It was set. Ethan and Benji were to infiltrate The Kremlin, Ethan impersonation General Anatoly Fedorov, that way he could enter the highly secured archive room so that he could get Cobalt's file to find out his true identity before Cobalt himself could destroy it. Jane and I were positioned outside The Kremlin posing as tourists.
As Jane and I walked through Red Square I held a red balloon in my hand as Jane held a handheld video camera. I released the balloon and Jane 'video taped' it. Jane controlled the balloon and when she got to a point she flipped the monitor closed and peered through the lens, taking the balloon to a precise location and dropping it through a vent.
"Releasing in three, two, one." Jane said informing Ethan, Benji, and I.
We walked around Red Square some more, waiting for a signal from Ethan and/or Benji.
"It's empty." Ethan mumbled through the comm, then said more clearly. "The nest is empty."
There was what sounded like a scuffle and Jane and I looked at each other in worry. Then a unknown voice was heard. "Check in Team Leader. Over." There was a pause. "Repeat. Check in, Team Leader. Have you made it to the Archive Room?" I looked up suddenly at Jane and she was giving me the same look I presume I was giving her. "Team Leader, awaiting your go-sign. Standing by to detonate."
"Abort." Ethan said over the comm. "Rendezvous nine-two"
Jane unplugged her earphones. "Let's go." She told me.
"No, Jane. I'm waiting for Ethan. Go without me. I will see you soon, I promise." I told her.
"Christine, you heard what Ethan said." Jane said pleadingly.
"I'm not leaving without knowing he is safe." I told her.
She nodded her head and left. I calculated what Ethan would do and I saw some big, green, wooden doors and decided that was where my brother was going to be headed. When I got the not even ten seconds later Ethan was out and changed into a civilian.
He stared intensely when he saw me. "How is it I'm not surprised you're here."
"Because I'm your sister." I said smirking. "Come on, let's get out of here."
We started walking and that's when the first set of bombs had detonated. Ethan grabbed my hand and we started to run, but we weren't fast enough. We were too close to a bomb and when it detonated we were pushed by the force and I blacked out.
When I awoke I heard the sound of heart monitors beeping and people talking, but I wasn't coherent enough to understand what they were saying. When I opened my eyes I was in a hospital, in the hallway. I had a drip bag hanging over my head. I tried to move my arms so that I could wipe my face, but they were handcuffed to the metal bed frame.
When a nurse walked by, I tried getting her attention. "Excuse me." I said to her and she came over.
"Yes?" She asked.
"Where is my brother?" I asked her.
"I'm sorry." She apologized. "Who?"
"A man, 5'7" with medium length brown hair and brown eyes." I told her.
"I think I remember seeing him. Just down the hall." She told me and walked away.
A few minutes later another nurse came and I was transported to a room, soon after my brother was pushed into the room and I greeted him.
There were two men standing outside our door.
"The doctors say he's lucky to be alive. Only a mild concussion."
All of a sudden a felt hand shaking me. I looked over and saw Ethan staring at me, out of his cuffs, and he motioned for me to follow him. I went to show him my cuffs but found they were undone. He pulled me over to the window and we climbed out onto the ledge. Soon a man appeared out the window. He sat there when he saw and he pulled out a smoke and then motioned for us to jump. We just kept looking at him.
Hit lit up his smoke. "Not a good idea."
"It seemed like one, a minute ago." Ethan told him.
The man motioned for us to come over and we slid closer to him a bit. Underneath us a van started and started to move. Ethan looked at me and unclipped his belt and I did the same with mine. We slid down the power line and when we were close enough to the van we let go and fell on it, but we rolled off of it and onto the ground.
We looked at the man up in the window and started to run. We walked by where some clothes were and grabbed two hooded sweaters, Ethan's leather. Still bare footed, when we walked by another place and grabbed shoes. And when we walked by a café, someone had left their phone on the table so I grabbed it and slipped it to Ethan.
"SAT 20. Agent 82-Delta-Echo requesting immediate evac. Rendezvous Alpha 113." Ethan said into the phone.
A reply was heard from the other line and Ethan hung it up and handed it to me. We passed by a drain pipe and I threw the phone down it. We walked around, waiting for our evac, never stopping so that we wouldn't get caught. It soon turned to dark and we turned down an alley way, at the end to meet a SUV and a door opening. Ethan walked up to it first and then climbed in, I followed coming face to face with the Secretary and an unknown man.
"Mr. Secretary." Ethan greeted. "I wasn't aware you were in Russia."
