Alana's black car pulled up alongside the curb just before five o'clock, her lights off again. It was still dark out with just the faintest sign of dawn approaching. The birds hadn't even begun to chirp yet.
I peeked out through a sliver in the curtains, surveying the street for anything that looked suspicious. When I was sure that it was safe, I used a silencer and shattered my phone with a single shot. The tie was severed. A.R.T. would soon be in search of me, too.
I made a run for it, hurrying to get into the car, and Alana wasted no time, flooring the accelerator before I'd even shut the door.
"The backpack on the floor is everything you'll need," she said, keeping her eyes on the road as we raced down residential streets to the smaller London City Airport.
I loved her way of thinking, knowing she was taking me to LCY because the first airport A.R.T. would check would be Heathrow.
"There's a ticket for a flight to Paris," Alana continued while I sifted through the backpack's contents. "It leaves in less than an hour. You'll have a twenty-two-minute layover at Orly and then fly to Berlin. After that, the rest is up to you."
She'd already done so much more than I would've asked. I definitely owed her one, whether she said so or not.
Inside the backpack, Alana had also included the phone I knew would be there, as well as new credit cards, approximately two-thousand dollars in various currencies, two pistols, and several extra boxes of bullets.
I took a look at my new passport and identification. She'd used an older photo of me from when my hair was a lot longer.
"How does it feel to be Sofia Cortez now?" Alana asked while I scanned over my new international government clearance that was so prominent that I could literally waltz into the Oval Office with it.
"I don't know yet," I said in a fake Spanish accent that sounded authentic enough to both of us.
My credentials said that I was a high-ranking official with the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia – Spain's equivalent of the C.I.A.
"Oh, cool. I live in Madrid," I noted, nodding in approval. "I always wanted to go to Madrid."
Alana did her famous eye-roll as she pulled into the departures lane. "Barcelona is so much better, Tali."
We came to a stop below the British Airways sign and I collected my bags, trying to mentally brace myself for the international chase that was sure to ensue once I set foot inside the airport.
"Take care of yourself, alright?" Alana looked at me with serious eyes, knowing full well how dangerous this could be for me. "Don't you dare come back in a body bag. You hear me? I'll have to beat your dead agent ass."
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. "I'll be fine. Thank you for everything."
We hugged one last time and I was out the door, walking into an uncertain fate.
Alana had done one hell of a good job on my identification. I didn't have a single hiccup on my way to the plane in London or in Paris. Everything was going smoothly so far, though I knew for a fact that Lancaster was flipping literal shit back at A.R.T.
By the time I landed in Berlin, I was sure Brit and my team back home had heard of my sudden disappearance. No doubt, Megan would be worried sick and Matt would be arguing his way up the chain of command, demanding to head up the investigation into my disappearance. I hated doing this to them, knowing how much it was going to fuck with their emotions. Especially Matt. Ever since that one night we'd shared, his whole attitude towards me had changed. He'd been so overprotective, almost to the point that I wanted to deck him sometimes. I knew he was losing his shit over the news.
Meanwhile, I was walking out of the airport in Berlin, doing my best to blend in with the locals as I made my way toward the general location of the first noted cell tower ping of Agent Lindsey's phone. It wasn't too far from the airport.
As I walked, I tried to put myself in Diana Lindsey's shoes. Where would she be going once she got off the plane? Why would she be going there? Who might she be visiting? With the cell tower ping not giving me much to go on, guessing where she'd actually gone was going to be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Not too much later, I reached the general area of the first ping. I stood on a street corner, eyes scanning over the buildings near the intersection. There were two coffee shops, a tailor, a printing company, a small grocer, and a hotel that had obviously seen better days. I'd never met Agent Lindsey, so I didn't have an idea of the type of agent she was, but I knew that if I was in her position, I would've either gone to a coffee shop or a hotel, assuming I had someone to meet. That narrowed it down to three options – if I was in the right area, that is.
I pulled out the phone Alana had given me to see what time Lindsey's plane had landed in Berlin. During the flight over from Paris, I'd used some of the time to make notes about the case in my phone so I wouldn't have to pull out the file folder every time I needed to look at something.
Air France flight 1334 departed Charles De Gaulle at 8:10AM and landed at TXL at 9:55AM.
The fact that she arrived in Berlin in the morning gave the impression that her first stop would not be a hotel. Anyone else would assume she'd have gone to one of the two coffee shops, but then that's what I would want everyone to think, too, if I were Agent Lindsey.
