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000

Chapter 7

While Yuna showered, her companion had gone around wiping off any fingerprints they may have left in the hotel room. Two days ago, all this would have seemed overwhelming strange to her. Now, everything they did was to avoid 'them'. She did not even know who 'they' were, but she trusted him to know what he was doing, even if it was only based on instinct and precaution.

She looked at herself in the mirror as she stepped out of the shower. At least he hadn't grabbed her hard enough to leave bruises. Yuna checked the skin on her neck one last time in the mirror before exiting the bathroom. She found him sitting patiently on the edge of his bed, glancing up at her as she emerged.

"We need to get you some new clothes," she told him, packing her small bag. She herself had changed into a new pair of jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt. "You will look too familiar. Besides that, you will start to smell."

He glanced down at his mussed blue t-shirt and wrinkled brown slacks, making a face. "You're right. It's nine o'clock right now; do we have time before the train leaves?"

She nodded. "It departs at noon." Her stomach reminded her of the fact that she hadn't eaten anything since early yesterday evening. "We should get some breakfast first."

They checked out soon after (the old woman was there again, staring curiously after them as they left) and went straight to the café next door. Yuna obligingly paid for everything, much to his obvious discomfort. She did not care. Money had never been a problem for her, not that she liked flashing her wallet in front of people.

She watched him sink his teeth into a baguette sandwich, relishing the fact that they were learning small clues about him as they went. Even as a child, she had always enjoyed puzzles and riddles. Anything that posed a challenge intrigued her immensely. She had already made a mental list of all the things she had discovered about him, as though he himself were a puzzle of some sort.

He was quick on his feet – an obvious necessity for any assassin. He was clearly American, perhaps from the west coast. He was sincere, and forthright. He was serious, and rightly so, but he also had a bit of a sense of humour. He was considerate, and well mannered; he insisted on opening doors for her and waiting for her to be seated first, and he did not plainly ogle her even when she was half-naked in front of him (not that she had done that on purpose . . .). He was slightly proud, particularly about the money issue and the fact that she was paying for everything. He didn't snore. And he was a very, very light sleeper.

Eventually he noticed her staring at him. He paused sipping his coffee, blinking at her. "What?"

"Nothing," she replied. "You are interesting."

He smiled awkwardly and didn't seem to know how to respond. She was finding it hard not to laugh at his expression. She added 'modest' to her list.

After they left the café, they hunted around for a clothing store. They found a small shop a few blocks away, and Yuna felt strangely excited at the prospect of shopping with him. It was as if she had her own life-sized doll to play with. He didn't want anything flashy and insisted on getting the cheapest clothes possible – for her sake more than anything.

"But what about this?" she begged, showing him a dark blue polo shirt. "It would be perfect for you!" He rolled his eyes at her.

"I'm telling you, I just need a jacket to cover up what I'm wearing. Something with a hood that I can pull up. And maybe a pair of jeans and shoes." He then noticed a rack of sunglasses next to the cash register. "Glasses, too. For both of us."

Eventually she relented and paid for a dark brown hooded jacket and a pair of blue jeans, shoes, and the sunglasses. Apparently, he wasn't much of a shopper. But the jeans did such wonders for his rear end. Even the young cashier noticed, eyeing him appraisingly as the two left the store.

"That was the last of my cash," Yuna confessed as he zipped up the jacket, seemingly indifferent to the heat. "Those clothes weren't that cheap."

He sighed and scratched his jaw thoughtfully. "We have to risk using your card to get more out. There's no way to tell whether or not they'd be tracking your card, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are."

Her eyes widened at the prospect. "They can do that?"

He laughed bitterly. "Yuna, I'm not even sure who 'they' are. It's just a feeling. If they knew I was still in Marseille and were able to get another agent after me on such short notice, I'm guessing there's not a lot they can't do."

Suddenly he froze on the sidewalk, his expression hardening. Yuna stopped and stared at him, instantly feeling uneasy. "What is it?"

