“I haven’t heard anything from them. I woke up before the alarm so I thought I’d let you get an extra few minutes of sleep.”
She yawned and then threw off the covers. “That’s sweet of you, but I need to get up. Our late lunch yesterday meant we didn’t get dinner, and I’m ready to go have some breakfast. Call Doofus and Goofus and get them up. Nothing’s supposed to happen until eleven, and this place has waffles downstairs. I want waffles, give me waffles.” She stood up and headed for the bathroom.
Noah punched the speed dial button for Moose and wasn’t surprised when it was answered almost instantly. “Sarah wants waffles,” he said.
“Waffles will work. We’re both up. Meet you guys down in the breakfast room?”
“Sure, we’ll see you there,” Noah said. He ended the call as Sarah came out of the bathroom and began pulling on her clothes. “The guys are up. I told them we’d meet them down in the breakfast room.”
She looked at him with a grin on her face. “Then you better get some clothes on.”
They walked into the breakfast room ten minutes later to find Neil standing by the waffle maker. Moose was already at a table, eating a waffle that seemed to be swimming in syrup.
“Good grief,” Sarah said to him, “how are you not diabetic?”
“It’s because I burn the calories up so fast,” Moose answered. “My body never has time to realize I’ve eaten anything.”
Neil’s waffle was done a moment later and Sarah took over the machine. She made one for Noah and set it in front of him before starting one for herself, but the machine was quick and the waffles came out hot. Noah waited for hers to be done before he began eating, and both Moose and Neil went back for seconds as soon as they could.
They talked about inconsequential things as they ate, killing the hour they spent there the best they could. Other hotel guests were all around them, so they couldn’t discuss the mission or the upcoming likely action. Moose told them a risqué story about his days in the Navy that made Neil snort waffle through his nose as he tried not to laugh with his mouth full, and Sarah simply covered her eyes and refused to look at him for the rest of the time they were there.
They finished up at a little after seven thirty and went back up to Noah’s room. Neil brought his computer and set it up, then checked to be sure Nicolaich hadn’t called his daughter yet. He had not; there had been a few calls to her number in the past few hours, but they all came from within Moscow.
“So, now we just wait,” Neil said. “Too bad we don’t have a deck of cards, we could...”
Noah’s phone rang suddenly, and he glanced at it to see Captain Hayes’s number on the caller ID.
“This is Camelot,” he said.
“Sir, this is Captain Hayes. I’m reporting all units on station. We’re ready to go whenever you give us the word.”
“Very good, Captain,” Noah said. “I’ll send the location to the number you gave me as soon as we have it.”
“Yes, Sir, we’ll be waiting.” The line went dead.
“Delta Force guys are all in position,” Noah said to the team. “Like Neil said, now we just wait.”
“It’s frustrating that we have to sit back and do nothing while the commandos take Nicolaich out,” Moose said. “He should be ours, don’t you think?”
Noah shrugged. “As long as they get him, I’m not gonna worry about missing my own chance to take a shot at him. Last time you and I tried to take him out alone, he got away. If only one of these teams gets to him, he’ll be up against five of the deadliest fighters in the world. From what I’ve read and heard about Delta Force, any one of them is a match for a whole squad of regular soldiers. We’ll do our job and let them do theirs.”
Sarah, sitting on the bed, looked from Noah to Moose and back again. “This is one time I agree with the big guy,” she said. “I was hoping we’d get to him ourselves. Even after yesterday, I’d still like to watch you put a bullet through his head.”
“I’ll even go along with that,” Neil added. “I got a little shook up yesterday, I know that, but I don’t think seeing Nicolaich die would bother me a bit. Matter of fact, I think it would probably make me feel a whole lot better about what we do.”
“This is exactly why Allison recruited me,” Noah said. “You guys are all thinking emotionally. Nicolaich hurt you so you want to hurt him.” He shook his head. “That isn’t the way to do these things. An elimination has to be done surgically, precisely. Assassination is a powerful tool, but it depends heavily on the element of surprise. Nicolaich Andropov is fully aware that we’re coming for him and he’s set a trap, so there’s no element of surprise. In this case, Captain Hayes and his men are the scalpel that will remove this cancerous growth we call Nicolaich from the world.”