While Lucas was in the office with Harry, Nyssa coordinated with Malcolm on what she needed with this operation. The computers in the consulate were connected to the main server, so any computer in the main offices would do. The trouble was getting to those offices which Nyssa assured Malcolm that she had it covered. Once inside the consulate, Nyssa worked out a plan with Malcolm on how to get the files from the computer.
"So, I just plug this thing into a USB port, and you do the rest?" she asked while holding the flash drive in her hand.
"Yes, the wifi chip is inserted in here, and once you plug it in, I will be able to connect my computer with theirs. Once I've copied the files, you need to destroy the device before they get their hands on that chip," Malcolm explained as he demonstrated how it worked.
Nyssa handed the flash drive back to Malcolm.
"Ok. Let me worry about how to get in and out. You worry about the computer stuff. Alright?"
Malcolm nodded in agreement but was not totally convinced. He always worried when an operation was going on. This team was like his family. Each operation, no matter how trivial, had the potential to end with someone getting hurt, captured or dead. And, when that happened, a piece of him would die too.
He still remembered when the call came that Lucas had been captured. At the time, they did not know whether he was alive or dead. He spent months worrying about his friend until they discovered he was still alive but in prison. Then, he spent years worrying about what kind of torturous experience he was enduring. From that moment on, Malcolm was always ready to step in and help in any way he could.
Nyssa could sense that in Malcolm as she spoke with him. It was admirable, but she worked differently than the others. She had people as tactical backup, but the operations were executed alone. She felt that it was the only way to accomplish her mission without worrying about anybody else getting in the way. She knew what she was doing. She preferred it that way.
Nyssa glanced up at Harry's office and saw that Lucas was still in an intense discussion with his boss. She had appointments of her own to get to that afternoon and decided not to disturb them. She would catch a cab and leave on her own.
"I'll get back with you about when we can do this. Tell Lucas good bye for me. I've got a lot of work to do today," she said as she turned to leave the grid.
Nyssa called Lucy to update her and Jack about the new assignment then took a cab to her mother's house. Because of the excitement of the past couple of days, she had forgotten to ask Marilyn about her father's 1968 Ford Mustang. Lucy said that the car had been sitting in the garage for years, ever since their grandfather died.
Nyssa loved her Indian motorcycle, but there were times when she needed a car. Stealing, or borrowing as she liked to call it, was too high a risk. She knew that if she kept it up, she would wind up in jail. Harry might not help her out of that one.
Nyssa walked into her mother's house to find Marilyn chopping up vegetables in the kitchen with a cigarette hanging between her teeth. She looked up and smiled.
"Sweetheart, I didn't expect to see you today," Marilyn mumbled with her cigarette still clutched between her teeth.
"Yeah, well..... I'm in between projects at the moment, and I remembered something I've wanted to ask you." Nyssa walked further into the house toward the kitchen and was suddenly distracted by what her mother was doing. Her brow furrowed in curiosity as she got closer to the counter. Her mother never cooked vegetables before. "What are you doing?"
"I watched a yoga program on the telly and decided to get healthy. I'm making a salad for lunch. Would you like some?"
Nyssa glanced at the bowl full of sliced vegetables then looked at the ashes hanging from her cigarette. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
"I've eaten. Does your salad recipe call for cigarette ash?" she said sarcastically.
"One step at a time, darling, it's a process." Marilyn chose to ignore her daughter's snarky remark.
Marilyn took the cigarette between her fingers and took a quick puff before removing it from her mouth. She turned her head slightly and blew a silver cloud of smoke away from the food. She turned back toward her daughter and waited for her to ask her question.
"Mom.....I need that car of Dad's." She was a bit hesitant to say it.
When it came out of her mouth, it sounded like a question. Marilyn's eyes lit up with delight, and her face slowly formed a smile. Nyssa thought it was rather funny the things that made her mother happy. Judging from the look on her face, Nyssa could have told her that she and Lucas were getting married. Marilyn slowly walked around the counter toward Nyssa like she wanted to hug her.
"Nyssa, my darling, I'm so happy that you asked me for your father's car. He would have wanted you to have something to remember him by."
"Oh, I have enough memories of that man. I don't need the car to help me with that," Nyssa said as she cringed at thinking of her father. Marilyn missed the gesture as she moved toward her china cabinet. She opened the top drawer and pulled out a single key on a key chain. She closed the drawer and handed the key to Nyssa. The smile never left her face.
"I remember when you and your father worked on that car years ago."
"Yeah, I remember. I also remember him forcing me to fake a seizure at the auto parts store, so he could steal spark plugs. Half the parts in that car were stolen."
"You might find a few changes made to the car. You know how your grandfather loved American cars."
Nyssa's face fell like the air had been taken out of her. Yes, she knew how much her grandfather loved American cars. The man always prided himself as an expert on American classic vehicles. The problem was that he did not know where the engine was located in any vehicle half the time. To discover that he had been tampering with the Mustang all those years made Nyssa feel a little ill. Just what kind of 'changes' would she have to work out just to get the car running again?
For the next hour, Nyssa had inspected the Mustang in her mother's garage. There was a lot of work to do just to clean it up. After Nyssa's grandfather died, the car sat untouched under a tarp in the garage for years. It needed the hoses flushed out, a new battery, an oil change, new filters, and that was just the beginning.
