Chapter 15
To Elena's relief Peter passed the rest of the journey in phone conversations and typing e-mails. She relaxed as much as she was able and simply watched the landscape slide by. The monotony of the drive let her slide into a dull haze where many unsettling futures loomed.
"We will be there soon," Peter said interrupting her thoughts.
"I know," she replied. "I can see the skyline."
"Of course," Peter answered, flushing slightly around the neck. Elena smiled at him. Who knew the council member could blush?
"Your accent thickens a bit when you have been speaking Russian a while," she commented. He looked surprised and sucked air in through his mouth as if washing his accent down his throat.
"We will proceed straight to the military base," he told her. His voice held no trace of an accent now and it was Elena's turn to be surprised.
"Straight there?"
"Yes. No doubt they have noticed your absence overnight and have your home watched for when you return. Your place of business as well. If we go to one of these places first they could grab you and have the meeting at their convenience. If we go straight to them, beard the dragon in its den so to speak then the time is of our choosing."
"I see," Elena said. Her stomach dropped down into her toes and she could swear her heart stopped in her chest.
"I will be with you, there is no problem," Peter reassured her. "Just think of me as your legal council. I am there to negotiate on your behalf. You do not need to say a word." Peter reached across the seat and patted Elena's knee. Privately Elena thought Peter's priorities were first the Council and then himself followed by his family's wellbeing. Her welfare was only of importance as it related to the other priorities.
'Although I'm not sure that's the correct ordering of his priorities,' she thought. 'At least as long as I am a potential business partner with council sanction then I should still fall under his safe range. The trick is to keep it that way.'
Thomas wound the black sedan through the city streets, negotiating traffic and taking turns like a long time resident.
'Either he has been here many times before or he has some kind of GPS unit up front.' Elena leaned forward a bit to peer into the front seat. She didn't catch sight of any electronic direction producing equipment. She leaned back in her seat.
"Something wrong?" Peter asked.
"Does Thomas drive only for you?" she asked.
"Thomas does many things for me." Peter replied with a smile. In the rear view mirror Elena caught the edge of a slight smile on Thomas' face. It was not a smile that made her think of sunshine and daffodils.
"I meant does he drive for anyone else other than you, not what his general skill set included."
"Oh, well yes he drives only for me. Just as Marcus drives only for your grandfather."
"So you never loan him out?"
"Are you thinking you need a driver for something Ms. Calabrese?" Peter's voice was slightly mocking. "While Thomas is an excellent driver I'm sure we could find someone else suitable for you should you like."
"I was not thinking of myself actually," Elena replied with a slight smile of her own. "But your brother."
"Nicolas?" The name burst forth from Peter's lips with a laugh. "Why on earth would you be thinking of him?"
"Well Thomas knows his way around my city so well, I would have thought you might have loaned him to your brother when he came to visit here." The smiles dropped from the faces of both men.
"As I said, Thomas has many skills."
"Of course." Elena turned to look out of the window as they drove. She caught Peter's expression in the glass and saw he was looking at her with the same calculated appraisal he had given her at dinner the night before.
'I should have kept my mouth shut,' she thought to herself with a sigh. 'There was no reason to point out I knew he had been here routinely.' She could admit to herself it was the 'don't worry little girl, I'll take care of everything' attitude that had gotten under her skin. 'Never mind that I hope he does take care of everything, he didn't have to be so snarky about it.' The sedan left the busy city streets and headed down the road to the base built just west of the city. Elena swallowed hard and reminded herself not to bate Peter. 'At least not until he deals with the military.' The sedan pulled up to the gate and Thomas rolled down his window. They were asked their business.
"Elena Calabrese and guest to see Smith and Macmillan," Peter told Thomas, who repeated the information for the guard.
"Smith and Macmillan?" the guard asked, skeptically.
"Those were the only names I was given," Elena replied with a shrug of her shoulders. The guard stared at her over Thomas' shoulder for a moment and then retreated to his guardhouse. Elena assumed he was calling someone else who would either have enough information to let them pass or give him confirmation to tell them to go to hell.
"This is a bad idea," she muttered under her breath. Peter just smiled and patted her leg. A few seconds later the metal gate began to slide open and the guard popped out of his house like a little cuckoo.
