Chapter 1
Guns drawn, the four men stormed into the small apartment. Although the wide-open door in the hallway suggested it was empty, they were ready for any surprise. With silent agreement they spread into the different corners of the room.
"All clear," Declan announced coming back out of the tiny bathroom that mainly consisted of a shower. He met up in the living room with Luther who had turned to the kitchenette that was around the corner and separated to the living space by a short wall. The last to join them was Ethan, only moments later. He already tucked away his nine-millimeter as he emerged from the bedroom.
"Nothing here."
"If someone's been here, he's gone now and not thinking of returning any time soon," Luther added, following Ethan. Now that it was established there was no threat in the apartment, it was time to look for clues. Declan had already put on gloves and halfheartedly lifted an almost empty microwave-lasagna dish off the small table. The traces of tomato-sauce that still covered the rim, were long dried and a slight layer of fluffy mold had settled on the rest of the dish. Disgusted, the agent put it down again, next to the empty tea-cup that still contained a teabag. "I think it's a safe bet to say that someone has been here. And most likely left in a hurry."
"I think we can also take it as a working hypothesis that this someone was Benji," Ethan added looking around. In the sleeping room he had seen the bed sheets ruffled, but the closet was empty and there was nothing else to find there. The tiny bathroom also didn't look like anyone had ever been there, except a few sprinkles of toothpaste on the mirror, but trying to take a DNA match off that would be as fruitless as it was unnecessary. The kitchenette looked as clean as the bathroom, which left only the room they were standing in right now, and it was looking pretty bleak there, too.
The room essentially consisted of an old worn-out sofa, facing an even older looking TV-Set hanging from the wall across the low table that held the lasagna leftovers. It also held the empty wrappings of several Mars bars and a couple of soda cans, some of which were still closed. All that was scattered over the table, leaving only a small square empty, which perfectly corresponded with the dent in the sofa, indicating someone must have used this as work space. Otherwise the room was just as empty as the others.
"Now that we've established that, it still leaves us with: Why was he here? What was he after? Why did he leave? And most importantly, where did he go?" Declan summed up their situation with a hint of sarcasm.
Luther let out a humorless laugh. "So basically we're no further than before. And this room is giving us nothing, we didn't already have."
"Are there no security cameras? Any video or other footage of some kind?" Gormley asked, looking around for the typical hints of hidden technology. But Ethan shook his head, even before he had ended his question.
"This is not an IMF-registered apartment. We've checked already, there are no security cameras in this building except the one right outside, which belongs to the cash machine, and it was already hard enough to find him on that tape. Also Benji obviously was not planning on a very long stay. Which means the only reason he was staying here was because he was flying under the radar. Cheap rooms, low security, free Wi-Fi, and paid for in cash."
"But what would he have to hide from?" Luther asked, raising the question aloud, that was spooking around in all their minds. "And if he had to lie low, why not just go to a safe-house? Or at least contact one of us?"
"If Benji had to lie low, then contact probably was out of the question. Even going to an IMF facility could have potentially compromised him," the Irish pilot suggested, but it wasn't more than a guess and almost immediately he contradicted himself with a sigh: "But then, if he wanted to hide, his cover was most likely already down the drain. And then he'd have been safer in a safe-house."
"Let's just stick with what we know," Ethan interrupted the wild guessing game. "Benji has been here. He left in a hurry. And while he was here, he most likely was working on his computer. Now we have to figure out where he has gone, and why."
"I think I can help with that," Luther said, taking out his phone. Tapping into the Wi-Fi would have been easier with a computer, but it would take him longer to get one up here, so this would have to do.
Ethan grinned back at him. "I hoped you would say that. How lo...?"
"Done," Luther interrupted him with a self-satisfied smile. "He has booked rooms in Vancouver and Portland. Each for two weeks straight from yesterday on. But he's not made any real travel arrangements, not from here anyway, so I can't tell you where he actually went."
"We could find that out at the airport," Declan put in, but Ethan shook his head.
"No, that would take too much time. We'll split up."
"There's a direct flight leaving for Portland with in the next half hour," Luther added, who had already thought in the same direction, and Ethan nodded in acknowledgement.