"Do you still have that laser pointer?" he asked quietly. She fished into her bag and pulled it out. He had let her hold onto it for safekeeping, as he had no place to put it. He grabbed it and flashed the numbers of the bank account onto the pavement, his eyes scanning the numbers like a computer. Yuna watched, fascinated.

Then he dropped the object and smashed it underfoot. She jumped.

"Que fais-tu!" she demanded, lapsing back into French for a moment. He crouched and pried open the cracked body and held up a tiny blinking light with a twisted cord coming out one end, which had been attached to the inside.

"A tracker," he said darkly, tossing it down into the gutter. "Let them think I'm sticking around here for a while."

"How do you know –"

"Because I just do," he cut her off tersely, marching ahead to hail a cab. "I don't know how I know."

She stared after him for a moment before hurrying to catch up. Her heart was pounding. For the first time, she truly realized what kind of enemy they were up against.

000

Rikku had been dozing in the chair at her station when a hand roughly shook her awake.

"Coming, Pops," she blurted out, nearly falling out of the chair. As the remnants of her dream faded, she looked up to see Seymour glaring down at her. She smiled weakly up at him, but to no avail. He was looking markedly displeased.

"You might be interested to note that your computer is flashing repeatedly at you," he informed her with a hard edge to his voice. "Perhaps it would be best if you could keep your wits about you and tell me what it says?"

Blushing, Rikku scrambled back up and looked at the monitor. "It's that Yuna woman's credit card track," she explained. "I'm in charge of keeping an eye on her. And it looks like she just bought two train tickets to . . ."

Seymour leaned in when she trailed off to look for himself. His eyes narrowed.

"Zurich," he growled. "Un-fucking-believable. How the hell would he know about Zurich?"

"Maybe he doesn't!" Rikku suggested quickly, trying to appease him before he went Godzilla on the office. Or her. "Maybe . . . she's got friends there and is taking him there to hide out. It could be nothing."

Seymour rubbed his eyes, an all-too familiar sign of growing stress. She found herself wondering how the man had never suffered an aneurism in his long career.

"And besides," she added, "he can't know about the account. The device must still be lodged in the back of his neck. He can't get it out with just his bare hands. How would he even see the numbers?"

"Let's not forget, Miss Welsh, that he is traveling with a trained medical student who might just, oh, I don't know . . . have access to surgical tools?" he said, calmly and coldly. She swallowed. That thought had never occurred to her.

"Just what the hell is in that account anyway? What could possibly be so important that it makes him dangerous?" she demanded, frustrated. Employees her age weren't in on every single detail of their strange, covered-up agency. Seymour sighed heavily through his nostrils.

"That account," he replied, "is where a lot of important information is stored. After an agent takes out a target, we document it, and keep it locked away in the most secure bank system known to man. That account number is stored in the back of the neck to discourage them from ever trying to access it without our permission, unless there's some kind of emergency and they have to go to the account directly, in person."

He started pacing, talking more to himself than anyone.

"The problem is that we no longer have constant surveillance over this particular agent, and we don't know what he's planning. Should he choose to do so, he could use the documents as evidence against us. With that woman in his company, he has a potential witness to help make the case. We're funded privately by government officials, Miss Welsh, and they've given us a lot of freedom to do our job. But there are some things that we need to keep under wraps."

"Like the fact that we use their money to train men that kill certain other men?" Rikku supplied helpfully. He quelled her with a stern gaze.

"They know about that, but as far as they're concerned, it's all off the record, and doesn't put any of them at risk. If we get exposed, they can just cry 'patriot' and pretend to have had nothing to do with all the assassinations," he said with an obvious trace of resentment.

The young woman frowned. "But why do we document the kills in the first place? Aren't we supposed to protect our investors?"

He smiled humourlessly at her. "If we go down, they go down with us."

She paled slightly. "Well, the team should be showing up soon," she pointed out. "Let's get them to the train station ASAP and stop him."

