"You wanted me here, and here I am," Annelie Bodin said as she sat next to the handcuffed, still groggy woman sitting next to her. They were the only occupants of the airplane. Annelie was wearing the dusty, debris-covered clothing that Sharon had shed twenty minutes earlier as she was listening to the events in Russia, and learning the plot of the short skit that she was conducting now.
"Anne?" Katya Sokolova asked as she tried to focus on the face next to her.
"Hello, Katya."
"You came. I knew you'd come. I knew it. We're meant to be together."
"You're not well, lyubimaya. You need help."
Katya tried to lift her hand to Annelie's face and only then noticed the handcuffs. She looked up from the steel bracelets and looked around the cabin of the aircraft.
"What's happening, where are we?"
"What is the last thing you remember?"
"You came back to me. Or was it a dream? I've dreamt about it so often."
"No, it wasn't a dream. We were in your bedroom talking. There was an explosion. The FSB blew up your house. They put us on a plane. They're outside right now, with the New York City Police. You're under arrest for murder, Katya. You don't remember any of that?"
"I remember a woman," she answered after a few seconds before her eyes came back to Annelie, "you're really here. You really came back to me."
"For a short time at least," Annelie said as footsteps on the metal stairs outside got her attention.
"We're ready to start, and I'd like to get this part over with as soon as possible," Paul said, "and the NYPD wants to get her to the hospital and get her checked out. Can she stand up and walk?"
"She's good," Annelie said, "I'll help her."
Paul swore that the two men wearing simple black suits, variations of what the four women had worn as they escorted Sharon through the large mansion in the suburb of Moscow, were unrecognizable. Trish would have to take it on faith, and in any case, it wasn't her problem. And none of the men and women standing around the private jet that had ferried Annelie and her security detail from Chicago to New Jersey would have any public role in the fiction that was to follow or the legal proceedings that would follow that.
"I'm not sure whether to be pissed at you for leaving me out of it," Sara said, "It sounded like a hoot."
"You should have seen that wall explode when she kicked it, that was a fucking hoot," Trish said as her eyes traveled across the tarmac to the hangar that had been dressed up to look like the one at JFK airport that the FBI used to make international fugitive transfers like the one they were faking right now. The airplane, which was usually blank, pristine, white, was currently plastered with Aeroflot logos.
But it was the woman with dark hair, who had almost immediately changed back into her normal clothes, who had Trish's attention.
Definitely crossed a line. No going back now. No fucking way.
Trish hoped Rita's new life would be a happy one, and that she found a way to share it with the man who had taken his dog and disappeared in a ball of golden light after sharing a long kiss and embrace with New York's newest superhero.
"We're ready," Paul said as he approached Connie McDowell's Crown Victoria.
The four detectives had been clustered around the vehicle waiting for the show to begin, and to give Abby and Saxon time to take it all in, and for Connie to lecture Rita.
"I remember several tear-filled conversations at midnight about how you couldn't do this anymore, you couldn't watch him suffer anymore, you were disappearing, you didn't recognize who you were becoming, any of that ring a bell?"
"All of it. But it was the only way. We couldn't reach her without him."
"Whatever happens now, you're going to have to live with it," Connie said.
"They'll convict her," Rita said.
"That's not what I meant."
"Boss?" Abby asked.
"Yeah," Rita answered after a second or two of silence as she stared at the activity in the hangar.
"What the fuck just happened?"
Rita's eyes moved from the building to her two detectives.
"The short version, or the long version?"
"Can we start with the short version, and work our way up?" Sax asked.
"In the course of investigating a multiple homicide, we left our jurisdiction to apprehend a suspect."
"And the long version?"
"We used a super cavitated bubble of exotic gravitons to travel to a suburb of Moscow, kidnapped a Russian citizen suspected of ordering the murder of five people, brought her back here, and are setting it up to look like the FSB snatched her up and extradited her at our request."
The two detectives' jaws hung open slightly as they stared at Rita for a moment before looking at Connie.
"Don't look at me," she said raising her hands in mock self-defense, "I wasn't invited along, and I don't know shit. I was never here, and neither were you."
"We're at the FBI hangar at JFK," Rita explained, "The FSB flew into JFK with her and handed her over. The camera crew will film it. The footage will get shared with the news stations and leaked online. It's your case. They'll hand her over to you two unless you don't want to be associated with this. I can take it from here if you want."
"But it's your car at JFK right now," Connie said to the two women, "just in case someone wants to check the tracking info later."
The two women looked at each other before turning back to the two women who were senior to them, both in experience and in rank.
