Trish took a surreptitious glance at her cell phone just before the Range Rover turned off the street and onto the driveway.
NO SERVICE
"Ona khochet videt' yeye", Beth said to the man standing guard at the gate leading into Ekaterina Sokolova's property. {She wants to see her.}
The man did a quick scan of the interior of the black Range Rover, stopping at the figure of the blonde woman seated between two other women who looked back at him with business-like stares.
"Miss Bodin zdes'. Ona govorit, chto khochet videt' bossa," the man said into his comm unit. He had a short conversation with whoever it was on the other end before addressing Beth again. {Miss Bodin's here. She wants to see the boss.}
"Pod"yekhat' i priparkovat'sya." {Drive up and park.}
Beth didn't bother to answer as she closed her window and placed the SUV in drive before slowly progressing up the drive.
"Don't turn into the parking area. Go straight up the drive to the small overhang," Annelie had told them, "That will make them think you've been there before. Use the code I gave you to open the door. She wouldn't have deleted it because that would have been her admitting that I was never coming back. The security office is just inside on the left. Go there first. Once you're inside, Sharon will have to do all the talking. When I was there last, all her security spoke English. Just say I need to speak with Katya. That should get you into the main house. There are two floors, and she'll probably just be getting out of the tub and will have had a couple glasses of wine by then, and you'll probably have to wait while she gets dressed and fusses with makeup. She'll see you on the second floor, but I don't know how many of you they'll let up there."
Beth continued past the parking area, and the man standing there, and continued to the small overhang before stopping. After that, it was a well-rehearsed vehicle exit and form up before Beth opened the glass door with the six-digit code that Annelie had provided. They could hear the crunching noise of shoes on gravel from behind them as the man they had passed came running up the drive.
The hallway in front of them was empty as they walked in and turned left into the security station.
"I need to speak with Katya," Sharon said to the man who was just standing up from the monitoring station.
"Wait a moment," he answered before he picked up the desk phone.
"Ona zdes' so svoyey okhranoy," he said into the phone just as the man from the parking area walked in. {She's here with her bodyguards.}
"You can go up. Your security can wait here," he said as he held the phone to his chest.
"She's not going anywhere without us," Trish said firmly but calmly, "no one's trying to kidnap her again."
" Yeye nachal'nik sluzhby bezopasnosti govorit net. Chetyre " {Her head of security says no. Four.}
"Two of you can go up," the man said.
Trish looked at all the women present and then nodded to Jessica.
"Oni na puti vverkh," the man said into the phone just before Trish, Jessica, and Sharon walked out of the room, turned left, and proceeded towards the end of the hallway, and the stairs at the end. {They're on their way up.}
"Your Russian's really good," the man they had passed in the driveway said to Beth in Russian.
"Thanks. Your English is good."
"Where did you learn it? You've got a bit of an accent, but I can't place it."
"Barcelona mostly, but I spend a bunch of my time in Odessa these days. And in Chicago," Beth answered.
"You get around," The man at the console looking at the monitors said without turning around, "Who'd she hire you guys from?"
"Intergang."
That got both men's attention.
"No shit?" the man from the drive said.
"No shit."
"Holy fuck," the man at the console said before he looked at Rita.
Rita hadn't the slightest idea what they were saying, but she saw the change in their body posture immediately, so she simply smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
"Holy fuck," he said again like it was a mantra that would protect him from harm as he turned back to the screens.
If that is what he thought, he was wrong.
The three women were silent as they walked down the hallway toward the stairs in front of them. Everything that wasn't expensive marble or wood flooring seemed to be made of glass. On their left was a large living room with floor-to-ceiling windows, and that ceiling capped the second floor high above them, the lower ceiling just above their heads was the only thing that defined the width of the hallway until a wall to their left took up that duty for the last twenty feet, where another man met them and escorted them further into the house and up the steps. The steps were open, and Trish could see through them to the first floor as they climbed before turning to the right into another short hallway. There was an indoor swimming pool to their left on the floor below, separated from them by more glass. Another turn to the right brought them up finally to the second floor, and a long hallway floored with beautiful dark wood planks about twelve inches wide that led back the way they had just come, one floor down. At the end of the hall was another security station, which looked to be perched above the station one floor below. Just before that was a doorway on the left that opened into a bedroom, and it was into that room that they were led.
