Lone Wolf (25 page)

Carson turned to the customs man. “We all good, Boris?” The other man nodded with a big smile, and Carson motioned for Noah, Moose and Neil to follow him. They slid past the customs lines and Carson led the way out the door to the diplomatic parking area. Another man was waiting there for them, and handed them the keys to the same Land Rover they had driven before.

“Wasn't sure if you're going to have any problems with customs,” Carson said, “so I decided at the last minute to have those IDs burned for you.”

“Probably saved us a lot of trouble,” Noah replied. “Moose and I are each carrying a pistol that I would hate to have to give up. I think I could have bluffed my way through, but you saved me the trouble.”

“Glad I could be of help. Everything you wanted is in the car, including the location of your two little birdies. Nicolaich took the girl into a van filled with some of the baddest badasses I've ever seen, but we were able to tail it with drones. They’re in an SVR safe house on Ul. Ramenki. The address is already programmed into the GPS in the car.” He looked at Moose and Neil, then leaned close to Noah and spoke softly. “This particular safe house is incredibly well guarded, with two squads of their equivalent of Navy SEALs stationed there twenty-four seven. I've got a rough idea of who you are, but that isn't the place you want to tackle with just these two. If you can give me a little time, I can round up a few of our boys to help even the odds.”

Noah shook his head. “No offense, Larry, but I've never heard of an embassy that was truly secure. There is at least a fair chance that Nicolaich already knows we've arrived, and if you start getting me backup forces, he'll probably find that out too. I don't have any intentions of storming his fortress, and I'm certain that isn't part of his game plan, either. He's out to set a trap for me, and I'm quite certain he will find me soon enough. For now, I just want to get to our base and see what we can do to start preparing.”

Carson shrugged. “Okay, but I had to try. Best of luck, and let me know if you need anything else.”

Noah and the others put their bags in the back of the Land Rover, and Noah slid behind the wheel. He had already programmed the address of the rented house into his phone's GPS, so he began following the directions to get there.

The drive took almost half an hour, mostly just getting out of the airport and the city. They found the place with no trouble, but got a surprise when they arrived and saw that it came with a full domestic staff. A butler met them at the door, and they were surprised once again to find that he spoke with a crisp British accent.

“Good evening, Sirs,” he said, bowing his head for a brief second. “My name is Rothschild, and I am in charge of the staff, here. Some of the maids do not speak English very well, but they know to call for help in the event you ask one of them for something they do not understand.”

Noah dipped his own head in greeting. “Thank you, Rothschild,” he said. “To be perfectly frank, the main thing we require is to be left alone. Can you pass that word among the servants?”

Rothschild smiled. “Indeed I can, Sir. In addition, may I say that you remind me greatly of some other American gentlemen who have used these lodgings in times past. They were here on business, the sort of business that leaves the Politburo scrambling for information when it is over. This is one of the reasons I willingly employ people who are not fluent in any language but their own. The only ones you might want to be wary of are the cooks and the senior housekeeper. They understand English quite well, and at least one of the cooks and the senior housekeeper are related to Russian officials. Should I let them go, I would find SVR at my door within an hour, so I'm simply careful to warn my guests about them. Now, may I show you to your rooms?”

Noah nodded and returned the smile. “Please do, and thank you. Also, can you make certain that no one bothers our vehicle? We have some things inside that could be quite fragile, and shouldn't be disturbed.”

“Indeed, Sir,” Rothschild said as he led them into the house. They followed him up a flight of stairs, amazed at the beautiful woodwork and marble appointments. Rothschild stopped in front of a door that was made of mahogany, and turned to Noah. “This is the master suite,” he said. “I would think that it should be yours for the time being. Your associates will be quite comfortable in the next two suites on the side of the hallway.” He opened the door and stepped inside, and Moose whistled at the luxurious apartment they found inside.

