She'd lied on her application; it had been a sin of omission.
Under languages, she'd listed English, French, and Spanish. Partly, because she was completely fluent in those languages, her confidence in her ability to use them was complete. Her German was good, but it wasn't perfect. She never dreamed in German.
She'd grown up speaking French and English and considered them both to be her first language. Spanish, she'd taken in school. That was on her transcripts, no way to hide that one. German, Italian, and Greek, she'd studied on her own time. She loved languages, had a natural flair for acquiring them and enjoyed the challenge of learning them.
But her CIA application already ticked every box and listing six languages seemed like overkill. Nobody liked an overachiever. Her application had included the necessary requirements for the program, for the job, and a carefully chosen attribute to make her stand out from everyone else; being tri-lingual was enough.
She never included it all. It was a strategy that had successfully gotten her to the top of her program in school, gained her acceptance to every one of her top choices for her doctoral studies, and it had worked on her CIA application.
She was thankful every single day that she'd kept a few life-saving secrets from Treadstone.
She had never particularly liked the sound of German, found it slightly grating on her nerves after years of being surrounded by the soft, broad, Parisian accent. Now, though, she found it soothing. Its harsh, strong syllables were comforting. She was protected by her lie, protected by the language they didn't even know that she spoke.
She'd been in Salzburg for almost six weeks, had gotten a job at a small church-run charity shop. That application had been a work of pure fiction, describing her as a Canadian student who had run out of money to continue her studies in Vienna. The old man who ran the shop had been absolutely charmed by the pretty, dark-haired, young student. She spoke the language well enough, was clearly intelligent, and he'd needed the help.
He'd agreed to pay her in cash, when she'd shot him a slightly desperate look, and then blushed, embarrassedly confessing that her visa had expired when she'd lost her place at school. She was looking for a second chance. If she could just find a way to stay, if she could earn enough money, she could reenroll in the University and finish her degree. He found himself wanting to help her. So, he'd brought her to his neighbor, who'd given her a very nice deal on a small basement flat that she generally rented to tourists. It too was off the books and Nicky found it absolutely perfect.
Nicky heard the car behind her. It was driving too slowly. She was walking. It should have passed her by now. Cursing softly under her breath but refusing to allow her pace to quicken despite the voice inside her head screaming at her to run, she continued walking. It was getting closer but was refusing to pass her. She took an abrupt, hard right, into a driveway and ran. She cut between two houses, hopped a fence and turned right again. She peeked out from behind a house, scanning the street for the small, silver Audi that she'd glimpsed in the reflection of the window of one of the houses she passed. It was clear and she darted across the street, doubling back the way she had come.
She wished she'd brought her laptop with her to work this morning. There was no way she could risk going back for it, and it had been so hard to get it in the first place. She detested stealing, but there had been no other way. She pushed that thought from her mind and focused on running. She was headed back towards the town. There was safety in the crowds of tourists that thronged the downtown area. She pulled out a hat from her backpack and tucked her hair into it. She stripped off her jacket and turned it inside out.
After ducking into a coffee shop and taking a seat at the back, near the emergency exit with a clear line of sight on the front windows, she watched the street for ten minutes before making her way to the restroom where she took off her hat and replaced it with a blond wig. She removed an oversized purse from her backpack and stuffed the backpack inside it. She applied bright red lipstick and stared at herself in the mirror. She was pleased with the transformation.
She lingered at her table for a few minutes before dropping her cell phone into the half empty cup of coffee and tagged along with a group of three women who were leaving the coffee shop, grabbing a coat from the rack on her way out. She knew the temperature would drop rapidly with the setting of the sun.
The group of women provided cover for her for three blocks before she peeled off towards the train station. She paid for two tickets on the next train heading south but slipped past the guards and onto the train heading north just as the doors were closing. She got off two stops later and then took a bus heading west, again purchasing two tickets.
She stayed on the bus for four hours, reaching Lake Bodensee at around 9:00 PM. She booked a room at a local hotel, paying cash, but never entered the room. Instead, she made her way down to the shores of the lake and stole a boat, which she used to cross the lake into Switzerland.
She was tired and cold, and the bank wouldn't open for another eight hours. She found a theatre hosting a live show geared to tourists and sat at the bar, enjoying the warmth for an hour and half. She stole another coat, an expensive, long coat, this time and ditched the wig twisting her hair up into a sleek French twist. Then she chatted up a guy at the bar. It took her no time at all to convince him that he wanted to take her to dinner, and she left the show arm in arm, laughing with her American boyfriend, a completely different person than she'd been when she entered.
Dinner had been delicious, and she'd forced herself to eat, not knowing when she'd get the next chance for a meal. She excused herself to the restroom and walked away, again helping herself to one of the coats hanging on the rack by the door, her hair now in a simple braid down her back.
Walking the streets was dangerous. She needed a place to stay for a few hours and finally settled on a cheap hotel that was on the far end of walking distance of the bank she planned on visiting in the morning.
Now, she allowed herself time to review the incidents of the day. She knew she wasn't safe yet. They'd have reviewed the security footage by now, seen which train she'd taken, knew which bus she'd boarded and where she'd gotten off. They were probably, even now, searching the hotel room she'd never even entered on the Austrian side of Bodensee. It wouldn't take them long to discover the missing boat and where she'd moored it at the dock.
