by Kells, India
The train whistled and Sully turned his head, looking outside. “We’re close to Prague.”
Gabrielle nodded. “Let’s stick to the plan and see if we can lead this show for once in this episode.”
***
Although she had slept enough to right some thoughts and rest her weary body the night before on the train, Gabrielle couldn’t shake the shivers coursing through her as she hurried through the narrow streets of Prague. The clothing Sully had found before embarking the train was the right size, but lacked protection against the fall temperatures the city was experiencing so soon in the season. She had circled three times in the last hour to make sure she wasn’t followed, which set the cold in her bones for good.
She turned again and waited. Nobody suspicious she could detect. And her instincts confirmed she could continue. The cobblestone street where Sully had found their little apartment was located in a labyrinth of dead ends and alleys in the old part of the city, the name Gabrielle didn’t dare to pronounce.
The little entrance was small and well hidden; it had the advantage of preventing any massive attack from possible aggressors.
The flat was on the top floor, with no view apart from the neighboring buildings close by. The space looked decidedly more like a closet than an apartment. She wasn’t complaining and was glad the couple who owned it was spending a well-deserved honeymoon in the Azores, unknowingly lending them their home.
A quick scan told her Sully hadn’t come back from his errands yet. She debated going over her notes, making tea, or indulging in a hot shower when there was scratching at the door. Her gun was out when she heard a key turning.
“Honey! I’m home.” Sully chuckled. “I always wanted to say that.”
“Yeah, very funny.” However, she couldn’t help but smile.
“Ah, but I have something here that will cheer you up for sure.”
And that’s when she caught the enticing and strong smell of coffee. “Gimme, gimme!”
“I know a lot of ways to a heart’s girl, but I particularly like yours. And I also brought damn good pastries. I win extra points for not eating them all on my way here. Damn, it’s getting cold.”
Gabrielle fell on the sofa, lifting her legs to put her feet on the coffee table. She sighed after her first sip.
“Good! Only in Europe can I almost orgasm when drinking coffee.”
“Happy to hear it.” Sully sat beside her and balanced his cup on his thigh while breaking some kind of chocolate-filled pastry with his fingers. Gabrielle grabbed the cup before he made a mess.
“Thanks, honey. And because of that, you get the first bite.”
“Let me put your cup down.”
“No way, no time, just take a bite.”
Gabrielle looked at him as if he had turned crazy. “I can feed myself.”
“You can do much more than that. Honey, indulge me.”
Gabrielle frowned. “Don’t complain if I bite you.”
“Oh, I look forward to that part, too.”
Gabrielle saw in his attempt a small reprieve from what was soon to come, so she indulged him, but also herself. She didn’t bite, but she swirled her tongue on the underside of his fingers, never breaking their eye contact. She loved the way his green eyes turned stormy and dark when he was getting aroused. Gone was the easy going, crazy man. As she saw his throat swallow in expectation, she closed her lips around the piece of sugary goodness, and sat back.
“Temptress, you know you’re going to pay for that sooner than later.”
Winking, Gabrielle licked her lips. “Later, sailor. Business first.”
Sully growled and took a mighty bite of the decadent dessert. With his mouth full, he glowered at her while she started talking.
“Okay, I’ll start then. Of the four possible locations to a secured Internet connection, only one was a possibility. No camera, a pre-war router but it was easy to slide in and blur the access point. After a couple of minutes and a coffee that had more the taste of sewer than coffee beans, I ultimately contacted Spider.”
“Spider? Hackers really use that name?”
“Only him. He’s an exasperating lunatic, and a paranoid son of a bitch, but once you get past all that, information flows out of him like a fountain.”
“And you trust him?”
“Hell, no. As he talked I counter verified information on my side. From what I could spot check, it jived. The last pinpoint of Bea and James was Paris, Charles-De-Gaulle airport, a flight coming from New York. I accessed the camera archives and they were not alone. At least four guys were with them. Maybe more. I could follow them until they got in a rental car. After that, heavy traffic blocked all my attempts. Nothing on the nearby traffic cameras either.”
“You’re a computer goddess, I bow to you.”
Gabrielle swatted his shoulder, but his praise warmed her more than coffee. “Anyway, I ran some of the unknown faces through the NSA and other less than legit databases, and came out with interesting names. All former members of elite military services, all leaving at the top of their games, all flooded with money as they said adios. I couldn’t follow the money for long, it was hidden too deep for me to dig with the computer I had. Rickard would have been able to find the initial account in less than a minute.”
The thought of her dead friend messed with her head for a moment. She would mourn him and all those in Purgatory this bastard killed, but not now.