"Head straight down this road and take a left at the intersection. It will be the third building on your right. Someone will meet you there," the guard informed Thomas. Thomas thanked him and when the gate was sufficiently wide enough he drove through. Following the guards instructions brought them to the same building in which she had awoken a few days earlier. A man who was neither Smith nor MacMillan awaited them outside its doors. Thomas stopped the car in front of the building.
"Stay with the car," Peter told Thomas. Thomas nodded once and turned off the engine. Elena exited one side of the car and Peter the other. They walked around the car to where the man stood.
"You will please come with me," the man said. He turned and led them to a gray metal door. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, trusting Elena and Peter to follow him. Peter stepped in front of Elena and held the door open for her to pass then followed her into the building. They were led into the same conference room and Elena felt sick to her stomach, wondering if she would be as easily able to leave this time.
"They will be with you shortly," the man said. This time he held the door for both of them and then shut the door behind them. Elena had the feeling if she tried the door handle it would be locked. She reached for it anyway, twisting the icy cold stainless steel knob.
"Yup, locked," she muttered. Peter calmly walked to the conference table and took a seat at the center of the table and facing the door. He looked like a king awaiting the arrival of merchants with a proposal. Clearly, he had decided to grant them an audience.
'And that's probably how he thinks of this too,' she thought. Elena took a seat to Peter's right.
"They will make us wait of course." Peter told her as she settled herself in the chair. "They wouldn't want to look too eager." Elena simply nodded.
Worry, not only for herself but for what might have happened in her absence tangled in her mind. Were TJ, Max, Emily and the rest okay? Had they been harassed while she was gone? Had her store been bothered, her customers driven off? She pictured her apartment. Had it been torn apart when the military went looking for her? Had they found her satchel beneath the floorboards?
'Why didn't I think to take that with me?' she asked herself. In the back of her mind she knew she feared the council would take those few things she kept with her away to protect themselves. She was not ready to give up the things in that satchel to the military or the Council. 'And now that there is a chance I will be piloting again I'll need them,' she thought. She shook the thought away, returning to the channels was something to think about later.
Elena resisted asking Peter how long he thought the military would make them wait. She knew the answer anyway. They would make them wait as long as they felt necessary to get their point across. There was no need for her to sound like a petulant child. She glanced towards the large mirrors. 'Especially with an audience.' T
ime ticked past and Elena fought to look as calm and serene as Peter. There was no need for him to see her falling apart either.
As she waited the nerves quieted a bit and anger began to seep in. 'Childish,' she thought to herself. 'Isn't it enough that I am here?' The door opened and Smith entered the room, shutting the door behind him. He was dressed identically to the other day and Elena found herself thinking his closet must be a very drab place.
"So Ms. Calabrese, who do I have to thank for the honor of this little visit of yours?" Smith started, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Is this merely a social call or can I dare to hope that you have come to your senses and have decided to render aid to the brave men and women missing in action?"
"Your people are dead," Peter replied before Elena could open her mouth. His voice was flat and cool and held no trace of an accent. "And harassing Ms. Calabrese will not bring them back." Smith frowned at Peter.
"And who the hell are you?" he asked, his hands balled into fists on his hips.
"I am a member of the Council of the Guild of Families," Peter informed him. "And if you would be so kind as to take a seat I will explain a few things to you." Elena thought the words very combative and wondered at the intelligence of antagonizing Smith. To her mind it was rather like slapping a bear when he had you backed into his cave. Smith jerked a chair away from the table and sat down in it. He steepled his fingers on the table and narrowed his eyes at Peter.
"So why don't you go ahead and explain things to me," Smith replied. His voice was deadly soft.
"In trusting Ian Jensen you have made a grave mistake," Peter began.
"And why is that do you believe Mr. Councilman? So far it has worked out pretty well for us."
"Really," Peter replied, a question in his voice. "Twenty-six dead is working really well? Interesting." Peter cleared his throat. "Your first mistake in trusting Ian is that he is not even a pilot."
"You may have grounded him but he is still a pilot," Smith proclaimed. Elena let out a bark of laughter she was unable to stop.
"Sorry," she apologized as Smith turned storm filled eyes to her.
"Ian Jensen is not a pilot, nor has he ever been a pilot," Peter said in a very patient voice. "And because he did not receive the training a pilot receives he did not know that the channel he tried to access had been sealed for over 100 years. A channel I might add that is far from the area of water you pointed out to Ms.Calabrese on your map. Anyone attempting to access the sealed channel would slam their hulls into the barrier and the entire crew would be lost."
