Chapter 5

"So what do we got?" Benji asked, buttoning up his shirt as he reemerged from the bathroom. His hair was still wet, but not in a cold and damp way anymore, and otherwise he felt thoroughly warmed up. He was once again amazed at how refreshing even a short shower could be, hurrying up as he had he hadn't even taken ten minutes and half of that time had been fighting himself out of the wet clothes he had been wearing before. And in those ten minutes he had had time to sort his thoughts, so now he was not only somewhat more comfortable, but also a little more calm and focused.

"Everything seems to be in order, but I'm sure our guest has been searching for something. He had enough time to go through everything without making a mess and didn't have to fear to be interrupted. Still we don't know what he's been searching for," Ethan stated coming out of the kitchen. "Do you have idea who he is yet?"

"Nothing here. No papers, no cards. Except this." It was Brandt, sounding slightly disappointed as he said it, kneeling next to the dead body. The red drops sprinkled on his rubber gloves indicated that he had been searching the poor man's pockets. He was holding up a blue piece of paper in a look-through plastic envelope with a large number twelve printed on either side. At the top it had a ribbon attached to it, making it look like the kind of ID-card someone would wear around their neck. "Anything on the facial recognition?"

"Nope, nothing here," Luther said, shaking his head from where he had barricaded himself behind several laptop computers. "No match yet, not in our database, or Interpol, or anything else. I've tried it with facial recognition, fingerprints, DNA, everything. But I don't think he's listed anywhere. But as we know he was the second person to enter the flat maybe I can draw something up from comparing the video footage."

Silently Ethan nodded, but before he could say anything, Luther went on: "Why did you have to shoot him, anyway?" he grumbled, without interrupting his typing. "This would be so much easier if we could just ask him."

"He had a knife. It would have been messy if I hadn't," Ethan said, matter-of-fact.

"Messy indeed," Brandt added, picking up a thin blade, somewhere between three and four inches long, that had still been half hidden in the man's sleeve. Remembering how close he had been standing to the impostor, he didn't want to imagine what would have happened, if he had lashed out with this only once.

From the pained grimace Benji made he most likely thought the same, drawing in the air with a hiss. "That looks sharp."

As for now there was obviously nothing more to gather from the body, Ethan turned away, slowly pacing the room, thinking. "We have to assume that this man, the people who've been chasing you through the city and whoever Skye is with right now are connected, at the very least," he said, turning back to Benji. "Is there anything you can tell us about them? Any details?"

"There were five of them back in Oxford Street," the technician recalled what he had seen earlier. "Four were real gorillas, six feet plus, but otherwise average looking. Their leader though was smaller, five-eight, I'd say, thin, pale, strange dark red hair, don't know him though. I can't tell you how many were in the car, but three got out when it crashed. The car, by the way, was a black Mercedes, 90's model, with a weird scratch above the left front tire, although now it most likely has a few more. And I don't have the license plate," he finished, with a bit of a pained expression, but no one would hold it against him that he hadn't remembered that back then. "But maybe we can find that out over the police register, after all it was involved in a massive traffic collision earlier today." Which he had caused, he thought, but didn't say it.

"That might take a while, but it's worth a try," Luther said and opened another window on one of his screens.

With a sigh Benji rubbed his face. "Also that car has been standing opposite the house the whole morning. They've been watching us all along." He was still wondering how he had missed that earlier. Vacation or not, he was a field agent, for god's sake! He should have seen it, and then maybe he could have prevented all of this. But he hadn't and now they were in this mess.

"At least that makes it almost impossible that what happened to Benji and whatever happened here is not connected," Ethan thought aloud. Although he had learned in this line of work to use this word carefully, it would be a very strange coincidence if there was no connection between the Mercedes and the redhead who had been following Benji earlier. And no coincidence was ever just that, for usually there was always someone to take advantage of it. "But still, right now that car is about our only lead."

"Not quite," Luther put in, peeking over his wall of displays. "I finished the comparison of the video footage of Benji entering and our friend here. It's not much, but maybe it will help us find out who he is. This is what I got: He's smaller than Benji, almost an inch, stronger in build with broader shoulders, shorter arms and slightly different proportions. And I'm pretty sure he's left-handed."

