“According to the flight plan, they are landing at a small private airport near Tumaco.” Thomas touches a screen built into the conference room table and a map of Colombia takes over my tablet. He circles a tiny town on the Colombian coast near Ecuador. I pull out my phone and take a photo of the map. “Torres has a large ranch outside of town so we believe Jonathan and Elizabeth will be taken there.”
“So, what’s the next step?” I hear Sam ask. I imagine her on the other side of the wall, biting down on her right thumbnail.
“The Columbus team will fly down to Ecuador immediately,” Thomas answers. “There will be a foreign Black Angel agent waiting for you at the private airport in Quito. He’ll get you to San Lorenzo, where we’ll put you in the bed of one of our trucks and get you across.”
“What about the rest of the team?” Sam asks.
“DC is unfortunately having huge storms right now,” Thomas answers with a heavy sigh. “Our pilot won’t take off. Says it’s not safe for a plane that small, so we’ve had to book a commercial flight for Meredith and PJ. Flight leaves in two hours. Eduardo, a Black Angel transporter, will be waiting for them at El Jefe Café in the commercial airport in Quito.”
Thomas pulls up a picture of Eduardo and circles the location of El Jefe Café in the airport. I snap another photo on my phone.
“Eduardo doesn’t have a high-security clearance,” Thomas continues. “So keep the discussion of the mission to a minimum until he gets you to the official team in Colombia.”
“Can we trust him?” a young woman, who I can only assume is Meredith, asks from inside the conference room at Langley.
“Yes, we’ve worked with him many times,” Thomas’s voice answers and pulls up the route the teams will take once they land. I snap another photo of the blue squiggly line that leads from Quito to San Lorenzo, a beach town just outside the Colombian border where Thomas explains each team will be smuggled separately across the border.
“Don’t wait in San Lorenzo for the DC team,” Thomas reminds Sam. “You guys need to get across the border first so we don’t attract attention.”
“All right,” Sam agrees.
“Get ready for the codes. Here we go. Columbus team, 220394. DC team, your code is 392043,” Thomas says and the screen switches back to the conference room at Langley.
220394. 220394. 392043 392043. I repeat the numbers over and over again until they lock into place.
“Plane is on its way to you guys in Columbus,” Thomas says and glances at his watch. “Should be there in less than fifteen.”
“Got it,” I hear Sam reply. “We’ll get our gear and get out of here.”
“All right. Radio contact can be spotty down in Ecuador but the team you’re meeting in Colombia will have full satellite capabilities,” Thomas replies. “Good luck, everyone.”
The screen goes black. I hear the scrape of metal chairs on the other side of the wall as Cooper and Sam stand up. I fly off the floor and silently run to the opposite side of the room, hiding Mom’s tablet in my go-bag.
I slink back down onto the ground, my back up against the wall, my lips pushed into a disinterested pout as Sam opens the door.
“Reagan, you can come in now,” she says, waving me through. I stand up, steadying myself against the wall to catch my breath from that too-close-for-comfort maneuver.
I follow Sam into the weapons room where Cooper is hurriedly packing M4 carbines, pistols, knives, and ammunition into steel weapons cases.
“We need to get you to Langley as soon as possible but we’ve got to get down to South America,” Sam states, running her hands through her hair and fixing her falling ponytail. “Cooper, you’ve got to stay with her until Brian gets here to take her to CORE.”
Cooper stops dead in his tracks, his strong arms crossing over his body. “No way. I’m going on this mission with you. You cannot go alone. What happens if the DC team can’t make it? We need firepower.”
“We can’t just leave her. Brian is still two hours away—” Sam begins.
“I’ll be fine,” I interrupt, my voice strong and confident. I need them to leave me alone.
“We cannot leave you by yourself,” Sam says, shaking her head and putting her hands squarely on her hips. “We need someone to protect you and get you to Langley safely.”
“Sam, just go. Look at where we’re at,” I say and motion around the weapons room. “I’ll grab some weapons, I’ll lock myself into the panic room, and I’ll wait for the watcher to come pick me up.”
“I don’t know,” Sam says with her face cocked to one side. I grab her by her shoulders.
“Don’t worry about me,” I say and give her a reassuring squeeze. “You know I can handle myself. Just please, go get my parents.”
“Sam, we’ve got to get to the airport,” Cooper interjects, clicking closed the last packed weapons case. “We don’t have time to waste here.”