"A slice at a time, like a pizza pie, you serve up the truth."
- Van Halen, "Can't Get this stuff no more"
> "Nothing," Zenya said automatically and with practiced sincerity, then > shook her head. "I know he was playing both ends against the middle, and > that he had a lot of enemies on both sides of the Iron Curtain who wanted > him out of the way. The fact that you were sent to protect him Well, > forgive me if I say that seems a little unlikely. Those may have been your > orders, but they obviously weren't everyone's orders."
> Leo nodded slowly. "There are probably a few people who would come after > you just for knowing that much."
> "I've never told anyone," she said in response to the unasked question. > She relaxed a bit, as if a just a small part of a heavy burden had been > lifted. "He used to say that there is no problem so complex that it can't > be solved over a good bottle of vodka. Too bad we don't have one, huh?"
"Yeah, too bad." Leo turned to look back into the cabin to see if they were being watched. "Your father was a wise man. Now I see where you get it from."
"Shut up." Zenya said as she faked another punch, taking slight pleasure in seeing Leo flinch just a little.
Leo laughed a little. "We better get back in and get some Z's. It's gonna be a long day tomorrow."
"Good idea, I'm beat." Zenya stretched and gave off a slight yawn. "See you in the morning."
"Yeah. till the morn." Leo walked by Zenya, holding the front door open for her as she entered and turned in.
As Leo looked around, the only person he saw was Martin looking out of another window toward Boston. A twinge of sadness stole over Leo, seeing how affected Martin was by the disappearance of his girlfriend. Leo remembered how he felt when he learned that his family was killed and the loneliness and helplessness he felt not being able to do anything about it and he had some idea what Martin was going through, albeit in a different way.
Leo walked up behind Martin and laid a hand on his shoulder, "Hey Martin, how are you holding up?"
Martin gave a half turn and smiled weakly, "Doin' the best I can, Leo. What's up?"
"I was wondering if I could use your laptop once again. I promise that I'll lug mine with me the next case we go on." Leo said with a smile, trying to dispel some of Martin's worry.
"Sure, it's over there by the phone. I was dialing out to check my emails. What are you gonna look for?" Martin asked, turning back toward the window.
Leo looked at Martin sadly, "Anything to find out who we're up against. It's hard to fight an enemy you don't know."
"Good luck." Martin nodded as he continued to stare out of the window into the blackness of night, trying to send his thoughts out to comfort Emily, whereever she may be.
(Two hours later)
As Leo continued to download the casefiles of Zenya's family from the Black Ops computer to his FBI account, he kept an ear open to the walkie talkie that was next to him. Nothing of interest had caught his attention until, all of a sudden, the channel came alive with transmissions. Being so far out, Leo could only make out parts of messages. Something was definitely happening out there. There was mention of "valuable cargo" coming in from "the desert". And how "the big chip" was being transferred to "homebase" at "that MIT hotel". And then nothing. absolute silence ruled the airwaves. Leo had no doubt that whoever was on the air had gotten Emily Hanson back into the states and whisked her here to Boston. Where that MIT hotel was, was another question.
For the most part, Leo saw that he was alone on the Black Ops system until a few minutes ago. Under the users logged on, he noticed the handle Caretaker right below his Deadeye name. Back in his military days, Caretaker was the leader of all of the squadrons within Black Ops. He was also one of Leo's best friends and a person who was deeply indebted to Leo for saving his family a few times from Docker's wrath. All of a sudden, Leo received a request to chat with Caretaker.
[transcript of Chat between Deadeye and Caretaker, as saved by Leo Jones]
D : Hey Phil, how's things back at base?
C : Leo, long time no contact. Still leading that straight and narrow life you
gave up the military for?
D : Trying my best, pal.
C : You know you're not supposed to be on the system anymore.
D : I know, but Ops owes me, big time.
C : True true. Just don't take anything that would send one of my squads after
you for.
D : Just downloading an old file.
C : I noticed, the Gorky file. You're not thinking of showing that to your
partner, are you?
D : And if I am?
C : Welll..... I guess that would be a safe file to show. That was your first
mission, if I recall.
D : Yeah, and my only failure. Why didn't you tell us that Docker was behind
the bombing and that he was getting paid for it?
C : Docker? We only found that after the court-martial. When that happened,
all of the old cases didn't matter anymore.
D : Damn you, Phil. I had a right to know that I didn't screw up that mission.
C : It was never your fault. That was always one of your deepest faults, Leo.
You took things too personally. The mission failed because the team failed
and the team failed due to a traitor. It was never your fault, so quit
beating yourself up about it.
D : Yeah yeah. So, where's TANGO? They're supposed to be trying to track us
down to get a certain something we might have. And you can stop trying to
track this signal because I've got it bouncing off all over the world. You
know my jamming system.
C : I know I know. But I have to try, it's my job. AS for TANGO, they were
diverted off from you to the Emily Hanson retrieval.
D : She's here in Boston, isn't she? Who are you working with, Phil?
C : We don't work with anyone. You know that. As for Hanson, yes she's in
Boston and TANGO's trying to find her.
D : Why?
