I Minus 72 (26 page)

He leaned menacingly over Sam and asked,
“Where is the man?”

“What man?” stammered Sam. Her only hope was
that she could convince them they had the wrong room.

The man in front of her reached forward
grabbed her hair and said, “Don’t lie to us. You will only die if
you lie to us.”

“He’s out,” she nearly shouted. “He won’t be
back today. He’s gone to St. Petersburg to meet with someone.” She
was trying not to cry.

“I told you not to lie to us,” The man said
and then hit her hard in the stomach with his fist. She doubled
over in the chair gasping for air trying not to throw up. He then
pulled her up by her hair and said, “Now tell us the truth.”

Sam, tears running down her face, was barely
able to talk, but she managed to gasp, “I’m not lying. Why would I
lie to you? We have nothing to hide. We’re just here to see the
sights.” She was really frightened. This was different from being
in combat. In combat she was armed and was a fair distance from the
people who were shooting at her. Here she was unarmed and face to
face with two huge men. She didn’t know what she should do, but she
knew she had to get them out of here before Grant came back;
otherwise they’d both be dead. Sam began remembering the
questioning part of the SERE training she took before being
deployed to Iraq. What did they say during the resistance phase?
Just play along when questioned? She was remembering a little more.
Tell plausible lies with just enough of the truth mixed in for it
to sound reasonable. But never give up others to save yourself.

The man was saying, “. . . and if you don’t
tell us we will wait here and kill both of you.”

“Okay,” she said, breathlessly, “I’ll tell
you. We got here yesterday and someone shot at us in our taxi on
the way into the city. My friend is at the main police station
trying to describe the men in the car. He got a pretty good look at
them. He called a little while ago and said he’s bringing the
police back here to talk with me. They should be here in the next
few minutes,” she nodded, warming to her own story. “If they find
you here they’ll arrest you. I think you have maybe four, five
minutes tops to get out of the hotel. Tell you what I’ll do. If you
leave now, I won’t even tell them you were here and I won’t
cooperate with the police when they question me. You’ll be
safe.”

They laughed. “We will leave now and you are
coming with us. Get up!” With that, he grabbed her by her upper
arms and roughly heaved her to her feet. They opened the door and
dragged her towards it.

She started yelling as loudly as she could,
but stopped as soon as the guy that was manhandling her turned
around and pulled a gun from under his coat and spat out, “Silence!
If you keep yelling, I will kill you right here.”

She believed him, so she remained quiet.
They went through the door and down the hall to the stairway. They
walked down the four flights to the garage access door, went into
the garage where they headed towards a black boxy car. Sam couldn’t
tell what kind it was and would probably never recognize it again.
Sam felt real fear. She had no idea what these men would do to her,
but she knew it wouldn’t be fun. She’d had briefings before going
into combat about what to expect if captured in Iraq. She briefly
wondered if this would be the same. She hoped not.

As they were pushing Sam towards the car,
Grant drove into the garage in the nondescript Embassy pool car he
had checked out. He went up the ramp and turned onto the second
parking level. As he rounded the corner, he saw a group of people
ahead of him and closing in, he recognized Sam. Seeing what the two
guys were doing to her, Grant had to make an instant decision. He
could either let them go and follow them or extract Sam now. There
were problems with following them. What if he lost them in traffic?
Sam would surely not survive and with these goons, who knew what
they’d do to her. No question. He’d get her out of this here and
now. Attacking them might be a problem, though. He didn’t know if
they were the same guys who shot at them yesterday. If they were,
they’d probably recognize him if he got close enough and they’d
either use Sam as a shield or would kill her immediately.