Apartment was the appropriate word. There was a small kitchen, a sitting room with several chairs, two couches and a massive television, a bedroom, and a bathroom that was bigger than Noah's bedroom in his house. The plumbing fixtures were gold plated, and the tub had been carved from a single block of marble.

Noah went into the bedroom and tossed his back on the bed. “This will be fine,” he said. “Let's see where the guys will be.”

The other two suites were not quite as large, but each boasted a kitchen, sitting room and bathroom. Neil took the first one, and Moose was happy to take the second.

“On each of the telephones, there is a button marked intercom. If you push that button, I will answer quickly. If anyone else answers, simply ask for me. The kitchens are provided for your convenience, should you choose to prepare a meal for yourself, and are fully stocked. However, the main kitchen is manned by a staff of cooks and helpers that can prepare absolutely anything you might desire. You can reach the kitchen by dialing one, or you can relay your request through me. As I mentioned, the cooks speak very good English, but your meals will be delivered by a maid who speaks none at all.”

The Butler turned and left, and the three men returned to Noah's rooms. There was a desk in the living room, and Noah pointed at it. “Neil, get on your computer and look for anything that you think might give us any advantage on Nicolaich. Moose, I'm going to empty my bag. You take it down and stuff the weapons into it, bring them up here.”

“No problem, Boss,” Moose said. “Of course, the rifle is not going to fit in there. I should probably just leave it under the seat, don't you think?”

Noah nodded. “Of course. I doubt we'll need it here, anyway. We'll want it to be available when we figure out where the battleground will be.”

Moose waited as Noah dumped his bag on the bed, then took it and walked out the door without another word. Neil had set his computer up on the desk, and was looking at something that appeared to be a computer game.

“What on earth are you doing?” Noah asked, and Neil turned to him with a grin.

“This place has some high-speed Wi-Fi,” he said. “I'm scanning it to see if it has any bleeds. That's what I call it when someone else can watch your Internet activity.” He turned back to the monitor and tapped a few keys. “Good thing I checked,” he said. “The system is bugged. Every bit of data I send or receive over it will be copied to another location, probably the SVR.”

“Do you have to use it?” Noah asked.

“No. There aren't any cell towers close enough to do me much good, but I can use my phone to go directly to a satellite, and it has a built-in, password-secured hotspot. I can log on through that, and no one can see what I'm doing. We can run a cell phone through the Wi-Fi, just so they see some activity, but I doubt it will matter.”

“Get on it, then. Find me anything you can that might lead us to Nicolaich or Sarah or both.”

T
eam Camelot, minus Sarah, had arrived at their luxurious base of operations at just after seven PM. Five hours later, at midnight, Neil was still searching for any sign of Nicolaich online.

“There's nothing,” he said. “From the moment he got into that safe house, no one in any intelligence agency has made any reference to him. I've gotten into every intelligence network in this hemisphere, but there's absolutely nothing I can find. If he's making any kind of plans, he's keeping it pretty secret.”

Noah, who was lying on a couch, nodded. “Okay, give it up for tonight. You guys get some sleep, and we'll talk again in the morning.”

Moose had been sitting on the other couch, flipping channels on the TV. He turned it off and got to his feet as Neil shut down his computer for the night. The two of them walked out of Noah's room, mumbling goodnight as they did so.

Noah continued to lie on the couch. Calm on the outside, his mind was racing as he tried to formulate a plan that would speed the process of getting him in position to kill Nicolaich Andropov. Unfortunately, he had nothing to go on, and another part of his mind was occupied with something that the others might have considered to be worry. Noah didn't see it that way, but there was a part of him that was trying unsuccessfully to avoid any thought of what the future might be like without Sarah.

For as long as he could remember, Noah Wolf had never worried about anyone, not even himself. Whenever a situation that might have been dangerous arose, he simply examined it and took whatever action he deemed necessary, without any thought of the risk to himself. That wasn't to say that he didn't know how to take precautions, but only that he wouldn't let a lack of precaution stop them from doing what he felt he needed to do.

