The Turn: Chapter Fifteen

The Turn

Chapter Fifteen

~Mission Impossible – Part One~

Two Years before the Turn

An expensive restaurant in New York City was open with all its glitz and glamor. Politicians and people with generally too much money drove up in their black limos to the current Presidents fundraising dinner. News camera’s gathered around a type of red carpet of political who’s who.

The venue was just getting started and a van pulled around into the back alley. Out walked the waiters who would be serving the politicians that evening. A girl with her hair in a ponytail walked out rubbing her eyes helplessly. Apparently her contacts weren’t exactly being friendly to her at the moment. A boy with long black hair also walked out of the back of the van with some others. His hair was also in a ponytail. He grabbed a bag from the van and followed the other waiters into the building. The girl followed slowly, rubbing her eyes.

They walked into a side entrance where they were met with on duty police officers. There were four tables with a police officer at each. An officer with African American decent motioned the boy with the bag over. He opened the bag and looked inside. The officer was noticeably young but looked like he could hold his own. When he finished looking inside, he handed the bag back. After giving the boy a quick pat down, he allowed the boy to proceed.

The boy walked into a small changing room to get into his uniform. He placed the bag into a locker and walked out into the kitchen for the ‘motivational’ instructions from the restaurant owner.

In the front, a limo drove up. Instantly the cameras were on flash. An aggressive photographer pushed her way forward. She wasn’t afraid to elbow the nearest camera man. She managed to get in front of everyone and started her camera on stream. A boy in a standard suit stepped out of the limo and helped out a woman in a beautiful black sparkling form fitting dressed. Even as no one seemed to know who they were they were very photogenic together so on the flashes went. It was assumed that they were the children of some ambassador or congressman who was invited.

When the two went into the building the aggressive photographer was pushed back as a congressman pulled up. She ended up at the back of the school of piranhas. She didn’t seem to mind though. She walked around into an alley and fiddled with her camera as if it wasn’t working properly. As if to test if it was working, she aimed the camera into the sky. Something shot out of the lens at attached itself to the wall near the flat roof.

She unconnected her cameras lens and attached it to her belt. She pulled on the string and rose easily up the wall. She climbed over onto the roof. There was a police officer on the far end. She got to her feet and ran behind him. She swung her leg at his feet. He fell to the ground and she hit him in the neck, knocking him out. She tied his hands behind his back and stood, detaching a pair of binoculars from her belt and using them to look around.

The couple inside stood in line as they were seated. The girl fiddled anxiously with her purse.

“Chaud,” she said, her lips not moving apart from a smile.

“What?” again, his lips didn’t move.

“Are you sure you thought of everything?”

“I told you,” he sighed, “You plan, I make things happen. I went through this whole thing backwards and forwards. We’ll be fine.”

“What are our reservation names?” Zara asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Chaud muttered.

The seating attendant looked up at them, “Next!”

The two walked forward.

“Names?” she asked.

“We’re part of the Holtinger party,” Chaud stated.

“The senator?” the girl asked.

“Of course the senator! What are you? Stupid?”

“No, sir,” she muttered, “are you Cale, sir?”

“Yes, I am,” he looked to Zara, “I mean I’ve only been in Russia for two months and they’ve already almost forgotten about me!”

Zara rolled her eyes, “Da, darling. Porheps vi should go somevere else vere vi are more appreciated,” she said in a thick Russian accent.

They turned to leave when the girl tired her best to change the situation, “Please! Pardon my rudeness! I can get you seated right away!”

Chaud shrugged, “Well I guess we can stay.”

The girl led them to their table.

“Oh, and don’t tell my father we’re here,” Chaud said as she was about to leave, “He doesn’t know I’m back stateside yet. This will be a surprise…if you can keep your mouth shut.”

“Yes, sir,” she said as she walked away.

“That was mean,” Zara muttered, dropping the accent.

Chaud shrugged, “How else do you expect spoiled little senator sons to act?”

“Mean I guess,” Zara answered.

“Hello,” a waiter walked up, “My name is Nelson and I’ll be your waiter this evening. Can I get you anything to drink?”

Chaud looked up at the waiter. The waiter’s hair was down now from the ponytail before. He held a large round tray in front of his body. Chaud looked at his Asian appearance.

“Nelson…right…we’ll just have water,” Chaud stated.

“Right,” ‘Nelson’ said as he walked back into the kitchen.

Zara looked over at Chaud, “Nelson?”

“He was the only one I could food poison in time with my limited planning time. I had two days of surveillance and one day to get everything put together. Nelson just happened to eat at a hot dog stand where may not have cooked it quite right…”

“You’re evil.”

