This was one of the bad days. When he could feel the pain of the rope in his throat, his breathing catching and restarting, suffocating (on air this time, not water, not yet) and he had to remind himself the temperature was not freezing, his fingers were still there, it was not cold - he had turned off the air conditioner, but the sweat in his body was cold with dread (he had opened the curtains, letting the high sun warm him, but now with the night arriving, so did his trembling).
They had each gone their own way - safer, easier this way, for each to heal their own wounds and he knew, it was not a lack of care, knew how Yusuf's eyes had flashed to the past in an instant, how Nicolo's features had been granite-unyielding, Andy's battle screams fueled with an impotent fury of the past - but like a child who denies needing company and alone still wishes for it, he craves the comfort of their presence, selfishly even as he knows they need space too.
So, with nothing else to do after the rescue, and none of his siblings there, he starts the tedious process of eliminating all evidence of their existence as a way to occupy and distract him from the memories of winter, using programs to hunt down files, images and videos in the internet and to check social medias. Their luck, the last mission had been based in a town around the border, so there's enough images and videos from cameras, both individual and from commercial/government that even with his tools, he has to invade mobile phones and computers to certify that they are clean of evidence. He doesn't know how long he can do this. Fears the day it won't be enough.
He knows the others have noticed it too, how there are whole cities that they don't operate anymore, because not even he can guarantee their safety, clean their tracks beyond a doubt.
London is forbidden ground for any but the most heart-wrenching missions, when there is no one else that can take it. Always it ends with a shard less of Andromache's soul (determined eyes, fixed expression, no warmth), ashen faces on Nicky and Joe (guilt and sorrow, lips compressed into silence) and the feeling that the sea is going to drag him down, salt on his mouth, bubbling screams on his ears. He regrets it every time.
Their world is smaller. And each decade with its own technological advancements reduces it further, turning their missions more limited in scope and logistics. Will it be soon? The day he can't cover for them anymore, the day he will have failed them as he has failed everyone else... He hopes not. And he dreads that day with everything he has.
The night turns to day, and the sun warms his face. Headache throbbing, the lack of deep sleep blurs his vision. He has fallen sleep in front of the computer again. Joe would be disappointed. Good thing he's not here to stare at me. His lips twitch into a smile, remembering Joe's tendency to care, far more than he probably should, heart left open to any attack.
He concentrated again on his laptop, finishing the cleaning job he had to do, checking their email after, separating what he could send along to other groups, what would be best dealt with by a government, what was time sensitive. They would need to lay low again to attract less attention. Maybe in three months or so, they would be able to take them. The flip side of the coin - too much information happening at the same time, in all places of the world and with no true filter, it was easy for the past to get lost in the torrent, files breaking, hardware malfunctioning, memories getting lost in the virtual because there are no truly safe virtual backups - data corruption is still a thing (and one he takes advantage of as much as he can).
There is a reason he carries Hélène's book with him - even as her scent faded, and the blood spots disturbed the poetry, it helped him remember - the afternoons spent together, learning the profession with her father, the slow courtship until he could call her his wife. He did not need the book's words, but its presence, like the ring in his hand, proved it was real, his past was tangible and hard and true. He understood why Andy kept all her reminders hidden. But he did not have her strength.
The last email was one he had seen before - and Andy's rule of no repeat clients compelled him to delete it, not even bothering to read. Because if it was something only they could do, and that fit into their morals, he would be obliged to show Andy, and she would bend, if he truly fought for it. But if you did it once, every Jack and George thought they could get you to do it again. And you lose control. And you make it so much easier for people to discover their secret, immortality.
He has seen the consequences of what happens when they are caught, lived through them on every dream turned nightmare he shares with Quynh (rusted iron all around, water permeating their mouth and soon lungs, impact of their hands on the door not enough - never enough. Salty taste of the ocean follows him back to his dry bed). He is torn between opening it or not.
And after reviewing all the data he had corrupted, erased or misdirected, without other things to occupy his time, he does so. The email is simple. Information about a potential search and destroy in an entrenched fortress. No way to get out normally, not without heavy casualties and the pieces of a potent chemical weapon in the hands of terrorists, stolen from one of the USA testing grounds. Looking at the information, it seemed to check out. He would have to dig deeper, go higher and lower and see if it was legitimate. But not today.
He would need his wits for the research needed. The last thing he wanted would be to compromise their safety. And, if he was lucky, some other group would pick up the mission in their stead, so he wouldn't even have to start doing it.
When he sleeps, he chokes - on water or rope, it doesn't make much a difference. Upon waking he wishes - that like Joe and Nicky and Andy, time passed and erased segments of himself, smoothed away the memories of pain along with the joys it had already stolen away: What color was Pierre's favorite? What was the first document Hélène's father had taught him to forge? Where did they first kiss? He no longer remembers, and that knowledge hurts as much as the remembrances of pain.
For a time, he had written down every detail he could remember from when he was married, from his (first) family, as a keepsake, as a reminder, as a way to torture himself with his incompetence. But the ink faded away. Blood or rain blurred pages, mice and moths ate away the words and with few places they frequented enough to keep them in order, it was a fool's hope and a silly idea (he still wished it had worked).