February 18th, 2004
Casey and Sarah had both reported in to their respective directors, who had a virtual shit-fit when they heard that Carina had been abducted. “Secretary Ridge just about had an aneurysm when we informed him about Agent Hansen,” General Louisa Beckman, director of the NSA, informed them.
“However, it’s pretty clear that the situation was out of your hands. Let me be clear, the two of you are not being blamed for this. But you two are responsible for cleaning up. You are to find and retrieve Agent Hansen. Make sure that you don’t leave anybody behind, and I mean ANYBODY.”
General Beckman was very pointed with that last “anybody”, which she said looking directly at Sarah over the video hookup. Sarah nodded her acknowledgment.
“Any leads?” Casey asked.
“We’ve been picking up a lot of chatter from Taliban forces on the Afghani-Pakistani border that seems to indicate they’ve captured a very high profile individual. Since the three of you just cut off their source of high-quality Western weapons, we have to assume that they’re pretty angry and went after one of you in revenge.”
Sarah’s stomach turned when she considered what that could mean for Carina. Apparently it showed on her face, because Director Graham said, “We imagine that it’s probably not going to be very good for Agent Hansen to be there for an extended period of time.”
“Any questions?” General Beckman asked. There were none. “Good luck to you both.”
The transmission ended, and Casey turned to look at Sarah. “Let’s go to Pakistan.”
February 25th
Sarah and Casey had been in Pakistan for a week. They had started in Karachi, close to the border. Their first lead came when they were identified as Americans by a fruit vendor.
“You are Americans, yes?” he asked.
They shot each other looks. “Is it that obvious?” Casey replied out of the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, only by your speech,” the man had replied. “Otherwise, you could be from any other arrogant white colonial nation.”
Casey rolled his eyes. “Yes, we’re Americans. Why do you ask?”
“I think you come looking for your friend.”
Casey’s eyes lit up. “What friend?”
“Tall woman, very beautiful. Red hair. Looks to make a man commit many sins.”
Casey looked at Sarah. “Carina,” he said.
“Carina.”
He turned back to the fruit vendor. “Where was she taken?”
“She was with a group of men from the Taliban. They were taking her to a secret location.”
“Do you know any more than that?”
“I am afraid I do not.”
Casey dug in his pocket. “You’ve been a great help.” He pulled a hundred dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to the man.
The man accepted it, his eyes widening. “Perhaps I should think again about America being the great Satan,” he said.
“Will you let us know if you find anything else out?” Sarah asked.
“Will your friend continue to give me hundred dollar bills?”
Casey grimaced. “I’m sure something can be arranged.”
“Well, we know she’s in the area,” Casey mumbled through a mouthful of peach as they walked away. The vendor had insisted that they take a bagful.
“What’s your connection to her, anyway?” he asked Sarah. “It’s pretty clear that the two of you know each other.”
“Ummm… I guess, she was my…”
Friend? Teacher? Lover?
None of those worked particular well for Sarah, especially the third one, since that happened ONCE, and it was part of her training. “My mentor of sorts,” she finished.
Casey looked at her. “So, she was your instructor at the Sparrow School,” he remarked, totally nonchalantly.
Sarah threw up her hands in disbelief. “How the hell?”
Casey laughed. “She told me.”
Sarah shook her head. “You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?”
February 29th
Four days later, they knew exactly who had kidnapped Carina. It was actually terrorists working for a warlord who was sympathetic to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. They even knew where she probably was – being held in the middle of a very large, very secure camp outside of Karachi.
“Well, that’s great,” Sarah said disgustedly, looking at satellite photos of the place. “We are never going to get in there.”
“Oh ye of little faith,” Casey smirked.
“You know something I don’t?” she asked. “Do you have maybe impenetrable body armor? Laser vision? The starship Enterprise and its transporters so you can beam her up, Scotty?”
She spat the last part out with a certain amount of venom.
“Jesus, Walker, chill,” Casey said. “You seem to be forgetting that I am a pilot in the United States Air Force.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “No.”
“Why not?” he asked. “It’s called making use of our resources.”
“It’s called an invitation to our own funerals!” she shot back.