Peter folded his hands flat on the table and stared at Smith. Smith was clenching his jaw with such intensity that Elena thought his teeth would crack. She wondered if he would spit them out at her like bullets from a machine gun.
"Now, when Ms. Calabrese was informed of the incident, she knew that very little of the information you provided her with was accurate and she was at a loss as to her course of action," Peter continued. "After all, if she had said she would help, she would have given false hope to the families of the men and women who died aboard the USS Navigator, something she felt to be unconscionable, and any information she gave to you would potentially put more of your people at risk as you attempted faulty implementation. Therefore, she determined the best course of action would be to report the matter to the Council and follow proper channels to see its resolution."
Elena was beginning to feel like the well-defended client of a high-powered attorney. At this point Peter paused again and Smith looked at him in surprise. His gaze flicked over to Elena and turned speculative. Elena resisted the urge to scowl. She was getting rather tired of people looking at her and wondering how they could use her in one of their schemes.
'Maybe I ought to get my own schemes and see how they like being caught in them,' she thought grumpily.
"Now, as you asked Ms. Calabrese to help you deal with the matter of the missing crewmen and she has, I fail to see what further business you have with her," Peter continued. "I would however suggest that you think seriously about what you are doing before listening to any more of Ian Jensen's 'technical information'."
"This is a military concern, a matter of top priority and national defense," he bellowed.
"How," Peter asked. Smith sputtered unaccustomed to people questioning him especially on matters of national defense.
"Who do you think you are, questioning matters of National Security," he demanded. Elena could practically see the words National Security come out of his mouth in capital letters.
"I am someone who knows the channels, their history and their usage," Peter calmly replied.
"Are you a pilot then?" Smith asked.
"No," Peter replied with a bit of a laugh. Elena smiled. "And the fact that you would even ask that is further proof that you know too little about the channels to go mucking about in them. Ms. Calabrese as you have been told is a pilot, one of our better ones as you may have deduced."
"So you believe you know better than us about these channels?" he asked stiffly. In addition to the clenched jaw, Elena could see his face becoming suffused with splotches of red, which she could only assume, was repressed rage. She wondered what would happen if he had a heart attack while they were speaking to him. Would it be considered aggravated assault?
"Quite frankly, yes. Do you intend to abandon this project or go ahead with it?" Peter asked. Smith's attention was focused on Peter and Elena felt she might as well not even be in the room. She wondered if either man would notice if she just slipped out and let them continue.
'Of course it isn't like I have anything to add. Peter is doing very well with it. Besides,' she thought. 'This is why people hired high-priced attorneys in the first place.' She also found it fascinating to watch Peter work. 'Not at all like Grandfather.'
Sending her grandfather into this discussion would have been an unmitigated disaster. He was a captain, plain and simple. Used to giving orders and having them followed. A discussion like this needed the skills of a politician, which Peter had. Elena had the feeling any discussion between Smith and her grandfather would quickly degenerate into a shouting match that would end only when one asked the other to step outside. Debate did not seem to be either of their strong suits.
Even though Elena had a vague sense of where he may be going with his conversation she was not sure how Peter would end up getting there. She decided this was a match best watched instead of interfered with. She would no doubt get her turn.
"We have no intention of giving up something that is of such importance to National Defense," he sputtered in indignation. Elena got the impression that he really liked using those words. It made what he had to say sound important rather than petulant.
"Very well then" Peter said. "I can see we must therefore reach an agreement."
"An agreement!" Smith practically screamed. "You want to reach an agreement? You will do what is needed."
"You haven't actually told us what it is the military requires," Peter calmly pointed out. "Ms. Calabrese was asked to help determine the fate of the missing crewmen and if possible to assist with a rescue. Despite misinformation we have determined that all of the crewmen are dead and no rescue mission is actually needed. You have not asked us for further use." Smith's red face had darkened to nearly purple.
A slight tapping sounded at the door before he could retaliate. Smith spun in the direction of the door and ground his teeth. He glanced to the mirror and Elena's earlier paranoid fears about the mirrors being two-way glass were confirmed. He got up and walked to the door where he was given a note that he very quickly read. Smith let out a long breath and turned back to Elena and Peter.
"Please excuse me for a moment." He stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.
"And the bell rings for Round 1," Elena muttered.