I kept my face hidden with my hat as I tried to disappear into the crowded sidewalks. Luckily, there were a fair amount of other people carrying backpacks, but I was the only one with a large black bag at my side, too. If a city camera caught me, A.R.T. would likely be able to spot me.
I reached the next street corner and entered the hotel. It resembled the roach-infested Super 8's I often saw near truck stops back in the States.
I slapped my hand over the bell on the front desk and a man approximately forty-five with scrutinizing eyes and a bad excuse for a goatee emerged from a back office. It almost looked like he was glaring at me, and I immediately knew my presence was unwelcome.
"Was willst du?" he grumbled, his accent thick and sharp as he asked me what I wanted.
I wasn't in the mood to try to remember my German for this conversation.
"Sprichst du Englisch?" I asked, using my fake Spanish accent.
His eyes narrowed and his glare seemed to intensify. He waited a moment and then spoke again.
"You... foreigner?"
The man eyed me in a way that made my skin crawl.
I pulled out a small photo of Diana Lindsey and held it up for him to see. "Have you seen this woman? She was here about three months ago."
He took the photo from me and glared at Lindsey's face the same way he'd been glaring at me, but something shifted in his expression. Was it worry? A tiny jolt of panic?
He recognized her. He knew something. I could tell by his body language.
"Nein!" he said suddenly and tossed the photo back at me, waving me off and avoiding looking me in the eyes.
"When did you last see her?" I prompted. "Was she with anyone?"
"Verlassen!" he shouted for me to leave the hotel. "Geh raus!"
I wasn't going away that easy. I was here on a mission and I was damn well going to complete it!
"Gib mir eine antwort!" I demanded an answer from the man as he continued to yell for me to get out.
The frustrated part of me was tempted to pull out a pistol and make him give me an answer, but I couldn't afford to draw any more attention to myself than I already had, and his reaction to Agent Lindsey's photo had been enough to confirm my suspicion that she'd been there.
The man refused over and over to talk to me anymore, and when a local walked in, presumably to check in, I decided it was time to leave.
I scurried out of the building, but on my way out the door, I overheard the man on the phone telling someone that I was looking for "the girl." I assumed he'd been paid off to alert whoever.
I tried to act natural and blend in again, walking briskly down the sidewalk and keeping an eye out for anything that looked suspicious as I headed toward the next cell tower ping. At every intersection, I scanned my surroundings while I waited for the right of way, and every single time, I caught sight of an angry-looking man in black.
Initially, I brushed it off as a coincidence – he must've simply been going the same direction. But after the fourth time I'd spotted him and then noticed the curly wire peeking out from his collar that went to an earpiece, I knew I was being followed. This had to be the result of the man's call at the hotel. He'd alerted someone who had then sent this man to make sure I didn't investigate any further.
I turned south at the next corner, and not a minute later, so did the man in black. Swell. Now I had to figure out how to lose the bastard. My journey to the next ping would have to wait until after I'd outwitted my follower.
I turned another corner and so did he. Then another, and another. I'd walked the square of a city block. Although we were out in a mass of locals in broad daylight, it still surprised me that he had yet to try to capture or kill me.
He was waiting. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He knew I was onto him and he was dragging this out, waiting for me to slip up or let my guard down somehow.
I wondered if the same thing had happened to Agent Lindsey. Supposedly she was on an unauthorized mission. What – or who – had she been investigating? Had the man pursuing me followed her, too? Had the reason she went off the grid been due to him capturing her – or worse? Maybe the kidnapped theory actually held some validity.
I watched him out of my peripheral vision. I waited for the right time. As soon as he turned his head for a split second, I was gone, disappearing into a café. I knew I only had a matter of seconds before he rushed in after me, and I hurried through the building and out the backdoor into an alley. I ran to the next city street and into a drugstore, repeating my actions and darting out another backdoor into another alley. I pulled myself over the six-foot privacy fence that framed the alley and made my way across a large parking lot. A taxi was just letting someone out and I quickly claimed the next ride, hopping inside and telling the driver in German to take me south across the city until I told him to stop. He simply shrugged and did as I said.
Once my pulse returned to normal and I felt comfortable enough with my new surroundings, I told the driver to pull over. He let me out on a street corner and I waited for him to drive off before I started walking.
I covered six blocks before I spotted a fairly upscale hotel. I decided that's where I would be staying and jogged across the street to the building.