“Walker, you’ve got to think outside the box,” he said. “I think I’ve got a way to take down their defense system, and then we fly a light airplane in there, land it, get Carina, and away we go.”
“Oh, and you make it sound so simple,” she said sarcastically. “Let’s go with that first one. How are you going to take down their defense system?”
“Watch and learn, Walker. Watch and learn.”
Los Angeles, California
“Thank you for calling the Nerd Herd, my name is Chuck. How may I be of assistance?”
The guy answering the phone hated his job. He hated the fact that he was here. He hated the people who had landed him here. But work was work.
“Yes, sir, we do have a virus specialist. Just a moment, please.”
The guy with the curly brown hair leaned back in his chair. “Yo, Lester! Virus call!”
“Got it, Chuck.”
Lester hit a button on his phone. “Nerd Herd Virus Specialist, this is Lester. How may I assist you?”
“Is this Lester Amanpoor?” he heard.
“Uh, yes, yes it is. Have we met, sir?”
“No, we have not. All you need to know is that my name is John, I know everything about you, and I am in a position to pay you five thousand dollars to do something for me.”
Lester’s eyes widened. Getting paid ten bucks an hour kind of sucked, so the idea of five grand was quite appealing. “Please continue, sir.”
“In three minutes, you’re going to receive an e-mail with an attachment, and an FTP address. There will be a username and a password with that FTP address, but it will only be good for about sixty seconds after you get the e-mail. I need you to log into that FTP, and upload the attachment. Understood?”
Lester understood, and it was simple. He was uploading a virus into some poor unsuspecting soul’s server. But hey, it was five thousand bucks. “Understood. But sir, how will I…” Lester lowered his voice. “How will I get my money?”
“I already told you, Lester, I know everything about you. That includes your bank account number. Trust me, you do this right, you’ll be five grand richer by the time you leave work today.”
Then he hung up. Lester replaced the phone in his cradle, then pulled up Outlook, and started hitting “Send/Receive” every ten seconds. Sure enough, there it was. An e-mail from “anonnowhere.no”.
Lester didn’t even stop to think how the guy had completely erased his address and domain. He just downloaded the attachment, opened up the command prompt, and logged into the server. As soon as he was in, he uploaded the attachment. Twenty seconds to upload, and he was back out of the server. He dropped the attachment into the Shredder Bin on the desktop, and it was like it had never been there.
Karachi, Pakistan
John Casey was monitoring the server for the terrorist camp on his laptop. Sure enough, two minutes after he hung up the phone, it went berserk – and then went dead. “Damn, he’s good,” Casey muttered.
He dialed the phone again. “Transfer the funds to Amanpoor’s account,” he said when it was answered. Then he hung up.
“Their defense system will be down for the next two hours, Agent Walker,” he informed her. “Care to go for a little plane ride?”
Sarah did not know where Casey had gotten an old Cessna 172 aircraft. “Isn’t that what Matthias Rust landed in Red Square in?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, a grin on his face. “I guarantee you that this is the baby we want for this job.”
Sarah wasn’t so sure about that, though, as the aircraft seemed to want to vibrate itself out of the sky for the entire flight. Casey assured her that it was just because he had the throttle red-lined.
“Oh, well, that’s reassuring,” she said dryly.
Just before midnight, they crossed the border of the camp. Casey’s virus had, in fact, taken the entire place offline. They could see flashlights trying to find them, and heard the occasional gunshot, but that was all.
Casey bumped the aircraft onto the ground near where they had been told Carina was being held, and dove out of the aircraft, night vision goggles on his head, guns in hand. Sarah followed close behind him.
They ran toward the building, firing indiscriminately into the night, not really caring who they hit or killed. The entrance to the building was locked with a simple padlock, which Casey simply blew off.
They ran into the building. “Okay, now we just gotta find her,” Casey said.
“Simple enough,” Sarah replied.
She cupped her hands around her mouth. “GOD SAVE ALL HERE!”
Sarah listened. Nothing. She tried again, louder. “GOD SAVE ALL HERE!”
A moment later, she heard a very weak response. “God… save you kindly…”
“This way!” Sarah shouted, running toward the voice.
Three dead terrorists and a hundred feet of hallway later, they were outside the only locked door within the building. Once again, Casey shot the lock off, and Sarah swung the door open.
