to be very lucky for this to knock both men out, and she was right. Only the first one she had hit was out cold. Mr. Chatty just shook his head and gave a mighty heave, springing back onto his feet and advancing on Sarah, yelling out a martial arts bellow as he did so. Sarah turned and grasped the mop, swinging it out of the dirty gray water and spraying the man in the face, throwing grit and greasy liquid into his eyes and temporarily blinding him. Then she reversed the mop and drove the wooden end into his solar plexus, smiling at the satisfying "Oomph!" he let out as he folded in half and fell to his hands and knees on the floor. Another jab to the back of the neck, and he was lying prone in a pool of dirty water, arms splayed out over his head.
Sarah had turned and was bending over to reach for her purse when the man suddenly got up again, shaking his head like an enraged bull before throwing himself towards her once more. When he reached her, he stomped hard on Sarah's right hand with his booted foot and then on her left hand, which she had also placed flat on the floor so she could crouch down and feel for her purse. When she looked up at him, he completed his attack with a sound punch to her right cheek and nose, and she flipped over and fell hard on her back onto the floor, arms and legs flying outwards from the momentum of the spinning motion.
Sarah thought she might have been unconscious. She hoped it hadn't been too long, and she tried hard to clear her head and her vision so she could assess the situation. She figured it must have only been for a moment, though, when she could see enough to make out that the verbose thug had decided that a mostly naked unconscious woman lying on her back in front of him was too good to pass up, no matter what orders may have been to the contrary, and he was in the process of undoing his belt as he kneeled down between her legs and put his unoccupied hand on the floor above her shoulder.
Peeking out through barely opened eyelids, Sarah waited until he looked away from her face and towards his crotch as he struggled to get his zipper down with one hand, and she raised her leg and let him have it, again with the heel of her shoe, right where he was looking.
He let out an extremely loud and pain-filled howl and fell to the side, allowing Sarah to jump up and grab the mop again, reversing it and using the blunt wooden end to hit him – Sarah hoped for the final time – hard on the back of the head, this time knocking him out so he would stay out.
She looked around the hallway quickly and saw the janitor's closet, looked inside and found a length of rope and some duct tape. She dragged the two men inside and tied them up back-to-back, running duct tape around both their mouths and their heads, fastening them together with it, then duct taped each man's hands and ankles together in front of him. She made sure to place them away from the door so they couldn't kick it from the inside if they came to sooner than she needed to finish upstairs and leave.
Going back out into the hall, Sarah slipped her dress back over her head and picked up her handbag. She felt her cheek with tentative fingers and hissed at the pain when she depressed the tender flesh. It didn't seem to be broken, but she decided it would probably be better to stop in the washroom after all to assess the total damage. When she got there and checked the time, she was relieved to see that only ten minutes had passed since she had excused herself from the dining room. Another five minutes or so in here would not be an unreasonable absence.
And she had the disk.
All in all, not too bad, she thought, standing in front of the mirror. She pulled a makeup compact from her purse and began her repair work, flinching as her hands began to throb and burn.