C : To get her back to Israel for the negotiations. The order came from the
top. We can't find her and we don't know who has her.
D : Probably the same people trying to kill us.
C : Kill you? for what? that foreign device that has everyone up in the air
for? It's just a Russian tracking device, which is why they pulled TANGO
off the case.
D : Ah, I see. Well, someone else is monitoring the Black Ops files and will
not stop to get this tracking device. Even if it means killing me and my
partners.
C : Do you need backup? I could pull TANGO off to assist if you need it.
D : Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll need TANGO to get Emily Hanson back.
I'll give you a call if I have any word on where to locate her.
C : You do that and that'll be one more I'll have to owe you. I can't be
racking up these favors and still be in charge of this joint, you know.
D : Hehehehe... I know. but you still owe me. Let me know which files I can
and can't access and I'll try not to look.
C : Will do. Any help on the Hanson recovery will be greatly appreciated, Leo.
I sure as hell miss you, old friend.
D : Yeah, I miss you and the guys also. Let them know I'm still fine and still
hunting Docker down.
C : Will do. Watch your back, Deadeye.
D : You too, caretaker.
<< end transcript >>
> As the two men went inside they were treated to the end of Zenya's mock > rebuke of Vanessa. She turned to Jim and said:
> "And I believe it was *your* idea?"
> Jim simply smiled and wondered what their next move was to be.
All the while, Leo was looking at the device curiously and was in awe at the range of that curious gizmo. Although, what happened to Vanessa was a quite effective deterrent, Leo couldn't help but think of using the device.
"Jordan, what would the MIT hotel be?" Leo asked, while looking at the device sitting on the table in front of him.
"The MIT hotel?" Jordan wondered aloud. "There's no MIT hotel. The closest thing would be the Marriot Cambridge, which is right off the MIT campus."
"The Marriot Cambridge, eh?" Leo mused with a half smile. "Could I have a crack at using the device, Tom?"
Tom looked at Leo uncertainly. "Do you think that's wise, after what happened to Vanessa?"
"Wise? No." Leo said, suddenly turning serious. "But it might help us in finding out who's hunting this thing down."
Jordan looked at Leo long and hard, knowing that Leo was planning something that he might not like. But, like it or not, he decided to trust Leo's instincts on this one. "Okay, Leo. Take a shot at it. You've seen how Vanessa used it."
"Thanks, Jordan." Leo said as Tom helped to attach the probes to his head.
After a few moments of disorientation, Leo saw the same display that Vanessa had. AFter practicing turning things on and off, Leo let his mind wander off behind Zenya and thought about tapping her on the shoulder. Zenya turned to see who had tapped her and mock-frowned at Leo.
"Very funny, Leo." She said, shaking her head.
"Sorry, Zenya." Leo said, as his mind took off towards Boston. As he flew over the highways and buildings of Boston, he could feel a presence getting closer, stronger behind him.
"What's wrong, Leo?" Tom asked.
"There's a presence catching up to me." Leo said. His mind then started to zig across Boston, heading towards the MIT campus. As he got closer, the presence got closer to him. It almost felt as if it was about to reach out and grab Leo at any time.
"Damnit, not now. I'm getting closer." Leo muttered.
"Leo, pull out, now." Vanessa said, reliving the feeling of that other presence closing in on her.
"No, not yet. There's something I need to do." Leo said, feeling his mind slow down, as if swimming through mud. The other presence was very close now, almost within mental reach of Leo. Leo continued to fly towards the building that was the Marriot Cambridge. Knowing that he didn't have much time, he did a floor by floor fly-by, searching for Emily Hanson based on a picture Martin showed him when he heard that her chopper went down. The presence was VERY close now, right behind him and it was tugging on his brain. Leo gritted his teeth and continued the search until he came to the 18th floor, where he saw Emily Hanson sitting on a bed, nervously watching another female nearby that looked like Carol from the pizzeria. The presence nearly had him as Leo struggled to get a look at the room number and whoever was outside the door.
"Shut it down, now!" Jordan yelled as he saw a trickle of blood coming out of Leo's nose.
Leo heard Jordan's voice from miles away as he barely made it out of the room to see that they were in room 1814 and that there were 2 men outside the door. With a yell, Leo ripped the leads from his head and fell forward to the floor. Jim and Martin caught him on both sides and heaved him to the nearest seat.
"What the hell happened?" Jordan demanded.
"That presence caught me." Leo said, accepting a wet towel from Vanessa. "It was pretty damn strong. Thank god I was just a little stronger."
"You could've gotten yourself killed, Leo." Martin said.
Leo laid his head back and nodded. "I know. I know. But this was important."
Jordan glared at Leo, "What was so damn important that you would risk your life on that device?"
Leo closed his eyes for a while and smiled, "I know where Emily Hanson is, and I know where our pal Carol is also."
NRPG : Sorry for the length of this. Once I get started, i tend to get a bit rambly.
Respectfully submitted,
Jeff Uribe
SA-3 Leo Jones, Team Zulu
SA-1 Jeff Calderon, Team Bravo
SA-3 Richard Corrigan, Trainer.