out dating both sides in the war? Who the hell else have you got in your little black book?”
Of course. Now he thinks I'm playing both sides. Frigging great.
Sarah rolled her eyes and adjusted in her seat so she didn't have to look at Vince. “Look, Chris, I don't know where you got your information but it's wrong.” She stood and started walking to the bathroom. She glared at Vince as she walked by his seat. “I've been on one date since Hassan and you know exactly how that went.” Sarah walked into the bathroom and slammed the door before sitting down and wiping what would soon be a tear from her eye.
Chris' voice came through her earpiece. “Now wait a minute, Vince. This was before she was assigned to us, when she was still a civilian at the Camp. She met Angelo socially at Pure while she was on a twenty-four-hour pass.”
Angelo? Oh, boy.
Sarah heard Will's voice next and he didn’t sound happy. “What the hell is going on with you, man? Why are you suddenly so hard on the girl? She hasn't done anything wrong, and she's pulled your ass out of the fire more than once. No disrespect, brother, but you need to pull that stick out of your ass and cut her some slack.”
Silence. Bastard.
Sarah waited a few minutes, freshened up her makeup and then walked silently back to her seat next to Chris without making eye contact with Vince.
How did everything go to shit so quickly?
Chris gave her a sorry smile and mouthed the words, “You okay?”
Sarah nodded.
I punched a Marine in front of a woman. We may never get past that one. After all, a man's got his pride.
Will cleared his throat. “Chris, why don't you give us that brief on Bolshoi now so we can all get some sleep while we cross the pond?”
Sitting straight, Chris was all business as he rifled through the papers and folders in his briefcase. “So, from the intel we have, Bolshoi runs a maze of companies and employs upwards of four-hundred people. He's got anywhere from fifty to sixty operational aircraft at any given time and they're always moving. This guy has the largest private fleet of Soviet era cargo planes in the world.”
“How do we know he's not just moving tulips from the Netherlands?”
Chris sighed and rolled his eyes. “Good question, Brian, what with the tulip trade being so lucrative and all.”
Brian opened his hands as if to say, “ it could happen.”
Jason turned toward Will. “Soviet era? Is he connected?”
Will stretched his legs. “Our contacts in the Russian Mafiya are sketchy at best, so we're just going to have to cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“We've got lots of conjecture from the analysts and allegations by the U.N. but nothing solid to go on here.” Chris looked up from his papers and spoke directly to Vince. “We're really bumping around in the dark on this guy. I'm surprised they put us on him at this point.”
Vince leaned back in his seat. “It was good intel from the case on Hassan. We can run with this. It shouldn't be a problem to nail him in a week or so. These guys never take vacations. We get Sarah in there, bug the phone lines, plant a few microphones and cameras, then cut the deal and we're out of there.”
“I don't know, Vince.” Chris protested. “There are mumblings this guy has ties to the director of Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs. That guy was old school KGB. I advise we use extreme caution in this case.”
“Thank you for your input on this, Chris, and I appreciate you doing your homework on Bolshoi but we've been given an assignment here. We can't exactly turn it down.”
“Alright.” Will walked to the bar and poured himself some coffee. “So we have an assignment and our guy has cautioned us about possible dangers. Everybody we work with is dangerous so let's just be smart and go into this with our eyes open and get the job done.”
“What else have you got