begonia9508: Thanks for reading!
Alien_Friend: And you love it even more when you update after you get back, lol.
Yeah no doubt, Maria, Tess and Liz are totally different, but they stick together.
True, it won’t take long for Maria to sense something is not right. The question is how she will handle it.
Thanks, I had a super amazing vacation.
mary mary: Thanks, I DID enjoy it VERY much.
Chapter 2C
Alex Whitman glanced out through the tinted window, amazed when they turned a corner and drove up the long driveway to the White House. He could see the tourists, taking their pictures while they were lined up along the huge fence which protected the property. His arrival had some people suspicious and he could see a few of them move around to take pictures of the car he was sitting in. A chuckle escaped his lips, if they knew it was only me, they wouldn’t be all that excited.
A black limousine had picked him up from the Washington DC airport immediately after his plane had landed. He had been surprised when a man, wearing a black suit, had been waiting for him at the steps that lead to the debarkation area, and had told him he was there to pick him up. He hadn’t needed to go through all the typical airport security checks, which were so annoying at times, and the limousine had taken him out of the airport in no time through an exit that was probably only used by really important people and maybe staff.
“Mr. Whitman…”
Alex’ head snapped up. He hadn’t even realized that the car had come to a stop and the chauffeur was holding the door open for him. “Oh, right,” he said and hurried to grab his briefcase before he stepped out of the limousine. He glanced around the area and frowned when secret service agents came up from both sides to rush him inside so the photographers at the fence couldn’t get a good shot. Not that they would know me anyway, he thought, irritated.
A side door of the building was opened as soon as they reached it and within a few seconds he was inside the White House being greeted by the President himself.
“Mr. Whitman,” Philip Evans said, his tone friendly as he shook hands with him, his grip tight and confident. “I wish we could have met for the first time under better conditions.”
“Mr. President,” Alex said with a polite nod, wondering if this was some kind of standard greeting the man before him tossed at all new people he met in a crisis. “Indeed, the circumstances could be better,” he agreed though.
They walked along the long corridor of the building. “I know you must be tired from the flight. I expect you didn’t get much sleep in the last 24 hours?”
“Not at all, no,” Alex agreed. His last decent night of sleep had been the afternoon of December 31st, before his night shift had started. After that his life had been turned upside down between detecting the asteroid, contacting the Secretary of Defence and being rushed to Washington.
They stopped when the hallway separated in two directions. “Mary will show you to your room,” Jeff gestured at the woman waiting for them.
“I’m sleeping here?” he asked in surprise.
“We’ve set up a meeting for tonight, so I figured a room here would be the easiest and most comfortable way for you to get settled in without being rushed around even more. And this way we can also prevent the press from getting too much information. They’re already suspicious and we don’t want to feed them with more, do we?”
“Of course not.”
****
“Fuckin’ sand,” Kyle kicked a stone across the ground in frustration, following it with his eyes until it hit a nearby tree with a hollow sound before it fell back to the dirt again.
He had gone back to the accident site that morning, checking the location where Michael had been seen last and had followed the jeep tracks that led away from it. Time was working against him through, since the constant, albeit slight wind and the loose sand on the ground were doing their best to erase the light tracks of tires. Not to mention he had no clue how far they had gone or if these tracks really belonged to the car Michael had been kidnapped in.
Night would fall soon and then it would be almost impossible to see anything. He hadn’t thought about making camp or eaten yet either. “It’s like looking for a needle in a damn haystack,” he muttered to himself and crouched down to run his hand over the ground where the grass had been flattened. A bit of relief washed over him when it seemed like he at least was still walking in the right direction. His head lifted to follow the landscape where there was more flat grass and he sighed when it led to the foot of the mountain. “Of course you’re gonna hide in the fuckin’ mountains,” he cursed under his breath and took out his field glasses.
He scanned the area along the tracks, taking his time to make sure he didn’t miss any clue nature offered. His slow moves stopped when he detected a small cabin, hidden by trees and loose woods around it. “Bingo,” he said, but the word almost stuck in his throat when his observation went on and he could see a single man sitting on the ground nearby, obviously preparing his dinner. “What’re you doin’ out here in the middle of nowhere, huh?”
Kyle pushed his glasses back into his pack and checked the best way to get to the cabin undetected. He had no clue if there were others hiding in the shadows the trees and mountain offered, but he knew he was running out of options. If he was lucky enough and Michael was still alive, then he couldn’t lose any time getting to wherever they were hiding him.
****
Alex stepped out of his room after he had taken a shower, trying to remember the directions Mary had given him to find the guest kitchen, where she had promised him the best food in Washington. He turned left in the hallway and frowned when he found three doors, where he had expected only one. Maybe it was the next hallway left, he thought to himself and went back.
