Found You
It had taken him four years. Eight, if you counted the the Stockholm assignment. Wally took a deep pull of tea, and stared at the map in front of him, crisscrossing with hundreds of colored strings, pulled taught around pins that sunk deep into thousands of miniature countries. Looking at it, he couldn't help but let out a snort of amusement. It looked like the map of some schizo, a real head-case. The hotel room, littered with newspaper clippings, faxes, crumpled notes, and greasy pizza boxes didn't help his case. The maid, Evita, would not be pleased, but that hardly mattered. He would slip her some extra cash to keep out of his room, and he would hear no more about the mess. She was a good girl, trying to keep a demented mother and a bastard child out of the gutters.
Wally yawned and stretched. He deserved a break. Putting down the stack of hospital records in front of him, he got up and walked across the carpet of discarded documents to the window and struggled with the blinds. He wrenched them open and cursed, as light flooded the room. It was a beautiful day in Poza Rica. The skies were the deep blue of summer, and the rattling AC of the hotel gave no indication of the intense heat that shimmered in the streets, between the sweating bodies. Wally stared out at the crowd that bustled around the Sunday market, but found he could not shake the hospital records from his mind. One Daina Simmas checked into Panevėžys Hospital three years ago. She was taken to the labor ward. Daina Simmas. It was amazing how simple it became when you began to see the pattern. A translation, and a city... was that all there was to it? She was impossible to find, but once you had the right clues, it was child's play. Too simple, almost. It felt like she was leading him on. Why else would she use an alias that hinted so directly at her identity? More importantly, why would she then leave a trail? It was the first lesson, the very first; you never leave a tracer. It didn't matter how big the move was, whether it was across town or across the world. You deleted the files, shredded the I.D's, and Wiped the neighbors. Or killed them, if a Wipe was too difficult. Wally had always prided himself on that. He hadn't had to kill a witness in twenty years, no matter how Resistant they were – that was the sign of professionalism. Bodies, no matter how well they were buried, had a habit of reappearing and when they did, it meant that you had left a trail. Wally was good at not leaving a trail. But he knew, he knew, she was better. This couldn't be a coincidence.
Then again, he thought to himself, it might have been a mistake. She was having their baby, for goodness sake, she must have been preoccupied. Maybe it had been a difficult delivery, and she had left a paper trail in her hasty departure. Maybe her skills had been dulled for the duration of the birth; it was not at all clear how the Vanilla Effect could be maintained at all during childbirth. Anyway, it was obvious that a child had had no effect on her vanishing skills post-natal. Diana had appeared, given birth, and disappeared into the fog as quickly as she had come, leaving one hospital note in her wake. It was like finding a single footstep on a beach.
Wally started suddenly, as a heavy hand beat on his door. "¿Estás ahí, pedazo de mierda? Carlos quiere tener una pequeña conversación con usted." It was a rough voice, undoubtedly supposed to be one of the gang members from downstairs. Wally had guessed that they were her agents, but the poorly-phrased Spanish and clumsy accent suggested otherwise. Probably undercover CIA, if he had to guess. Sighing, he turned around and began to collect the miscellaneous papers scattered across the floor. He would have to check out a little early. If he could catch an early flight, he could be in Lithuania before Wednesday. Perhaps one of his Watchers would have more clues as to "Diana"'s location by then. If she was still going by that name. Wally took one last swig of tea and slowly let the Vanilla Effect balloon outwards, filling the air with a soft hum...
Agent Celio (Cezar) and Agent Roberto (Pedro) kicked the thin hotel door inwards with a single orchestrated motion, guns drawn. They entered quickly and, to their disappointment, found the room empty. A quick search of the bathroom revealed the same. Roberto cursed, and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
"Shit. I know I saw him come in three hours ago, and he hasn't left since." Ignoring this, Celio began to inspect the window. He shook his head, frustrated.
"Couldn't have gone through the window. Can't be closed from the outside." He turned around, inspecting the room. "What the fuck do you think all of this shit is?"
Roberto looked around, and shrugged. " He's an energúmeno. They've all got their crazy theories. He even has a conspiracy map" He motioned with his gun in the direction of the defaced map. An indistinct figure, standing at Roberto's right shoulder, gently sidled past him towards the desk and the map, and muttered "Excuse me."
"Ah, sorry about that." Roberto stepped to the side, and joined Celio by the window. "What do we do from here?"
Celio took another look around the room, eyes glazing slightly as they passed over the desk, where the figure was now packing hefty sheaves of paper into a suitcase. He frowned, and shook his head. Something didn't seem right. Again, he tried to focus on his attention on the desk, but it slipped out of his vision. The desk and the unidentifiable person seemed unimportant, for some reason he could not thoroughly explain. After a moment of metal struggle, he gave up and turned back to his fellow agent. "I'm not sure. Come on, if we stay up here too long, Carlos will come looking. We'll check back later." He had not been sleeping well for the past week, and he could feel a large headache coming on.
The two agents began to leave the room, but Roberto stopped suddenly, brow furrowed. With mental struggle, he turned towards his colleague. "Was there... Wasn't there a map on that wall?" He asked hesitantly, as if worried the question was a stupid one. Celio turned around grudgingly. The wall was, indeed, bare, but had there been a map? He couldn't immediately draw one to mind. Peering over the head of whoever was at the desk, he could see four pin-sized holes in the wall.
"There... There might have been..." His voice trailed off into uncertainty. The figure paused in its action at the table and stood very still. The soft hum, barely audible over the air conditioning, slowly increased in volume, and a subtle odor of vanilla began to waft through the room. Celio snapped back to action, eyes slightly glazed over. "Does it matter? Come on, we have to get out of here." He stalked quickly out of the disquieting room. Roused by his associate, Roberto followed, with a similar glassy-eyed complexion.
Wally smiled to himself as he folded up the well-worn map. He had always been an expert at the Vanilla Effect, even among the small group who were capable of manipulating it. They had killed many of the others, but they could never find Wally. Before closing his suitcase, he took one last glance at the hospital record. Off to Lithuania. And then, who knows? Perhaps Vancouver, maybe St. Petersburg. He had always been better at hiding than seeking, of course, but he could do this. He had his Watchers, and many friends in high places. How much longer could one woman, potentially still burdened by a young child, hide?
A young, diminutive Hispanic woman was sitting in the open doorway of a maintenance closet when Wally exited his hotel room. He hesitated in front of her, his small suitcase in hand. Evita was clearly exhausted, hands red and coarse from constant use. Head tilted back and openly snoring, she looked at peace, and strangely at home. After watching her for several minutes, Wally reentered to his room, and the hallway was silent for a few minutes. Then, he returned, dropping a 500 peso bill into her open palm before quickly continuing downstairs. Evita remained asleep long after Wally had gone, after the faint smell of vanilla had dissipated throughout the hallway, even after clouds of dark smoke began to seep from behind the cracks in the door of Wally's room.
When an investigation into the curious arson began two days later, it was quickly discovered that the alarm in the room of the fire's origin had been tampered with. This was in of itself a strange occurrence, considering that there had been no known occupants of that room for several weeks.
No one was very good at finding Wally.