A/N: we'll be getting back to the present with this chapter. This going back and forth is something that will happen several times, but not always at regular breaks. If you find it somewhat confusing, let me know and I'll put something in the beginning of each chapter.
Thank yous to Cophine for the always useful help.
Leaving Sarah and Felix downstairs, I go up to my bedroom, bringing the folder Ms. S gave us with me. While the two of them like to study it as they go and only when it's proven absolutely necessary, I like to examine our mission carefully to avoid complications. Sarah, for instance, usually pays very little attention to the information S gives us, and Felix, so far, was only allowed to carry a few simple missions on his own. Most of the time he's our first line of defense if things go south. How Sarah never had a misfire before Warsaw is a mystery to me and the fact that Felix will come along with us on the field can only be explained by the absolute necessity of having three people to complete the job.
Opening the folder and going through it carefully for the first time, I'm taken aback by how thick it is and, at the same time, how little information it contains. As much as I don't like to admit it, I'm forced to agree with Sarah on this one: something feels very wrong. And is not just that someone from what feels like another life seems to be a factor in it.
According to Ms. S, Mr. Webster is relocating from his Manhattan penthouse to a large estate not far from Boston. The reasons for it aren't known, but it provides for the perfect cover to get us in: the move to a much bigger place requires him to hire new help, with a set of skills so far he never demanded. This is where we come in.
Mr. Webster is recruiting new security and it just so happens that our lot has the perfect qualifications - or would have, had our resumes be real - for what he needs. Sarah will pose as a weapons and tactical expert, Felix, I'm incredulous to find, is supposed to be very good at hand-to-hand combat, and my expertise unsurprisingly falls into the technology aspect. Along with this there's also a small summary of my future responsibilities as an IT security specialist and I assume that the other two folders contain similar of information regarding their parts.
How we got the jobs without even a single interview is something none of us bothered to ask Ms. S, fully aware that even if she knew the reason for it, she would never reveal it. However, is not hard to guess that whoever is behind this is part of our new employer's organization. Or in other words, Mr. Webster has a mole.
We were also given a blueprint of the Estate. A two-story house, where the ground floor is divided in a kitchen, pantry and laundry room, two bathrooms - presumably, one for the workers, considering its proximity to the kitchen. Two small bedrooms, a large dining room, a lounge with a fireplace and a library round out the first floor. The upstairs has four bedrooms, a suite and an office, plus two more bathrooms. The basement has two sections: a small area where the fuse-box, furnace, and, interestingly enough, the security panel is located; the other, much bigger area is used as a wine cellar.
The enormous backyard is resplendent with a spacious pool, two tennis courts, and if Mr. Webster chose, he could accommodate up to five horses in his stables. The 250 plus acres of land would make for fine riding. In fact, he found all the comfort that money can buy when he acquired this 19th century piece of land from some old Bostonian family, which can trace their lineage up to the founding fathers, according to the deed, that somehow Ms. S got her hands on.
What she didn't provide however, which would be much more useful, is where Mr. Webster got the millions such comfort would cost.
From the research, we know that he's currently the CEO of a company that specializes in buying other companies under financial stress and takes them apart, selling what's left of it to the highest bidder and with great profits. It seems Mr. Webster is what the business world calls a butcher.
But here's the catch: while it's not hard to find where his money is coming from now, how he started the business is an entirely different matter.
Coming from a modest middle-class family, his father was a low level accountant, hardly any competition for the big firms established in New York, while his mother was a kindergarten teacher at a school of one of the lowest income boroughs in the city - Brooklyn, before it was trendy. Little Henry finished high-school with an average grade, but showing a specially propensity for the numbers and, with his parents unable to put him through college, learned the trade with his father. It was not until he was close to thirty, already married and a father, that he finally found the financial stability to go to business school, also with average results. But he never went on his own and continued to work on his father small but stable business.
After that, there's a big hole in his history and the only information we get is that his father died when Webster was 37. At the age of 40 he reappears, deep in the business of mergers and acquisitions and making up to five million a year.
It's my experience that, no matter how much of a wizard you are with numbers, you don't get like that without some black magic along the way.
Henry Webster has two sons, both still living with him and not likely to move out any time soon, considering the house he just purchased: Daniel's the eldest and has been groomed to take over the business, William is five years younger, and by all accounts, is living the life one would expect from someone who has no immediate responsibilities. Their mother, I see from old pictures, was a beautiful woman before disease riddled her round figure and claimed her long red hair. However the two boys pulled at their father, commonly looking, with a head full of black curly hair, average stature even though the youngest, who just turned 27, is a bit taller.