"Please wait," was all the man said just before leaving and closing the door.
Now or never, Trish thought as she looked at Sharon.
"Wait outside," Sharon said quietly to Jessica and Trish before the man had closed the door completely.
The two women followed the man out, and as Trish closed the door behind her, she and Jessica exchanged a look.
Trish looked at her phone again.
Thank fucking God, she thought as she saw the three bars of signal strength.
"Hey, is there a bathroom up here?" Jessica asked one of the men at the security station.
scorpion, Trish texted to everyone in the group.
"No, you have to go back downstairs..." the man started to explain as he stepped away from his partner.
Trish waited until the man had taken two steps away from the desk before she tasered the man who was still sitting down. Jessica produced a similar device from her pocket and pressed it to the back of the second man's neck before firing. She eased his unconscious dead weight to the floor a short distance from his partner, who seemed to be sleeping on the security desk.
scorpion, Rita, and Beth read at almost the same time.
Beth had armed her finger syringe just as Sharon, Trish, and Jessica had walked out and headed towards the stairs.
"What's that?" she asked the man at the monitors as she stepped next to him and pointed at a monitor. Her hand was on his neck just after he turned his head to look at what she was pointing at.
"I don't se..wwt..fk"
"You OK?" Beth asked just as the second man began to move, and Rita pressed the muzzle of her Kimber hammerless .357 revolver to his head.
"Make a sound and you die in the room, understand?" she asked quietly just before Beth's dart gun made a soft popping sound.
The two women walked out of the room, setting the lock on the interior handle before closing the door on the way out, leaving the two men to sleep off Beth's homemade concoction.
The bedroom had a large glass wall to the left, and that was where Sharon positioned herself, her back turned towards the door that led to the private bathroom, from which she could still hear the sounds of someone rummaging through drawers. She knew from what Annelie had said that it was also the door to the safe room and that once Ekaterina Sokolova came out, there was no fucking way that she should be allowed to go back in. The long wall to Sharon's right was covered in wood that matched the flooring. At its geometric center was a fireplace. At the end of that wall was the safe room door that Ekaterina Sokolova would be walking out any second.
Sharon was a professional security operative, and had been since her apprenticeship ended on her twenty-first birthday. She had racked up an impressive record in the fourteen years since then, but this would be the first time she had tried to mimic someone else's voice; and if you had told her a year ago how stressful she would find it, she would have told you that you must be smoking Dutch Cleanser.
"Well, you wanted me here. Here I am," Annelie said, "say it back to me."
"Well, you wanted me here. Here I am."
"Move your voice back, and up," Annelie said.
"What are you talking about?" Sharon asked.
"You've never done an accent? I thought that was one of the first things that spies learn."
"It probably is, except I'm not a spy. Neither are you."
"I'm an actress, which is the second thing that spies learn. And I know I'm not a spy. But my voice coach was with MI6 for twenty-five years, and she can do my voice better than I can."
"Maybe she can just act like she has a cold?" Trish asked.
"She can do it. I know she can. We'll work on it"
Work on it they did. They worked on it enough that everyone else finally made them take their practice sessions outside. But in the end, No one could do better than random guessing when they kept their eyes closed and listened to Annelie and Sharon recite the one line Sharon had learned.
She heard the door behind her open and the sound of high heels on the wood flooring.
"Well, you wanted me here. Here I am."
Marilyn McCoo's voice sang softly into her ears as she sat in one of the two seats that faced the back of the small jet and the five people sitting there talking quietly. Annelie knew by the way everyone was acting that it had started. Simon kept looking at his watch, which looked like it was counting up. Laurel was constantly looking at her phone, but no one was saying a word to her, so she thought it better not to ask.
Annelie's eyes kept returning to Sara. It was remarkable how alike Trish and Sara looked, especially after the younger Lance sister spent some time in the makeup chair, just like Sharon had most certainly done to prepare for the op. Annelie still didn't know how the five women were dropping into Russia, or how the six women would get back out. All she knew was that it had started and that there was no stopping it.