Luther's report was cut short by a muffled sneeze coming from underneath one of the sofas. Surprised, Luther stood up to see Brandt half hidden by the piece of furniture he had crawled under, his legs sticking out in a rather curious angle.

"Brandt?" Benji asked, worried, tilting his head to get a better look. "Uh, what is it you're doing down there?"

"I think I found the phone," the other agent's voice replied, muffled and closely followed by another sneeze. "And a hell lot of dust." Carefully he wriggled back out, the phone in one hand, in the other a book that still looked as good as new. Giving the first to Luther and putting the second on the table, Brandt tried rather unsuccessfully to brush the dust off his clothes.

Ethan meanwhile was absorbed in his own thoughts. The phone, of course, might give them some more useful information, but that was Luther's domain. In the meantime, he was bothered by something else. "Smaller than Benji, you said?"

"Yes," Luther replied, without looking up from his new task. "About an inch."

The other two looked at Ethan curiously, who himself was looking nowhere in particular, but both of them knew better than to interrupt his thoughts. "Benji?" he finally asked, still wearing this slightly absent-minded look he always had when he was figuring something out. "Would you just go over there for a moment?"

Looking at the spot at the door that he was indicating, the technician was about to ask why, but then he thought better. "Alright," he said with the hint of a question in his voice, obediently walking over to the door. There he turned around, throwing his arms up. "And now?"

"Now come back here, please," Ethan answered.

Benji shook his head in reply. "I don't see how this is helping," he complained, but made his way back to the others anyway.

"Actually, neither do I," Brandt joined him, looking at Ethan in the hope of getting an explanation, but the older agent had his eyes fixed on the spot in the middle of the room Benji had crossed twice in his journey.

He silently mumbled: "You didn't duck."

"Excuse me, what?" Benji asked, not sure if he hadn't heard it right, or that comment really wasn't making any sense at all.

Ethan finally snapped out of his thinkers' look. "You didn't duck under that hanging lamp over there."

"Of course not, why should I?" the Brit replied as if it was something completely obvious, but then he explained. "I know that I don't have to. Remember the last time we were here? After a day I got so annoyed by constantly hitting my head on that lamp that I hung it only a little higher, just high enough it wouldn't bother me anymore."

Ethan nodded and for a moment the shadow of a smile flickered over his face. He remembered that encounter quite well. "Yes," he said, then led them back to the actual topic. "But our John Doe here earlier hit his head on precisely that lamp."

Brandt's eyes narrowed when he started to catch his train of thought. "Which means that he is taller than Benji."

"But Luther said that in the video he was smaller than me," the blond man protested, not grasping the implications yet, or maybe rather not wanting to.

"He was," Luther threw in without interrupting his work. With enough other things to do he only partially paid attention to the others.

It was Brandt who finished the conclusion. "Which means that this guy," he pointed at the body, "is not the same as the one in the video."

Benji stared at him open-mouthed for a moment as the full extent of that idea was forced on him. "Are you telling me that there's someone else running around the city as me?"

"Possibly," Ethan stated calmly. The idea had already crossed his mind earlier, but now he was sure.

Brandt however was already thinking a step further. "Wait a moment. If he is not the one in the video, then how did he get in? And as Holt obviously isn't here anymore, how did she and the other guy get out?"

"Through the door?" Benji suggested, although he knew himself that that was unlikely. "They could have hacked into the camera and changed the footage, so it looks like there was only one who never got out."

But even as he was still talking, Luther shook his head. "Getting top of the line masks is one thing, hacking into a secure IMF video feed is another and if they had, I'd know. But as things are, I've been the only one to even view that footage in months. I'm not even sure they knew there was a camera there."

"They knew of the camera, or at the very least they suspected that. Otherwise they wouldn't have brought masks," Ethan put in, while Brandt finally decided to get rid of his rubber gloves.

"So, if they knew about the camera, what about the old trick with the photograph?"

