A/N: I sure as hell hope that Szell doesn't own Chuck. I don't like him in the slightest.
A/N2: Mazel tov to Yvonne Strahovski and her husband Tim Loden on the birth of their second child, another boy. Wonderful news.
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Lenkov complained, "This part is boring. There's nothing here."
Ryker couldn't help but agree. They had changed planes in Dallas to get to Denver, coming in under false identities. A rented SUV and they were on their way to Craig. The drive to Craig was another four hours north and west of the Mile High City primarily on US40. Climbing into the Rocky Mountains and passing through the Eisenhower Tunnel had been a pretty drive. And the journey through the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests had likewise given them beautiful vistas to appreciate. But this part, just heading west across the high plains? This part was boring. They went for endless miles without seeing any manmade structure but wire fencing and the road they were on. There was just nothing there but brown dirt, brownish-green grass, and knee-high shrubbery. Maybe with the occasional stand of trees near a water source.
"Well, yeah," agreed Ryker. "But it's a great place to hide the kid, Galina. There's no one here to see it."
"Phaaahh," scoffed Lenkov. "A big city would be better."
"More people," countered Ryker.
"More anonymity," responded Lenkov.
Ryker shrugged. "Guess that's true enough."
They entered the town of Steamboat Springs, quiet now in the summer months with the ski slopes long closed. The town had some charm and would probably be a fun place at the height of winter ski season. At the moment, though, it seemed almost sleepy.
"Want to eat dinner here?" she asked.
"Naw. Let's push on. It's only another 45 minutes or so. That way we can check into the hotel and crash after we eat. Start the search for the kid in the morning. We've been traveling all day and I'm beat."
"Awright," she said.
The drive from Steamboat to Craig was more of the same nothing. The occasional ranches and buildings were few and far between. They passed a sign for a regional airport, but outside ski season, there were no commercial flights in or out. Craig was a totally unremarkable town. Mostly strip malls along 40. Gas stations and fast-food restaurants. A gun store caught their eye. The Craig Hotel was on the far side of town and looked as if it had been a Comfort Inn or something similar at one point in its life and had lost the franchise. They checked in and drove back in the direction they had come from to find a restaurant that didn't give you your meal in a paper bag.
While eating a steak and drinking a beer at OP's Grill, Ryker said to Lenkov, "I think I'll pretend to be an FBI agent. Go in to the local cops and start asking around. I can dummy up some fake credentials with a computer and a color printer from the hotel."
"No, Kiernan. Too much can go wrong with that. They can check with the FBI on your credentials. Even if they buy the act, what if they realize you are looking for the Kossuth baby? The last thing we need is for the local authorities to swoop in and take the kid. Much, much harder to kill her that way. I wouldn't get the cops involved."
"Ok. Do you have an idea?"
She smiled, making her look years younger than a woman in her early forties. "As a matter of fact, I do."
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The next day, at lunchtime, Ryker was sitting at the bar at the Yampa Valley Brewing Company in Craig sipping a beer. He'd made small talk with the bartender but the young man didn't know of any new babies in town in the last year.
His phone beeped. It was a text from Lenkov.
FIND THE SIMMONS RANCH
When the bartender didn't know that either, he paid his tab and walked out into the sunny day. The temperature was a comfortable 80 degrees or so. Pleasant. He walked a block to a realtor and entered the storefront offices. Twenty minutes later he was able to text Lenkov that he had the location of the Ranch.
He had the car ready when she left the beauty parlor with her hair freshly done.
"Success, huh?" he asked as she got in.
She flashed him a grin and said, "Oh, yeah. The ladies love to gossip. There's a somewhat older woman who's been staying at the Simmons Ranch. Seems to have rented it for the whole summer. Been there a few weeks now by herself. Only rarely comes to town. Gets most of her supplies delivered to the ranch. And, the thing is, she's got a little baby girl."
"Birthmark?"
