Chapter 39.

Who is Richard Martin?

It was a quiet morning in the largest and southernmost municipality in Brussels. Uccle was a stunning relic of times gone by, a blend of medieval architecture and modern luxury, and it was home to some of the wealthiest people in the world – people who threw around money that would budget a small country to live in homes along the Sonian forest. But they lived their lives much the same as anyone else – breakfast on a sun-streaked balcony overlooking an acre of deep green grass, a morning stroll down a cobblestone street, a cup of coffee at a shop that charged five times more than its city counterparts.

Richard Martin was on that step right now.

A barista danced around customers on an outdoor patio, serving coffee and smiles in the company of birdsong and the gentle morning sun. People walked past on the uneven age-old street, crossing through alleys to rejoin the modern world on the other side of this little detour.

Oliver was seated comfortably in a little restaurant across the street, casting glances over his newspaper. Sara was across from him, taking small, thoughtful bites of a strawberry pastry.

Richard was at a table just on the other side of the café door, typing lazily on a laptop and sipping his drink, not a care in the world. He had a croissant on the right side of his computer and some paperwork on the left, unguarded and seemingly forgotten.

He came here every morning and tipped big. His office was just down the street, conveniently across from a small bookstore. Oliver had made friends with the owner.

It had been a week since they found him.

Oliver had been watching him so long that the man started appearing in his dreams. Richard Martin was perfectly normal, boring even. His life was repetitive and quiet. He seemed to have no friends, no life outside of home and work. He was set in his routine. He didn't seem to be worried that he was in danger, that he might be followed.

He was acting like someone without secrets.

"Can we at least walk around while he's at work?" Sara wondered, now pushing her pastry around the plate. "If I have to sit in that bookstore one more afternoon I'm gonna snap."

Sara was still adjusting to the assignment. Before the island, she had not traveled much. Oliver had to keep reminding himself how young she was. He wondered if the lack of immediate danger had led her to let her guard down. Waller had not intervened since dumping them in Belgium, but her threats were still front and center for Oliver. He had lost too many people in his life to let himself lose focus.

He smiled at her, worried and amused, "You were the one who insisted on coming today."

"I only have three choices – follow you around, sit in the hotel, or wander the streets and hope my French is good enough to read the signs."

"Your French is only five words, and four of them are 'do you speak French?'"

Sara groaned.

Oliver was tempted to explore the city and forget about this mission for an afternoon, but late at night he sat up wondering what he would do when Waller got impatient.

So far, they disagreed on their plans. Sara didn't want to kill him under any circumstance. Oliver was on the fence. He was sure there was a reason ARGUS was targeting him – he just had to figure out what it was.

"And then what?" Sara had said.

"And then I decide," Oliver had responded.

He could feel her frustration mounting.

Even now, on this peaceful morning, her eyes were on him. Her words were casual, almost carefree, like she was still the girl who had first arrived on the island. But she was clever now, guarded, aware of how cruel the world could be – how cruel he could be. He knew what she was thinking. Could he really go through with this? Was he going to kill this man to keep her safe? It seemed that she had passed her weariness for ARGUS onto him.

Did it even matter why ARGUS wanted Richard dead?

Oliver struggled with that, too. He stared at the man, an innocuous five feet, six inches tall. He had pale blonde hair and blue eyes, unhealthy skin, a little bit of a gut. He wore five-star business suits and spoke French with an obnoxious American accent. But none of that was a death sentence.

"Maybe you could go to the library today, see what you can dig up."

"I've dug up everything I can," she said.

"Keep digging. There has to be something in his past. Use the passwords Waller gave us."

"You don't think accessing classified government databases from a library in Belgium will raise any red flags back home?"

Oliver shrugged. "One way to find out."

She considered her pastry again – considered separating from him. And then she sighed. "Fine. But you're just watching him again today, right?"

"Yes. Why? Did you think I would kill him the moment you were gone?"

She twisted her lips, "It crossed my mind."

"I'm not. I'll meet you back at the hotel room no later than five."

