"Red Haven is on fire," Sara read the text message on her iPhone as she used her towel to wipe the sweat from her face during a break in their session.
"Fuck," Laurel said as she walked quickly to the wall by the entrance, picked up her own phone from where it sat on her gym bag, and read the duplicate message before calling Renee.
"You better not be on speaker," Renee said.
"I'm not."
"My office. One hour."
"We'll be there," Laurel said just before the call ended.
"Shit," Laurel said as she threw he phone down back onto her bag.
"Not happy." Sara said to her sister as she continued to wipe her face and head.
It was their regular 9 AM training session. They had the studio to themselves during the hours that they paid for the private use of the otherwise close-to-the-public Jiu-Jitsu studio on North Lincoln Avenue while Sara was visiting, but Renee was not taking any chances on any phone conversation being intercepted.
"No, not happy," Laurel said as she began to remove the wraps from her hands.
"We done?"
"Yes. Showers," was Laurel's distracted reply to her younger sister's question.
"You gonna explain that text that's got you all worked up?"
"Red Haven is on fire means that my mission had gone completely to shit, and to head immediately to the extraction point."
"It's our mission, not yours, our mission was to protect an actress who was getting sicko nut-job letters, and we don't have an extraction point."
"I know, which is why it bothers me. Something is seriously fucked up if she sent us that code."
"Could it be a mistake?" Sara asked, already knowing from the look on her sisters face and her body language, a body that went into high alert mode the moment Sara had read the words from the text message, what her answer would be.
"No."
"It's about to hit the news," Renee said, "The Commissioner of the NYPD had it on a close hold until her transport was wheels up, and that was about ten minutes ago. The whole world is going to learn in the next twenty minutes that four people were murdered, and that they had a connection to her."
"A connection, but not the whole story, right?" Sara asked.
"Not the whole story," Renee answered, "because we don't know the whole story, but specifically not the four guys that were waiting for her at her plane."
Renee's office afforded them all a wonderful view of Belmont Harbor, or it would have done if any of the three women had any attention to spare from the topic of conversation.
"What do we know about them?" Laurel asked.
"Nothing. None of them are talking, though two of them aren't able to yet. They got pretty banged up."
"New York's finest give them a little payback?" Laurel asked.
"No. That happened before NYPD or Port Authority showed up."
"So, our cousins put that beating on them?"
"One cousin in particular, yeah. She's onboard with the protectee now."
"Good," Laurel said.
"How does this change things for us?" Sara asked.
"The NYPD Commissioner called Commissioner Gordon," Renee said, "He's taking a personal interest."
"Personal, as in a big ass light shining in the sky at night, personal?"
"Don't know yet. But the threat level is a lot fucking higher than we anticipated, or planned for. So our plans are changing. Higher threat, higher protection."
"What do you have in mind?" Laurel asked.
"I have in mind that someone killed four people just so they could impersonate them and get their hands on our protectee. They're likely to try the same trick again, we don't know who they'll impersonate next, and I want to be ready."
Renee was quiet for a moment as she stared at the younger of the Lance sisters.
"No more playing ride along, kiddo, things just got real," she said to Sara as she slid a black leather document folder across her desk, "you're in, officially, or you're out, officially."
Laurel watched as her sister took approximately five seconds before moving to pick up the folder. It took her another sixty seconds to read the sheets inside before she took the pen from the holder on the folder and signed at the bottom of the second sheet.
"Stop by HR on your way out to do your insurance forms and pick up your phones. You need to be there when she arrives in a bit over two hours. The details are already waiting on your new phones. She doesn't leave your sight. One of you is always within arm's reach of her. Check the credentials of anyone who wants to get near her, I don't give a fuck what uniform they're wearing, or who they say they are."
"Got it, boss," Sara said. which drew a smile from her sister.
"Daylight's burning. Better hoof it," Renee said.
"Flight scheduled to arrive ORD 14:05. Will develop technical issue and go dark before diverting to MDW," Laurel read from her new phone.
"Not taking any chances," Sara said.
"Someone killed the last flight crew. Can't rule out that they'll have someone waiting at O'Hare."
"Wanna bet that the crew on that inbound flight doubles as a counter assault team?"
"Plus the agent that beat the shit out of those four assholes."
"Plus us," Sara said, "she'll probably survive until dinner at least, right?"
Laurel gave her sister a smile as she navigated her Porsche Cayenne SUV off the Kennedy Expressway.
"Didn't sound like they were trying to kill her, just snatch her."
"It's like stealing the Eiffel Tower. What the fuck are you going to do with it, throw a fucking blanket over it? You can't show it off."
"No, you can't. You have to keep it well hidden, for your own private enjoyment."
They were both quiet while Laurel merged back onto the Kennedy, heading back the way they had come, before merging onto the Stevenson heading southwest towards Midway Airport.
"Sounds worse than killing her," Sara said.