"Not that any of them saw. But she's very secretive. Never talks to anyone. No friends in town. No playdates for the kid. Nothing like that."
Ryker grinned like a predator, "Pay her a visit?"
"Exactly what I was thinking."
"Your hair looks nice, by the way," he said. She smiled at him in response.
The drive was a bit less than a half an hour heading west on 40, towards the Utah border. They almost missed the driveway for the Simmons Ranch, but managed to stop and turn just in time. It was a dusty brown place. A large ranch house about fifty or sixty yards from the road. Behind it was a large barn looking building with a couple of smaller utility sheds near it. There was a single Toyota SUV parked in the driveway, covered in dust. The land behind the house seemed to go on and on, as far as could be seen. The place looked tidy, but totally unremarkable. The middle of nowhere.
They pulled up to the house and stopped in the driveway. "You stay in the car," said Lenkov. "A woman is less threatening." He nodded his agreement.
Lenkov passed by the SUV and noticed the child seat in the back seat. She went to the door and knocked. The front door was ajar and there was a closed screen door admitting a breeze. A woman in about her mid 50's or so, with hair a mix of white and blonde came to the door carrying a blonde-haired baby dressed in a pink short sleeved jumper. Although the baby was still mostly in shadow and seen through the mesh of the screen, Lenkov could see the heart-shaped birthmark on the back of her right thigh clearly. The woman with the baby held a finger to her lips for Lenkov to be quiet, then she turned away and moved deeper into the house, the baby snuggling into her shoulder.
Lenkov heard the woman cooing softly to the child and the child making soft babbling noises in response. After a few minutes the babbling stopped and the woman came outside without the baby.
Still motioning for quiet, she gestured for Lenkov to follow her further from the door.
She ran a hand through her hair, blew out a long breath, and said, "Sorry about that. She was just going down for a nap. If she knew we had visitors, she'd be wide awake again."
Lenkov smiled and said, "I understand. I know how they can get." Lenkov's English was completely fluent and had a non-regional American accent.
"So, how can I help you?" The woman was neither friendly nor rude. She was polite, but definitely reserved.
"Oh, right," said Lenkov with a smile. "Sorry. I was just going to ask you if you would consider renting out your ranch during ski season?"
"Couldn't tell you. I'm a renter myself. You'd want to talk to the realtors in town. We used Cornerstone Realty, on Yampa Avenue. They have the listing." The woman gestured back the way she and Ryker had come.
"Oh, terrific. Thanks. She seems like a cute baby," she said.
"Yes. She's a joy," replied the woman with a small smile.
"Is she your only child?"
The other woman looked at Lenkov stone-faced for a few moments (but Lenkov noticed that her hands were nervously fidgeting a bit) and then said, "I have to go. Have a nice day." She turned and headed back to the house without another word.
Lenkov watched her retreating back and said, loudly, "Um, yeah. Thanks. You too."
The old lady went back inside and Lenkov returned to Ryker in their car.
Climbing into the passenger seat, Lenkov said, with a grin, "That's it. I saw the birthmark. That's the Kossuth baby."
"Did you spook the lady?"
"I don't think so."
"Ok, good. We don't want her to do a runner," said Ryker. "Now we know where she is. I'll let Fodor know."
"Good. And I'll get the Shishani brothers to come up. I told them to stand by in Dallas in case we needed them."
"We don't need all three. Just one of them to pull the trigger," said Ryker.
Lenkov said, "They don't do anything alone. You have to hire all three or none. It's a thing with them."
"Are you sure they'll kill a baby? I had trouble with this a couple of times already."
"These guys are fucking animals. We'll be lucky if they don't kill everyone on the plane from Dallas to Denver. They will kill anyone and anything. Total psychos."
"They sound perfect for the job," chuckled Ryker.
"Absolutely." Sometime later she said, "Hey, hey, pull in here. Pull into the Walmart."
"Why?" asked Ryker.
"I want to buy a big ice chest. A big plastic ice chest. We can buy ice later."
