An old acquaintance
At some point I must have fallen asleep, because when the door opened with a bang, I jumped up. My eyes were puffy and a severe headache throbbed in my right temple. Man, I felt like the bottom of the barrel.
"Get up, princess." That was David's voice. "Come on, the boss wants to see you."
I peeked up through my arms at the bodyguard who almost completely filled the doorway. I immediately regretted that, because the light streaming in from outside was poison to my head. I squinted my eyes again. "Go away."
"Come on, up you go." Was I wrong, or did he sound sympathetic? I probably looked as shitty as I felt. All that was missing was that I was puking, and it wasn't that far-fetched if I didn't do something about my migraine immediately.
Two arms lifted me up from my fetal position and set me on my feet. When I tried to put weight on them, however, they simply gave way and if David hadn't reacted so quickly, I would have sunk to the floor like a wet sack.
He let me slide into a sitting position in a controlled manner. He then squatted in front of me and put his hand on my forehead. "You're all hot."
Was I? My thoughts were swimming as if on a carpet of foam and I couldn't really focus on anything. Not even on David's voice. His fingers were feeling for a pulse at the crook of my neck now. "Show me your arm."
What did he want with that? I lifted my healthy one and stretched it out to him obediently. He pushed my sleeve up and began to curse viciously. When he calmed down again, he let go of my arm and looked at me. "I'm going to lift you back up now, Ina. You need to be treated right away."
Actually, that should have worried me, right? But even as his arms slid under my legs, I had already forgotten what he had said. I felt so sick. The shaking that each of his steps produced didn't make it any better. Even though I was so miserable, I slipped further and further into a dream world that looked like the Tetris game I had once played with my little brother. I could see myself from above, running through a maze of brightly colored bricks. Every time I thought I'd reached the exit, it would slide shut and I'd be faced with a wall I couldn't possibly penetrate.
"She's waking up."
"Finally. I was beginning to think it would take longer."
"I have to warn you, Mr. Sattler, she needs rest. Blood poisoning is not to be taken lightly."
I heard a snort and then, "Inform me when she is lucid enough for me to question her."
The second voice didn't answer him again, but I silently thanked it. My headache had shrunk to a tolerable level by now, but I was sure Sattler would have brought it on again soon. Just the thought of his shark-grin made me nervous.
His footsteps moved away and I opened my eyes. The room I was in had been darkened, but the door was open and the light from neon tubes shone in from outside. Except for my bed and some medical instruments, however, the room was empty.
I tried to raise my hand to scratch an itchy spot on my nose, but I could not. Once again I tried to lift it, but heard only metallic clanking.
They had chained me. How thoughtful.
Did Sattler seriously think that I would run away? In my condition, I would only make it as far as the next corner of the hallway and be caught up by David there at the latest, or collapse on my own.
I let myself sink back into the pillows and dozed off into a kind of waking sleep, into which I incorporated the ambient noises. It wasn't until someone cleared their throat several times that I reluctantly said goodbye to the delightfully carefree drifting and turned my head. David was sitting next to my bed, looking at me with raised eyebrows over the top of a daily newspaper. "It's about time. The boss is coming." That was all he said before delving back into the paper.
"Thanks," I mumbled, and meant it. I didn't know if it was really his intention to prepare me for the encounter with his boss, or if he just wanted to spare Sattler some work. But at least the bodyguard had brought me here. If it had been up to ice-eye, I'm sure he would have interrogated me before treating me. And for that I was grateful to David. Was this Stockholm syndrome already?
I shook my head slightly and internally called myself to reason. Not a second later, Sattler entered the room. "Ah, we're awake."
I daggered him with my gaze and waited for more. That was not long in coming. "As I'm sure you could hear, our acquaintance with Miss Lorentzen has been fruitful."
What did he mean? Surely no one had told me anything... I flinched, bumping my wound as I did so. He wasn't alluding to the fact that someone might have told me something. He was talking about the screams I had heard. I felt sick at the memory of it.
"I see you understand what I mean." He took a step closer to my bed. If only I hadn't been tied up, I would have strangled him on the spot. "And the clue she gave us, you'll see live."
"What do you mean?"
"You'll see." He signaled to the nurse who had been waiting in the doorway the whole time, and she pushed in a wheelchair. David put down his paper and helped me up. Sattler didn't miss the opportunity to personally push me across the hallway until the three of us were in an elevator several floors down. At least that's what I concluded from the fact that the pressure on my ears was increasing, because there was no display.
At the bottom, Sattler went ahead and David took over my wheelchair. The complex had to be huge, but in our first conversation Sattler had spoken of an authority. I had never heard of it, but the existence of such an institution would at least explain some of the tax money that was seeping away in obscure sewers for the average person.
A stainless steel door opened silently and David pushed me into a room that looked like what I imagined the FBI's command center would look like. Computer screens hung on three of the four walls, all showing different images. Some had to be from surveillance cameras, others were probably being passed around by agents. The wall opposite me was covered by a huge monitor, but it was still black.
From the bleachers where I stood, I could see only a portion of the desks, which stretched in long rows to just in front of the monitor. At many of them, employees were sitting or running from one workstation to another. How could anyone keep track of them all? Each of them seemed to have an incredibly important job, giving the room the atmosphere of a beehive. And Sattler was its queen.
He clapped his hands and called out, "Is B12 ready?"
"Yes, we're ready to go!"
"Just a moment." He turned to me and made a sweeping gesture toward the giant monitor. "You'll be able to watch the delivery of the letter in a moment. One of our agents will play the role of messenger. We don't think the thief will show up in person, but you never know. And that's why I want you to watch the scene very carefully. If you recognize anyone, let me know." Sattler had already half turned away when he added, "I wouldn't be surprised if it was your elf friend."
It took me a while before I understood what he had just told me. I would see the handover, the handover that had taken place in the past. How could that be? I knew Sattler worked for a time travel agency, but that they could actually send someone back was way beyond my imagination.
I thought of Legolas. What if it was really him?
I pushed the thought aside as the monitor lit up. We were looking through the agent's button camera, standing in the middle of downtown Hamburg. People were walking around him, laughing, carrying shopping bags, and seemed oblivious to what was happening right before their eyes.
"T minus ten seconds."
Suddenly, there was dead silence in the huge room and everyone was staring spellbound at the monitor: the agent whose actions we were following spun around, a figure appeared in the camera's focus and just as quickly disappeared.
The handover had been completed and I hadn't noticed a thing. Damn.
Sattler waved one of his employees over. "Rewind and freeze frame."
The individual sequences now slowly ran past us in reverse order until we reached the point where the figure had briefly appeared.
And then my blood froze in my veins when I saw the face staring at me from the monitor. It was pixelated and out of focus, but I would recognize him anywhere. My hand almost automatically went to my neck and felt the place where his hands had been. Morag.