"Luther, you'll take that one. Dec, we'll find ourselves a plane and head for Canada."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Quickly Susan Tremaine skipped through the scarce information she had about her newest patient while walking down the corridor to the room where her colleagues had put him up. She had not expected to get someone so soon as Sunday late shifts were usually calm if nothing major had happened Saturday night and there hadn't been any new entries to her ward in the morning, but the early shift had already warned her that some emergency case had come in earlier this day who might be put under her care, so she was not overly surprised.
The man had been found in the more or less early hours of the morning by a student who had come home from a party night. He had been lying unconsciously in the staircase of the residential home where the paramedics had picked him up and brought into the clinic. There he had been diagnosed with several fractured ribs, a weird dislocation in his left wrist and a chip fracture in his right femur, caused by a bullet, among other smaller injuries, and after a little more than an hour of surgery and a few hours of follow up in Intermediate Care he was now to be transferred to her ward.
Jonathan Baker was a British citizen, according to his papers, some kind of IT-specialist who was in the States for business. And, Susan thought, he was extremely lucky. There seemed to be no organ trauma, no injury to any major artery, not even major structural damage to the fractured bone. The doctors had cleaned out the bone fragments and the bullet and stitched up the wound, the wrist had been set and put in a splint, and ribs had been secured with elastic bandaging. Most likely he would be able to stand up later on today already, or tomorrow morning at the latest. It looked like this shift was not going to get much more exciting after all.
Susan had already suspected that Mr. Baker had become the victim of a robbery or some other crime, one of the darker sides of the big city, and the police detail waiting in front of the room she was headed for told her that she hadn't been the only one thinking along those lines. The officers waited outside when she entered, and after she had dismissed the nurse from the other ward with a thankful nod, she was alone with her patient.
"Hello, Mr. Baker. I'm Susan Tremaine and I'll be your primary nurse," she introduced herself to the man who looked back with sleepy, and still slightly absent eyes, while she checked the wound dressings, drains, electrolyte infusion and pain medication. "You are in room 815 of the surgical ward of St. Michaels Hospital, Seattle."
"Julia?" The one, half whispered word came so unexpected that for a moment the nurse just stared at her patient wide-eyed, before her professionalism kicked back in.
"My name is Susan Tremaine," she repeated slightly louder and more slowly, just as the door opened and a doctor came in. He greeted Susan with a nod, then introduced himself as Dr. Walter Harrington and started to explain the finer details of his patient's injuries, the surgery and what was planned for the next few days.
The nurse only listened with half an ear. She couldn't imagine just how that man knew about... unless...
She had to stop herself from laughing out loud, when it occurred to her how obvious it was. The combination of 'British' and 'IT-specialist' had already made her smile when she had first read it, but back then she had thought it very improbable at the very least that she actually might accidentally run into someone she knew. But right now there was no other possibility and although she could see how she hadn't recognized him at first, she soon was sure that she was right.
The last three years had changed him quite a bit, his hair had grown longer and was pretty messed up right now, also it was darker than she remembered. Besides most of his face was covered in scratches, bruises and band-aid. But as soon as she knew what to look for, the gaze that more than once distractedly floated over to her was definitely familiar.
"So, unless any problems should come up until then, I'll check back with you tomorrow, Mr. Baker." Dr. Harrington ended his speech with a handshake, then turned to Susan, while he made his way to the door. "If anything happens, just give me a call, I'll still be in my office for a while, doing the paperwork. I'll let you know before I go home."
"Will do, doc," the nurse replied with a smile, before the chief surgeon left the room in a flurry of white lab-coat and she closed the door behind him. Then she turned around to her patient who eyed her more openly this time. "Benji."
"Julia." Just like she had, he formulated the name as a statement rather than a question, yet there was more than just a trace of curiosity in his voice, as well as some slight, remaining disorientation and resulting self-doubt, but that probably was still an after-effect of the anesthesia. "I'm not dreaming this. Am I?"
"You're not dreaming," she replied with a smile. There was absolutely no room left for any doubt about whom she was talking to.
Still the Brit seemed to be not entirely convinced yet. "Because – don't take this the wrong way, please – but as far as I know, you're supposed to be dead."
