Chapter 5

"When I met Annie, she was going by the name Jessica Matthews. I thought my worst nightmares had been realized when I lost Jai, but then Henry reappeared, and Annie followed closely behind. I cannot explain the ferocity that drove her to catch him. A wildfire seemed to follow her wherever she went, and it burned everything she touched."

Danielle's hands were warmed by the cup of hot tea she held clasped in her grasp, but sitting in Sana's dining room, listening to her describe the Annie Walker she had met, something chilled her. The vacant, soulless person Sana described did not sound like her sister at all. While Auggie had kept most of the details of Annie's assignment a mystery, using clearance levels and secret agent terminology to justify the secrecy, Danielle had no trouble conjuring up wild scenarios of her own. However, despite her overactive imagination, whatever Henry Wilcox had done must have been unimaginable. For her sister to give up everything and chase a man to the end of the world to bring him to justice - to kill him - was an act of valor beyond her understanding.

"When Annie puts her mind to something, there's no stopping her." Auggie was somber, a cup cradled in his hands. Eyal nodded in agreement, but his preoccupation with eating the muffins Sana had set out for them precluded speech. Danielle had unsurprisingly lost her appetite.

"I could tell," Sana murmured. "Her persistence is an admirable quality, I'll grant you, but given the circumstances it made her destructive." The older woman hesitated, her genuinely empathetic nature warring with her resentment over what had occurred. She looked to Danielle, her expression bordering on apologetic. "You must think me heartless, but you have to understand, I thought I had lost David when interpol arrested him, and I'd already lost so much. I blamed Annie, and with some justification. When someone betrays your trust, when they use you, it's an unspeakable feeling. However well-intentioned she might have been, it did not make what she did right. Nothing can justify ruining one life for the sake of another."

"That having been said, now that Henry is out of the picture, life has returned to relative normality." Sana sighed - a relieved, but exhausted sound. "David is back at the firm, and the charges against him have been dropped. I managed to forget about the awfulness of the past few months entirely. Or I thought I had, until Annie showed up at the café where I had breakfast this morning."

"You told me it had been a few hours since she left, by the time that I arrived." Eyal sat back in his chair, several muffins successfully obliterated. "Do you remember exactly what she told you?"

"Anything that might help." Auggie added. Danielle suspected he was struggling to remain composed despite his calm outward appearance; every second they sat there was another second Annie was getting further away. After their brief conversation on the Cathedral steps, she realized Auggie had much more at stake than just his job if they did not find her. His emotional investment was affecting his ability to be remain rational, and it was beginning to get the best of him.

Honestly, it was beginning to get the better of Danielle too. Her first reaction to Sana's accusations against her sister was to jump to her defense. Danielle believed, perhaps foolishly, that everyone possessed the capacity for good. Annie had always been a radiant light, a soul with an innate adeptness for kindness. The woman Sana described was nothing of the sort, and Danielle was slowly beginning to understand just how tainted the tangled web the CIA wove really was for the people who gave their life to the service, how much it changed them. The woman Sana's story described did not sound like Annie Walker, like her sister; this woman sounded selfish, desperate, lost.

Danielle prayed that they found her, before it was too late.

"She was exhausted, she looked like she hadn't slept in days. I offered her a place to stay, but she refused. She's certainly independent." Sana laughed, arms folded over chest, legs crossed in contemplation. "She told me she had come to apologize, for everything, that she wanted to make amends. My first reaction was to deny her the satisfaction, but unlike my ex-husband I'm not completely without a heart. It's not in my nature to be cruel, and she was clearly upset.

"Naturally, I asked her where she would go next, but she dodged the question and I didn't press her" Sana paused, holding up a finger and rising from her seat at the table. She disappeared into her kitchen, returning moments later, a piece of paper in her hand. "She forgets that I'm no stranger to espionage. When she left the café she threw this away. I'm not quite sure what possessed me to take it, but perhaps it'll be of some use to you. It's not much, but I'm afraid it's all I have to offer."

Eyal took the paper, studying it intently. Danielle rose from her seat, leaning over the Israeli's shoulder to inspect the new clue herself.

"Well?" Auggie was trying his best to practice patience, but he was losing the battle.

"A receipt for a bus ticket to Basel." Eyal explained, setting the paper back on Sana's marble table top. "I think it's safe to assume she'll get on another train from there - it's a central point for the railways in this area. Airports will to be too hard for her to acquire the proper identification with so little time to prepare. Regardless, the same question remains; where will she disappear to next?"

"Where was she before she came to Geneva?" Danielle was grasping at straws. "So far she's stuck to the same pattern, right? If she's going backwards…"

"She was in Frankfurt." Auggie hesitated, somewhat reserved. "But going back there would be suicidal, she's still on their radar after the Copenhagen incident. I don't think she'd take that risk." Auggie's cane had rested folded on the table top undisturbed for the majority of the time they had been there, but now he fiddled with it nervously. "Sana, you're positive she didn't say anything else?"

The three unlikely musketeers all looked to the Indian woman simultaneously. She bit her lip, apparently trying to wrack her brain for any sort of small detail she might have missed during her interaction with Annie, but her crestfallen expression was an indicator that she had nothing left to give them.

"I'm sorry." Sana replied sadly. "There really was nothing else."

Auggie could not hide his disappointment, his poker face finally failing him. Even Eyal seemed subdued, the Mossad agent's normally cheery, bright eyes shadowed by the next mountain that now stood before them. Danielle felt as if the wind had been taken out of her sails, and she sat listlessly in her seat, feeling like they were on the losing end of the battle.

"We should go, if we hurry there is a chance we can make it to Basel before she boards another bus or train." Decided, Eyal stood, gripping Auggie's shoulder briefly in a reassuring gesture. "Thank you for your hospitality, Sana."

When Auggie stood, unfurling his cane, Danielle followed suit. She readjusted her beanie, and pulled her peacoat tighter around herself, as if they would serve as more than just a shield from the cold. The pained look on Auggie's face, now clearly distressed, only made her heart ache all the more. She was beginning to wonder how many clues it would take before they found Annie, if they found her at all. There was the distinct possibility that she did not want to be found, and that in itself was enough to make Danielle feel like she had lost her sister all over again. Was this what Annie's life was like? This constant, perpetuatal sense of being brokenhearted? And if so, how did she manage to live that way without losing or her mind? Or had she?

Danielle's internalized hysteria was interrupted when Sana approached her - the older woman embracing her unexpectedly. Surprised, but oddly touched, Danielle could not help but hug the woman back.

"I hope you find her." Sana murmured. "For her sake and yours."

Danielle closed her eyes, fighting tears, fighting the fear that it was too late.

That even if they found Annie, her sister would be lost forever.

There were three people walking along the sidewalk in Geneva, Switzerland. A trio composed of a woman and two men. Their heads were bowed and they appeared to be lost in conversation as they left the apartment building in which Sana Wilcox lived. The appeared unaware of being watched.. It was noticeable even from a distance to the watching stranger that the two men were arguing with one another. One was Middle Eastern in appearance, the other carrying a white cane. The woman seemed frustrated with her present company, remaining quiet, her pensive body language an indicator that whatever they were about, it was not going according to plan.

The stranger sat in contemplative silence from their seat inside the café directly across the road, glancing at the clock on the wall, fingers tapping on the table top where a coffee cooled, untouched. Restlessness loomed, indicated by a sigh, but it was quickly suppressed, like a candle light snuffed out. A hunter did not find its prey by forgetting the most important virtue of all; patience.

They had not found Annie Walker yet, but they would.

She was counting on it.

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