“All in three days' work,” Chaud smiled, “besides its food poisoning, he’ll be fine!”

Nelson, otherwise known as Naru, returned with their drinks, “May I take your order?”

“What do you have?” Chaud asked, not even bothering to look at the menu.

“We have a three course meal—”

“Three courses? Didn’t realize the President was a cheapskate…” Chaud muttered.

“Da, vat a shame,” Zara stated.

“For the appetizer we have either a soup or salad—”

“That soups?” Chaud asked.

“Chicken or tomato—”

“Do you have, Olivier Salad, traditional to my homeland Russia?”

“No—”

“What is this chicken soup?” Chaud complained, “Is there someone sick here? Do we look sick to you?”

“Vat salads do you have zen?”

“I don’t really want the tomato soup, either.”

“Vi should have gone someplace else. Porheps somevere that serves Olivier Salad.”

“The President wants out money with this crappy food?”

“I—”

Naru interrupted, “I think I’ll let you look at the menu. I’ll be back.”

There was silence at the table after Naru left. Zara saw Victoria, known as Jane here, as she waited a table few tables down. The people at the table seemed to be treating her fairly nicely.

Zara leaned into Chaud and whispered, “That was kind of fun. Mean, but fun.”

“It comes kind of naturally when you're rich,” Chaud nodded.

“You don’t act that way,” Zara observed.

“Because you’d hit me in the head several times a day,” he said as he grabbed the menu off the table.

“Don’t I already do that?”

“I’m trying to keep it at less than 30 times a day.”

Zara raised her eyebrow, “That’s not several?”

“I have the feeling that you’re just getting started.”

Four more people came to their table including Mr. and Mrs. Holtinger. Because they were not told who they were, Chaud and Zara became Greg and Olga Wilson. Zara kept herself from hitting Chaud for introducing her as an Olga. Apparently they were stepbrother and sister, Olga being their father’s wife’s daughter from Russia. It also seemed apparent that Chaud could spout bull crap whenever he needed to. Nelson returned and introduced himself again and asked for orders. Fortunately, the Wilson siblings got their orders straightened out.

The officer finished at his post and continued back stage to prepare the area for the President’s speech.

“Hey, Johnson, you think you’re ready for this?” another officer asked.

Johnson, AKA Deontay, smiled that good hearted smile, “I was born ready, sir!”

“We’re not expecting anything but you can’t be too careful these days,” the officer said.

“Too true,” Johnsons said in a manner that seemed to indicate the other officer was speaking a little too close to the truth.

The other officer shrugged it off, “Let’s begin the inspection.”

Hina on the roof looked down at the coming people. A limo drove up and a man with blond hair stepped out. He didn’t seem too much of a threat, other than his excessive happy-go-luckiness.

Zara was eating her Cesar Salad as she looked carefully around. She saw the man come in and was seated.

“Dragon to panther, come in panther,” Hina’s voice rang in Hina’s ear.

“Greg, vat do you call dis in America?” she pointed at one of the hard bread pieces.

“Croutons,” Chaud answered casually.

“Da, croutons,” Zara stated.

“Is that a yes, you read me?” Hina asked.

“Da, they are very good.”

“I’m gonna tell you what I noticed anyway, okay?” Hina stated, still unsure what exactly was going on, “We’ll I haven’t seen any one with guns blazing in through the front door.”

“Good, very good,” Zara answered.

“And I have seen anything out of the ordinary; they may already be on the inside.”

“But it seems the leafy greens are a little bitter.”

Hina sighed, “I’ll take that as a ‘keep looking’. Over and out.”

“It’s what you get for eating a Cesar Salad in the middle of winter in New York,” Chaud mumbled.

Zara started looking at people more closely. There was a round of applause as the President walked in. People stood to their feet as the music played. When they sat down their entrees were served and the President started his speech. Zara continued to look around. The person with the most access it seemed were the waiters who could go around as they pleased. The audience started laughing at one of the Presidents efforts at a joke. Zara laughed half-heartedly as she looked around at the waiters. While most of the waiters, including Nelson and Jane, had the fakest of smiles on their faces as they served their ‘greater than thou’ guests there were some who seemed to be concentrating on something else. One seemed to be looking at his watch frequently.

“Excuse me,” Zara said as she stood up and walked to the bathroom. When inside, she entered a stall, lowered the toilet seat cover and sat down, “Alright can everyone hear me? I think the assassins came in the same route that we did, as waiters. So that means they must have a cop in their band or they wouldn’t be able to sneak anything in. Keep an eye out.”