I pick up the picture with Delphine again, this time in the solitude of my room I can study it more closely, but the first impression remains. I get the feeling that Daniel, with his arm firmly around her waist, as if claiming her, is not the one in control. Delphine is the one exuding confidence that those types social events require. Her back straight, the hand closer to her fiancée's body delicately rested on his shoulder, the high-heels she had on making the height between them that much noticeable.
Maybe that is why she seems to be the one that dominates the picture, but the impression persists. There's something about Delphine's expression, her strong gaze with steady hazel eyes, that raises in me a new kind of curiosity about her. She awakens no longer a teenager's sort of affection as it once did, but something deeper. The feeling that this woman has very little to do with the person I've met years ago doesn't leave my mind. And it's not just the natural growth that everyone goes through; I recognize her, yes, but the expression she has on seems foreign to her face.
I bring the picture closer to my eyes in a stupid attempt to discover what is it that she sees in him. Even I know that this is the type of person that noone bothers to look twice on the street. As far as I can see, there's nothing distinguishable about him, contrary to Delphine, who maintains all the characteristics that make her the center of attention wherever she goes. Then I give up and hide the picture among the other papers and stuff them back in the folder. Who the fuck knows? Maybe he's a really nice guy or has a stellar sense of humor. I have no way of knowing what it is that Delphine seeks in a life partner. If I didn't know then, I certainly don't know now.
Glancing at the bedside clock I realize that it's time to start packing. A five a.m. flight will be taking us across the Ocean and it's already eleven. As usual we pack light, everything we might need, including clothes will be waiting for us in our safe house, inside the city limits, where our base of operations will be, but only Ms. S will stay permanently. Felix, Sarah and I will be staying in a cottage in the Webster's property, not too far from the main building. At least we'll have some privacy.
I go back downstairs to pick up my computer, abandoned on the table, not surprised to see Sarah and Felix still there, nursing a glass of scotch each. I try not to attract their attention, moving silently, but am not so lucky.
"Hey, Cos!" Sarah calls. "Are you gonna tell us what happened between you and the hot French chick?"
"We went to school together." I say, trying to kill the subject. "That was all!"
"Then why did you become all white when you saw her picture?" Felix says with a laugh. "I swear it was like you saw a ghost."
"I was just surprised, okay!" I raise my voice and I know that it immediately gives me away; it's a rare occasion.
Sarah raises her hands as if she's surrendering and shakes her head. "Fuck! Okay… We won't ask about your girlfriend again." Then she breaks in laugh, quickly joined by Felix.
I breathe out but don't say another word, knowing that it will only make matters worse. Instead I get what I came for and head back to my room and once I have everything ready, I drop the computer case and a small bag by the front door, to save time in the morning. Sarah and Felix are also getting themselves ready and I can hear them moving around in their bedrooms. I move to the bathroom before any of them gets there first and take a quick shower.
I've never experienced any kind of anxiety before the missions, the exception was my first, more due to fear of the unknown than because I thought I wouldn't be able to achieve the result Ms. S asked of me. But not tonight. The entire house is quiet, the others seem to be sleeping after a few agitated words and there's no reason for me not to be able to sleep. I think of this in a rational way, of course, becoming an expert in ignoring the emotional aspect of my brain.
Today I can't. I get up and move to the window, opening it. The brisk wind making me shiver, even with a large sweatshirt, the continuous rain that falls and that so often provides for a perfect soundtrack to attract sleep hitting the concrete pavement with such violence that one would be tempted to believe it can crack it. But at least the wind is blowing the opposite direction, preventing the raindrops from getting inside. Next I go to the bedside table and take one of the joints I have rolled beforehand, putting it between my lips, while at the same time feeling unable to avoid looking at the corner of a paper that once was white but with time and use has gained a yellowish color.
I've never thought about the reason why my subconscious decided that it was a good idea to put Delphine's drawing in the same drawer I keep my weed. Quite honestly I think I'd rather not get into it, but I always find it interesting that every time I feel like smoking I get a glimpse of it. However this time I take it out and look at it while I light up, sitting on the windowsill of my bedroom.
She did have some talent. Even today I can see it in the delicate lines she so carefully drew and wonder if Delphine still spends her free time drawing. Does she still doodle in the corners of her books when she is bored? Or was it something she grew out off? I pass my fingertips over the thin lines and closing my eyes feel them like a blind person reading braille. I've spend so many hours looking at it that I'm certain that, if I had any art inclination, I could recreate it perfectly.
It's three in the morning when we're opening the door to Ms. S, none of us appearing to have had enough sleep, but there will be time for that during the flight. She will come with us, but as soon as we touch American soil, we'll be on our own; with communications limited strictly to the necessary. Preferably, contact is to be initiated by her.
"You lot look like zombies…" She comments upon seeing our faces.
"Surprisingly so…" Felix says, barely opening his eyes.
"There's no rest for the wicked!" Ms. S jokes, opening the door for us to pass carrying our luggage.