by Newbiel
"I believe the loading dock on the East side is the best way in." Scott answered after giving it some thought.
"You will appear on the camera surveillance." Na-Yung said, using the laser on the table to pinpoint them on the screen.
"Can you do something about this Hans, Lina?" Lucie asked the two tech nerds.
"Their entire network is on close circuit to prevent corporate espionage. I can't just hack in, I would need inside help to be plugged in." Lina said, chewing her lips.
"I can design a drive to get you a way in but someone would have to get inside in person and plug it in the server room. Which means appearing on at least ten different cameras and bypassing at least five security officers." Hans added.
"If I can get you a way in, can you erase the video tape?" Lucie asked Lina.
"I don't think so. They take their security very seriously and they will have back up of the back up in case of their server being hacked to get someone like me."
A long silence follows, the team trying to find a way to circumvent the problem. Jon was the more lost as it concerned two of the things he knew the least about, intrusion and hacking.
"Why not use a bomb?" Camilla offers, stunning everyone around her.
"Camilla, you know what furtive infiltration means right?" Lucie laughed, a few of the team showing smiles.
"Of course, I'm not a moron." Camilla rolled her eyes before using the controller to zoom on a certain part of the complex. "look here, this is the entry to the sewer system. It's only protected by a steel door, if we were to pose a small charge on the lock, we could get inside the building without appearing on any camera. I know that the tunnel is very narrow from the door to the building but you or Na-Yung could pass through it if you have minimum equipment."
Getting to his feet, Scott approaches the screen to have a better look.
"It could work."
"What about the noise?" Lucie asked, interested.
"If you can give me the exact composition of the door and the mechanism, I could build you a charge tailored exactly to blow it up without overkill. Minimum damage, minimal vibration and noise." Camilla explained.
"I can help with that!" Hans shouted. "I could use a drone inside the sewer system and take a sample of the door using a laser to get it's exact composition."
"I like it, good job you two." Lucie compliment.
Hearing her phone starting to ring, Lina quickly jumped out of her chair to answer it.
"Miracle of life, speak if you dare to hear the truth." Lina answers the phone, a smile appearing on their face at her antics. "Yes, sir, we're all already here." Lina said on the phone before snapping her fingers to get their attention.
"Team, we have a case!" Lina shouted. "We have thirty minutes to get our gears before we need to go to JFK where a chopper is waiting for us to bring us to DC!"
Hearing that, everyone jumps from their chair and starts running to get their things. Luckily, they all had go bags to anticipate this exact situation and their gears were always ready to go even if they needed to check it one more time before leaving. Lucie seeing everyone running start cleaning the table of the files that she had brought for this meeting. Only after it was done, she started running to get her things.
"Got it, everything concerning the case is on the dropout, I will make sure that we all have a copy after doing a check to make sure there is nothing wrong with these files… Oh you want information on who? Brunhilde Herzog Von what? Can you spell it please?" Lina asked, taking a pen nearby.
She didn't see that Lucie upon passing near her to get her things had completely frozen in shock hearing that name.
Chapter 213: :
Shock still, Lucie's mind was in turmoil. She had no idea how these two had met but she was sure that it couldn't be anything good. She also knew that she needed to butt in or there will be trouble ahead, especially for her. Shaking herself from her frozen state, she walked to Lina before putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Lina stop, I need to talk to Nathaniel." She said.
"Wait a minute Lucie, I need to finish this." Lina answered absentmindedly, writing the name on a piece of paper."
"No, it can't wait Lina, I need to talk to him, now!" Lucie infused some steel into her voice.
This time it seemed it had an effect because Lina stopped writing and looked in her direction in surprise.
"Why is so…" Lina started to say before she was interrupted again but this time it was from the person she was talking to on the phone. "Yes, it's her… how do you know?... Alright, alright." Lina said before giving Lucie her cellphone.
��I need to get my things, I leave you two alone." She said, raising one arm in annoyance before walking to the armory.
Taking the phone, she made sure that there was no one around before starting to speak.
"Nathaniel."
"Lucie, what can I do for you?" Nathaniel said pleasantly.
"Can I ask you how you meet the person you wanted information on? Brunhilde Herzog Von Bayern?"
"We met at a gala earlier tonight and there was something special about her that made me curious." Nathaniel answers.
Based on the carefully cultivated tone of his voice, Lucie knew there was much more to it than that. That was bad.
"She also closely showed me her elegant silvery belt." Nathaniel added as an afterthought.
That's even worse, Lucie thought. She knew very well the character of Brunhilde to be on the receiving end of it more time than not and knew how much she was proficient with her sword. She also knew that once on fighting mode, she was going all out with no care of injury.
"Are you alright?" Lucie asked with worry.
"Yes, you know I'm very hard to kill, unfortunately, my tuxedo isn't." Nathaniel said with humour.
"Yes, I know." Lucie said relieved before adding. "Can I ask you something?"
"You want me to drop it and not investigate her further." Nathaniel said.
"Yes."
"And you will not tell me why." Nathaniel add.