She hated crying on set because it just created more work for Melissa. But she wasn't on set now, she was sitting on a private jet at a small airport in New Jersey as Randall Clayton McNeill's lyrics, Marilyn McCoo's voice, and Annelie's certainty that she had completely fucked things up with Trish, caused her eyes to fill and overflow. But even though she wasn't on set she was still wearing a fair bit of expensive makeup, some of which was already running down her face, and she knew if she wiped her face or eyes she would only make things worse, so she just leaned forward and allowed her tears to drop from her eyes straight down onto the dark maroon carpet.
"shit," she heard a male voice say from the back of the plane just before Laurel stood up and walked towards Annelie.
Julia had the television on, but only for background noise. She was paying absolutely no attention. "They should be in by now."
Alfred looked at the timer on his tablet, which currently said 16:22, and did some quick mental math.
"Five minutes to drive to the house, five minutes until they're cleared to enter the house, five minutes to bicker about who goes with Annelie, five minutes to reach the bedroom. They are probably still walking up the stairs.
"You like the number five, did Mom ever tell you that?"
"She told me a lot of things, and a lot of them were not compliments, but never that."
Father and daughter were approximately one thousand miles apart, but their heart rates were synced, beating as one at about 160 beats a minute. Both of them were eyeing bottles half-filled with their alcohol of choice. Both of them were listening to their preferred background noise; the father preferred Louis Armstrong, while the daughter preferred The Great British Bake Off. Both of them sat in a posture more appropriate for prayer, which wasn't odd since they were both praying at the moment.
"This is nothing," Alfred said, his voice sounding almost as relaxed as he had forced it to sound, "this is just snatch and grab. Piece of cake. The only thing that makes it odd is their ride. And I have to admit, it's pretty fucking odd.'
"Oh my God!" Julia cried out.
Alfred Pennyworth stood up quickly as his heart rate jumped to 180. "What?"
"You actually used profanity in your daughter's hearing! Wait, I'll be right back, I have to go sprinkle rock salt where Hell froze over."
"Don't do that," he answered over the sound of his daughter laughing, "you almost gave me a heart attack."
"Piece of cake, huh?"
"Yeah, piece of cake," he answered as he plopped back down into his leather-covered chair.
any word? Luke typed.
since the last time you asked me, two minutes ago? Dakota asked, no.
I should have gone with them.
It's a clandestine mission, Dakota North replied.
I can do clandestine.
Yeah, because you blend in so well anywhere you go.
2 PM New York time, 9 PM Moscow time. Luke's bar wasn't too busy. If all went well it would be Closed For A Private Event later tonight. If it didn't go well it would be closed for another reason. Luke had to admit that the hardest part of giving up the life of a superhero was actually giving up the life of a superhero. This was exactly the type of thing he used to do, very often doing it with Jessica. He was still getting used to being the one who waited. And Luke Cage seriously fucking hated how it felt.
Let me know if you hear anything.
You know that you're gonna hear before I am, right? She's gonna call you first.
Luke Cage really seriously fucking hated how it felt.
right. I'll let you know if I hear anything then, Luke type.
Спасибо.
"Oh, fuck you," Luke said out loud at his phone, which caused the people sitting at the bar to look up.
"Who are you again?" Abby asked the gorgeous man who was petting an oversized German Shepherd.
"My name is Aric. This is Tyler. Captain Ortiz was supposed to talk to you before we met."
"She did, but she only said to trust you, and to stay with you until she called you, at which point we were all supposed to take a ride."
"That about sums it up," he said before throwing a yellow tennis ball.
They were at 67th Street between 6th and 7th when he let the ball fly, a well-chewed ball that didn't have a chance of escaping the 100-pound, fur-covered, wrecking ball that flew after it.
"Jesus, I'd have worn my knee brace if I had known," Sax said, "if he runs into me I'm going on disability for sure."
"You have a bad knee?" Aric asked.
"Torn meniscus," she answered as Tyler dropped the dripping wet ball in front of the man who just threw it.
"I could look at it later if you like," he offered as he picked up the soaking wet yellow object.
"Are you a doctor?" Sax asked.
"In a manner of speaking," he answered as the ball flew from his hand again.
"You know what, I'm good."
"How long a ride once she calls?" Abby asked.
Jesus, he is really good-looking, she thought to herself as Aric looked at his iPhone.
22:02
"Just a hop, skip, and a jump away."
"Is that a valid unit for measuring distance?" Sax asked him.
"As valid as any other for the trip we're going on," he answered with a smile to the two women, whose heart rates began to climb.