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Date Posted: 10:33:06 02/06/08 Wed
Author: Mary
Author Host/IP: cpe-69-135-186-204.woh.res.rr.com / 69.135.186.204
Subject: Characters & Shadows - Chapter 35
In reply to: Mary 's message, "Characters & Shadows - Cont." on 11:26:45 01/23/08 Wed

Chapter 35

Marco finally had a moment alone. After spending the last few hours arranging for the movement of David Fanning, Marco was on edge and exhausted. Moving this man was like moving an army. That was one of the reasons that Marco had been assigned this mission so long ago. David hardly moved, and he was impossible to get to, and had to be taken out of play. So Marco, wanting to impress his superiors, had accepted the job that none of the seasoned operatives wanted to get near.

She had been so pleased with his presence in her office as he volunteered. She had assured him that he was working for the “greater good” and that he was “doing the world a favor” by going undercover as a goon to infiltrate David’s organization, work his way up the ranks, gain David’s trust and find a way to eliminate him. But that elimination turned out to be harder than anyone had ever dreamed. Even her.

But eventually they found the one weakness that David had, Nikita. David met her and everything changed, they suddenly had leverage. But Marco quickly developed feelings for the beautiful and innocent blond. He tried to protect her from both David and from himself. After all they were just looking for a way to use her to get to David. But Nikita was smart and she figured out very quickly that staying with David was not something that she would be able to live through. She made plans and she turned to Marco, her clandestine friend for help to get out.

But all he had really done was set her up to be a target for David. Not directly of course, but under orders. And now he was going to make a phone call that might very well be her final nail in the coffin.

He listened until he heard her voice on the other end of the line, “Final phase initiation can begin.”

He could practically hear her smile over the phone, “Excellent work. How long until the target is in place?”

“It will take twenty hours to have the target on location. I estimate another three to final phase destination. Get the teams in place, but not too close, he can’t know we’re there.”

“If we are successful and finally eliminate the threat there will be large rewards. You’ve done excellent work.”

With a bitterness in his voice that he was completely unable to hide, “I’ve done what you taught me, Adrian.”

*****

Adrian knew that she needed backup for Marco. He had become emotionally attached to Nikita too easily and those feelings still showed through too much. He may not be able to follow through with his orders if things went off-profile.

She picked up her phone and dialed, “Carla.”

“Ma’am?” Adrian could feel the young woman’s fear and she was pleased to know that it was still firmly in place.

“Final phase has begun, we are twenty three hours out. You will need to be in position in the hospital. Contingency is black. I repeat contingency is black.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Carla replied, but Adrian had caught the slightest hint of hesitation which was unacceptable.

“Let me be clear. No collateral is too expensive if it means getting David Fanning. Everyone is expendable. Do you understand?”

“Of course.”

Adrian relaxed slightly at her stronger response this time. “Backup teams will be ready. Comm links are now active. Good luck.”

*****

Walter did not like what he was seeing at all. Everything just felt wrong and he was pacing just outside of Nikita’s room. The young woman was desperately ill and Michael was starting to break down under the strain of helplessness that he felt. The doctors didn’t seem to have any answers at this point and that was adding to the horrible frustration driving Michael and all of them. They had to find some answers and soon.

He heard the click of high heels coming down the hall and was surprised to see Madeline coming toward him. He was even more surprised by how she looked. She looked so worn to Walter. Her small shoulders sagged and her pale face was extremely strained. She seemed to have aged many years just since he had last seen her.

Walking quickly to meet up with her he took her arm and asked, “Madeline, are you all right? What’s wrong?”

Then she did something that Walter had hardly ever seen her do, she started to cry. Serious sobs that she shook with and Walter gathered her into his arms and held onto her for long moments there in the middle of the hallway not knowing what else he could do. Finally she began to calm and she pulled back from Walter some, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that to you.”

Walter shook his head and continued to hold onto her a bit, “No worries about that. You’re not the first woman to cry on me. Now come on down here to the waiting area and talk to me about this.” He led her down the hallway and into a chair in a fairly private corner.

“Now tell me what is wrong.”

“First has there been any change in Nikita? How is she?”

Walter sighed, “She’s not any better, but the doctor’s are doing their best.”

“Oh, Michael must be a mess over this. She means so much to him.”

“He’s holding up. But I want to know what has you in tears right now.”

Madeline gathered herself to try to talk about what had happened, “Paul.”

“What did he do this time?”

“No it’s different. I’ve never seen him like this. I don’t even know who he is anymore. He threatened to destroy me in the industry if I don’t do exactly what he wants. And he’s decided that what he wants is full control of the production and the only thing he wants from me is physical relations.” Madeline felt slightly nauseous just saying the horrible words that had spewed so easily from the man that she thought she knew. She was shaking just thinking about it again.

“What is wrong with him lately? Something is really wrong.”

“Ever since the failure he hasn’t been the same. He’s more quiet, keeps more hidden. And he actually frightened me today. I’ve never seen the look that was in his eyes this morning Walter. I swear he looked almost insane to me.”

“Paul Wolfe has always been ambitious and driven Maddie, but something in him has changed.”

They were interrupted by a cough from behind them and they both turned to see Birkoff standing there, “Sorry to interrupt Walter, but were you two talking about Paul Wolfe?”

Walter looked at the seriousness on Birkoff’s face and quizzically looked at the young man, “Yeah, yeah we were.”

Birkoff nodded at Madeline, whom he had known a long time from the business, and continued, “Well I found something kind of strange.” Birkoff paused and directed his comments to Madeline, “Walter asked me to try to help with figuring out what is wrong with Nikita. I have been doing some checking of backgrounds on all the people around her recently. Thought that might turn up something.”
As the young man paused again Walter thought he might kill him if he didn’t continue soon but he was hunched over the laptop pulling up something. Once satisfied he spoke to them again after looking around to make sure they were alone, “I looked into Paul’s finances.”

Madeline was shocked, “You did what?!”

“Trust me. No one will ever know that I was there. I have ways,” he reassured her by waving his fingers at her. “Anyway, a huge lump sum, very usual transaction, was put in his account eight months ago. He then transferred most of the money into the company accounts. The money was used for the production to date. The interesting part began when I tried to trace the source of the funds. It took me a while to piggy-back on all the databases that I needed to get into. Some of the firewalls were tightly encrypted and…“

Walter couldn’t take the techno-babble stuff anymore, “Out with it boy, what did you find?”

“The source was a bank from East Europe, Prague. The accounts belong to an organization known as Black One.”

“What is that?” Madeline asked confused.

“I tried not to find out too much, but they are a terrorist organization. Big time. Gun-running, drug-smuggling, bombings, you name it. It’s headed up, supposedly, by a guy named Fanning. No one has ever seen him though, not even sure he really exists. He’s on the most wanted lists across continents.”

Madeline shook her head, “No, this can’t be right. How would Paul end up in anything like that? And why?”

“I can’t tell you the why. I can only tell you what I find. But it looks to me like they are financing him. And that is very bad news. And incredibly dangerous.”

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