"For what?"
"Keirnan, do you really want us to drive from here to LA in the middle of summer with the corpse of a baby in the back of the car?"
He wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Yeah. Good call. Let's do it."
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Fodor: Yes?
Ryker: We found the baby.
Fodor: Excellent, Keirnan. Excellent. What are your plans?
Ryker: The shooters will be here this evening. We'll go in overnight.
Fodor: Tomorrow is Friday. I'll be meeting with our patron in the afternoon. Take care of it before dawn your time and call me immediately. With the eight-hour time difference, I will be with him and can give him the good news right away. You'll be paid upon delivery of the body to the consulate in LA.
Ryker: Good.
Fodor: Do not fuck it up again. Make sure the little bitch is dead and the body delivered. There's a lot riding on this for all of us.
Ryker: I'll take care of it, Jozsef. Don't worry.
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[Conversations in this scene occur in Hungarian.]
Lake Balaton, Hungary; the next day
For the first time in a long time, Fodor was actually looking forward to the meeting with Szell. Now that he had good news to share the meeting wouldn't be as difficult. In fact, he might even expect some celebration.
The servant opened the door to him and led him across the marble hallway to the sunroom off on one side. As usual, he was made to feel as if her were a peasant visiting royalty.
Unlike his prior visits, the French doors in the sunroom were opened to the garden outside and there was a warm breeze coming from over the lake. Fodor enjoyed the smell of the water. The scene was calming. Small fishing boats floated in the distance. Insects buzzed in the garden.
Same greeting as always. Szell said, "Is the baby dead yet, and if not, why not?"
Fodor said, "Actually, Sir, I'm expecting word any moment now that the baby is dead. My men will call me here when it happens. Good news."
Szell's fierce expression eased slightly and he said, "Good news indeed. Tell me about it."
"This room is still swept daily for listening devises?"
"Twice daily, don't worry about it. We are secure here. No one can hear us. So, tell me. How did you find the baby, Jozsef?"
"An American woman called. I traced the call to a small American town in the western part of that country. I dispatched a team to confirm and initiate a termination operation. They called me last night. The baby is there." He glanced at his watch theatrically. "They are going in to kill it shortly. As I said, I expect the call any moment now."
Szell smiled, "Excellent. But you reminded them we need the body. Correct? The dead baby without the body is no good to us. We have to prove she's really dead. DNA and whatnot. They can't just leave it. Some stupid American cops might not recognize it. Obscurity is a disaster. Without the body being identified we are in no better position."
"Yes, Sir. I have instructed them to drop the body at the Hungarian consulate in Los Angeles. I have a friend working at that consulate. I will make sure she is on duty tomorrow and can take control of the child's dead body."
"Superb, Jozsef. Superb. Here, take a seat and we can drink while we wait for the good news. White wine to your taste?"
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Craig Colorado. Shortly before dawn
Ryker and Lenkov watched the three Shishani brothers walk across the dark ground to the ranch house, illuminated only by starlight. There were no lights on in the house and hadn't been for hours. In the blackness, they could hear the three men quietly bickering. Although Ryker didn't speak the language, he had been told by Galina that they were trying to decide which of them would have the privilege of shooting the baby. None of them had ever killed a baby before and each wanted to check it off his bucket list.
As the voices faded, the silence was unnerving. The wind whispered through the shrubbery, but that was the only sound once the voices and the crunch of the footsteps had faded. Luckily, they had found a small copse of trees from which to watch the house from a short distance away. It provided them a bit more concealment than simply standing on the side of the road next to a parked car.
The plan was perfect. Nothing could go wrong now. The men had been instructed to kill the baby and the old lady and bring the baby's body back to them. There was a giant ice chest in the back of their car filled with ice from the local Kum and Go convenience store. The brothers would drive on to Utah and leave the country from there under different names. Ryker and Lenkov would drive through the day and get to Los Angeles with the body.