But Luther shook his head again. "The camera is placed on the underside of the staircase landing between first and second floor. To reach that spot alone, for taking the picture and placing it in front of the lens, would be hard, but then you would also have to know the camera's exact position, the angle, the zoom factor, what lens is used, et cetera. That involves a lot of effort and a lot of planing. And if they had had a plan like that, I don't think they'd have bothered with the mask."

"So, not the front door then," Benji summed it up with a sigh, and let himself fall on one of the sofas.

"Is there any back door? Any other way they could have gotten in and out?" Ethan asked although he knew the answer, even before Brandt said it.

"There's always a back-door. But we would have noticed if it had been opened, and even if they knew there was one, I doubt they'd have found it."

Suddenly Benji jumped up, slapping his hand against his forehead. "Of course! The balcony!" He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it earlier. "It's the only other way out."

Brandt raised an eyebrow at him. "Wouldn't that be a little too open?"

"How many people do you think come by this street?" Benji asked rhetorically. "No, they'd have been perfectly safe, especially if they had someone standing guard at either end of the road. And I bet they also had some kind of fake official IDs just in case."

Brandt sighed. "So if it was the balcony they used, that leaves us where?"

"With a group of people with unclear motives but presumably unlimited manpower, the ability to create masks, voice-chips and most likely also good forged IDs, and for some reason enough information about Benji to authentically impersonate him, who we have to believe have managed to abduct a trained IMF agent," Ethan summed it up.

Benji laughed sarcastically. "So basically our everyday evil organization."

"Maybe I've got something more," Luther said, finally reappearing from behind his computer screens. Coming over to the other side of the table, he turned around one of the notebooks. "I've managed to find Benji's black Mercedes and trace the plates," he explained, calling up different windows to illustrate his words. "It's a company car belonging to Clarkson Enterprises, which happens to be a daughter of Kennedy Ltd."

"Nolan," Benji spit the name out like a curse. Somehow the man still managed to ruin his day from the grave. "I should have known."

He took a deep breath and became aware that everyone was suddenly looking at him. "I'm sorry," he said finally, focusing back on the screen. "Go on, please."

"Officially they are doing Online Marketing Management, but being related to Kennedy Ltd., I think we can safely assume that that is not their main source of income," Luther continued, scrolling over the companies official website. "They have several offices in and around London, so it's not surprising that we stumbled across them. But I might have our connection."

Clicking on the staff page, he turned the screen a little towards Benji. "The head of CE is one Lydia Ferret, chairing the committee that officially runs the business, but includes some very curious people. The most interesting here is Ian Stuart, officially head of human resources. I think you'll recognize him."

For a moment Benji stared at the picture on the screen, dumbfounded, before he managed to say something. "That's him! That's the red-head from the alleyway!"

Luther nodded. "I thought so. And there we got our connection," he said and took the computer back. Closing the window and opening another one, he went on: "But that's not the best part yet. I've run a facial recognition program over the live feeds of all London security camera's I could get access to, and I found something."

"Stuart?" Ethan asked, hopefully. As they could be sure he was involved in the situation somehow, to watch him could be quite useful, or even better, to pick him up somewhere. He was certain Stuart was a high level player, not only in the company but also in whatever scheme was going on, and so he would have lots of potentially useful information. And they had methods to be rather convincing.

But Luther shook his head. "No, at least not yet. And nothing on Skye either," he said and turned the display, so they could all see the video footage. It showed a glass door, probably the entrance to some building, and people passing by. A man entered the building and the program showed a match, details quickly scrolling down at the side. "I found Benji."

"But I've been here the whole time! And I don't even know where that is," the technician protested.

But Ethan already had the lead. "Because that's not actually you, but the other impersonator."

Again Luther nodded. "Most likely. And here we see him entering the Roman Tower, an office building down in Lambeth, a whole floor of which is rented to Clarkson Enterprises."

"So what do we do now?" Brandt asked, leaning against the wall.

"We go in," Benji said without hesitation. "I mean it might not be exactly what we're looking for, but who knows what we might find there." Or whom, he silently added to himself. If his lookalike was going into that office building, they might very well be able to find Skye in there, or at the very least some clue as to where they were holding her.

"And how do you propose we do that?" Brandt asked back, provocatively, but still good humored. "I mean we can't just walk in there."