“I sent the information to Spider, names and shadow money. It took him a few minutes, but it didn’t come back with one definite account. Many, in fact. All abroad, all detained by fake identities. All the names intersected at some point, account names, addresses, return addresses. A real merry-go-around. It’s like being caught in a black void, which only means we’re in the middle of that shadow organization. Another thing, Spider told me that the web had been flooded with revolutionary tracts lately, telling everyone we’re on the verge of a revolution, one organized by an unnamed organization to take the power that its truly theirs, or ours, depending on the version.”
“A revolution, that’s something new.” Sully made light of it, but she knew he didn’t like it. Those kind of psychos could do a lot of damage.
“Well, that organization is fully funded. But more than the money, it was what he did with it that caught my attention.”
“Let me guess, satellite dishes and laboratory equipment?”
“Bingo. Although, I couldn’t know why. Now, the good news. All dark web vibes tell that the head of the organization is here, in Prague. So if he’s here, there’s a good chance that Simon, Bea, and James are here, too. We have three possible locations; the trick is to choose the right one.”
“Well, at least we have a clue on who the kidnapper is. I don’t like the fact that all of his entourage are former special units. It will make any break-in almost impossible.”
“True, I didn’t like it either. Spider wasn’t reassuring. He said the head of the organization seemed ready for anything.”
Sully handed her the rest of the bag. Her stomach growled in pleasure when she saw two more chocolate pastries, just for her.
“Let’s recap. Admiral James Feander sends me on a hush-hush mission to search for possible laboratory compounds all topped with satellite dishes, in many locations in Africa in order to unearth a possible threat against his son Simon. As I reach my first target, I’m captured and sent to an underground prison. My cover was blown even before I got there.”
“Yeah, the leak.”
“Mmm. Then, Beatrice Dante sends you to retrieve me under Admiral Feander’s special request. We flee, but soon are tracked down. Purgatory agents are found dead, the admiral disappears, and Beatrice is accused of murder before disappearing, too—probably kidnapped by the same guy who caught Simon in the first place.”
“And there is Alie, tracked by a commando squad, coming straight from one of the bad guy’s laboratories.”
“Again, I don’t see any clear link. What about Ali
e and the laboratory? What is that kingpin doing impregnating young girls? If he’s building an army that way, he would have to wait another twenty years before launching any attack.”
“And as per Spider, he said his revolution had already started.”
“You’re right. I hate to think about it, but perhaps they were performing some sort of experiments on her. Her being pregnant is only because some bastard had raped her while she was under her drugged-induced sleep.”
Sully stretched and rubbed his neck. “I find it difficult to wrap my mind around it. They had the equipment to end the pregnancy at any time. Why would they wait and bring the baby to term? Baby trafficking?”
Gabrielle had thought about that, but dismissed the idea. “Don’t you think it would be too expensive to establish a baby ring in so many cities? It can’t gather enough money to fund everything. And Spider talked about a revolution. I don’t think that’s it.”
The phone chirped and Sully glanced at her. “It’s a text from Lance.”
Gabrielle scooted closer. “What does he say?”
“1-2 Testing. Safe, but in hiding. Many dangers. On lookout. Never trust fuckups.”
“Cryptic message, if you want my opinion.”
Sully shook his head. “It’s a simple skip code. 1-2 testing means first letter every two words. If I put all the correct words together, it makes Simon F.”
Rising from the couch, Gabrielle looked over Sully’s shoulder. “Can it be a coincidence? Could he have found where Simon Feander is held?”
“I doubt it. Lance’s message contains two things: there is a risk the phone is rigged or his is, and Lance had time to dig as well and discover something about Simon.”
“Why didn’t he give us more details?”
“He will, soon. I need to relay a new number to him and in the meantime, he will change his as well.”
Gabrielle closed her eyes for an instant, her mind hopeful about what Lance could have found out about Simon. They were not out of the woods, but they were at least a step closer. Part of her had a bad feeling about all this. Two against an organization they didn’t have any clear idea of their real threat. Maybe an impossible mission. Her work had told her never to underestimate evil. It was too easy to dismiss it as impossible and be royally fucked. And what scared her more than anything was how her instincts steered her so clearly in that direction. An awful direction.
“Maybe the leak is closer than we think and active, way before shit hit the fan.”
Frowning in bewilderment, Sully turned to her. “If you’re thinking about me or Lance—”
“No, no, think about it. Who could have been privy to the information of both the admiral and Purgatory? Who would have known about your mission and have access to endless resources way before the admiral was kidnapped?”
“Honey, you make no sense. The admiral, James, would have never revealed critical information to anyone. Anyone, except …”
When she saw the light being switched on in his face, denial replaced surprise and he shook his head.