Two doors, he sighed, unable to remember the maid’s words earlier. His brain was just too tired right now and he was considering just going back to his room, when someone spoke up from behind.
“Gotten lost?” Isabel grinned at the stranger in the hallway, thinking that it was kind of cute how he looked so irritated by all the different doors in the house.
He turned around and felt his cheeks flush slightly when he came face to face with the daughter of the president. He had read a few articles about the family and knew that she was pretty, but she looked even better in the person. “Kinda yeah…” he replied with a cheeky grin. “I was looking for the kitchen.”
“You’re totally going the wrong way,” she said, amused, and walked over to him, hooking an arm in the crook of his. “The kitchen’s at the other end of the house,” she told him while they started walking.
He was annoyed by her charming behavior, but followed her with a nod. “Thank God you found me before I stumbled into a room where I have absolutely no right to be.”
“Yeah I saved you from that,” Isabel said, amused. “So…” she glanced at him questioningly.
“Alex.”
“Alex, why are you here?”
“I, oh, um…” he stuttered.
She laughed when he blushed again. “You can’t tell me, am I right?”
“Yeah,” he said, relieved when it didn’t seem to be a problem for her.
“Always the same with my father’s guests.”
“There’re a lot of new people here during the day, huh?”
Isabel nodded and let go of him when they reached their destination. “There are, not a lot get to stay at our house though.” She leaned forward to open the door, making an inviting gesture for him until she turned to leave him alone again. “You must be something special I guess.” Her tone was teasing and she didn’t wait for a reply from him.
Alex stared after her, not really knowing what to think about the little encounter. Had she been flirting with him?
****
It almost took an hour for Kyle to get to the little cabin near the mountain. He had to make twists and turns to stay out of sight of the man he was aiming for. Darkness was slowly but surely falling over them, which made it easier to hide, but more difficult to see potential threats.
His breath and heartbeat was lowered to the bare minimum as training over the years had taught him, while he was crouched down behind high grass only a few feet away from the Arab man. A machine-gun was sitting against a rock next to him and the movements, body language, and the way he handled dinner made it easy for Kyle to identify him as one of the bad guys.
It would be easy enough to kill him quietly before the guy would recognize him, but the problem was that he needed answers and a dead man would not give him those. Interrogating him in an open field was dangerous, but he had no choice but to risk it. They were in the middle of nowhere, not really any possibilities to get answer without being obvious.
He got up from his position noiselessly and took a few steps forwards. With two quick moves he kicked the machine gun up and turned it to press it against the man’s back firmly. “Get up!”
The other man started to mumble something in Arab and though Kyle did know parts of the language due to his missions, he couldn’t understand what he was saying. He pressed the weapon against him more firmly to get him to stand up. His left hand came to rest on his shoulder, squeezing it tightly as he guided him to the little cabin, which he had already checked before going after the man.
“Sit down,” he growled and forced his enemy down to the single chair in the room.
Again the other man started to mumble in his native language but this time he understood some but not all of what he was saying. Kyle growled and stood up in front of him after he had tied his arms and legs to the furniture. He used his left arm to tip the chair backwards until the backrest crashed to the wall. “Where did you take our man?”
Again the man mumbled in his language, something about not understanding anything.
“Don’t give me that shit,” Kyle barked and rammed the machine gun into his side. “You fuckin’ understand what I’m saying! Where. Have. You. Taken. Our. Man?”
His eyes betrayed him, the trained solider noticed. Every time he had mentioned Michael, there was just the slightest reaction in them, not visible to most people, but they had learned to get answers without people even answering at all.
The Al Qaeda agent stayed silent, which was no surprise for Kyle. His gaze roamed over the man in front of him and he froze when something in his breast pocket drew his attention. He jerked it open, almost ripping it off with the move and pulled the item out. It was Michael’s cell, he realized and felt a wave of sickness wash over him.
He got his emotions under control in the time it took to blink and turned his sharp gaze back to the man’s face. “You have no fuckin’ clue what I’m talking about, huh?” His voice was a dangerous whisper. He pushed the half-damaged cell into his own pocket and used his foot to kick the chair hard until it fell back on all four legs.
“He’s probably long dead,” the man suddenly said with an Arab dialect.
Kyle answered with a hard slap of the machine gun across the other guy’s face. “Who has him?”
The reaction was just a snort and a spit of fresh blood at his shoes.
It took everything in him to not cry out in frustration. He hated this place! They had been so close to going back home, away from all this shit, the terrorists, the sand, the heat, assholes like… His thoughts almost tumbled over each other suddenly. “Ibrahim,” he said matter-of-factly, his eyes locked on the other man.
Kyle nodded to himself when his opponent’s pupils widened for a second at the mention of the name. Yes, he was sure he was right. The question was if that was good or bad news.