He gave her a somewhat approving look before snapping his fingers at Joshua something.

"You," he said sharply to the assistant. "Get the team leader on transmission and tell him to head to the Aix-en-Provence train station."

Joshua was about to run off and do as he was told when Seymour spoke again. "And let them know that nobody's going home until that agent is dead and buried."

"What about the woman?" Rikku piped up.

Seymour didn't hesitate. "Her too. She's a threat to us now."

"How?"

"By running with him."

000

He was glad to see that the train station wasn't terribly busy. There were only a few people seated in the lobby, and nobody looked up when he and Yuna entered. Nevertheless, he kept his sunglasses on, motioning for Yuna to put hers on as well. The station had security cameras in every corner. Drawing his hood up would only make him look more suspicious.

Now that reality was sinking in that soon he would be in Zurich, he was getting more and more paranoid of the enemy. That great, faceless, nameless enemy that had made a target of him, and now possibly Yuna. He had the distinct feeling that Zurich was forbidden ground, or at least a private answer to a question he was not supposed to ask. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became. The bank account numbers were burned into his memory, a beacon for him to follow.

Yuna sat down next to him, nudging him lightly with her elbow. "This is it," she said, obviously excited. "By tomorrow morning we'll be there! We'll go to the bank, see what's inside the account, and after that . . ." She gestured vaguely.

He smiled back, trying to look more eager than nervous. The truth was that he was scared at the prospect. It was all so huge, so sudden. And he was afraid that things were going to get twice as dangerous for the two of them. Sooner or later, his former 'bosses' would figure out that he had removed their tracking device and then they would know he had found out about the account. Obviously they didn't want him to do that – no doubt they would do anything to stop him. He hated the idea of putting Yuna in that kind of danger.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked her. She looked up at him, her eyes inviting the question. "What will you do after all this?"

She furrowed her brows slightly in thought. "What do you mean?"

"Say we get to Zurich, and look in the vault. And say that whatever's inside can be used against . . . well, whoever it is that's chasing us. And let's say that somehow, by some miracle, we manage to take them down, or expose them. That is, if we don't get killed by the time all this happens. What will you do if the danger goes away? If or when there's nothing to be afraid of anymore . . . what next?"

She leaned back in her seat and sighed heavily in thought. "Go back to medical school, I suppose. Continue from where I left it." She turned and looked at him pointedly. "What about you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "It all depends if I find out my name and who I really am, if I have family or a home. I guess I could always start over, if not."

Yuna looked down at her hands. He noticed that she had a habit of doing that whenever she was about to ask something awkward.

"You speak good French," she pointed out. "Maybe you could . . . live in Marseille."

He glanced at her sideways, a smile creeping onto his lips. "And what would I do there?"

She shrugged and rolled her eyes. "I do not know. Drink coffee and smoke cigarettes."

"Eat escargot."

"Wear a beret."

"Make love to all ze byootiful weemen."

"The French do not sound like that!" she gasped, affronted. He chuckled and ducked as she swiped playfully at his head.

"I mock only what I see and hear," he said defensively, shielding his face. "And I'm sorry, Yuna, but the accent is hilarious."

She shoved him lightly and pretended to sulk. "At least we understand fashion. Have you seen some of your celebrities? Vanessa Paradis would never dress like your Britney Spears."

The smile died on his lips. "I really don't remember who that is."

She winced. "I am sorry," she said quietly, looking ashamed of herself. "I was not being careful."

"It's okay. You're not responsible for me," he told her, trying to sound light-hearted. He hated that sadness in her eyes.

"Of course I am," she said, looking surprised. "Who else will look after you?"

He found himself grinning again.

"I guess you've got a point."

She beamed at him. "And promise me you will at least visit Marseille if you insist on not living there."

But he was no longer looking at her, nor listening. He was staring past her with a frozen expression, the blood pounding in his ears drowning out all other noise.

On the wall next to the exit door was a WANTED sign. And there were two very familiar faces staring back at him.