He was almost to his pot of gold. The payoff for all his years of hard work and danger. A simple operation with a tremendous reward. He had trouble keeping from smiling.
He watched from a distance as the three men approached the front door of the dark ranch house. Silently, one of them crouched at the door and opened the lock while the other two kept watch.
The door swung open silently on well-oiled hinges. The brothers drew their weapons and crept one at a time into the dark and silent house.
All three men were startled to see the old lady they had been told to expect not only awake, but standing in the hallway holding the child in her arms and looking at them. They couldn't see her expression in the gloom, but she said to them, calmly, "Catch."
She tossed the bundle she'd been holding towards them. All three were so surprised as to merely stand there open mouthed as the baby flew through the air.
As if by magic, there was a pistol in the old lady's hand and it began to bark its angry message to the invading men. Six shots fired as fast as the pistol's mechanism could accomplish the action. Six head shots, every one dead center. The last of the men was dead before the first body hit the floor. The woman dropped the magazine from her weapon and inserted a fresh one.
Stepping over the now useless prop from the movie studio, Patricia Kendler, United States Secret Service (retired), went to one knee and checked the bodies. She spoke into the watch on her left wrist, "Inside clear." She received a single click in her ear in response.
Outside the house, Ryker and Lenkov watched the flashes from the gunfire in the house.
"Overkill," murmured Ryker trying to count the bursts of light through the building's windows. Galina seemed to gurgle in response. He looked to his side and saw her looking at him with her eyes wide with panic. Her hands had gone to her throat and there was a flood of dark liquid flowing down the front of her shirt.
He was still looking at her with surprise and confusion as she collapsed to the dusty ground, her blood beginning to wet the dirt beneath her.
Something hit his shoulder with a savage blow, and his right arm went dead, hanging limp. A hand like a steel grapnel grabbed at his throat from behind and yanked him backward. Ryker's good hand came up to the hand on his neck and clawed at it, seeking to dislodge a single finger he could break. An arm flashed under his armpit and a second grapnel took him by the back of the neck.
Ryker was held with his only working arm imprisoned in a half nelson and he felt himself being effortlessly lifted off the ground as if he were a small child. Ryker's left hand above his head clutched desperately, but managed to grab only air. The hand at his throat moved to his jawbone, the fingers digging into his flesh to achieve a solid purchase. Ryker tried kicking backwards, but the giant holding him slammed a knee against his hamstring muscle, deadening the leg. His head began to be twisted around inexorably.
A deep quiet voice said, "My name is Fitz. When you get where you're going, find your team. Tell them I sent you on behalf of Bora."
The mighty arms heaved once and there was the sound of a wet branch breaking. Ryker's lifeless body dropped to the ground. His head was facing entirely the wrong direction, wearing a surprised expression.
Fitz stared at Ryker for a moment and spoke into his watch, his hands shaking a bit, "Outside clear."
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[Conversations in this scene occur in Hungarian.]
Lake Balaton, Hungary
Fodor and Szell were relaxing in the comfortable mansion on the lake, drinking wine and waiting for word that a baby had been terminated. Fodor had just taken his first sip of the superb French wine. When the baby was dead and he'd been paid, he would be able to afford these wines all the time.
He watched the small fishing boats in the distance as he and Szell talked. He watched a dragon fly flit around the shrubs in the garden.
"Why the open doors today? You normally use the air-conditioning," he asked his patron.
"The goddamn thing is broken. Some kind of computer problem or something. They've called a technician from Budapest to fix it, but the damn man won't be here until tomorrow."
"Ah," said Fodor, taking another sip of the wine and enjoying the relaxing time. His expectations for the day were high. He'd finally get what he'd been working towards for so long. If not for Ryker's incompetence, this would have been the case last summer. A whole year wasted. But it couldn't be helped. And today it would be settled the way it was supposed to have been all those months ago.
One of Szell's cell phones rang. He frowned at it. This was the burner phone he used to talk to Fodor. No one else had that number. He looked up at Fodor and said, "Who else did you give this number to?"