Casey shone his flashlight inside – and revealed one of the more horrifying sights they’d seen.
Carina huddled in the corner, naked and shivering. It was clear that she’d been beaten horrifically on the back and shoulders, and when they pulled her to her feet, it became clear that she had also been repeatedly raped.
Sarah felt a certain amount of rage growing inside her, and as she looked at Casey, she could see the same growing in his face. Very slowly and deliberately, he pulled off his overcoat, and wrapped it around Carina – and then handed her one of his guns.
“Let’s go.”
And then the lights came on.
“I thought we had another twenty minutes, Casey!” Sarah shouted.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit!” Casey snapped.
“THERE THEY ARE!”
Their heads whipped to the left, in time to see four men running toward them – and then all drop like flies.
Their ears stinging from the gunshots at close range, they turned to see Carina, the gun in her hands, a cold expression on her face. “Really, let’s get out of here,” she said emotionlessly.
They ran back out of the building. Sarah got into the Cessna, they helped Carina in, and then Casey climbed in behind her. “This is gonna suck,” he said frankly, firing up the engine.
Wheeling the plane around, he turned it back toward the direction they’d come in from. “I would recommend that everybody be ready to put their head between their legs and kiss their ass good-bye.”
He red-lined the throttle, and then released the brakes. The Cessna shot forward like a sprinter out of the blocks, running over one terrorist as it did so. Al Qaeda members ran toward them, AK-47s blazing, as Casey begged the plane to leave the ground.
Finally, it did, and Casey yanked the yoke back, straining for altitude. As he did, though, he saw a flash below.
“SHIT!”
He cranked the yoke over to the right, barely avoiding the Stinger missile as it flew past them, but putting the plane into a stall. “Oh, hell.”
He pushed the yoke back forward, trading altitude for speed. The little Cessna’s speed began to build – but there were power lines straight ahead.
“Oh, God,” he whispered. Saying a brief prayer, he pulled back on the yoke gradually, right up to the point where the plane began to rumble on the edge of a stall –
And then, they were clear of the power lines, and he dropped back their rate of ascent.
He released the breath he’d been holding in, and turned around. “Ladies, I’d like to thank you for flying Air Casey. Today’s flight will be to Mumbai, India, where we’ll land, debrief our respective agency directors, and then get absolutely shit-faced.”
They landed in Mumbai just after three in the morning, much to the surprise of the tower controller. Casey had managed to wrangle a car, which he used to drive the three of them directly to the American consulate.
When they had arrived there, the medic on duty had insisted on fully examining Carina. So, at 5:30 in the morning, they were finally briefing the directors.
“Excellent work, people,” Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told them. “Job very well done. Captain Casey, effectively immediately, you are promoted to Major by order of Secretary Rumsfeld; Agent Walker and Agent Hansen, you are promoted to Special Agent, also effective immediately.”
“You’ll all be receiving an Intelligence Star for this one, people,” General Beckman said. “And Agent Walker, I believe that’s your second in six months, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Walker replied. “And the best part is, there’s no addendum on this one.”
General Beckman frowned at that remark, but didn’t say anything. “Good work all around,” Director Graham added. “Agent Hansen, you’re headed home for some recuperation time. Major Casey, your next destination is Grozny, Chechnya; Agent Walker, you are headed to Madrid. Report to the embassy when you arrive.”
Sarah was amazed to discover a direct flight from Mumbai to Madrid. She was excited to go to Madrid, too – she’d never been to Spain before.
Upon landing, she rented a car, which she drove directly to the American Embassy, as ordered. When she arrived at the embassy, rather than being given further orders, she was given directions
to a town called Alcalá de Henares. Though she found that odd, she drove the thirty-five kilometers to the town, and went to the hotel she’d been sent to.
Upon walking into the lobby, she was in for a pleasant and completely unexpected surprise – because sitting there were Piers de Klerk and Markus Sobukwe. “Piers! Markus!” she shouted, her happiness at seeing them overwhelming any sense of professionalism.
Sobukwe grabbed her and gave a her a huge hug, and then she turned to de Klerk, who laid a deep, long, and passionate kiss on her. “Wow,” Sobukwe said. “I wouldn’t have complained about one of those.”
