Jaye was a professional. She was also an accomplished actress and enjoyed losing herself in the role she was assigned to play. When Duke said to be a German triathlon athlete, that is what she became. She was soon invited by a Cobra recruiter to attend a meeting at the former weapons facility.
After sending a message to Flint, she entered the facility along with the crush of other Germans who had been invited. She surveyed the group. They had recruited the fit, but also hopeless individuals who had experienced tragedy and poverty, despite their former accomplishments. Many were crushed spirits that were waiting to be rebuilt. Cobra intended to do just that. She let herself be swept by the tide of bodies into the main room.
She listened to the many benefits of joining Cobra, and thought briefly of what her former partner had said about being recruited or dying. She wondered what would happen if someone said no in this crowd. There was no telling. Her job was to report about the meeting and how Cobra was selecting, contacting, and recruiting their people. She glanced at the blue-clad soldiers guarding the doorways, guns slung on their shoulders. Their snake-insignia was red-stamped on the chests of their uniforms, reminding Jaye of the device she had wrestled from the suspect months ago. At this point, her only escape route was to agree to join and then somehow slip away. She had the pen in her pocket that was her signal to Flint. All she had to do was click it twice and his device would pick up her homing signal. She hoped she wouldn't have to use it.
As she listened to the speech drone on and on by the projection of Cobra Commander on the large screen in front of the factory, she felt the hairs on her neck stand on end. He was here. She just knew it. While she was glad he wasn't dead, she knew that he could blow her cover sky high. No telling what Cobra training had done to him. She shivered slightly, thinking back to him holding a gun to her. She had not thought that possible, either.
She casually glanced around as if she was studying the room out of curiosity. She knew how well he blended in and probably wouldn't appear to her unless he chose to. Hopefully, he didn't realize she was there. She also tended to blend in as well.
Cobra Commander stopped droning on and on the stage stepped another of her nightmares. She carefully composed her face but anger burned inside her. How dare he! He said the only association with Cobra was as a client, yet here he was recruiting for them! Damn him! Before she could stop herself, her fists clenched. She forced herself to relax, knowing that any wrong movement on her part would be deadly. Between her uncle and her former partner, she was in a nightmare situation. Maybe she should have confided in at least Duke about her associations with Cobra. Too late now, she reckoned, as the crowd began to move towards one of the doors. Those that wanted to join left through one door. The other door was for those that needed time to "think." Jaye was not surprised to hear gunshots echo from that side of the building as she finally exited the building. Her former partner had apprised her of such a fate.
The "recruits" were being herded onto a transport. Jaye looked for an opportunity for escape. She reached into her pocket to click the pen, but hesitated. While she would love to find the location of the Cobra base or training ground, she wasn't sure if she was equipped to go that deep undercover.
She saw her chance to escape when one of the guards shouted out to another. One of the "recruits" had stumbled, knocking into one of the soldiers. While they were dealing with that, Jaye worked herself to the outside of the crowd and escaped into the woods, blending into the trees. She dropped behind a bush, flattening herself to the ground. She was sure she had escaped the guard's attention, but wasn't sure if one of the "recruits" would call out, or worse yet, if her former partner had seen her. She could feel that he was there. They had worked together too closely for too long. If he had seen her, she wasn't sure how it would be handled.