The limo was just passing the 278/495 interchange when Sharon handed Trish her phone, which said that it was 1:15 AM, and which was opened to a text message and a video clip that again showed the back of a black BMW 5 series sedan. The time stamp at the start of the video indicated that the clip Trish was about to watch was recorded as their take down of the bogus flight crew was in progress.
"Second drone?" Trish asked her.
"Seems so," she replied.
Trish pressed the play button and watched as the car, which was crossing one of the many bridges that crossed the East River, stopped abruptly to avoid rear-ending the black Mercedes van in front of it, only to quickly be sandwiched in place as an identical van stopped immediately behind it. Two heavily armed men from each van rapidly had the men from the car in restraints and hoods before unceremoniously dumping them into the rear van. A woman from the first van, wearing a low cut evening dress and stiletto heels, placed a new license plates over the ones that were still bolted to the car before getting into the driver seat. The video ended with all three vehicles moving again.
"What bridge was that?" Rita asked.
"Looked like the RFK Bridge."
"Lucky there was no other traffic on the bridge."
"I don't think luck had anything to do with it."
"No, huh?"
Nice to have friends in high places, and a shitload of cash.
The limo and it's four occupants passed through the private gate at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that marked the boundary for the private airfield belonging to Richmond Air Service. The drone that had been following them up until that moment buzzed low over them as it sped ahead and into the hangar in front of them. The limo arrived about thirty seconds later.
Trish had repacked her field case but had not bothered to put her shoes back on, so she stepped out of the limo grasping her shoes and tactical batons in her left hand, and the strap from the holster that still held her Walther PPS in her right hand, before setting both down as the tall blonde woman who had been awaiting Trish's return ran up to Trish and burst into tears again as her arms wrapped around her and lifter her off her feet.
Stronger than she looks.
"Hey...hey...I'm fine, everything's fine, not a scratch on me, see?" Trish assured her once her feet were back on the ground and she could draw breath enough to speak, "It went quick. We're all fine."
Trish still wore the black spaghetti strap dress she had worn to the benefit, and Annelie's hands rubbed Trish's bare shoulders as the tall woman looked down slightly at Trish, her tears mingling with the smile that finally appeared on her damp face.
"I was so worried," she said as her words caught, and her voice faltered. But as she looked at Trish, and Sharon, and the rest of the team that had taken the plane and it's hijackers, she seemed to draw strength from their calm demeanor; and as she straightened to her full five-foot-ten-inch height, she took a deep breath, dried her eyes, and everyone watching her saw clearly that some sort of transformation was in progress.
"It took you long enough," Annelie said in a tone of voice that could have come from the mouth of Bekke Reese, international assassin.
"Well, you know, traffic on the 495 can be a bitch," Trish replied as she smiled, her right hand taking Annelie's left one.
Their mixed laughter drew a fair amount of attention.
"She's one-hundred percent ours now," Kyle said as they sat in the office waiting for the technicians to finish downloading the high resolution footage from the drone, referring to the woman who was now asleep in the apartment on the second floor of the building inside the hangar, "her bodyguards from Powhatan Security signed the NDAs, collected their payoffs, and should be home celebrating their extra earnings.
"What did you tell them?" Trish asked.
"That they never had a contract to guard Annelie, that they have never even met her, that yesterday was a scheduled day off," Kyle began, "We'll scrub any information from Powhatan's servers that connects them to Annelie. Two men from Mark's team will appear on Powhatan's list of employees, and on the contract to protect her. We'll tell the NYPD that Annelie and her bodyguards were touring Manhattan at the time her flight crew was murdered, and that you weren't feeling well, and stayed in the hotel. Sharon is writing a script for Annelie and Mark's guys to review describing where they went and what they did while you and Annelie were busy."
'busy' is one word for it.
"Now my head hurts," Jessica said.
"It'll be fine," Kyle said, "No one's going to look that close at her, except for why she was a target in the first place, which we still don't know."
"How about your thing?" Trish asked Jessica.
"Don't fucking ask," Jess replied.
"We're working on that as well," Kyle said.
"Is that what the container with every variation of stay the fuck away from me written on it is for?"
"Yes, but it's only a temporary fix. We need to know what that case is holding."
Christ.
"When can we be wheels up for Chicago?" Trish asked.
"Not until we talk to the NYPD," Kyle said, "They have a quadruple homicide to investigate, and they want to talk to Annelie. It's not an unreasonable request."
"She doesn't know shit, and we gave them the fucking guys that did this."
"Most of them," Jessica said.
"We'll give them the other two eventually," Kyle said, "Sharon mentioned that the man in the cabin spoke another language before you put a pretty good sized dent in his head."
"He did, but it wasn't a language I recognized."
"Anything from the two assholes in the car?" Jess asked.
"They're Americans, local high-end low-lifes. We'll know more in a day or two."