He knew he had to go straight at them and
get Sam away as fast as he could without her getting hurt. And he
had to do it now. If these guys got her to their car, it would be
really tough to get Sam out. He couldn’t just open fire without
risking hitting Sam. Grant slammed the accelerator to the floor and
with squealing tires headed straight at them. They immediately
turned and headed back to the hotel entrance which was about
fifteen yards away, but at that moment, Sam decided she’d had
enough and kicked the guy hauling her in the groin. He bent over
and Sam using strength she didn’t know she had, pulled free. She
started running as fast as she could and since she didn’t know who
was in the car coming at them, she ran away from it. The two guys
stopped going towards the hotel and started chasing her, guns
drawn. When it got about ten yards from them, the car screeched to
a stop and to Sam’s great joy, Grant jumped out with a gun in his
hand. The two goons started firing towards the car. Grant used the
door as a shield and started firing back. He completely emptied his
thirteen round magazine in the direction of the bad guys. He
immediately popped the spent magazine and slammed a new one in.

The two guys both went down, one of them
groaning loudly and the other was silent. Grant ran directly
towards them wanting to disarm them first, then check on Sam. He
never left a gun close to someone who just shot at him—even if they
looked dead or disabled. When he got there, he saw one man who he
was sure was dead and the other was obviously severely wounded. He
picked up both guns, checked the men to see if they had others,
then stood and called to Sam. Sam was already running towards him.
She flew into his arms and he held her close for just a second.
They heard a moan from one of the men at their feet and Grant said,
“We need to do something about these guys,” and released his grasp
on Sam. He quickly untied her.

“What do we do?” Sam asked. Rubbing her
wrists where the bonds were.

“First, we check to see if anyone saw this
happening. I doubt if they have cameras in the parking garage over
here, but look around just in case. If no one saw what happened,
I’ll try to get CIA to help clean this up. If we can patch up the
guy who is wounded, we might be able to question him and find who
put ‘em up to this. We can dump ‘em somewhere later.”

Sam panicked. “We’re not going to just
torture and kill the guy who’s alive, are we?”

Grant, trying to calm her down said, “No,
we’ll patch him up and question him, then drop him off at a
hospital. We’ll just tell them we found him on the side of the
road. He sure as hell won’t say anything. It may not be a problem
because he might die anyway. I’ll call the CIA guy at the Embassy
and see if they can help. If not, we’ll use a pay phone and place
an anonymous call to the police saying we heard gunshots in the
garage and when we looked, there were two men lying on the floor.
Then we’ll just hang up. No way can they trace that call back to
us.”

Grant then called the CIA station chief.
“This is Thurmond. We’ve had an incident and need assistance. There
was a shooting in the garage of the Marriott that needs immediate
attention.”

The station chief immediately picked up on
the urgency and said, “Stay put until my cleaner crew arrives.
We’ll transport you to a safe house and remove the mess. If anyone
comes around and asks what happened, just plead ignorance. Just
tell them you just came into the garage to pick up your car and saw
the mess. You didn’t see anything. You didn’t hear anything. Got
it?”

“Got it,” Grant replied.

“If the police get there before my crew
does, call me back immediately and I’ll abort the mission. You guys
then will be on your own to get away.” The CIA station chief hung
up.

In the eight minutes it took for the CIA
team to arrive, no one came into the garage. Apparently no one
heard the shots. Grant sat Sam in the front passenger seat of the
Embassy car, got behind the wheel and pulled it into an empty
parking slot. It took a little less than two minutes for the two
men to be loaded into a van, the garage floor cleaned and for
everyone to be on their way to a local safe house. One of the
people from the Embassy was a doctor who immediately began an IV
drip on the surviving man and said, “I don’t know if he’s going to
make it. Those hollow points made a hell of a mess, but this guy’s
a moose and he may survive. We won’t know for at least four hours
and it may take twenty-four hours before you can talk to him. The
other one’s dead.”

“Yeah, I figured that,” Grant replied.

The safe house was, by Russian standards, an
unusually large suburban home in an upscale neighborhood about
fifteen miles from downtown Moscow. While Grant went with the CIA
doctor, Sam stayed on the main floor to make arrangements for their
stay. The CIA crew took the wounded man down to the basement which
contained what looked to Grant like a double hospital room. He was
stripped down and placed into one of the beds. He then secured the
man to the metal bed frame with handcuffs. The doctor changed the
IV bag and injected something into the line.