Sara left.

He did have the sudden urge to walk across the street and join Richard at his table. Maybe he could get the answers he wanted straight from the source. But something was holding him back. He had a bad feeling, which had only grown since he arrived in Belgium. He knew it was the timeline trying to stop him from making a significant change again. It gnawed on the back of his mind, the urge to abandon this mission and go to Hong Kong.

But it was too soon for that, and too late to get away from Waller. She was holding his family over his head. Robert had to be back home by now, and with the resources of ARGUS at her disposal, Waller could get to him any time.

So, he was left sitting here, trying to find a reason to kill Richard Martin.

Oliver sipped his coffee. It was so strange how life turned out sometimes.

And then something happened that had not happened before.

A man came down the street and joined Richard at his table. Richard looked up, smiled nervously, and then looked back at his computer. They were talking.

Oliver slid to the edge of his seat, trying and failing to read their lips.

He had to get closer.

He paid his bill and slipped out of the restaurant. He strolled across the street, smiling at the barista as they crossed paths. "Can I just sit wherever I like?" he said in French.

Her smile widened and she said, "Yes, I'll be right with you."

Oliver sat at the table beside Richard and his new friend. He kept his eyes on the barista, pretending that she was his focus, and listened intently to the conversation beside him.

"If it has to be tonight, I'll have to make some adjustments with my team," Richard was saying, his tone relaxed, but his posture growing rigid.

His visitor, who wore a pressed, midnight-black suit and a powder blue bowtie, was unsettlingly tranquil. "That's reasonable. I apologize for the inconvenience, but you understand these types. It's very hard to argue with them once their minds are made up."

"I understand, of course." Richard sipped his coffee, a nervous gesture because Oliver could see that the cup was empty. "I appreciate the timely warning."

"Warning is such a strong word, my friend," the man said. He flagged down the barista and ordered a cup of coffee, black, to go. "I hate to leave such a charming place," he said to her, "And such a charming woman so promptly, but I have an urgent meeting to attend."

"More of them?" Richard asked.

"Expect some new faces," the man said simply. He waited for his coffee, paid, and stood up. He put his hand gently on Richard's shoulder, "I'm doing this all for you, my friend. Relax. It will go as smoothly as any time."

"I'm not worried about the meeting, only the… urgency."

"I see. Well, these are not things for you to worry about – they are for me. Have a pleasant afternoon."

He left, and the barista came over to Oliver.

"What can I get for you, sir?" she said.

Oliver looked into her eyes – a pretty hazel – and smiled, "Just a coffee, please. Some cream and sugar."

He stayed there after Richard Martin had left, sipping his drink and thinking about what he had heard. Richard would be going to his office down the road to spend five hours working. He usually went home afterward, to his sprawling villa by the forest, but this afternoon he seemed to have other plans.

And now Oliver knew that he had a 'team.' Was he referring to coworkers? Co-conspirators? What was he up to in that building?

When he finally left the café – with a napkin that had the barista's number on it in his pocket – he went to the bookstore. He sat on the bench out front for a few minutes, sipping the last of his coffee, watching the birds flutter. When he saw Richard Martin pass by a window inside, he was satisfied that he hadn't lost him.

"Back again, Mr. Wayne?" the store owner said as Oliver went inside.

Sara commented a few days ago that he was surrounding himself with pretty women.

Her name was Maria Sanchez and she had immigrated from Mexico to Belgium of all places. She was the only person here other than Sara he could speak English with.

"What can I say, I'm a bibliophile."

She was pretty – long, glossy black hair and dark eyes – but Oliver hardly noticed. It was important to befriend her to give himself an excuse to hang out near Richard Martin. He told her he was researching the history of the area for his university.

"I thought you might be back, so I pulled this for you," she said, ducking behind the desk and producing a leather-bound book. "You seem so fascinated with the Wetenschap Building."

Oliver flipped through a few pages. It was in French, thankfully. His Dutch was sorely lacking. "Wow. First edition."

"It came with the store. Wetenschap means 'science,' you know."

