"I can't," Ilsa said, shaking her head. "I have enough of unsanctioned business. It's too much of a risk."

"I understand that," Skye said.

The other woman hesitated, then made a decision. "I can give you the layout of the holding tract and what I know about their security. You'll have to do the rest on your own."

Skye held her glance for a few seconds. It was right there in her blue eyes. I'm not gonna stop you. Skye nodded once. "I appreciate your help."

/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Codename Needledrop?" Elaine asked sceptically.

"Too nostalgic?"

"Why needle?"

"I thought there would be needles involved," Skye admitted.

"Amateur," Elaine said, and fixed the last strands of Skye's hair.

Skye grinned. "That's why I came to you."

"That should do," the other agent said and stepped back. She picked up the scanner from the table and switched it on. "Stand still."

She slowly walked around Skye, scanning her from all angles. The Dane waited patiently, listening to the soft hum, anticipating the fatal beeping noise any moment. It did not come. Skye looked at her fellow agent, eyebrows raised, awaiting confirmation.

Finally, Elaine looked up from the display. "Yup," she said. "That's gonna pass through a metal detector."

/\/\/\/\/\/\

"And you are?" Dr. Skeffington asked gruffly.

"Charlotte Harris," the woman said.

He looked her up and down, her simple blue shirt over practical dark trousers with lots of pockets and solid shoes. She was wearing glasses; her unspectacular brown hair was in a low ponytail.

"I'm a paramedic," she elaborated under the sceptical glance of MI6's Chief Medical. "I was specially assigned for a..." She struggled to remember the word. "I was told not to say prisoner, but..."

Skeffington scratched the stubble on his chin. She looked so civilian that it hurt. Her deep-set London accent probably went well enough with elderly ladies over at St. Thomas, he could picture it in his head, but there was nothing for her here.

"I have the paperwork here," she said when he still didn't respond, and opened the folder she had been carrying under her arm. "Signed by Chief Sudbury herself." She flicked through the pages and trailed one index finger over the lines to find a specific part. "Assigned for Solomon Lane? I don't know. Someone high up seems to be afraid of inside jobs."

Skeffington sighed when he heard how she said that name. Clearly she had no idea who she was supposed to treat in case of emergency. So the CIA had screwed up so bad in their security checks that MI6 was hiring innocent citizens now. He kind of envied her. He took the thin folder and flicked through the paper work. "I see. Well, that all seems to be in order. Fine, then. Let me show you around."

/\/\/\/\/\/\

Clémentine LaFière's career took off in 2005 when she got the position as a croupière at Casino de Monte Carlo. She started out with roulette, soon moved on to overseeing the poker tables. She was equally excellent and ordinary at her job, but she caught the attention of the wrong people at some point. The scandal of several employees at the same establishment being caught up in illegal gambling also fell in her time with the casino, but Clém was cleared of all suspicion in the subsequently conducted internal investigation of the entire staff. Which is why it was all the more regrettable that, after witnessing her co-workers turn their backs on the law, she ended up in the very same gambling dens herself. Maybe it was because the fabled invitation to the most infamous poker game in town, far-off from casino-regulations, was too intriguing to turn down, and while Clém didn't need the money, she was, after all, young.

But people didn't know what they were in for with LaFière. She took the house more often than not, coming home with monstrous sums of money, and no one could complain about their losses due to the unlicensed nature of the games. She could make people believe their royal flush was worth nothing while she rarely held more than a pair. This earned the nickname la couchemare,the French word for nightmare with the le deliberately changed into the female form.

Several of the smaller gambling dens got busted by the police in the following weeks. The law seemed to follow in Clém's wake, but never to touch her. Rumours of an affair with a cop started to circulate. Clém wouldn't have any of it. No one caught on at that point yet, they were too mesmerised by the way she played everyone with a lousy hand. There was just something about her – again, Clém caught the attention of the wrong people.

Maxence Durand, doubtlessly not his real name, decided her talents were wasted at the casino and the gambling dens he recruited her for his business: assassination. He had retired from contract-killing more than a decade ago, but quickly got bored among the rich and famous of Monaco. So he decided before he would let his talents go to waste, he would expand – teach and train new assassins. In certain circles Durand's killers made quite a name for themselves, for their talents as well as a quirk Durand had impressed on them: They were exclusively paid in diamonds, no other currency would be taken.

Clémentine accepted this invitation as well. Four weeks later, Maxence Durand was arrested, along with all of his trainees unfortunate enough to be in his vicinity at the time.

It turned out that LaFière had tipped off the police about everything over the course of several months. Casino de Monte Carlo obviously had to fire her because of her affiliation with unlicensed poker games. They were so embarrassed about their own failure to notice an employee tampering with illegal gambling despite the investigation that they invoked a life-long casino exclusion for LaFière.

When it turned out that she had gone missing after all of this, with potentially valuable intel and large sums of her winnings still nowhere to be found, Interpol got involved, making the ban worldwide as their search for Clém continued.

She resurfaced only once in Las Vegas, apparently unaware of the ban's expansion, but she managed to get away then as well and had not been seen since.

When no facial recognition software ever found her, which should have been impossible, and considering the company she liked to keep, the unofficial consensus was that Clémentine LaFière was probably dead.

/\/\/\/\/\/\

Skye exited the tube at Vauxhall. She circumvented the few tourists coming her way across the bridge. She pulled her jacket tighter when the wind hit her full on once she left the safety of the surrounding buildings. On passing SIS headquarters - a modern, roughly pyramid-shaped building with lots of glass one could not see through from the outside - she noted the locations of security cameras, but never stopped walking until she was halfway across the bridge. The traffic behind her seemed to fade out a little. She looked at the Thames. It was a clear day, and she could see all the way up to the London Eye, where the river made a bend and went on towards Tower Bridge. For a moment too long, Skye looked at the water, long enough for her mind to replay what had happened further downstream two years ago. This is the end, Miss Holt. Her hands curled into fists in her jacket pockets. Benji had already gone through enough. It was time to give him peace of mind, whatever it took.

Skye turned her back on MI6 and had just resumed walking when her phone rang. The number was blocked. The agent took the call and was surprised when she heard an unexpected voice.

"How did you get this number?" she asked, intrigued.

"You looked away when you paid for the coffee. Your phone was on the table," Agent Faust answered.

Skye smiled. "What do you want?"

There was a brief pause. "I'm in London."