Soon, they would know she was in Arbon, and they'd figure out why she was there. It was too dangerous for her go to the bank. She cursed under her breath. She needed the money, passports, and weapons that were stashed in that bank. She'd have to pay someone to get it for her and she only had about $200, swiped from her date's wallet. That would be enough if she could find the right person.
She dropped her head to the table in front of her. She was so tired. Tired of running, tired of living in fear. Tired of being alone.
The door opened, almost silently, behind her. Almost silently, but she heard it. She heard it and she knew what it meant. They'd found her too fast; this wasn't the CIA. She spun around, gun leveled at the intruder, but no one was there.
She stood, gun lowered, tears slipping down her cheeks and closed her eyes, waiting. There would be no escape tonight.
Jason had found her. And that meant that she was in trouble.
She heard the sound of the door closing, heard the lock click softly into place. She didn't dare open her eyes. "Please." she whispered. "I tried. I did everything you taught me. I'm sorry."
She felt, rather than heard, him cross the room. He took the gun from her hand and her breath caught in her throat. "Open your eyes." She obeyed the command but couldn't bring herself to raise her gaze from the floor. He wrapped his hand around her throat, his grip was strong enough to hurt and he knew it. He forced her head up and when she saw the rage that burned in his eyes, she knew that begging wasn't going to work.
"You have to do better." His jaw was clenched. He shoved her backwards and she fell to the floor. She watched, terror-struck as he removed his belt. "Get up." She didn't move. He wrapped the end of the belt around his fist and gave her one single last chance to stand. "Get. Up." She cowered away from him but made no effort to stand. It wasn't fair. She'd done everything right. She didn't deserve the punishment he was about to give her.
He understood. She had done her best tonight. She'd kept ahead of him for seven hours, and that was an impressive feat for anyone, much less a scared, untrained, young girl like Nicky. But it hadn't been enough. She'd made mistakes, crucial errors that would have gotten her killed had it been another asset tailing her.
He had to teach her.
He closed the distance between them and grabbed her by her upper arm, hauling her to her feet. He could feel her body shuddering in fear, in anger at the injustice of his treatment of her, but he didn't pause. He propelled her to the bed and forced her face down onto it. He laid the belt on bed beside her face, and she turned her head away from it, but she didn't struggle against what she knew was coming.
She remained limp as he ripped her jeans down to her ankles and lifted her shirt over her head. He could see the marks from their last session still etched across her back and thighs as he leaned over her to take the belt.
The first blow was brutal. It took all the strength she had not to scream as she listened for the lesson that she knew would follow the blow. His words came in harsh, short syllables. "You cannot continue to be a college student." She knew that cover story had been good, but it was simply too close to her, Treadstone created, cover in Paris. She nodded her understanding.
The second blow was followed with "Canadian. You can't be Canadian, Nicky." It was too easy. Too easy for an American to pose as a Canadian and she knew it. It was a flimsy cover for a girl that Treadstone knew spoke both French and English. They'd be looking for a Canadian.
The third fourth and fifth blows came in rapid succession. "You don't speak English. You don't speak French. You don't speak Spanish." She again nodded her understanding. She needed to rely exclusively on her hidden languages.
The sixth blow. "Six weeks." This was a hard one for her. She had loved that little town but had been planning on leaving two days before he found her. Still, she forced herself to acknowledge the command, knowing what would happen if she didn't.
The seventh blow. "No. Friends." She'd been expecting this one. She knew that she'd become too close to the little shop keeper. She'd been so lonely, though. This time her nod of acceptance came with a quiet gasping cry that betrayed her heartbreak.
The eighth blow. "No. Banks." She'd cringed at that one. She had known it was risky. Banks were watched too closely, there was too much security.
Nine. "You. Keep. Your. Head. Down." She knew he meant in the train station. She'd forgotten, in her panic, that the security cameras were watching.
The tenth blow didn't fall right away. "Kak u vas Russky? Vy uje svobodno vladeete yazykom?" His questions, asked in Russian, demanded an answer, in Russian. "Ya.. starayus... Eto slozno." Her pronunciation was sloppy, her response too slow. He knew immediately that she hadn't been studying like she should.
The final blow was delivered with stunning force. "You don't have hobbies. You don't read. You don't watch TV. You. Learn. Russian." She nodded again and whispered. "I'm sorry, Jason. I... I promise I'll do better." He'd insisted that she learn Russian, that it would open up the whole of eastern Europe for her to hide in and he needed her to get farther away from Treadstone. Languages were easy for her. She should have mastered it by now, but truthfully, she hadn't been able to focus and had found Russian didn't come as easily for her as the others had.
He pulled her gently into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. He was done hurting her. She tried to hide her tear-streaked face from him, but he knelt down in front of her. "I'm sorry." he told her. And he was. He didn't know any other way to teach her, but he recognized exactly how fucked up this was, and he hated hurting her like this. What was worse, was that he knew that she loved him and that the physical blows hurt her far less than his callous treatment of her.
He hoped that one day, he'd look for her, and he wouldn't find her. But there was a tiny part of him that recognized that she still didn't want that to happen. As horribly as he treated her, she let him find her. Every time. He had to make her want to run from him. He had to make her hate him.
He was simply too terrified of what would happen if they found her first.