"Yes." She said again.
"I see. Are you trying to protect her from me or are you trying to protect me from her?" Nathaniel questioned.
"It's not as simple as that but to be honest, I will say both."
"Alright, I will not look into it further. I trust you Lucie, your teammates also trust you, don't start squandering that away. I also count on you to keep what we do quiet if someone were to come to you for information, are we understanding each other?"
"You don't understand what you are asking me to do Nathaniel." Lucie said, conflicted.
"Lucie, we made an agreement, if you think in the light of the last development, you can't respect it any longer, I encourage you to put Lina's phone down on the desk and leave the bunker right now." Nathaniel said with steel in his voice.
"But, but… We have a case." Lucie said weakly.
"You know how I respect you Lucie, as a person and as a member of this team but I prefer to not have you at all than having you but not trusting you to protect the team back or my own back when shit is going to hit the fan. Moreover, we all have families that depend on the secrecy of what we do to stay protected, I will not let you endanger them." Nathaniel's voice had turned cold at the end.
He was right and Lucie knew it but it was still hard for her. What he was asking was going against everything that she was taught when she was young and everything that she learned since then. Her eyes flicker for a second in the direction of the armory where everyone was hurrying up to get ready. That's when she made her decision, her place was with them.
"I understand but I still need to tell her something if she asks or it will be worse."
"You can tell her everything you know about me but everything about the bunker needs to stay hidden. Tell her we date or we meet by chance one time and become friends, whatever you like, everything but the truth is good."
"Are you sure you want me to tell her everything I know about you?" She asked doubtfully.
Since they had met, Lucie has always been intrigued by Nathaniel and she has been observing him closely to find what he was hiding. She knew he had a secret and that was one of the things that motivated her into accepting the job he offered to her. It was not the whole reason of course as she also had that motivation to change things and help the people that nobody wanted to help. After the month that they trained together and the few times they went into operation, she had gathered a lot of information on him, information she doubted he would want someone he didn't know to learn.
"Yes. Come on Lucie, let's be honest with each other for a minute. I know that you investigate me the whole time that you have been on the team. You know I'm special. I also know that you are special, I also know that what made you special is also what made Brunhilde special even if I can tell she's more powerful than you are."
Hearing that, Lucie shocked on her breath. She thought that she was being discreet but all this time he knew about it and he did nothing to stop her. She also had purposely hidden some of her ability to him and the team to not gather attention and seem as inconspicuous as possible. Well, as much as it was possible to do so among a team of geniuses.
"You are really too smart for your own good." She sighed. "How did you find out about me and why did you never stop me from looking into you?"
"Yeah, that's what my grandfather is always saying. For the rest, the more you look into me and my life, the more I learn about what you could really do. It was a good trade off." Lucie could tell that he was smiling on the other end.
"How can you tell that me and her are special in the same way?" Lucie asked.
"Well, you are the spy, you should know by now." Nathaniel laughed before adding. "Now go, this case is important, I want you at the top of your game. I need to get going, the President is going to make his speech. We will see each other in two hours Lucie. Good flight."
Without giving her the time to answer, Nathaniel hung up on her. Putting the phone of Lina back at the desk, she found the piece of paper containing half of Brunhilde's name written on it. Taking it between her fingers, she starts shredding it to pieces before throwing it to the trash bin.
Breathing slowly to calm herself, she starts thinking about the entire matter more carefully. Knowing Brunhilde, she knew that she was an extremely cold demeanor and not a lot of things could catch her interest. If the two had fought, she would have won and she had no respect for the people that she beat, Lucie who had been beaten by her more times than she could count knew that. Even if in her case that was slightly better than most since she was a member of the Five and that was something that she had respect for.
Once that was sorted and feeling better, she started moving to the armory to get her things. That's exactly when her own cell phone started to ring. Getting a bad feeling about this, she got her phone slowly out of her back pocket and saw the caller ID.
"Putain de merde!" She swears out loud in french.
Hearing her phone ring again, she was hesitating at taking the call or not until she realized that it would not help to ignore it, Brunhilde didn't like to be kept waiting by anyone.
"Hello?"
"Hello Lucie, It's been a while." Brunhilde said in a pleasant voice.
"It has been, what owe me the pleasure of this phone call Duchess?" Lucie asked.
"What is going on cousin? You are not happy to hear from me?"
"Not at all but I know full well that you don't do social call so I'm wondering why you would call me out of the blue like that." Lucie answers.
"Well, if you insist I have indeed a question for you. I met an interesting young man and I believe you know him. Nathaniel Lyndon?"
"I do indeed know him." Lucie did not even try to deny it.
"How is that?"
"Well, he came to me with a work proposal at the end of last year and I accepted. Since then, we have been working with each other. Can I ask you why you want information about this young man in particular? I know that few people managed to get your attention Duchess." Lucie asks.
"I just met him and we have a bit of a fight, that made me curious." She answers with a neutral tone.
"You are not that curious normally, especially to a young man who you beat." Lucie probed.