She heard someone coming into the bathroom. Zara stood and flushed the toilet and lifted the seat cover. She walked out and washed her hands. A woman walked in to touch up her makeup, Zara decided that wouldn’t be such a bad thing to do as well. She reached into her purse for a tube of lipstick and began applying.

Their mission, assigned by the Tower, was to prevent an assassination by making it an assassination attempt. Assassinations were generally prevented by the Tower for several common sense reasons but this one seemed more important somehow. Over the past year, Zara and her team had had several missions that seemed quite out of the blue. But there was something nagging at her that they might be connected. She assumed that the Tower was trying to connect the dots as well. That was why on this specific mission, they were to bring back one of the assassins. Zara smacked her lips together before walking out of the bathroom.

The President was nearing the end of his speech. She knew that if the assassins were going to act it would be soon. It was time to get everyone in position. She sat at her table and ate some of her food. Just about then, Naru came by.

“Vaiter? Could you take zis back to your kitchen? Ze pasta isn’t, how you say, cooked very vell,” Zara raised her plate.

Naru took the plate and bowed apologetically, “I’m sorry, Ms. I’ll have the chef make you a new plate.”

“Don’t bother,” Zara waved her hand as if she was insulted, “I’ll vait for ze desert.”

Naru went back into the kitchen. He dumped the plate, food and all, into the nearest garbage can. After that, he made his way casually to his locker. He grabbed the bag and started out again. He walked casually as he kept to the back of the room. After Zara’s warning, his eyes scanned the floor for anything unusual.

“Um, waiter?” an old man asked at a table.

Naru stopped and plaster a smile in his face, “May I help you?”

“Our waiter,” the old mad stated, “He hasn’t been serving us very well tonight. We asked for refills on out water, but we haven’t got it yet. It’s been a long while, too. Would you mind getting us some?”

Naru thought a moment. The old man seemed nice enough but he had work to do, “I would but this isn’t my table. I’d get in a lot of trouble if anyone found out. I’m sure your waiter will be around shortly.”

“Hmm!” the younger woman beside the old man crossed her arms, “I doubt he’ll be down those steps anytime soon!”

“He went upstairs?” Naru asked.

The old man seemed apologetic, “Yes, he went up those stairs and hasn’t come back down.”

Naru smiled, “I’ll go see if I can find him.”

“Thank you so much, young man,” the old man nodded.

Naru continued on his way. He walked up the stairs to the first balcony. He walked past the second floor diner to more stairs that were secretly behind a red curtain. The stairs led up to a third floor used mostly for changing the lighting and such.

“I think I found one of the waiters,” Naru sighed into his ear piece.

“Make sure you keep him alive, bro, unlike the guy in Rio!” Hina shouted.

Naru rolled his eyes, “Why won’t anyone believe when I say he fell off the building. I didn’t kill him. He tripped over his feet. Honestly, the clumsiest person I’ve ever met.”

Naru made his way up the stairs. He was light in his feet, even the floor boards didn’t make much of a sound. On the third floor, he walked to a balcony. At the angle he was sanding, the stage was at a horrible angle. He looked around carefully then saw what he was looking for. There was a man with a sniper rifle propped on the railing. After setting down his back, he made his way quietly to the man.

Naru was nearly behind him when he turned around suddenly. The man tried to turn the gun on him but was unsuccessful. Naru grabbed the gun and took it away easily. He used the butt of the gun to crush the man’s left foot. The man opened his mouth to shout in pain but Naru released his grip on the weapon and placed one hand firmly on his mouth and his other arm around his neck. Naru waited as the man struggled for about five more seconds until the man was out cold. Slowly, Naru released the man’s neck as he slumped over. He stood up and picked up the riffle. He propped the weapon on the railing after detaching the scope and tossing it to the side. Naru never used a scope and his accuracy was the best in the Tower.

“I’m in position,” Naru stated casually.

The crowd clapped enthusiastically as the President neared the end of his speech.

“Good, good,” Zara said as she clapped. It was a dual meaning as she talked to Naru.

“zzz…Nathan, what are you doing?...zzz…Nathan?...zzz…”

Naru heard a short distance radio go off. He looked around the room below, unable to find the person on the other end. He thought of who would naturally have a radio.

“In conclusion,” the President began wrapping up his speech.

“It’s almost finished?” Zara leaned into Chaud as she asked. Chaud nodded in response.

“Johnson!” the officer came up behind Deontay. Deontay turned around and smiled.

“Yeah?”

“You go around the other side. I got this one,” he smiled and sent Deontay on his way.

Vicky was in the middle of serving her table.

“…zzz…move to plan B…zzz…”

“Their changing plans,” Naru reported.