EPILOGUE
Florence, Italy
Andy George hefted his backpack onto his back after pulling it from the baggage carrier. He looked around and saw most of the passengers heading for the exit. There didn’t seem to be anyone within his vision that he recognized. Andy stood barely six foot with a slight build that almost equated to his stated weight on his passport of 160. He wasn’t even sure he weighed that. His grey eyes scanned the people as he walked out into the bright sunlight of the Italian sky. It was hot. He put on his sunglasses.
“Andy?” The voice was low, slightly accented.
He turned in direction of the voice and blinked. Irene Bristow, Jack’s wife, stood a few feet away, a smile on her face. She looked slightly darker. There were sun streaks in her hair. Her dark eyes were covered by round dark glasses. She wore a simple white dress with a gold wrist watch and gold bracelet. Sandals adorned her feet and a large straw tote was slung around her right shoulder. A matching large brimmed straw hat, sat on her head. He sighed. She was still as beautiful as he remembered, even though it’d been over two years since he last saw the Bristows in his store.
“Hey,” he smiled. “Glad to see you, Mrs. Bristow.”
She met him and put her left arm through his right. “Me too! Come, Jack’s waiting in the car.”
They hurried outside. Irina propelled him along toward a black Mercedes, parked at the curb a few feet away. An airport security guard was heading for the car also. Irina paid him no attention knowing Jack would handle everything. She gestured to him and Jack popped the trunk. Andy put his backpack inside and shut it.
By the time Irina sat down next to Jack and Andy took a seat in the rear, the security guard had been placated with a hundred euros and sent on his way. Jack pulled away from the curb and entered the autostrada a few minutes later heading toward their home in Firenze (Florence).
“Hello Andy,” Jack finally said. “How’ve you been?”
“Great. Thanks for the first class ticket. It was a terrific flight. I probably would never have had the chance to fly first class if you hadn’t sent me a ticket.”
“You deserved it.” Jack said.
“Why did you want to see me?”
“Why not enjoy the ride, Andy,” chimed in Irina. “Have you been to Italy before?”
“No! Haven’t been out of the states.”
Jack nodded. “Enjoy the scenery. We’ll talk when we get home.”
An hour later, Andy was seated in a large room somewhere in the heart of the city. He knew it was near a cathedral. They parked on the outskirts central part of the city in a private garage and then walked a few blocks to a large building. Andy was surprised to see that Jack had installed two security entrances: one which needed a key card to unlock the alarm and a large ornate key to open the door.
When they entered the entranceway, Jack pushed a button on his key ring and doors to a private elevator opened. At the top floor, they exited into a large room with several double doors that led out onto a patio that ran around three sides of the room.
“Want a beer?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, that’d be nice.”
Irina turned to the kitchen located on the right. A large restaurant-sized refrigerator stood along the wall. She extracted two beers and followed the men out onto the terrace. It was getting to be afternoon and there was a breeze stirring. It was one reason she and Jack lived most of the time on the top floor. They slept on the floor below where there were two guest bedrooms as well. Andy would be staying in one of them for the time being.
“Here you are,” she said handing each man a beer and sitting down next to Jack. Her left hand found his right and held it.
“So,” said Andy taking a deep swallow of the cold beer, “why am I here?”
“We want to hire you to be our tech man exclusively.” Jack said. “Irina and I are going into business and we’ll need someone with your capabilities and genius to work for us.”
“What kind of business?”
“We’re going to be problem-solvers for a price.” Jack took a swallow of the beer. “Both Irina and I have been well-trained by our respective governments and we see no reason to not use that for a business, especially now we are retired.”
Andy finished his bottle. Irina motioned to the empty bottle, but he declined the silent offer for another. “So you are going into business to help people. Why do you need me?”
“We’re going to set you up in business, doing what you’ve been doing. The except-rule is that we will be your exclusive client.” Jack finished his. “What have you been working on lately?”
“Wait! You want to be an exclusive client?”
“We’ll pay you six figures a year. How does $250,000 sound?”
Andy blinked. “You’re joking?”
“No, we aren’t,” said Irina, talking for the first time since they sat down. “You impressed me with the tiny com Links. You are incredible. We need you.”
Jack grinned. “I’ve got a large building rented nearby. We’ll build you a lab such as you’ve never had before and trust me, we’ll make sure you are safe. No one will ever know you work for us. What do you say?”
“Okay!” Andy had never had an offer like this, even though he graduated Cum Laude from MIT four years ago. He loved what he did and it was only by chance that he met Jack Bristow about four years ago. It had always been his intention to go into business for himself.
“What are you working on now?” Jack asked.
Andy shrugged, “I’ve got a lot of ideas. Give me the parameters of your job, including your plan of attack. I’ll figure something to give you an edge.”
Irina stood, “Good. I start dinner. We’ll eat near nine. The sauce needs to cook.” She disappeared inside.
“Why did you call her Irina? I thought her name was Irene?”
“Irene is the English for Irina, which is her real name.”
Andy George joined Jack and Irina in their new enterprise. Both of the Bristows had multitudinous contacts all over the world. During the year prior to Andy’s arrival, they had informed them all they were back in business…a Rescue for Hire.
It was not long before word was out that Rescue for Hire would handle problems not meant for close scrutiny by police or governments. Their fees, of course, were high, but so was the danger that they and the company faced that made their fees seem reasonable.
Six months later Jack and Irina had handled two difficult cases with excellent results: a kidnapping of the daughter of a President whose country was located in the so-called Third World was ended when the four men who planned and executed the deed were found dead. The daughter was delivered back to the President unharmed and untouched. The next job was the recovery from a sophisticated heist of a large bank in Saudi Arabia of over two hundred million in bearer bonds. Irina discovered the bonds which had been stolen were a part of a money-laundering scheme for the so-called Russian mafia. The bank did not blink at the 25% recovery fee, especially when she told the banker in charge that his government would most likely arrest him. The banker had the fee transferred into Rescue for Hire’s off shore bank.
“How much did we make,” asked Irina, leaning over Jack who was on their computer. It was almost midnight. They had returned to their home in Florence only a couple of hours earlier.
“Twenty five million,” he answered, checking the transfer of the money into a hidden off-shore account. Turning off the computer, he turned the chair around and pulled her into his lap. “God, you smell good.”
She laughed softly, “The better I smell, the quicker I get you into bed, moya milochka.”
Jack picked her up in his arms and kissed her. “Are you happy?”
Her mouth widened into a smile. “As long as I have you, I will always be happy.”
Later after fulfilling sex, Jack cradled Irina in his arms. “What have you heard from Sasha?”
“Nothing since she called us last month. We’ve been out of touch remember?” She sighed.
He yawned, “Yes. Then what do you think about asking her to join us…making it a family business?”
“Hummm, why not? We’ll soon be too old to climb walls and run hard. We can use some young blood. Let’s get some sleep and we can try to reach her tomorrow.” She closed her eyes.
Alexandra Brestov turned in her resignation to the CIA as Angela Benton and then made her way to Russia where she terminated her job with SVR. She gave as her reason to both organizations as a medical necessity. She had MS. This was backed up by a doctor’s letter and copies of tests run on her, proving the diagnosis. Naturally Jack arranged for all of them.
She joined Rescue for Hire a little over two years after she and Papa had rescued Mama from SD-6, which was only the beginning of the end of The Alliance. In three weeks, The Alliance was gone, swallowed up and cut apart by government intelligence agencies that wanted to put an end to the organization.
Freed from rules, regulations and hypocritical moralities, the Bristows aka Rescue for Hire were living their lives on the edge and enjoying every minute of it.
FINI
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