For a moment there was silence in the room, when Benji suddenly had an idea. "Well, you can't," he said, thoughtfully looking at the dead body that was still lying on the floor. "But I could play him. I bet I would get in without a problem, wouldn't even need a mask, although I sure wouldn't mind to have one."

"That's crazy," Brandt put in, but Ethan shook his head.

"No, actually it's genius," the senior agent said. "As far as we know, they think Benji's still at the bottom of the Thames. And even if not, nobody would ever expect it."

Disbelievingly, Luther shook his head. "In other words, this is so crazy it might even work," he muttered. "But still there's a lot of risk. From out here I don't have access to anything. That means that we can't watch you, and glasses won't work either, for obvious reasons. Our only contact would be over radio, otherwise you'd be on your own."

"Still, it's not as if we're planning something big," Ethan put in. "Just some small observation, and if something goes wrong we're standing by on the outside. Besides we'll have to go into that building at some point anyway. And to approach it from somewhere else we need more information, which we can gather most easily from inside."

"Like he said," Benji added. "Just a quick look around. Easy in, easy out, nothing to it."

A small smile flashed over Luther's face, but he hid it so quickly no one noticed. "I still don't know, but alright," he said, again shaking his head. "If you want to do this, go ahead, count me in. After all someone's got to look after you."

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

The first thing Skye felt when she woke up was a massive headache. The first thing she felt when she opened her eyes was a very strong flash of nausea. Just in time she managed to control the urge of throwing up by closing her eyes again, before she would have vomited all over herself. Taking a deep breath, she decided to first see what she could find out about her whereabouts without looking around.

There was a strong smell of gasoline lingering in the room that didn't help to make her feel any better. Otherwise the air was stale, but cold, and a few more deep breaths managed to clear her head. She found herself half lying, half sitting on a cold and slightly wet bare stone floor, her back to what seemed to be a big metal pipeline. Her hands were taped together horribly tightly with duct tape and secured with the same to a smaller pipe behind her back which went up from the larger one. Her legs were bound up to her knees, most likely encased in tape, too, both of which made it hard to move into a more comfortable position.

Once she was sure she wouldn't have to be sick, Skye tried again to open her eyes, more carefully this time. The room which she was in, was, as she would already have guessed, the maintenance room of a probably large building. Cables and pipes were running up and down the walls and over the ceiling in loose bundles, marked with faded signs, yellow with age, some of which seemed as if a mouse might have had a bite. Loosely scattered around the room, she saw various installations related to water, heating, ventilation and power distribution, but the main part was an enormous gasoline tank, which obviously also was the source of the stench. In the middle of the room a single light-bulb was hanging from the ceiling on a loose wire, but right now the only source of light was a row of small, dirty windows that ran along the top of the wall on one side.

As she finished her observation of the room, Skye realized several things. For one she was alone, most likely had been for a while and probably would stay alone for the foreseeable future, which meant that she was not in any immediate danger. That was good.

Secondly her position was not only terribly uncomfortable, but she also felt that if she didn't move soon, some part of her body would subsequently die. That was not so good. But at least, as she could assume to stay undisturbed for a while, she would have the time to try and change that.

Carefully she pulled at her ties. At first, all that happened was that the tape dug deeper into her hands, but soon she could feel it loosen somewhat around the pipe. It would not rip, of course not, they had wrapped her in several layers of it, but at least she could stretch it enough, so she could move her hands along the pipe. Pushing herself up with her feet, she brought herself into more of a sitting position. It was a huge effort, but very much worth it, she realized, when a tingling sensation told her that blood was flowing back into the parts of her body that had already gone numb.

With a sigh she sat back against the pipeline, moving her feet as far as she could, to support the blood-flow in her legs. Her position was still not very comfortable, but at least like this she could sit for a while.

The next step now was to find a way to get out. Skye had already realized that the windows were too small to get through and apart from them there was only one door. And that door most likely was locked. With what was lying around it was improbable that she would be able to open it, so to get out she would have to wait until someone would come in. And that, she thought, might take a really long time. But at least then, she would be ready.