"Schaust du ein?" The woman at the front desk asked if I was checking in when I walked up.
I put my Spanish accent back on and asked her the same way I'd asked the man at the shitshow hotel if she could speak English.
"Of course!" she smiled broadly, though her German accent was so heavy, her English was still hard to understand.
I proceeded to show her my CNI identification and I told her that Spain had sent me to Berlin on a top secret case and that she was not to tell anyone of my stay at the hotel. I stressed to her how important it was that I remain invisible.
The woman listened intently and we spoke in hushed tones. When I was sure I could trust that she understood everything I'd said, she checked me in and I rode the elevator up to the tenth floor.
I was glad to finally have somewhere to set my luggage down, my shoulder growing tired of holding the black bag at my side. Before I did anything else, I stopped to make notes to myself again, describing my experiences with the creep at the hotel and the man who followed me. I couldn't afford to forget a single detail.
I finished my notes and stuffed another page inside the case folder. The time was nearing two in the afternoon and I was starting to become very aware of the fact that I'd not had the opportunity to take a shower since I'd landed in Europe yesterday. I felt absolutely disgusting.
Deciding I was safe for the time being, I went ahead and got ready for a shower. The next ping on the map could wait a little while.
While I showered, I thought back to what had happened earlier. I focused really hard on the mental images I'd captured, trying to memorize the two men's faces so that I'd be sure to recognize them again. I also remembered the call from the man with the Hispanic accent the night before. He had such a distinct voice. I wondered if he had a connection to the man who followed me. Could he have been the person the man at the hotel called?
"I haven't even been in this country half a day and I've already made somebody's shit list," I complained to the vacant bathroom as I pulled on clean clothes. "And now I'm talking to myself."
Dallas would've laughed and called that the fun part.
Dallas... He'd always loved the chase, the drama that ensued after he pissed a bad guy off. He'd thoroughly enjoyed outwitting them. Every race against time or attempt on his life – he'd considered them all to be practice, a challenge. He never flinched at the next gunshot. Dallas had literally made a sport out of dodging bullets.
I, on the other hand, preferred the investigative part – the part where I wasn't getting shot at and chased around cities by men who always seem to resemble strip club bouncers and drive black SUVs.
Dallas had always been such a great getaway driver... My chest tightened at the recollection and I did my best to shrug it off. I couldn't be dwelling on his memory again. I had to focus on the reason I'd come to Germany. I had to keep a clear conscience.
My phone buzzed with a text from Alana.
A.R.T. is already on your trail. Tracked you on security footage at the airports. Be careful, Tali.
I wasn't surprised. Departing from the less prominent airports in London and Paris had surely slowed them down in their search for me, but likely only by an hour, two max. By now, they knew I'd flown to Berlin, but unless they'd managed to track me through the inconsistent city cameras, I doubted they had the slightest clue where in the city I could be, or if I was even still in Berlin. I wasn't too worried about A.R.T. locating me just yet, but by the time I started making my way to Munich, following Lindsey's trail, I knew A.R.T. would be all over Munich looking for me. That complicated things.
Since I hadn't gotten much sleep in the last several days, I decided to continue my investigation from my hotel room so I could call it a night early. I spent the remainder of the afternoon using Google Maps to see what sort of businesses and attractions surrounded the areas of each of Lindsey's cell tower pings. Predetermining where she was likely to have gone would save me a lot of time when I resumed following the trail the next day.
I spent a good two and a half hours researching the areas on Google until my eyes started to burn from staring at the screen so long. It was beginning to sink in just how exhausted my body was. I hadn't even had time to get over my jetlag from the first flight.
I gave up on trying to stay awake and got up to triple check the door locks like I always did. I scanned what little I could see of the hallway through the peephole and saw nothing. Next, I wandered over to the windows and eyed the street below. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but I wasn't about to lower my guard.
I resigned to sleep before the sun went down and was immediately plagued by more unwelcome dreams – nightmares, really – about Dallas. This time, they weren't the usual sweet dreams that morphed into nightmares. They were just straight nightmares. His gasps for air after I'd shot him... The weight of his nearing-limp body in my arms... His blood all over my hands and clothes... It was all there. Just one huge, massive, terrifying nightmare. And then it was gone. It was gone and replaced by darkness and voices. Voices I couldn't quite hear just right. A conversation that was too faint, too muffled to make out the words. And shuffling. Heavy boots on the floor. But the realization hit me that it wasn't a dream, and that's when my eyes flew open.
They must've found me.