Freya opened her mouth as she stared at Hugo. His gaze did not fade away, and finally, she shrugged.
“Okay, I guess I don’t have any choice. We’re here together on our way to Russia, so we have to do this as a team.” She put her face in her hands and rubbed her temples for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and looked at Hugo. “Did you say you worked on classified missions?”
“Both classified and unclassified,” Hugo answered. “I didn’t do classified so much in the beginning, but as the years went by, more and more assignments were abroad. Most of them are still classified, so, unfortunately, there’s not much I can tell you about them.”
“Why did you quit?”
The question was so abrupt that Hugo froze in his seat for a moment. He recovered quickly and sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”
Freya wasn’t giving up. “I want to know you better, so try.”
“All right.” Hugo pressed his lips together, then said, “I . . . have a condition, a special sort of disease. It’s called CIP—congenital insensitivity to pain. It comes from a mutated gene. I was honorably discharged once they discovered I had it.”
Freya narrowed her eyes. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. You’re saying you’re invincible?”
Hugo chuckled. “No, I bleed just as easily as you do. It’s more that I don’t feel pain the same ways other people do.”
Freya raised her eyebrows skeptically and opened her mouth to ask another question, but Mikko cut her off.
“So, now that we know Hugo a little better, maybe we ought to go through the mission?” He glanced from face to face hopefully.
The pilot’s voice echoed from the speakers just then, “Hey, Novus team, please go ahead and strap in. We’ll be descending soon.”
After they buckled their seat belts, Sussie pulled out a stack of tablets and gave one to each team member.
“These tablets each have a copy of the dossier we compiled about Markov Tupolev, the Russian scientist. He’s just over fifty years old, and he lives and works outside St. Petersburg. For a long time, he worked in the Russian Armed Forces developing various drugs and chemical-technical products. Five years ago, he moved to the private sector, where he’s developed some synthetic products that have made him rich.”
Hugo pulled up a picture of Tupolev on his iPad. The scientist was short, round, and had one of the most obnoxious comb-overs that Hugo had ever seen.
“Jeez. He looks like a mad scientist.”
“Don’t let the look fool you,” Sussie said. “He may look like a slob, but he’s one of the best researchers Russia has. He’s top-tier.”
“Where is he exactly?” Hugo asked.
Freya indicated for him to swipe to the next page of the report. “Look,” she said. “He’s two kilometers outside St. Petersburg, staying in a villa that’s guarded by a team of some twenty top-trained men.”
Hugo’s heart rate started to speed up. “Twenty?”
Mikko thumped Hugo’s shoulder lightly. “Any regrets yet?”
Hugo hardened his gaze and replied, “No.”
Freya continued, “Good. This is going to be difficult. When we did the initial analysis for the mission, we hacked their databases.”
“So we have access to all their information?” Hugo asked.
“Not all, but a lot. At least, we think so. And the information we found was interesting, to say the least. All Tupolev’s guards are ex-military—special forces—so they’re all top-trained.”
“What about the villa itself?”
“It’s pretty big and is surrounded by land—mostly wooded, which can help us get close undetected. The house itself has four floors—two above ground, two below. Tupolev does his work in the basement, so we have to find a way to get down there. The guards are stationed on the above-ground floors and outside the villa.”
A blast of turbulence rocked the airplane, and everyone instinctively grabbed hold of their armrests until it was over.
Hugo nodded. “Okay, let’s read through the report, and then we’ll go over how to proceed.” The team sank into silence as each person opened his or her copy of the document and began to read.
*
Xi Liu could hardly believe his luck. He scrolled down on the screen.
The cooperation between Markov Tupolev and Aino Salo appears to have been of utmost importance. Salo is a prominent researcher who was involved in several heavy collaborations throughout her career.
She has served as Tupolev’s right hand over the past six months and possesses a deep knowledge of how the treatment works. Her lab is on the outskirts of Helsinki. According to the latest information, it is likely that a copy of the treatment is in Salo’s lab. As previously mentioned, the treatment consists of two parts; the first is an injection of a quazepam copolymer (quazepam and another unidentified benzodiazepine drug), into the patient’s bloodstream. This serves to prepare the patient and make him or her receptive. The second step is an injection of autonomous nanobots, which travel to selected areas of the brain and adhere there. For the treatment to work, the nanobots must be injected no more than three hours after the injection of the quazepam copolymer.
Xi slammed the computer so hard that both it and the folding table it sat on shook precariously. Miguel, seated behind him, leaned forward.
“Is everything okay?”
“No.”
“What’s up?”
Xi’s brain was racing as he tried to figure out what to do with the information he’d just read. He would look incompetent if he were to call and tell Klaus that the treatment he was after might be hidden by a researcher in Finland. And he couldn’t appear incompetent now. He clenched his fist.
“It seems there’s a surprise factor in this assignment that I wasn’t aware of.”
“And how does it affect us?” Miguel asked is his ever-cool Spanish-accented voice.
“Good question,” said Xi. “It isn’t clear yet how it affects us or even if it will. But there’s a possibility it could change everything.”
He was silent as the plane began to roll toward the runway, and he looked out the window. The plane rocked as it turned onto the runway; once there, the pilot gave full throttle and started accelerating. The trees outside moved past faster and faster, and as they eased into the air, Xi knew he had to call Klaus. It couldn’t be avoided.
Five minutes later, when the plane reached its marching height, he unbuckled his seat belt, stood, and walked to the back. The flight attendant was working with items in a cupboard when Xi pulled the curtain aside. She spun around.
“Sir, you can’t be here now.”
Xi held up his phone and waved it awkwardly. He beamed. “Important call—I have to speak with my manager.”
The flight attendant did not look impressed. “Sorry, but it doesn’t matter. I must ask you to go back to your seat.”
Xi sighed. He had hoped he’d be able to avoid confrontation today. He took a step toward her and pulled the curtain closed behind him, leaving them alone together in the small space.
She shifted uneasily. “What are you doing?”