"You gonna hold them that long?" Jess asked.
"Yes," was all Kyle said.
Trish had an image of a man strapped to a board while another man holding a five gallon jug of water stood over him forming in her mind.
Fucking hell.
"We're ready," The technician said just before the large monitor on the wall switch from the ACAMS I-TWR display to the 4K high res footage from the drone.
"Fast forward to the tarmac," Kyle said to the man who looked like he was fourteen years old.
"Wilco," the man said.
"If he's gonna talk like that, shouldn't he be wearing a flight suit?" Jessica asked.
"Sush," Trish said as the video started playing.
"What? You were fucking there, none of this is news to you."
"Do you mind?" Kyle asked.
The crystal clear video showed the car pull along side the aircraft. Trish watched herself get out of the car, her fake loss of balance, and her right hand come up and strike the man on the temple.
"Ouch," said a woman's voice from behind her.
Trish turned to see Annelie standing in the office door looking at the monitor.
"Pause it," Kyle's voice said as Trish walked to the doorway and placed her hand on Annelie's arm.
"Thought you were going to try and get some sleep," Trish said.
"Thought you were going to join me," Annelie said.
"Mission debrief. They're required after an op. We'll be finished soon."
"I can wait," Annelie said as she began to walk towards the wall monitor, and the group of people who stood in front of it, "you can keep going."
Trish looked from Annelie to Kyle. Kyle's only response was to shrug his shoulders and say, "rewind ten seconds and play."
The image on monitor went backwards before replaying the car's approach, Trish's ridge hand strike, and Michael's catching the unconscious man. Trish's eyes went to Annelie as the actress watched what followed: Trish retrieving her silenced pistol, her steps up the ladder as most of her body disappeared into the plane, one shoe falling back down the stairs followed quickly by the body of the man she had struck, followed just as quickly by the second shoe. Trish kept her eyes on Annelie, and so did not see the part of the image that showed Michael drag the unconscious man out of the way before entering the airplane, or Simon applying restraints to the hands and feet of the two unconscious men. Annelie's eyes stayed fixed on the monitor, studying every detail of what she saw, but her face was a mask; her breathing never changed, neither did her heart rate. Trish turned back to the monitor finally, which for several seconds displayed only the two prone men, until Simon reappeared, unceremoniously dragging the third man down the stairs.
"I'd have dragged him feet first," Jessica said, "and let his head land on every fucking step."
Eventually Michael appeared with the fourth man who, unlike his comrades, was able to walk down the stairs on his own before Sharon pressed a taser to his neck and shocked him into unconsciousness.
"Pause and mark the time," Kyle said just as Sharon's image on the screen was putting her phone up to her ear in the now still image. "Fast forward to the police arriving."
"Six minutes," Kyle said as the police arrived on scene and the image froze again. He turned and looked at Annelie. "We have about five minutes of footage remaining before the drone takes off to reacquire the limo. Do you want to see them loaded up and driven away, or are you satisfied that they were apprehended?"
Annelie's eyes moved back to Trish and stayed there as she spoke.
"I'm satisfied."
"I have to type up my after action report, but that won't take long," Trish said as she lay on the queen sized bed, her arms wrapped around Annelie, who had her knees pulled up to her chest as she lay on her right side, her back pressed against Trish's chest, "but I'll need to do that in the next few minutes. Kyle wants all our reports on his iPad before anyone leaves.
"Just a few more minutes," Annelie said as he own hands came down over Trish's to prevent her from pulling away, "just hold me."
"Well," Trish replied softly as she snuggled in even closer and whispered in Annelie's ear, "If you insist."
Trish could feel Annelie take a deep breath before letting it out slowly, and it felt to Trish that all the remaining tension in Annelie's body flowed out with that one long exhale.
"It was strange watching you in action in the recording," Annelie said quietly, "especially after experiencing first hand your other talents."
"There wasn't much action, not really," Trish said, "Never underestimate the element of surprise. Or a well crafted deception. People expect to see certain things in certain situations. The first two men saw a ditzy woman holding her shoes and stumbling around, and they reacted accordingly. If I had stepped out of the limo in tactical boots and combat armor they would have acted differently."
"You lulled them to sleep, sort of."
"I lulled them into thinking that their plan was working, that we were walking into their trap," Trish replied, "Sharon would've shot the first man from inside the car, walked up the steps and shot the next two from the top of the stairs. Maybe that's what they deserved, but I draw the line at cold blooded assassinations. I have enough shit on the red side of my ledger, I don't need that as well."
"I'm glad you said something," Annelie said, "I would have let Kyle kill the four of them, but it would have bothered me afterwards. I'm not sure I could have lived with it, even after what they did."
"It's done now, for what it's worth," Trish said, "at least that part of it. We still don't know who is behind this, or why, but we're gonna keep you safe until we find out. At that point, I might reconsider my position on cold blooded assassination."
