"I'd say all of it is dangerous, Admiral."
McClain didn't disagree, but merely nodded. "How would you like us to proceed, Mr. President? I can have a SEAL team on it within the next six hours."
Dawkins shook his head. "No offence, Admiral, but we don't even know where to send a SEAL team right now. These animals could be hiding anywhere, and we don't have the foggiest idea of where to start."
"Then what will we do? Sit around and wait until they send us footage of cutting the poor girl's head off?"
"No," Dawkins said, his tone grave. "No, we won't be doing that. As soon as I got wind of this and saw the video of Dr. Ott in a basement with her hands tied behind her back, I made a phone call."
A brief second of concern crossed Admiral McClain's face. "You made a call? CIA?"
"I decided to leave Langley out of this one, Admiral."
"But certainly they know about the video and the kidnapping."
The president shrugged and crossed one leg over the other knee. "Of course they do. Heck, the entire world knows about it thanks to the Internet. I'll let Langley do what they do. But I've got another asset in play that could well reap faster results than the big machine that is the CIA."
McClain looked pensive for a moment as he considered what the president was saying. Another asset? What other assets did he have? FBI didn't get involved with things of this nature unless it was in the country. NSA? Surely not. He'd heard rumors about other, higher security special operations units working for the government, but most of what he'd heard was the stuff of urban legend.
One name did continue to pop up. "Called in an Axis agent, eh?"
The president's face remained stoic, as if he'd just bet all his chips in a high stakes poker game.
"This isn't a covert hit, Mr. President. We need someone to be able to track down these people and get that young woman out alive. The SEALs are just as good at that as anyone."
"Almost anyone,” Dawkins corrected. “If our asset needs backup, he'll let us know, and then you can send in your SEAL team."
It was nearly an insult, but the president meant nothing by it. The admiral doubted the faith his leader put in one agent, led by what he considered to be a shadowy special ops organization. His place wasn't to question the president, though, and he nodded his approval.
"If that is what you believe is the best course of action to take, sir, I am fully behind you."
"Good," Dawkins said and stood up. He extended a hand as McClain also stood, and the men shook briefly. "As always, Admiral, I'll keep you in the loop with any progress that's made."
"Thank you, sir," he said appreciatively.
The admiral showed himself to the door and exited the Oval Office, into a room awash with clerical workers pecking away at keyboards, and other people hurrying about in a dozen different directions.
A Secret Service agent standing outside the door gave a curt nod to the admiral, who returned the gesture before stalking out of the office and through the main corridor toward the front of the building. He took a left at the main foyer and followed the hallway out to one of the side exits and proceeded outside to one of the security stations.
The Secret Service detail allowed him through in quick fashion, one of the perks of being an adviser to the president. He circled around to the private parking area, got into a black Lincoln Town Car, and turned on the ignition.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pants pocket and retrieved it to see who had messaged him. The number was unidentified, but he knew who it was. There was only a question mark on the screen.
He tapped away at the keys for a few seconds and then sent his two-word response.
Sit tight.
4
Sean strolled out of the Frankfurt International Airport, weary from his journey. Even taking a private charter with all its amenities was still traveling, and traveling always seemed to wear him out.
He noticed a blacked out BMW with heavily tinted windows, not unlike the one Dufort had escaped Agadir in less than twenty-four hours ago.
This time, the front passenger window rolled down, and he could see Emily in the driver's seat. She motioned for him to get in. Sean opened the back door and plopped his bags inside before joining her in the front. The door had barely closed behind him when she stepped on the gas and accelerated down the airport street.
"Nice to see you too, Emily," he said, hurrying to put on his seatbelt.
She raised an eyebrow and passed him the slightest grin. "Always a pleasure, Zero."
"Do you really have to call me that? I just picked it because of the whole twelve agents thing and I sort of work outside their…" he fumbled for the word, "boundaries."
"Actually, I was going to assign that to you anyway. You know the protocols, Sean. When you're on assignment, I will only refer to you as Zero." She paused for a second. "Except for just then when I called you by your name. And you know what you have to call me." The last part carried a little playful edge to it.
Sean sighed. "Yes, Director."
The BMW zoomed around the curved on-ramp to the Autobahn and merged into traffic behind a shipping van. A few seconds later, after a gray Volkswagen passed them on the left, she changed lanes and sped up.
"So," Sean said, watching as Emily left the slower vehicles behind on the right, "you were a little skimpy on the details as to why I'm here right now."
"You know me. I prefer to talk about that sort of stuff in person."
"Worried about bugs, are we?" He grinned, but his question carried serious implications.
"Never know," she said. "Better safe than sorry."
She guided the car back into the right lane once they'd passed all the slower drivers, allowing a red Ducati 899 Panigale to zip by. Sean stared longingly at the motorcycle, as if he'd just seen the most beautiful woman on the planet walk by.
Emily went on. "Yesterday, a Swiss research scientist by the name of Franziska Ott was abducted from her lab in Lucerne. A few hours later, a video was released online. It featured the young woman, bound and gagged."
"Confirmed it's really her?"
"Yes. Facial recognition software analyzed the footage. She was taken by a terrorist organization known as the Black Ring."
Sean gave a nod, now staring forward down the road. The overcast skies above looked as if they were about to burst with rain. "I've heard of them," he said. "Shady, even for a terrorist group. They've been rebuked by other jihadists for being capitalistic. I guess the others don't feel like eating is important."
She addressed his humorous comment with a dry observation of her own, apparently not in the mood for laughs. "It isn’t when dying is the secondary goal. Still, seems like a racket if you ask me. Now it seems they want something from the professor." She pulled out her phone and handed it to him. "Press play."
Sean did as told and watched the short video clip of the woman in her lab coat, gagged with a rag in her mouth and her hands behind her back. She was on her knees in what appeared to be a damp basement. A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling in front of the woman, and a wet line proceeded down the concrete blocks behind.
Sean finished watching the video, listening to the demands of the kidnappers. He handed the phone back to Emily. "Well, at least we know they're not in the Middle East."
Emily frowned, her eyebrows knit together. "What do you mean? How do you know that?"
"In fact," he said, ignoring her question, "I'd go ahead and rule out some of the African nations as well. Definitely Somalia. I'd say Libya and Egypt are probably out as well."