The Agency never mentioned to Peter the part about where you had to be eyewitness to what a wheelman with nothing to lose and a turbocharged V10 engine under the hood would do if he had 200km of icy open road ahead of him.
One hour and twenty-seven minutes later...
OMSK 1km
Peter white-knuckles nearly the entire ride as they speed past the sign for downtown Omsk going well in excess of the local speed limit.
Peter puts in the safehouse's coordinates into the onboard GPS. The numbers get crunched, placing the the location in the upcoming, gentrified area of the city.
"You know, in the old days, people thought that humans couldn't go much faster than a few dozen miles per hour. Thought they would die if the trains were to go faster than that. It was absolutely stupid. But if there's one core truth to be extracted from this little story, it's that while I may have survived this little high speed dash, I am firmly of the opinion that people are not meant to travel this fast on an icy road."
He looks over to Art.
"Besides, fuel economy in the high gears is deplorable. Think of Mother Earth, will you?"
"Oh, sure, I've got it now. I'll just convert it to a spatial folding mechanism and install a zero-point energy tap in the trunk. Of course, I'd have to compensate for gravity fields due to celestial bodies, but I'm sure THAT will be a breeze once I've taken care of the first two items. I guess coming up with all that would take me a lousy, oh, two-hundred years?"
In the vacinity of the Omsk Safehouse, 7:30am local time.
Artis and Peter circle the block a few times, taking in all apparent signs of security and surveillance at the safehouse. One camera pans back-forth on the parking lot, the dwelling being a loft apartment on the second floor of a strip mall of sorts. A flight of stairs lead up to the safehouse door. The only other point of entry/exit is a small fire escape.
A few people are milling about this hour, mostly dog owners taking Fido out for his morning business. Traffic is light, no doubt due to it being a Saturday.
North and East of Novosibirsk
The highway ahead is desolate, with Team Moten not knowing quite sure they are or where exactly they're heading. The limo's engine begins to knock and stutters with Ayumi checking the fuel(?) gauge and sure enough, the car is running low on gas. A few klicks down the road, they spot a petrol stop. It's got two pumps, one of which is currently being used by an SMP police cruiser. The driver of the vehicle seems to yelling at the pump attendant as the cop's partner frantically scrapes ice off the windshield.
Artis parks Le Car a half a block from the safehouse, zapping the surveillance camera with a couple quick shots from his watch laser. It's cooked.
Proceeding up the fire escape ladder up to the second floor loft, both of them arrive outside the safehouse's window. The interior of the bedroom is empty, save for one overhead light. The doorway leading to the living area of the loft is open, no visable signs of activity. Peter then inspects the security on its frame.
Standard double-pane semi-ballistic glass w/motion detector.
Definitely no match for someone of Peter's caliber, especially since he's installed these types of countermeasures on numerous sites throughout the region. Nothing five minutes and a Leatherman couldn't disable.
Peter reaches into his pocket, pulling out a Leatherman Wave and a Victorinox Cybertool 41. However you want to look at it, it's a frightening array of special-purpose electronics tools.
"It'll take a minute to bypass the security. Could go faster, but I want to reactivate it when I'm done getting us in."
He sets to work, occasionally raising his voice.
"You know what I don't want for Christmas? Multi-tools. I already have a few drawers full of them. I mean, it's not like I need so many goddamn swiss army knives. Seriously. Do I look like Richard Dean Anderson to you?"
As Moten leans over to advise Ayumi, he looks down at floorboard and notices a police radio (turned off) mounted under the climate controls. It's a small wonder why it was overlooked until now, but Moten figures Ayumi was more concerned about keeping the limo in one piece.
Omsk Safehouse
Peter ably (and quietly) disarms the window's security without much ado, affording the chance to re-arm the features should they find it necessary. Artis keeps an eye on any activity inside, but sees none.
Artis' opens the window and slinks over the window sill with cat-like grace. Padding towards the bedroom doorjam, he does the standard cursory search high/low of the general area. Nothing pops up immediately, but just as he's about to give Peter the all-clear, he hears the *tak* *tak* *tak* sound of someone typing in the living area.
Peeking around for a quick look, he sees a woman...probably in her late twenties-early thirties, working on a laptop and wearing headphones.
Gas station
The pump finishes filling the cruiser's tank as the driver yells for his colleague to get back in the car. They pull out of the station, accelerating sharply as its wheels catch the wet asphalt. The cops fly by the limo without so much as a glance in their general direction.
Unit 38 to Dispatch. I have...refueled...and currently heading...for railroad crossing.
Copy Unit 38. Be advised...be on look for...inspector...limousine.
Artis flashes Peter the spy signal for "1 contact, possibly more", which may look like a birdie for all I know. He crouches around the doorjam and aims at the woman, realizing that he doesn't know how to say "put your hands in the air" in Russian. He waves Peter forward, though - if she hears the German Artis still has her covered, and a gun in your face is one of the universal languages. If Peter goes unnoticed, then he can tell her to put her hands up.
Peter makes his way inside the bedroom, his entry going completely unnoticed by the woman. She seems more concerned with what is on her screen, not even taking her eyes off when she reaches for a cup beside her. She stops for a moment to take a sip, perhaps reading over what she had just done, then returns to the keyboard.
Artis jestures for Peter to move in and give the order.
"Put your hands in the air!"
The woman does nothing. Peter's techo-sense kicks in, giving attention to the fact that she's wearing a pair of high-end noise cancelling headphones. An artillery shell could explode 10m away from her and she probably wouldn't flinch.
The woman jerks in surprise when she feels the cold steel of the pistol's barrel at the base of her skull. Moving deliberately slowly, she raises her hands.
<"Don't shoot,"> she says in fluent Russian, then remembering who she's supposed to be meeting, repeats the phrase in fluent English.
The pair can see that she's been surfing the Web on the safehouse's secured computer. She currently occupies the only real furniture in the small apartment.
"Can you hear me now?" Artis quips. "Check her for weapons." He takes a step back, saying to the woman: "Interlock your fingers behind your head. Who are you and what are you doing here?"
Dieter