“No way. It’s impossible Simon Feander would have revealed information about his father this way. I have known him for years. I knew him when he was just a kid. A genius, but a kid.”
“Well, former kids grow up and become criminals. He’s in his late twenties, Sully.”
“You’re mad! The kid was kidnapped for God’s sake! How can you think an innocent kid like Simon could turn into a murderous psycho in the blink of the eye and join a shadow organization threatening to unleash a revolution?”
Gabrielle kept her face as impassive as she could when she answered, “Because I have been a murderous psycho at one time in my life, Sully.”
Sully turned around, holding his head in his hands as if it was about to explode. Gabrielle waited. It was no use to push more in that direction. She had never met Simon, although Bea had talked about him on several occasions—what a brilliant young man he had become, how his father was proud of him. A genius in physics and biology, full of ideals, could be corrupted, maybe even more easily so. It made sense that this happened before the admiral feared for his son, before Sully was sent in Africa. Simon knew all the people in the story; he knew how they would all react and when they would be at their most vulnerable. He would know how the pawns would naturally fall. To convince Sully, she would need to find the thread where it all began.
Grabbing her jacket, she went for the door. “I need to talk to Spider again. I’ll ask him to run facial recognition for me. Maybe one passenger arriving at the Vaclav-Havel international airport in Prague would turn out to be someone we know. I also have more questions about dates and money. And before you bite my head off, I’ll ask him to calculate other probabilities. Just in case I’m wrong about Simon.”
“I’m going with you.” He grabbed his coat.
“Sully—”
“I’m going with you, understood?”
The man was mad at her, but she couldn’t hold it against him. He would need proof. Iron-clad proof.
“Okay, do you carry?” One mean glance back at her told Gabrielle she didn’t need to ask about that. Since their arrival, Sully replenished their ammunition stocks and even added some interesting toys in the mix.
They went down the stairs in silence. The wind had picked up, clouds gathering and it smelled like snow. Gabrielle needed a scarf, bad. She turned toward Sully, ignoring his glare as she put his hood up. At least it would cover his ears and his identity a bit. He mumbled something but she continued walking. At intervals, they would stop and window shop for a while, allowing them to observe their surroundings and make sure they were not followed. The street was bustling, not making it easy to see potential threat. Each time they stopped, Sully pulled her arm. She had lots of patience, but the man was playing with it a little too much. The fourth time he pulled her, she was about to knock him hard when he growled at her to stay put. Immediately, she went on full alert. Had he seen something? Someone? He entered a small store and she risked turning around to take a good look at both sides of the street, and people passing by. Nobody suspicious at first glance. She fisted her hands in her coat pockets and tried not to fidget. What’s he doing?
Less than five minutes later he came back out, but before she could utter a word, he put on her head what seemed like a loose fitting knit beret and wrapped a similar deep blue scarf around her neck. Not quite matching her deep green coat, but it did the trick and instantly warmed her ears.
“I was tired of looking at you playing turtle in that coat.” He kept walking, putting a hand on the small of her back. The wool was so soft; her fingers couldn’t stop touching it.
“Thanks, Sully.”
He harrumphed. “Yeah, when I saw it in the window, I knew it was to be yours. The color reminds me of you.”
“The color? My eyes are a much lighter shade of blue.”
“Not when you orgasm. Then they become dark blue, almost purple.”
She elbowed him as he’d said it loud enough to make a poor old lady gasp beside them. He laughed and somehow, it righted something that had been wrong since her hideous suggestion.
They continued to stop and go for a while, until they reached the little Internet coffee shop where she had first contacted Spider.
“Here’s the place.”
“Okay, so we’ll keep it short, and—”
“Oh yes, you will.” A man dressed with a long black coat came behind Sully.
“If I were you, I would be careful where I put my hands, son.” Sully’s tense posture told her a gun was pointed at his back.
Gabrielle assessed the possible ways out, but none were quite good at the moment. The stranger looked at her over Sully’s shoulder.
“Young lady, if you like the man in front of you, I should warn you I won’t hesitate to put a bullet through his spine if you do something stupid. Even in the middle of a crowd.”
Gabrielle glanced at Sully and his look had turned glacial, his jaw set.
�
�Who are you?”
The man smiled amicably. “I’m only a liaison with a man who wishes to speak to you both. Especially you, miss. Ah, now our ride is here.”
A dark limousine parked near the curb and a door opened. The gray-haired man gestured for her to enter and pushed Sully behind her. Inside, another man with the same black coat pointed a gun at her. He wasn’t as smiling as the first, but he looked as deadly. The windows were so dark they couldn’t see outside. Smiley sat beside the other man in front of them. The limousine drove away without even the possibility to guess their destination.