The biggest problem was the ignition system. Nyssa found a check list made out by her grandfather on the dashboard of the car. The last thing on the list that was not crossed out was spark plugs. Nyssa smiled.
How ironic, and I was just talking about that.
Nyssa checked the system and found that the 'changes' her mother spoke of were many, but the main one was the ignition. Her grandfather modified the system, so average spark plugs did not work. She would have to rebuild the system before she even thought about buying new spark plugs.
Nyssa decided to spend the time working on the easy stuff first. She found an old grey button work shirt and changed her top. She pulled her hair up into a messy pony tail and rummaged through the tools to begin. She was halfway through changing one of the filters when she heard Marilyn calling her from the back door.
"Nyssa, you have a visitor. A nice girl named Jo."
Nyssa looked up from the car to see Jo walking out of the back door toward the garage. She was wearing a black jacket with a pink top, blue jeans and black shoes. The way she carried herself told Nyssa that her visit was not any type of emergency. Nyssa turned back to the car and resumed her work.
"Hi, Jo," said Nyssa once Jo entered the garage.
"Hello," she said in return. "I thought I might pop over for a bit. You know, to see how you were doing. Your Mum's nice."
"Yeah, if she offers you a salad, politely decline. Trust me on that," Nyssa said with a smile and went back to work.
Jo giggled slightly then walked carefully around the car, examining its exterior. The outside of the car was dark green with a beige leather interior. The hubcaps were chrome with the front grille painted black. The entire car was covered in dust and cobwebs, even with having the tarp over it.
The exterior resembled the car that was driven by Steve McQueen in the movie, Bullitt. Nyssa's father was a big fan of the movie. Nyssa explained that her father found the car in an old junk yard and brought it home to rebuild it. He wanted to model it after the famous Mustang in the film.
The garage was like the car with boxes piled in a corner labeled as various things. The right of the garage was a work bench with two homemade wooden crates filled with used car parts. The work bench was covered with tools with Nyssa's radio playing 38 Special's Hold On Loosely.
"What are you doing?" Jo asked innocently.
"Right now, I am changing what filters I can reach. I won't be able to do much work on it today. Just getting what I can get done before I have to do the big stuff."
"The big stuff?" Jo asked curiously.
"Rebuilding the ignition system. See, my grandpa had it in his head that he was a connoisseur of classic cars, particularly American models. I'll bet he thought it was Christmas the day Mom brought this over from America."
"You seem to know a lot about cars."
"That was my father's insistence. My brother, Mike, was too young, and I was the first born. Lucy really doesn't care that much about cars."
Talking to Jo about the car triggered a memory that Nyssa had not thought about in years. She could see her father explaining the basics of the car's engine to her as she stood on a stool and leaned over the side. Frank touched each part and called it by name, so Nyssa could learn what they were and where they were located. Then he would go back and ask her what each part was and for her to point to it. In the end, she looked up at him and saw a smile across his face. If she answered every question right, he would take her out for some ice cream.
Nyssa loved working on the car. She and her father would spend the whole day together, and he would reward her with a treat in the end. It was just them, as if they lived in their own world that they made together.
Nyssa closed her eyes to fight back a tear that fell from her eyes. She quickly wiped it away before Jo saw it. She had not thought about those days in a very long time. The emotions attached to those memories threatened to come to the surface. She needed to change the subject quickly or risk showing her vulnerability. She had too many important issues to focus on, and she needed to be strong.
"It looks like you could use some help," said Jo.
Jo voice brought Nyssa back to the present. She stared at Jo for a few seconds before speaking. Her brow furrowed in disbelief, and she smiled.
"No offense, but I didn't think you knew anything about cars," she replied.
"I don't, really. I was thinking that maybe you could show me."
Nyssa laughed and pointed to a man's grey work shirt hanging on the back of the garage door. Jo smiled and reached for the shirt. She took off her jacket and put the shirt on before turning back to the car.
Nyssa and Jo jacked up the car and propped it up on wooden blocks that Nyssa found in one of the crates. Jo crawled under the car and placed a metal drain pan under the oil pan to catch the oil. With Nyssa's direction, Jo loosened the drain plug. She crawled out from under the car with the plug in her hand.
"Alright....see..... I need to find a new plug. This one's had it," Nyssa said as she pointed out the flaws in the seal. "At least, we're draining the old oil out of it. This is gonna take a while. It's really thick."
While Nyssa waited for the oil to finish draining, she turned back to the engine and began explaining the different workings to Jo just like her father once did for her. Jo helped Nyssa with the filters for another hour until Marilyn ran from the house toward the garage calling Nyssa's name. Nyssa came out of the garage both confused and a little panicked.
"Mom, what's going on? What happened?" she asked excited.
"Nyssa, it's Karen. She's on the phone." Nyssa took the phone from Marilyn's hand.
"Karen, what's wrong?" asked Nyssa.
She could hear voices in the background. It was Karen's voice telling Danny to lock the door. Some men were trying to break in.
"Karen, call the cops. I'm just across the street. I'm on my over now." Nyssa hung up the phone and turned to Jo. "Jo, I need a favor. It looks like I may need backup. How would you like to kick some Russian ass this afternoon?"
"I would like nothing better," Jo said with a big smile.