"I'm not. Not since a bomb blew up the Kremlin." He told us. "Yesterday I flew in to accept the Order of Friendship from the Russian Prime Minister. Now I'm headed back to Washington to hand the President my resignation." He said as the man next to him was making himself a tea. "My Chief Analyst, William Brandt." He said acknowledging him and Brandt held out a hand for us to shake it, I shook it but Ethan sat there searching his jacket for something.
"Do you have a pen?" He asked the Analyst.
"Pardon me?" Brandt said confused, with his hand still out.
"A pen." I told him.
"Yeah." Brandt told him and stuck his hand inside his jacket pocket to get one.
"Christine, what happened in the Kremlin?" The Secretary asked me.
I went to say something but Ethan interrupted. "Chief Analyst, you say?" Ethan asked him.
The Analyst looked flustered for a moment but answered Ethan. "I you're implying that I made a bad call…"
Ethan cut him off. "European male." Ethan wrote on his hand as he talked. Fifties. About six-foot, 180 pounds. Blue eyes." Ethan held his hand up for Brandt to see. "Who is he?"
"A crude drawing, but by your description, that could be Kurt Hendricks. 190 IQ. Served in Swedish Special Forces. Professor of Physics, Stockholme University. Specialist in nuclear endgame theory. Asked to resign… Well, because he's crazy." Brandt listed off to him.
"Cobalt." Ethan said. "You have to alert the Kremlin that one of their strategists has a nuclear launch device and one of his operatives has the codes to activate it."
"And what makes you say that?" Brandt asked him.
"I saw him." Ethan answered. "Leaving the executive armoury, bag in hand. He set off that explosion to cover his tracks. It could be weeks before the Russians know it's missing. Unless we tell them."
"They won't listen to us." The Secretary told him. "As far as the Russians are concerned, we just blew up the Kremlin. The tension between the United States and Russia hasn't been this high since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And the blame, right or wrong, points to IMF." He paused. "The President has initiated Ghost Protocol. The entire IMF has been disavowed."
"So what happens now?" I asked him.
"Now, I've been ordered to take you both back to Washington, where the DOD will label you two as rogue extremists and hang the Kremlin bombing on you and your team." The Secretary explained and as he did Brandt was staring at me and Ethan at Brandt. "Unless, you were to escape somewhere between here and the airport, having assaulted Mr. Brandt and me."
"Sir?" Brandt asked confused.
"You would then illegally scrounge whatever material you could from a backup supply cache that I've overlooked. The same cache where your team are awaiting for further orders." The Secretary explained.
"Sir, you may want to…" Brandt started saying concerned, but was cut off when the Secretary held his hand up and kept talking.
"You will then disappear, and this conversation never having taken place, your intentions would be unclear. But if anyone of your team is caught or killed, they will be branded terrorist, out to incite global nuclear war." The Secretary zipped open a black case with USB's in it and handed it to me. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it." I took the USB and shoved it into my pocket and looked at Brandt for a few seconds and he looked unhappy with the Secretary's decisions. "Ethan, Christine, you were my best people. And I'm sorry it's come to this, after all the sacrifices you made. If we don't meet again, I just want you to know, I've always considered you both friends."
There was gunfire and Brandt made a yell and pulled the Secretary down, covering him.
"Stay down! Drive, drive, drive!" Ethan yelled to the driver.
A bullet hit the Secretary on the left side of his forehead, and everything happened so fast after that and the next thing I knew, the vehicle was submerged in water.
"You okay?" Ethan asked us when we resurfaced in the air bubble.
"Yeah." Both Brandt and I answered him.
"Take a deep breath. Stay with me." He told us, and we nodded our heads.
"Ready?" Ethan asked Brandt.
"Yeah." He answered.
We swam out from the car and we were ambushed by gun fire and I felt a bullet enter in the left side of my abdomen. We escaped quickly back into the car, into the air pocket.
I gasped for air as soon as I hit the pocket. Brandt had gotten there before me, and Ethan had followed behind me.
"What do we do?" Brandt asked us.
"Wait here. Both of you." Ethan said pointedly as he held up a flair.
"Where else am I going to go?" Both Brandt and I said as soon as Ethan had disappeared under the water, and we looked at each other quickly.
The gun fire had stopped on the car and Ethan appeared back at the air pocket and were told to follow him. We reached the surface of the water when we had gotten far enough away from the vehicle, and when we had we all gasped for air, except mine and Brandt's were more audible than Ethan's.
***AUTHOR'S NOTE***
This is a serious threat! If I do not get some reviews I will not post the next chapter. Just telling you all this story is finished on my computer and I have already started the sequel; yes there will be a sequel! So review or no more posts!