“Not from me, I hope,” de Klerk cracked, turning to him.
“No, not from you, white boy,” Sobukwe shot back.
“What the hell are the two of you doing here?” Sarah asked, still shocked to see them.
“International intelligence conference here the next few days, and I called your Director Graham and suggested to him that you might like to come.”
Sarah smiled and shook her head. “Good,” she replied. “After the last two months, I need a little bit of a break.”
“So, what have you been up to?” Sobukwe asked her.
“Oh, you wouldn’t believe it,” she teased them. “Of course, if I told you… I’d have to kill you.”
They both groaned. “Lame,” Piers muttered.
Sarah had more fun the next few days than she had in a long time. Spending that time with Piers after being out of contact for so long was absolutely wonderful, and Sobukwe was very gracious about being a third wheel. He drove them around Alcalá de Henares, and played a wonderful tour guide – surprisingly knowing an amazing amount about the area.
On the morning of March 11th, the two men had to head down to Madrid for the day. “Meeting with a couple of our counterparts,” Piers had explained to Sarah the night before. “You’re welcome to come, but… it’s analyst stuff. I imagine you’d be bored.”
She smiled. “I’ll just wait patiently up here,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.
As Piers and Markus’ train was pulling in, Piers pulled Sarah close to him. “I just want you to know that I…”
Piers looked at a loss for words. “What, Piers?”
“I think… I think I’ve fallen in love with you, Sarah Walker.”
She couldn’t help it. A huge smile lit up her features. Something she had never been told before.
“I know,” she replied.
Piers frowned. “That’s not the generally acceptable answer, unless your name is Han Solo.”
Her eyes widened. “I meant, I love you, Piers!”
There. She had said it. And it felt good.
He smiled, and kissed her. “I love you too, Sarah Walker. I’ll see you tonight.”
Markus rolled his eyes, but laughed. The two of them boarded the train. Sarah waved good-bye, and headed back to the hotel.
Forty minutes later, she was sitting in her hotel room, watching the morning news. She enjoyed watching it here – it was always so much straightforward than it was in the United States.
Then, a graphic that said, “Breaking News” in Spanish appeared on the screen. Sarah narrowed her eyes and turned up the volume.
The anchor began to speak in Spanish. “We have just received reports that indicate that there have been four almost simultaneous bomb explosions on the commuter train route between Madrid and Alcalá de Hernales,” she said. “We have no further information at this time regarding possible injuries or deaths, but we will be sure to keep you updated as we receive further information.”
Sarah’s eyes widened, and her heart felt like it had stopped. An icy hand of dread gripped her gut.
Grabbing her car keys, she ran downstairs and retrieved her car. She broke almost every law and speed limit that she could blasting down the road to Madrid, tears streaming from her eyes.
“He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine,” she kept telling herself, all the way to Madrid. She drove directly to the South African Embassy, and parked illegally in front of it.
Sarah ran inside, and identified herself to the information officer. He took her to the station chief for the NIA.
“We have no news on Agent de Klerk or Agent Sobukwe,” he told her. “We can keep you updated by phone, or you’re welcome to remain here if you prefer.”
Sarah remained at the South African Embassy. All day she was there, leaving her seat in the station chief’s office only to use the restroom. Later in the afternoon, the station chief’s assistant brought her tea, which she numbly accepted.
Just after 8:00 PM, the door opened, and Markus Sobukwe stepped in. His right arm was in a sling, and he had scrapes and bruises on his face, but otherwise, he appeared to be no worse for the wear.
Sarah jumped up, but when she looked into his eyes, her heart sank.
“Sarah,” he whispered, a tear trickling down his cheek. “I… I am so, so sorry…”
A wordless cry of pain and sorrow escaped Sarah’s mouth as Sobukwe grabbed her and guided her back to her seat. Her body was racked by sobs.
Markus pulled her close to him, his own tears flowing freely down his face.
Author's Note: As I'm sure all of you, my readers, are aware, the Madrid commuter train bombings of March 11th, 2004, were a tragically very real event.
One hundred ninety-one individuals died in these bombings. It was the worst terrorist attack anywhere since the 9/11 attacks on New York City, and the worst terrorist attack in Europe since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
