Returned

Leap of Faith

Fifteen

Leap of Faith

Aku got the video image of the long sleek Galloper speeding on the smooth wide road northwards. He had gotten the image in thirteen minutes and was grinning proudly at his achievement.

“Sir,” he called Yanng’s attention. “I found it.”

Yanng was on call, but he soon dropped it and came to meet the tech genius.

“Zoom in, I want to see the interior!” he snapped.

Aku did as he was ordered. Yanng peered into the sleek screen but was disappointed.

“Where the hell are they?” he muttered. He stood looking at the screen as if he expected to see something more. Then he turned suddenly to Sergeant Obi, “Go back in there and round up all the domestic staff and bring them out here for questioning!” he ordered.

Yanng looked again into the screen, but there were no other occupants in the vehicle, just Jennifer and her robot all seated in the front of the car. He called Jon Cho to update him as he had been required to do after every development, by the superior.

***************

When Prescott got wind that the team he was a part of just a few minutes ago had been arrested by the Chinese operatives, he acted fast. He quickly narrated the interception of the alien orb in the Mojave, and the surveillance Intel that had given off Tile, Charlatan and their female companions. His instincts told him that he had to befriend these strangers for them to trust him enough to volunteer information in that short time.

Prescott showed his hosts pictures from his Pamphlet of the trio and also Goodblood and Ipotu. He also confirmed from them that the same orb had been found in Nigeria, and Jennifer was en-route to the site as an unofficial envoy. Prescott quickly suspected that it must have been why Sloane had told the pilot to accelerate, shortly before they had jumped ship. And the reason why the Chinese were already waiting for Sloane and his men. It was all getting together now. He even suspected Bowden to have sold them out, the way he had been behaving. But that was a faint idea now.

Jennifer, too, began to see the bigger picture of her predicament. The return of Tile back into her life had brought an avalanche of twists and turns. Possibly an alien invasion of earth. And now she was conveying two American citizens. What trouble she was in with Cho and his men!!! She knew she was doing the right thing following the latest strangers and all, but it came as a relief when Prescott suggested that they should be dropped from the vehicle. The tension that had been swelling in her gut suddenly dissipated.

“We will have to leave this vehicle Ma’am, me and your friends,” the American had said to her. “From what I’ve gathered, the Chinese will be looking for all of us now, including you. They may have possibly tracked this vehicle already, and it is now only a matter of time that we will be apprehended.”

“So what about me?” Jennifer asked anxiously.

“Relax, we are coming with you. Not just in your vehicle. I reckon you are a lady of means and affluence in these parts. Is there a way you could scramble a vehicle for us, and we can meet up with you at some rendezvous?”

“Yes, I think I can do that,” Jennifer said, still anxious.

“Perfect. You are going to be fine, trust me. Just go on to your assignment in Jos. We shall meet you there.” then Prescott added, “Is Jos close to the Chadian border? We have a station there.”

“It is not so close,” Jennifer said resignedly. “We will have to get through Gombe and head to Maiduguri. That should take us the rest of the day.”

“Dammit! Prescott cursed under his breath. “If we can get there, we will be away from the Chinese and be able to tackle this alien thing with detail. It is possible they have a system through which they are watching us now.” he turned to Tile in the back, “Is that right?”

“You may be right, those guys adapt and advance on a daily basis,” Tile said as-a-matter-of-factly.

“Then do it, we need to get out now,” Prescott said to Jennifer.

As the other activities had been going on, Bruno had been busy communicating with Tile the robot via their chat system. He was excited meeting his twin-model far outside the United States. But unfortunately, he seemed to notice that his new friend’s alertness had been dampened… perhaps by the climate, or the dull domestic life he led. He seemed to know a lot about the Makurdi city in which he lived, but not so much of Nigeria at large.

Even in Makurdi city, most of what Tile robot knew was picked from the Intel systems. His personal life experiences were minimal to share, and boring. Most of what he passed on was embarrassing to Bruno, who thought he should have been put to good use with the Intelligence agencies. From what Brunno was hearing, if Tile robot had been in the security agencies even momentarily before changing jobs, he would have been very helpful now.

Prescott, on the other hand, thought he had been very lucky so far. It was how the law of audacity worked, he thought. He had heard Brannon say on several occasions that sometimes, it is better to take the leap of faith, the transport comes later. He had taken that leap when he jumped from the chopper. And even though he had no game plan, the game had been planning thus far.

Jennifer made the necessary calls. Prescott learnt that there was another city, Lafia, about thirty minutes drive out, where Jennifer had ordered their ride. The Galloper had stopped and they had alighted to wait for their transportation.

******************

As Yanng looked into the screen, his confusion increased. Most of what had been happening seemed to make no sense. But if the CIA was here because of the strangers that entered Jennifer’s compound the previous evening, then it meant that the US had Intel they were yet to have. His best call now was to do everything he could to get information out of the domestic staff and the CIA agents he had captured. He signaled Aku to follow him to the Holding Station.

It was a makeshift tarpaulin tent. There were two aluminium folding chairs facing each other across a tough glassy dismantling table. There was another wooden table to the corner upon which several electronic paraphernalia were placed.

Yanng called two agents to bring Sloane in. He sat, quietly facing the CIA operative for a better of two minutes before he spoke. Perhaps he was weighing the words that would make the right impact on the trained agent, to be able to elicit the right response within his measured timeline.

“You’re in a very serious situation right now, I hope you know that?” he said at last.

“Is that so?” Slaone asked casually.

“I do not have time to play word games with you. I need information. And I am not here to hurt you. Talk to me as an adult and let me help you too.”

“How is that?”

“I want you to know something, and I will be straight with you about it,” Yanng said menacingly. “We do not have any diplomatic ties with the United States. That means you have no business being in our territory. You and your men… and America for that matter. As far as we are concerned, your presence here is a border breach and so… an international provocation. We could declare war, if we have resources to spare. In fact, where you are sitting is exactly where my boss wants you.”

Sloane was surprised by Yanng’s vocabulary. The Chinese guy spoke good English. But he understood also that most of what the guy said had a laced countenance of spite and was a speech designed to taunt him. This mission had been a hurried affair, and even he, was not as informed. The Prescott guy seemed to know more.

Not that Sloane was willing to volunteer information just at the utterance of the Chinese guy’s bullshit. He too needed to demonstrate some level of American pride. Not that it mattered now. He knew that the Chinese saw themselves superior and wouldn’t care less. Perhaps he just needed to give the guy what he wanted and save himself the stress.

“Sir, I have other ways to extract the information I need from you, and I wouldn’t care what becomes of you in the process,” it was Yanng again.

Sloane had heard of a device which the Chinese used to extract information from brain cells of recent dead people. If the device was used on a living individual, it left him paralyzed, or worse. It was learned that the Chinese used this device to extract crucial Intel from unwilling persons. The UN had sanctioned the device, but the sanction had sounded more like an effort to scare a scarecrow.

“You should try to capture the guy that jumped,” Sloane found himself saying. He didn’t know why he spoke, but his lips started moving and the words were spilling out smoothly. “I was commanding the operating, but we had only been drafted to escort him to debrief three individuals from this compound. NASA sent him.”