"No one. What are you talking about?"
"This is the phone I use to call you."
Fodor looked confused, but the phone in Szell's hand continued to ring. He answered it on speaker. An emotionless computer-generated voice said, "The entire team you sent to kill the baby is dead. Bora lives, you motherfucker. Burn in hell."
With a click, the call ended.
Both men looked at each other with shock. Fodor put down his wine, grabbed his phone and tried Ryker. Ryker's phone rang and rang until the mailbox message began. Fodor said, in English, "Call me immediately."
Szell said, "What the hell, Fodor? You and your men are incompetent. I pay you to kill the family and what do I get?" He was on his feet and screaming by the time he'd finished speaking.
Standing himself, Fodor replied, somewhat frantically, "Well, I killed the parents. The baby surviving was an unexpected development. She was supposed to have been killed that night...the same night. We've talked about this. I'm sorry. We'll take care of it. Let me talk to my team. I spoke to them just a few hours ago. Let me find out what happened."
"Your men are dead, you fucking moron. Didn't you hear? Don't you get it? You've been played. It was a trap. You sent your men into a trap. Now we have to start all over again. To find the baby and kill it."
"I know, Sir. We'll take care of it. As I said, my men killed her parents. We'll kill her too, it's only..."
"Yes, you did. And everything ended up in trust with that fucking lawyer. My own lawyers tell me that I have to wait another eight years to have her declared dead without a body. I'm paying you to kill the entire family, not part of the family. I don't care that you managed to kill her parents. I don't care if you managed to kill half of Budapest, you are an incompetent failure. All I need you to do is to kill one baby and you can't even do that." Szell was red in the face and screaming at Fodor, who was pale and shaking.
Suddenly there was a pounding on the door. The staid servant from the front door ran in and shouted, "Mr. Szell, stop. Stop talking. Stop talking, Sir."
"What the hell are you going on about, you idiot? Why should I stop talking? You are interrupting an important meeting here. Get the hell out."
"But, you are on TV, Sir." The servant looked and sounded wild.
"What do you mean? Who's on TV?"
"You are, Sir," he said desperately. "This conversation. My sister called me. I don't know how, but it's on TV. Everyone is watching it...hearing it...on TV."
Fodor and Szell looked at each other in horror frantically looking around the room for a TV camera...a camera of any kind. But, of course, there was nothing to be found. At that moment they heard the sirens stopping in front of the mansion. Another servant rushed into the room.
"Sir, the police are here. The police are ..."
Before she could finish, they all heard the front door slam open and heavy footsteps pound across the marble hallway.
Fodor pulled his gun and pointed it at Szell. When the police entered the room with their own guns drawn he said to them, "I was wondering when you would get here. I was just taking him into custody. I'm with the..."
He didn't finish the statement as a burly cop ripped the gun from his hand and dropped him face first onto the coffee table, handcuffing him roughly. Szell was similarly handled.
In the excitement, no one noticed the lone dragon fly leave the garden to make its way across the still waters of the lake and back to the fishing boat.
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A few hours later
Molly O'Donnell sat on the warm sand and let the gentle waves from the Gulf of Mexico lap at her little chubby legs as she giggled with happiness, Emma sitting beside her.
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A/N3: Attribution. I borrowed the bit where Fitz kills Ryker from one of my favorite Modesty Blaise stories. "When you get where you're going..." Damn, it still gives me shivers.
A/N4: This is the first time that Team B has been on the offensive for the entire mission and has had all the time in the world to prepare. What Ellie told Emma back in February was right. If Szell and his men had any idea what was heading their way, they'd have peed in their pants and hidden under the bed. But that wouldn't have helped them in the slightest. From the moment Ryker decided to involve Sarah in the murder of the Kossuth family and she told Chuck about it in the Roman hotel room, their fate was carved in stone. They are monsters. Fuck 'em all.