When the doctor was finished, Grant asked,
“What’s going to happen with the other body?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s being handled as
we speak.”

Grant nodded, relieved to know he didn’t
have to do anything with it.

He went back up to the main floor and joined
Sam in the living room.

“They said the top floor is ours,” she
informed Grant.

“Well, there’s nothing left for us to do
here, so let’s go check it out,” he said.

They went up to the third floor of the
mansion to find a large, beautifully furnished living suite,
complete with kitchen. Exploring, they found a living room area, a
dining area, and two bedrooms, both with en-suite bathrooms.

They returned to the living room. “Wow, this
is nice,” exclaimed Sam, sitting on the sofa.

Grant sat next to her. “Yeah, sure beats the
hotel. There’s even beer in the fridge. And there’s no way anyone
has of knowing where we are. The hotel cover is busted, so this is
as good a place as any to stay. Have to figure out how to get our
personal items from the hotel room, though.”

“They told me they were taking care of that.
They left a guy behind who will go to the room, pack up everything
and drive your car here. I gave him my access card. They said he
would check us out and settle the bill. The hotel took an imprint
of your credit card when we arrived, so there shouldn’t be a
problem,” Sam said.

“These guys are good. Unfortunately, they’re
going to want to be there when we question the guy in the
basement.” Grant sighed. “Guess I ought to bring Garcia in on this.
Oh, by the way, I didn’t get a chance to tell you but I ran into
him at the Embassy.”

Sam looked surprised. “You did? What’s he
doing here?” she asked.

I don’t believe him, but he said he was here
on other business. Looks like we’ll have his company while we’re
here.” Grant paused a moment, then continued. “Maybe he can be
useful. I just hope they don’t try to use this incident to take
over.”

Sam sighed. “Well, I’m about ready to let
them. While this apartment is nice, I’d much rather be sleeping
safely in my own bed in the good ole US of A. We’ve been here less
than two days and I’ve already been shot at and kidnapped.”

Grant leaned towards her and put his hand on
her arm. “Look Sam, now that Garcia’s in on this, you might as well
go back home tomorrow. He can cover my back for the rest of the
time I’m here. I’ll be home in a week or so, as soon as I find out
who’s behind all this.”

“No way. I’m not going to abandon you just
because of a little discomfort. I’m going to be wherever you are,
Garcia or not. I was just being whiney. I’m sorry, it won’t happen
again.” Sam squared her shoulders.

Grant smiled at her. “After what you’ve been
through, you’re allowed a little whining. Sure you don’t want to go
back home?”

“Absolutely certain,” Sam replied with more
confidence in her voice than she had in her heart.

“Okay, then.” Standing up he said, “I’d
better call Garcia and bring him up to speed,” He called Garcia,
pacing as he described what happened and told him where they were.
Garcia said he’d be there in an hour.

I minus 21

Grant and Sam spent the better part of three
hours with Garcia, giving him all the details they had. When they
wrapped up, Garcia said he had some things to do on another case
and would be in touch later that day. He also suggested they stay
put until he returned.

After Garcia left, Grant
discovered a fully-stocked kitchen refrigerator and pantry and made
them each a huge deli sandwich, which they washed down with a beer.
They retired early into their separate bedrooms. As tired as he
was, sleep still eluded Grant. He thought over and over how lucky
Sam was that he drove into the hotel garage at that moment. If he’d
stopped for anything on the way back he would have missed her and
he knew she would probably not have survived. Who knows what they
might have done to her in order to get information about him. He
was not used to the emotions he was feeling about Sam. He wondered
about how she really felt about him. It was not unusual for two
people working very closely together in hazardous conditions to be
attracted to each other, he knew that. But is that all this was? Or
could it be more? He had to find out as soon as this mission was
over and they were safely back home. However, first, he had
to
get
her safely
back home. With that, Grant drifted off to sleep.