"Can the three of us do it together?" Abby asked Rita.
"Sure thing."
"Careful, watch the steps," Annelie said as she helped Katya to the airplane exit where the two men took over. She needed to stay out of sight for this part of the drama.
"We officially transfer her into your custody," The man said in what had to be a played-up Russian accent once the trio reached the concrete floor of the hangar.
"Detectives Archer and McGuire will take her into custody," Rita said to him, as the skit changed from make-believe to real. Abby and Sax each took hold of one of the women's biceps and escorted her into the back of Connie's car as Rita walked behind them.
The five women sat silently as they drove back to Manhattan, the fifty-minute drive not nearly enough time to process everything that had recently happened.
"When will you be back?" Julia asked.
"We're leaving in a few. Trish is saying goodbye. Everything solid on your end?"
"We're good. There's nothing for them to get hold of. Just another unsolved mystery."
The minor detail of faking flight data for the phantom plane had naturally fallen to Julia. Beth painted a mental image of her best friend seated in front of her large computer monitor, cracking her knuckles before playing her keyboard like a virtuoso piano player as she faked the data or, more accurately, faked what it looked like if someone had gone into the system afterward and deleted all trace of the flight data and air traffic control data.
"They'll find stubs of information, pointers that should send them to the full data but won't. It'll look like someone went in and deleted everything related to the flight. It's easier than faking the actual data. They'll just assume that the CIA went in and wiped the files."
Beth had been nodding as Julia explained the process while she watched Paul's men and women strip everything back off the plane and stash it in one of the vans that held the rest of their equipment. Everything would be scrubbed clean and tidy before they left, no traces remaining that they had ever been there.
The working plane, the one that had slowly turned around and pointed its nose in the right direction for takeoff, sat about fifty yards away as the Chicago contingent of their snatch-and-grab team prepared to depart.
"I'll see you at home, Jules," Beth said before adding, "Love you."
There was a moment of silence that Beth knew meant Julia was getting emotional.
"Love you too."
"You should be safe now, but they'll stay with you until your permanent security takes over."
"Why can't you come take care of me?" Annelie asked.
It was a parting that had to happen, and there was no point in dragging it out. Both women knew that their stolen season was short, though they never agreed, or even discussed, how short it would be.
But Trish could not help feeling that she had seriously fucked up, that if she had not gotten so physically and emotionally tied up with this beautiful woman four people would still be alive. And if she was being totally honest she would also admit that she was still feeling hurt that Annelie had not opened up to her after they had slept together.
"You don't need me anymore, sweetie," Trish said after switching to Swedish, "you have enough people looking after you now. And you're stronger than you think. Remember that. Remember all the shit she threw at you, and remember that you survived it."
"You're still mad at me. That's part of it, right?"
"No. It hurts, I won't lie. But you could have died because I wasn't doing my job. That's what bothers me more. Anyway, we both have lives to get back to."
"Will I see you again?" Annelie asked after a moment of silent tears, as her hand crept towards Trish's before caressing it gently.
Trish returned the pressure of Annelie's hand before bringing it up to her face and kissing it gently.
"Have you got a date yet for opening night?"
Trish, Beth, and Jessica sat on the padded floor of the plain white Ford Transit Van as it traveled at exactly the speed limit, at least the unofficial speed limit, as it wended its way along the interstate, hauling its cargo of camera equipment and personnel from New Jersey to Harlem. The three women had said their goodbyes to Sharon just after Trish had her parting with Annelie and the Lance sisters. Beth and Jessica exchanged a look as they watched Sara and Trish together, and neither woman would be surprised if the two women who looked so much alike saw each other again soon.
It was at about the midpoint of the trip that Beth finally removed her blonde wig before laying down and using it as a pillow.
"Holy fucking shit!" Jessica said.
"What?" Beth said as she sat up and looked around.
"You're a fucking brunette? I'm just finding this out now?"
"What do you mean? You've never seen me without my wig?"
"Not me," Trish said.
"All this fucking time, I was starting to think it was your real hair."
"I never thought of it before. It's just a habit I got into, wearing it. Like wearing the name Alice."
There was a moment of silence in the van.
"So Alice isn't your real name, is what you're saying," Trish said.
"Wait, all this time and I never told you my real name?" Beth asked Jessica.
"Not once."
"Fuck," Beth said as she took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"Hi, I'm Beth," she said as she held out her hand.
"So, how was it?" Sara asked as their jet finished its turn and climbed to their cruising altitude.
