Chapter 23

It didn't take Eric long to pull security camera footage from the hangar after Calder and Auggie found the demolished Mercedes door, and an abandoned burner phone amongst the debris. Tracing the call history further implicated the Henningertower as a suspect location, but try as he might Auggie couldn't recreate a clearer version of the audio from the security cameras inside the hangar to discern what was said between Annie and the person on the other end of the line - who they assumed, at this point, was Sarah Tam.

More frustrating still - though hardly surprising - was that Annie had somehow managed to leave the airbase without anyone noticing.

"Is there any other significance behind Henninger, Lee?" Calder was less than gentle as he reapplied handcuffs to Oliver's wrists. In the background Vaughn and Barber were packing computers and equipment in preparation for them to leave. Feeling useless, Auggie paced the short length of the table they had been sitting at just moments before - a caged tiger - counting the seconds. Annie would be halfway to Frankfurt by the time they even made it out the door.

"Not that I know of." Oliver replied, wincing when Calder latched the cuffs tighter than necessary.

"Tam is playing Annie," Auggie interjected, pausing, his hand lingering on the edge of the table. "She knows us, she would have had access to everything during Hong Kong, and she's using that to her advantage. She knows Annie won't sit and wait, that she'll take the risk. She's baiting her with Danielle." Auggie exhaled, but the weight on his chest remained.

"And Annie is the bait for the rest of us," Calder growled, "What does Eyal say?"

"He's watching for Annie. He and his contact are going to keep eyes on the tower," Auggie replied, "apparently she has connections with the local arms dealers in Frankfurt and surrounding cities, and they've confirmed that a woman fitting Tam's description has been present in the area."

"They're scheduled to implode that building tonight, a little under five hours from now, but if we alert authorities we'll be dealing with a lot more than just Tam. I'm not going to make that call unless I have to." Calder, leading Oliver, came to stand beside Auggie. "This is a cluster fuck, Anderson. We don't even have a way to contact Walker. We're back to square one."

Auggie nodded, but said nothing, because he couldn't disagree with Calder - he was right. The fact that they were walking into a hornets nest was not lost on him. Actually, it was eating him alive, knowing that Annie had felt desperate enough that she had resorted to taking matters into her own hands. It struck Auggie, in that moment, that Annie's trust was more fractured than he'd originally suspected, her faith in the agency nonexistent. And now he wondered if it would ever be whole again, if it could ever be fixed, providing they made it out of this in one piece.

Barber called over his shoulder: "We're ready!" He and Vaughn lugged the last of three black supply trunks through the door of the conference room. Auggie quickly pulled the elastic band off of his cane, extending it with a flick of his wrist, wishing he could tamp down the impending sense of dread that lingered on the periphery of his thoughts - impossible.

There was one other problem, outside the already escalating crisis, that also gave Auggie cause for concern. The last thing they needed was for Frankfurt authorities to realize Annie (the so called "terrorist" they thought was dead, the one implicated in the Copenhagen missile attack) was now back in their city.

Auggie steeled himself, refocusing on the task at hand, and he followed behind Calder and Oliver as they made their way out of the JMPC to their awaiting rides.

The drive to Frankfurt was one of the longest ones Annie had ever made in her life.

It had been easy enough to hot wire one of the many cars from the housing area just a stone's throw away from the JMPC at Rammstein. The small, silver Jetta was unordinary and unassuming. Getting through the West Gate to leave had been another issue entirely, but with minimal arm twisting, Annie convinced the airman manning the security checkpoint that it was better to let his staff sergeant's illicit "mistress" leave, rather than raise alarm that she was there. It had been nostalgic to revisit her old friend, Amber Truesdale.

However, an hour and a half later, she was no closer to having a plan to save her sister than she was when she left - the clock was ticking.

What she was doing was reckless; Annie knew this. It was a huge possibility that Tam was leading her straight into a trap, that her motives were no longer driven by a goal, but purely out of revenge with the intent of removing all of the people who had been responsible for her failure in the first place. It was a huge possibility that Tam just wanted to watch them suffer. Annie was well aware that Tam played on her enemies' sense of loyalty, their emotions, her violent behavior bordering on psychopathic. The fear that Danielle might already be dead had crossed Annie's mind more than once, and it filled her with an empty, hollow desolation that engulfed the last of her humanity - making her cold and numb.