"It's a little on the nose."

"It used to be part of the university system, and when it failed, they just kept the name." Maria flipped a few pages for him, pointing out a diagram. "Here's some juicy stuff for your paper."

Oliver read over the caption, his skin prickling with discovery, "Underground tunnels."

"Underground tunnels," she repeated enthusiastically. "I did a little reading last night. Apparently Protestants used it to navigate the city after King Philip II ordered their execution. Since then, people used it to shelter during the two-day bombardment of the city – when half the homes were destroyed. Not many people have been down there since. It doesn't mention it in this century."

"A little reading?" Oliver asked.

"It drew me in."

"It just seemed like the oldest building around," Oliver said, glancing out through the bay window at the front of the store. His perspective on Richard Martin was shifting rapidly and he was having trouble keeping up the conversation. "Seemed like a good place to start…"

Maria looked out with him for a moment, twiddling her thumbs, and then said, "I was just about to take a walk to the cemetery. Do you want to come?"

Oliver hesitated, unwilling to lose sight of his target for the second time that day, but the weather was perfect, and his head was foggy. He nodded. "Sure."

She talked on the way, and Oliver listened, committing a small part of himself to responding to what she was saying – but he dedicated most of his thoughts to Richard.

So much could change in a day.

He had met with a shady man and discussed an even shadier meeting that morning, and now Oliver had learned that the seemingly normal office building he spent his day in had a series of underground tunnels beneath it. It could just be a coincidence, but he had a nagging suspicion that Richard was into something criminal. He was right on the edge of what ARGUS wanted him dead for, grasping at every clue that could help him understand his life.

When they got to the cemetery, Maria led him aimlessly through the aisles. She told him about the history of Uccle, particularly that of the cemetery, and admitted that she went there a lot.

"It was a rural, agricultural village for a long time," she was saying. "It finally merged into Brussels not that long ago. Which begs the question, who was living here to hide from the king?"

Oliver shrugged, "Farmers?"

"Who was living here to hide from the bombardment?" She moved on to the oldest part of the cemetery, "Some famous people are buried here, by the way."

"The creator of Tintin," Oliver said.

"He's not in this part."

"Who else?"

"Some lords and ladies, I guess. I wasn't prepared to back that up with facts."

Oliver laughed. She was a welcome distraction. "I have a question for you."

She paused, admiring a mausoleum with vines growing up its sides, "What?"

"How did you end up owning a bookstore in an affluent neighborhood in Belgium?"

She glanced at him, a flash of mischief in her eyes, "Suspicious?"

Oliver played it off, but suddenly he was suspicious. "I'm just worried you're some kind of war criminal on the run from your past."

She paused. "Well, actually, I am."

In a normal conversation on any other day, it would be obvious that she was joking. But the hairs on his neck stood up at her tone. "Oh yeah?" he said, trying his damndest to play along.

She dropped her voice to a whisper, smiling, "Oh, yeah. Big time. I have at least fifty unpaid parking tickets back in Mexico City."

She was joking – or was she? Oliver was having a hard time pushing through his sudden suspicion. In his past life and in this one, he had learned the hard way that trust was dangerous.

Maria seemed safe enough, though.

She frowned, "Sorry. I guess that was weird?"

"No, not at all. Sorry. I'm just having a weird afternoon." Oliver forced a smile. "We should get back. I'm meeting my friend."

"Ahh. Sara, right?"

"Yeah."

"I know this is going to see really forward, but is she a girlfriend, or…?"

Oliver smiled, caught off-guard again. Maybe his suspicion came from his misreading the situation. Felicity used to say that he was as clueless as a brick wall when it came to women.

"Um, it's complicated," he admitted.

Maria was not dissuaded. She started toward the bookstore. "If it ever becomes uncomplicated, you know where to find me."

His mind was all over the place on his way to the library. He teetered between being flattered and being worried. Maria was probably harmless, but the other things he had learned were not. Richard Martin was not a simple target.

What had Waller gotten them into?