"Who I beat?" She laughed. "No, he beat me."
"He beat you?" Lucie was dumbstruck. "That's not possible."
"That's why I'm curious. Of course, I was wearing a long gown to the gala so I was not at my full strength but there were many times while we were fighting where he could have cut me or my dress and he didn't go for it. Maybe he didn't want to harm me or embarass me or both but in either case, it means he was not giving his all to win and he still beat me. Is he like us?" Brunhilde asked.
"No, he's not a member of the five. I did go back in his history, I found nothing that could explain his skill. I even took some of his DNA to make sure I had his correct family history and the result showed that it was. He's gifted, there is no doubt about this in my mind but whatever it is, it's nothing like our own gift." Lucie explained.
"Why didn't you tell anyone about this Lucie? That's something we need to discuss with the council."
"I was waiting to have evidence and answers before calling the council." Lucie lied.
"That decision does not belong to you." Brunhilde rebuked.
"It was concerning me so I made it mine." Lucie did not back down, she then saw the rest of the team come back with their stuff. "I need to get going, Duchess."
"This conversation is not over Lucie, we will see each other soon." Brunhilde said before hanging up.
In her Hotel room, after cutting the call, Brunhilde starts tapping her phone on her chin slowly.
"She's hiding something." She said in a low voice before turning to her protector. "Did you know where she is?"
Looking at the two laptops they used to trace the call, the two men did not know what to answer right now. They had her location but it didn't make sense.
"Yes Duchess but that's weird."
"What do you mean it's weird? Do you have it or not?" Brunhilde frowned.
"Based on what we got, she's currently at 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield in Missouri."
"What's so weird about it?" Brunhilde asked.
"There is no street to that name in this city."
"What!?"
Chapter 214: :
"How was the chopper trip guys?" Nathaniel asked.
Seeing them entered the room completely drenched in water, Nathaniel had to hold the amusement that he felt. It was pouring rain outside and he had managed to dodge most of it before getting inside the Hotel he was in right now. Looking at his team, they were clearly not as fortunate as he was.
"It was horrible!" Lina complained, dropping one of the two bags she was caring before letting herself fall into the first chair that she finds.
"Yeah, there was a storm brewing, we managed to avoid it but still it was a bumpy ride." Na-Yung added.
"I had worse." Jon said, Camilla, Scott and Lucie nodding along.
Once everyone was seated around the table, Nathaniel let them rest for a little while before broaching the subject.
"Lina, can you link your laptop to the big screen I set up? We need to discuss our case." He casually ordered.
Sighting tiredly, Lina still got to her feet with the bag that she had still on her and put it on the table. After that, she quickly connects it to the big screen and the Lyndon logo appears on the previously back screen.
"Did you have the time to review the files?" Nathaniel asked.
"No." Lucie answered.
"No?" Nathaniel asked, surprised. "The flight was that bad?"
"No, that's not it." Lucie quickly, clarified.
"There was some kind of tracking software attached to the files that we received. I needed time to take care of it before opening the information. Even with Hans' help, the flight was so bad that we managed to take care of it only a few minutes before landing. Whoever made that track
ing software was good, it was some high end shit. If you wouldn't have told me to be extra cautious about it, I could have missed it." Lina explained.
"That's why I never receive the copy I ask you to send me. Well, we are going to discover them together which is not that bad either. Are you sure it's safe now?"
"Yes sir, we check multiple times, it's good." Hans answered.
"Let's open it then." Nathaniel nodded.
"Give me a few minutes Nathaniel please, I'm trying to compile the information a little bit better for it to be readable on the screen." Lina interject.
Voicing his assent, Nathaniel and the others just wait patiently in silence until Jon asks a question to Nathaniel.
"So, how was the Correspondents' Dinner?"
"Well, I managed to refrain myself from killing some politicians even if there were a couple of close calls along the evening. Still, I met some interesting people tonight." Nathaniel answers, his eyes flickering to Lucie who refused to meet his gaze.
"I bet! They would have deserved it tho." Camilla said with a little too much enthusiasm.
"When we were waiting in the lobby, we saw the news on TV and they talked about the President acknowledging you as the most promising young lawyer of your generation." Jon add tactfully.
"Yes, he also acknowledged other peoples among them one being a gold medalist in snowboarding and one being Kim Kardashian. If you are afraid it will bring light to what we are doing, I'm reassuring you it will not. No one is going to take that seriously and will just see that as the President trying to appeal to young people, my fans being to a majority between twelve and twenty. What I'm the most worried about is what he announced tonight." Nathaniel said.
"You mean what he said about reforming military spending?" Scott said he also listened to the news in the lobby.
"Yes."
That is what William wanted to talk about with him earlier that night. Based on what he said, it was a very risky endeavor that could cost him very much.
"You think he's going to cut us down?" Camilla asked.
"No, that's not it. I'm going to tell you about it because I value your input and I trust you but nothing of what we talk tonight must be disclosed, even to the people you trust the most, do we understand each other?" Nathaniel asked, his eyes turning stern.