Julia looked down at her shoes for a moment, then she put down the papers she had been holding onto the table and leaned against the wall, burying her hands in the pockets of her lavender scrubs, before she looked back up. This was most likely going to be a longer conversation. "After what happened in Croatia, Ethan put me up in Witness Protection, and when rumors started going around, we just decided not to correct anyone."
"So you didn't actually split up?" he asked with his hopefully pleading puppy look. Julia chuckled at the question, and even more at the relieved look she got when she replied, "No, we're still together."
A short silence evolved after that, but it was less awkward than before. "So, I've heard you're a field agent now?" Julia asked after a while. Benji's face turned into something she didn't know how to interpret.
"Uh, yes," he said, and indicated a shrug. "But you see where it got me."
"What happened?" she asked, concern showing in her voice.
The agent thought for a moment, whether he should tell her, but then there really wasn't any reason why he shouldn't, after all, how much harm would it do? Also he had already noticed the officers outside, so the chance that something could happen were comparatively slim, and he really wanted to talk about it with someone. "I secured a device with some sensitive information from someone who really shouldn't have had it, but before I could get it back to D.C. someone was after me. I tried to evade them, but last night they finally got me."
"Let me guess, they wanted it back?" she asked, but Benji shook his head with a grin.
"Not quite. The folks I took it from most likely never actually knew that the thing was valuable. I bet you they're never going to notice it's missing anyway. No, those guys were sent by an interested third party. But I guess I'll be rid of them for now."
Julia wanted to go on, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. A couple of seconds later, a police officer looked into the room. "Excuse me," she asked, looking from one to the other. "The doctor said he was awake, and I wondered if I could have a word."
She looked at the patient, who nodded, so the nurse gave her approval, too. "Alright, but don't be too long," she said, picking up her papers, then turned to the Brit once more, before she left the room. "I'll look in on you again, later. If you need anything, just use one of those red buttons."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
The Vancouver address was a shabby old hotel with a shabby old owner, who wasn't at all impressed by the two 'bloody Americans' and their shiny badges. Only the threat to bring in their Canadian colleagues and with them the Health and Safety Department, made him more cooperative.
As a result, the owner finally told them that Benji had indeed been around – not under his own name of course – and to his knowledge still was, but hadn't been seen since the day before. With a bit of incentive he let them into the room in question.
The room contained a double bed that might have passed as a single in better lodgings, and was decked in sheets with floral ornaments so colorful they would cover up just about any stains, next to a very large, dark, solid wood closet. In between there was just enough space to squeeze through, and the image was completed by carpeted floor that exhibited so many shades of dirty, it was hard to guess its original color. Clothing was scattered everywhere, except inside the closet and the empty bag in the corner next to the door. Among them was a small notebook computer and a small heap of chocolate bar wrappings.
"I guess we can be sure he's been here," Declan commented, lowering his gun after he had made sure the bathroom was empty. "And he left in a hurry."
"Yeah, but he surely didn't leave the room like this," Ethan replied and picked up a shirt that was lying discarded in a corner. For someone else it would have been a simple designer T-shirt with some random Chinese symbols on the front. But he knew by now that the writing had some special meaning for the techie, although he hadn't been able to grasp just what.
Leaving the Irishman to the closet, which turned out to be empty as well, Hunt proceeded to the computer. And cursed. "Someone's definitely been here. And they took the hard-drive," he stated dropping the empty husk. "I don't think we'll find anything worth looking for in here."
"What if Benji took it?" Gormley asked, hurrying to follow the other agent who was already out of the door again. "I don't think so," Ethan replied, heading straight down the stairs. "But I think I have a way of finding out."
He didn't slow down until he reached the run-down wooden bar that doubled as a reception desk. Leaning his full weight onto it he shot a threatening glance at the manager. "Who else was in that room?"
"Nobody," the man replied, but didn't dare to meet his gaze. Instead he looked at the other Agent for help, but Declan only shrugged. Meanwhile Hunt drew his gun and calmly set it onto the counter.
"Wrong answer," he stated and was about to ask his question again, when he heard a sound he could have gone well without.