Pt. 9
Miriam wearily tossed her jacket onto the bed of her dark room. The blinking light from the massage parlor across the street added an almost surreal feel to her environment. It wasn't the type of hotel she normally would have set up camp in. Jurgen had taught her to appreciate the finer things a city could offer, but for this assignment she had felt like making as small a target of herself as she could. It was nearly 2:00 in the morning, hours after she and Peter had left the Precinct to investigate the Ripper's latest attack. And only an hour after she had managed to lose the detective and his friend, the mysterious Mr. Griffin. "Well, I'm not going to get any sleep tonight, might as well see what I can find out in the realm of cyberspace. Maybe it will jog my memory concerning this Kermit character." She flipped open her laptop and called up the files that Oversight had collected on Blaisdell and his cronies. The light from the screen cast an eerie glow on her somber face. She studied the both men's service records, running an appreciative eye down the list of firefights Griffin had been involved in. One particular name caught her eye. "Sierra Leon? He was in Sierra Leon? Well, that explains why he seems familiar to me." Her cell phones ring interrupted her train of thought. She flipped it open quickly. "Yes?"
"You're in a place called Sloanville." Michael's calm voice responded, sounding almost as though he was in the next room.
Miriam reacted quickly. "Really?" she responded, closing up the laptop and sliding to the floor, out of visual range of the window. She cast a quick look around the room, assessing what could be left behind and what she would need to keep with her before she crawled across the room to the window, her cell phone still in her hand.
"Yes. Burkhoff ran a quick check through the news services and found some detailed stories on the "Ripper" case that the national wires had picked up from the local newspaper. The details were easy to match with your previous reports on the Doctor's activities."
"And we are having this conversation for what reason?"
"Come in now while it's still possible."
"Why Michael, for a moment I almost thought you cared." She risked a quick look out of the window then ducked back down. It was doubtful that Michael could be nearby. Not even he could have found her that quickly, but living in the Section had taught her that even the impossible could be possible with a little effort. The alley was only a quick dash down the fire escape but it would be the most predictable route to take. The hall would be more open, but at least going out the front door would be the last thing most people would expect a fugitive to do. She glanced back at her laptop for a moment then decided to leave it, trusting the seamier residents of the hotel to know how to make it disappear before Section's trackers appeared. "It's been so wonderful to hear your voice Michael, but I really haven't time for chit chat. I've a mad dog to take down and the sooner I find him, the sooner I'll be home. Bye." With a flip of her wrist she broke the connection. Staying well within the room's shadows, she edged her way back to the door and calmly made her exit.
Michael closed his cell phone and looked out of the airport window. His flight to Sloanville had been delayed due to mechanical problems, forcing him to requisition one of the Section's private jets. He had hoped to make an unobtrusive entrance into the city, but fate seemed determined to thwart him. "This will not be easy." He mused to himself, watching the play of lights on the tarmac as his jet was fueled. "She's not in the mood to listen to reason." He thought for a moment of the conversation he had had with Madeline prior to leaving. She had made no recommendations other than assessing the situation once he was with Miriam and making the appropriate retrieval plans then. In the back of his mind he could still see Miriam talking to Madeline after Jurgen's death. She had looked at him as he passed and smiled. Just smiled. He had wondered about it for months, then put it out of his mind when he had heard nothing from her. Now he wondered who was being tested here, Miriam or himself.
"Sir, your plane's ready." The pilot's voice sounded from behind him. Michael picked up his briefcase and headed into the night.
Miriam walked the streets of Sloanville for an hour, following a circuitous route to Kermit's apartment. She thought about the people involved in the case. Peter Caine was a good detective, at least according to his files. But he was an innocent when it came to the dark world of espionage. His foster father had seen to that. He'd never understand the choices she was going to have to make on this case. "Best to keep him in the dark, at least for now." Peter's father, of all of them, would be the hardest to co-opt into her little hunt, but at the same time the best choice for a backup. The rest had too many issues, too many agendas. This man was complex in his simplicity, something she found interesting. "I doubt he'd survive in Section." She thought to herself, stopping for a moment in the shadows across the street from the studio. "But he'd have made an interesting operative. For all of about five minutes. Then someone would have had to shoot him. Can't have a conscious and do the job." That only left Griffin, the ex-mercenary. She wondered briefly how he had managed to avoid the Section's attention, then shrugged. "Well, time to see if he's as inhospitable as I've heard." She glanced warily along the darkened street and ran up to the door of the apartment complex, darting into the darkened building and making her way upstairs.
Kermit opened his door on the first knock. "You're in trouble?" he asked calmly, letting her slide past him into the studio.
"I suppose it's a waste of time to ask how you knew I would be coming here?" she commented, seeking out the darkest part of the room to stand.
"I may have been out of the game for a while, but I still remember the rules. You're making an open target of yourself. What I need to know is why."
Miriam thought carefully before replying. "What I need is someone to watch my back until we found the Ripper. I suspect Peter Caine will need the same."
"You think he'll go after one of you?"
"That picture might have been a warning to back off, but I doubt it. Caine's a handsome young man, handsome enough that people notice him. That will attract the Ripper. He can't bear such beauty when he sees himself as so ugly. It makes him feel small, insecure and those are frightening feelings. Killing the beauty makes the feeling go away. For a while. So yes, I think he's going after one of us, specifically your friend. And I think we can use that to our advantage if you're willing to play along with me."
Kermit's eyes had no problem seeing the woman in the shadows, seeing that her face was almost animated at the thought of tracking down the beast. It wasn't a reassuring sight. "I'm not letting you paint a target on Peter's back."
"I wasn't aware it was your choice to make." She replied. "By now, he has probably come to the same conclusion I have about the meaning of that photo and is probably setting up some sort of trap. It won't work, of course, because the killer sent the photo with the express purpose of luring us into making that sort of a fatal error. "
"What do you want me to do?" Kermit asked, moving to turn on a desk lamp.
"Please don't do that." She said, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. "I like the dark. Peter's plan can be used to get close to the target. There is, however, another complication. My agency is sending someone to bring me home. That can mean only one thing."
"And that is?" Kermit stopped, his hand poised over a light.
"That our quarry must be here for a reason, one that my Agency doesn't want me to interfere with. Their target was to be disguised as a victim of a serial killer, a death that would not have raised any red flags to someone who might not appreciate the concept of the ends justifying the means. If I can find that victim, I can find the Ripper, hopefully before my Agency's people find me."
"If you find his target, will you warn them?"
Miriam smiled coldly. "That's a conversation for another day, Mr. Griffin. Right now, let's just find our killer. We can debate ethics later."