Game of Secrets and Shadows (Book One in the Covert Operations series)

Twenty

Switzerland was not quite what I was expecting.

I'd never been to the country and my knowledge on it was surprisingly limited. I was imagining frosty white mountains and stores heaping with chocolate and cheese. Those were the misconceptions I'd been raised to believe. Even though I'd learned about the Swiss in my studies at Oaks, my education had mainly pertained to their government and army structures.

Upon arriving in Zermatt, I realized that what I'd been led to believe was entirely wrong. It was the beginning of summer and most of the mountains surrounding the town were covered in green shrubbery, though some of the larger peaks were, in fact, featuring snow. The town itself bore no snow, the walkways clear and easy to navigate. And, while we did pass a store that featured a display of chocolate and another with cheese wheels in its window case, were not being overwhelmed by the sheer number of food stores available in the town.

It had taken Daniel and I the entire morning and half of the afternoon to get from Menton, France to Zermatt. We'd been forced to camp out the night before, seeking refuge in the train station where we slept on hard plastic chairs and ate sandwiches that fell from a vending machine. We'd gotten on a train early in the morning but the 3 layovers we'd had to endure meant that we hadn't gotten to Switzerland until the afternoon. We'd used the time on the train for sleep and eating and trying to figure out just where in Zermatt we could find the Vögelchen hotel.

Those three tasks kept me occupied, but none of them could make me forget that my week had turned into six days and that the time Scorpion had allotted me to get to my brother was declining rapidly. Given that deadline, it was difficult not to feel the pressure and pray that Zermatt panned out with a good lead as to where Jack and Elizabeth Briar may have hidden the research that Scorpion was so desperate to find.

While travelling, we'd made another necessary call to Daniel's parents. As he assured them that, 'yes, he was fine', and 'no, he wasn't going to come home', he managed to tell them just where they could find their traitorous colleagues. They assured the two of us that they would send agents to come pick up Bates and McHale and then take them for questioning. Hopefully, they would be able to garner some much needed information on who 'Izzy' was and why I was so important to them since it seemed that Tasha had been unsuccessful thus far. She was still searching, she'd assured me in the quick conversation we'd had between Daniel's parents lecturing him, but it might take a while for her to find anything concrete. Right now, though, 'Izzy' was the last thing on my mind. I would deal with that later when Wes' life wasn't hanging in the balance.

During that same phone call to the Ortiz's, I'd been passed along to Max who provided me, in a voice no louder than a whisper, with all of the dates that my biological parents had stayed at the Vögelchen. The list, I had to admit, was quite extensive. They'd travelled to the hotel several times a year, their visits often spanning several days. I wasn't quite sure what their stays had entailed but the more I learned, the more I wanted to know.

Then, when Max had nothing more to tell me, I'd been passed on again, this time to Lia who sounded more tired than I'd ever heard her. My name had only been a sigh on her lips. "Melanie."

I'd closed my eyes and leaned back against the seat on the train. Daniel was doing his best to give me my privacy and stared intently out the window. "Hey. How are you holding up? How's," I swallowed thickly and had to start over. "How's your dad?"

"He made it out of surgery. They said the next forty-eight hours are critical so I guess we'll see if he pulls through." Her voice shook only slightly.

I was sure that she was trying to be brave, for her mother's sake, but it couldn't have been easy. Of everyone I knew, Lia had the best relationship with her parents. The three of them were very close and I was positive that the prospect of losing her father was a very taxing experience.