Knuckles white, fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, Annie entered the outer fringes of Frankfurt. The same foreboding shadow that had hovered over her the last time she and been in this city returned, looming over her head - ominous. Her heart clenched, ached, and she was reminded of the last car ride she had with Teo. He was dead, and it had been a horrible, senseless death, all for nothing. All because of her. What else would she lose by the time this was over?

She felt like she had already lost herself.

Guilt hovered as her thoughts wandered to Auggie, guilt for leaving him behind, for not trusting him. She knew he would be angry with her, but it was a choice she had to make. Sarah Tam had given her an ultimatum; come alone to retrieve her sister, or watch her die when the Henninger tower imploded in three hours. Annie wasn't willing to risk waiting on Calder Michael's to make a move, so she'd decided to do it herself. So many times she had relied on the agency without question, waited for their assurance, only to find that it left her on the losing end. She couldn't let that happen again.

Regardless, she had left them a clue by leaving the burner phone behind: she knew Auggie would be able to trace the last call made.

And he would find her - he always did.

Sunlight broke through the overcast winter clouds, bright and warm, and Annie imagined the shadows of the day running, stretching in front of her. She drove over the Main river, into downtown Frankfurt, the Hinninger tower visible above the surrounding buildings along the skyline of the Sachsenhausen-Süd district

"Danke, Herr Ackermann, vielen dank fuer ihrer hilfe."

Liat hung up her phone, placing it on the coffee table of her apartment and sighing deeply, fingers pressing into her temples, warding off the oncoming headache. This certainly was not how she had foreseen her day going, though in hindsight she supposed she should have known better when she received Eyal's original phone call. He was never boring.

She turned back to her laptop, her library message board once again open. She had been scouring the information available to her there from local sources for the better part of the past hour, while Eyal staked out the perimeter area of the Hinninger building to see how tight the demolition company's security was in truth, though, he was really hoping to catch Annie Walker before she snuck past them. The phone call she had just made was to the CEO of Delete Co., a Finnish demolish company handling the implosion of the tower. Under the guise of representing a company in need of Delete Co.'s expertise, Liat had used her wily ways and been able to confirm the time table for the Hinninger demolition.

Now if they could just figure out a way to delay them…

Liat was more concerned with Sara Tam's endgame. Eyal had, more or less, read her in on the details he could maker her privy to, and so she knew about Tam's association with Oliver Lee, as well as her diamond driven rampage. The rogue MSS agent had to be desperate to take an American civilian hostage. Liat couldn't help but feel like the woman was digging herself a hole, but she also knew that to assume Sarah Tam had not planned for this was ill conceived. There was another piece to this puzzle they had not found yet.

Her phone buzzed against the glass of the coffee table, causing her to jump. She answered it after she recognized Eyal's number.

"What do you see?"

"Security is tight here. As far as I can tell the demolition is proceeding as planned," Eyal relayed hurriedly, short of breath. "No sign of Annie yet, no sign of Danielle, or Tam, though perhaps if I could get into the bank across the way I'd have a better vantage point-" the signal cracked and gave out, "-with so many eyes on the place I wouldn't be surprised if she's slipped past me. I don't like this, Liat."

"Neither do I, obviously," she leaned back against the couch, contemplative. "The call I made didn't tell me anything we didn't already know… They are on schedule. I'll come meet you. It'll make me feel better. You've never had very good luck with things that explode."

"You're thinking of that one time-" again his voice cracked as the signal gave out, "-the Gaza Strip. What year was that again?"

"2008, I think."

"Ah, yes, if I recall my charm hadn't won you over at that point." Eyal's smirk carried through the phone with his voice.

"No, no it hadn't." Liat stood, shutting her computer, and grabbing her coat of the back of the couch. "But now it has, so I'm coming, ok?"

"I'm going to try and get inside."

"I wish you'd wait." She moved to her bedroom, then the closet, quickly removing the false panel with methodical deliberateness from the back wall that hid her gun safe.

"I'll see you soon-" more static, "-and Liat?"

"Yes?"

But before Eyal could ask his question, the line disconnected, and her stomach dropped. She stared at the phone for a moment, waiting to see if he would call back, but when he didn't she stuffed it in her coat pocket. She would give him a few minutes before she found reason to panic. Liat went about unlocking the safe, weighing her options.

The polished, black brushed-metal of a 7.62 mm Galil Sniper rifle stared back at her.

A/N: Hopefully I'll have time to write s'more this week, been a bit busy with horse things. Thanks for reading guys! As always, endless thanks to Ash. xoxo