"I think it's safe to say that was a unique, and singularly fucked up mission," Sharon replied after giving it a few seconds thought.
"Fucked up how?" Laurel asked.
"In almost every way."
"Well, you did kidnap a Russian citizen on Russian soil and then smuggle her back into the U.S."
"That was the only part that wasn't fucked up. How we got in, how we got out; how we breached her safe room, that guy and his dog…"
"Yeah, that guy. That really fucking good-looking guy, one second he was there at the hangar, his monster dog running around saying I love you to everybody, and the next minute he was gone."
"Yeah, one second he's there, the next he's someplace else," Sharon said as she looked out the window, almost a mirror image of the woman who sat at the front of the cabin, the seat next to her unoccupied.
"He a friend of yours?" Sara asked.
"No. He and Rita are an item. Or they were an item. Or they will be again. Pretty sure they will be again, judging by the way they kept looking at each other."
Fuck, each of the sisters thought at the same time.
"What part did he play in this?" Laurel asked.
Jesus, where the fuck do I start?
"She's had a concussion recently but seems to be recovering well. Do you know when that happened?
Rita had to do some quick mental math.
"It would have happened right when they snatched her up. Then a drive to the Moscow airport, and the flight time, and some time in the federal transfer hangar. Maybe twelve hours ago?"
"Really. She's in pretty good shape for only twelve hours," the doctor at Bellevue said. "We should watch her overnight though, just to be sure."
"She stays handcuffed to that bed the whole time," Rita replied, "and two of my men are in the room constantly."
"That's fine, as long as they stay out of the way."
"Cap, Chief of D's is outside," Abby said as she stuck her worried face into the room.
"Remember, we don't know anything," Rita had explained to Abby and Sax, "we got notified, we showed up, they handed her over, we left. Got it?"
"Got it."
"You want to tell me what's going on?" Chief Becker asked Rita without any preamble.
"She's got a concussion. They want to watch her overnight. We'll get her to central booking tomorrow."
"That's not what I meant. How'd she end up here in the first place?"
"I got a text telling me that she was being extradited, and to be at the federal transfer hangar to collect her. Two guys from the FSB walked her out of the plane and handed her over."
"Why'd you bring her here?"
"Apparently they had to blow up part of her house to get her. She has a concussion."
"Why didn't they notify the commissioner's office or the FBI? And why is the Swedish Embassy up my ass about extraditing her? Why does this whole thing seem so fucked up?"
"All I can tell you is what I know, Chief," Rita said as she unlocked her phone and showed him the text message.
Будьте в федеральном ангаре для перевозки заключенных в 3:30 по восточному времени, чтобы принять Екатерину Соколову под свою опеку.
Which her phone translated as:
Be at the federal hangar for prisoner transfer 3:30 Eastern time to accept Ekaterina Sokolova into custody.
"Blocked number," the Chief said.
"It's the FSB, Chief, that's not a surprise, is it?"
"Get your phone to TARU ASAP. I want to know where that message came from."
"Yes sir," Rita said simply.
"Don't worry," Beth reassured Rita, "There's no fucking way anyone is tracing that message anywhere."
"Keep me posted," Chief Becker said before looking over Rita's shoulder, "holy shit, there she is."
Rita turned to see Commissioner Woodroe walking towards her.
"Good work, Rita. I don't know how you convinced them to turn her over to us, but excellent work. Don't you think so, Jim?"
"Yes, ma'am. Excellent work," the Chief replied, sensing which way the wind was blowing.
"All we did was share the evidence of her complicity, ma'am. We never actually expected them to move on her."
"Guess they didn't like the optics of a Russian citizen killing four people while trying to kidnap the most famous actress on the planet."
"And the Swedes?" Rita asked.
"They want to talk to her about a dead hockey star. But we get first crack at her."
"Yes ma'am."
"There's going to be commendations all around on this," she said to Rita and James Becker, "let your detectives know. All of them. Three major cases solved. You've had a busy few days."
"Not quite three, ma'am, we're still no closer to finding out who's behind the WMDs, but thank you."
"It was your work that led to the second weapon, Captain. Take the win, and let the Feds do the leg work on who's behind them. It's what we pay them for," she said before departing, destination unknown.
"I'll get my phone to TARU first thing, Chief," Rita said as she and James Becker watched Katherine Woodroe and her gaggle of assistants walk away.
"No rush," the Chief said, his eyes still fixed on his boss, "whenever you get around to it."
James Becker, Chief of Detectives for the New York City Police Department, definitely knew which way the wind was blowing.