Suddenly, though, he found himself in a position he had never known before. Without realizing it, he had become so accustomed to Sarah and her attentions that he was taking them for granted. The thought that she might be gone, that he might not be able to save her and be with her again, was causing him to feel something akin to impatience. He wanted to move, wanted to take action, but he had no idea where to begin.

For the first time, Noah forced himself to consider whether he might be feeling an emotion. Certainly, he didn't want Sarah to die, and a large part of that was simply because she was a member of his team. One of the things he had incorporated into his own psyche while in the Army was the necessity of taking care of your own. In three tours of duty in combat zones, Noah had never willingly left anyone behind, earning three different medals for valor because of wounded compatriots he’d carried on his back.

Back then, it was simply logic. Soldiers were important to the military effort, so any soldier that was alive should be brought back for rehabilitation. He had served with other men who had been wounded in combat, brought back to health with medical treatment and then volunteered to return to the front.

This case was different. Sarah wasn't just a fellow soldier, she had become important to him on a personal level. That's what made it new; Noah had never needed anyone before. Even as a teenager, when his childhood friend Molly had become his lover, it had never bothered him when she was busy and unavailable, and when she finally moved away, he simply said goodbye and felt nothing. Now, however, the thought of never seeing Sarah again was enough to fuel something inside him that he didn't recognize.

Could it be anger? Was he actually experiencing anger over the danger that Sarah was in? Even worse, was it possible that he had actually grown emotionally attached to the girl? If there was one thing he knew, it was that emotional attachments caused people to make mistakes in judgment. Otherwise-sane men had been known to murder their wives over an erroneous belief that they were unfaithful, or to kill or injure friends who seemed to be paying too much attention to a wife or girlfriend. Noah forced himself to examine what was going on inside himself.

No, he concluded, he wasn't suffering from any kind of romantic attachment to her. That was obvious to him because of their swimming adventure a few days before. All three of the men had stripped naked in front of Sarah, and her wet underclothes had left her almost as exposed when they had climbed out of the water. Noah had felt nothing akin to jealousy, even though he knew both of the other guys had taken the opportunity to get an eyeful of her charms. He thought that he would surely have been jealous to some degree over that, if he was actually attached to her in such a way.

After a half hour of logical analysis, Noah concluded that his problem was dependence. He had come to be dependent on her, not only for sexual encounters, but also for the subtle touches of humanity that she allowed him to share in. Her own feelings for him were clear, she had made sure of that, but he couldn't find anything in himself that implied reciprocation. Noah wasn't in love, he just didn't want to do without her. Jealousy wasn't an issue, because nothing that had happened had affected that dependence.

Analyzing it this way allowed him to clear his mind of a lot of the turmoil, and he began to think more clearly. As he had told Neil, there was nothing he could do if Sarah were killed before he got a chance to try to rescue her, but he finally acknowledged to himself that he would feel some kind of emptiness if she were gone forever.

Logically, then, he knew that he needed to make every possible effort to ensure that she came back to him alive and safe. There was no doubt in his mind that he would do so, if only he could determine a course of action.

He let himself think about movies he had seen wherein a character was faced with a similar situation. Someone important to them was in danger, and the character had to go to the rescue. Unfortunately, in those stories, it was the character's anger that gave them the strength to overcome insurmountable odds, but Noah didn't know how to turn his anger on. The best he could do, as he had always done, would be to fake it.

He sat up suddenly. Maybe that was the answer. If he took actions that seemed to be emotionally driven, it might force Nicolaich's hand and cause him to expose whatever trap he was setting.

Noah quickly created some scenarios in his head, then got up and stripped. He lay back down on the couch and was asleep within moments.

The sitting room had no windows, but Noah had always awakened near the crack of dawn, and the habit served him well again. Even the changing time zones as he traveled around the world didn't seem to cause him any difficulty in knowing when the sun was coming up, so he rose from the couch, picked up his discarded clothing and went to the bedroom. He chose clothes to wear for the day and headed for the shower.