The flight had reached the midpoint of it's route, passing over Cleveland at an altitude just under 40,000 feet, flying at 520 knots, though they would all have to take Simon's word for those details. The cloud layer beneath them obscured any features that could possibly be seen.
"We'll wait until the last minute before developing a problem and diverting to Midway," said Simon as he stood next to the seat where Annelie sat, his co-pilot's uniform making him look downright yummy in Trish's opinion; almost as edible as Sharon looked in her steward's uniform.
Jesus, why am I so horny?
Kyle had apparently thought they made a good team, and had kept them together, with the addition of Andrew, who was currently serving as their pilot. Like Sharon, Michael, and Simon, Trish knew his face, but had not worked with him, or talked with him past saying good morning.
Trish had no sympathy for anyone who thought that they would have better luck than the last four dickheads that tried to hijack Annelie's plane. This flight crew would make short work of anyone short of an elite strike team.
There had been almost no conversation on the first half of the flight. Sharon and Michael spoke quietly a few times, but not for long. Andrew and Simon each ventured out of the cockpit only for short intervals.
"What's the matter?" Trish asked Annelie finally. The tall blond had spent virtually the entire hour in silence, gazing out the window that for most of that hour yielded only a view of grey clouds.
"Nothing. Just contemplating my life. Where I am. How I got here. Where I'm going."
"Oh. Just that?"
Trish was encouraged when a smile, at least the suggestion of one, appeared on that beautiful face.
"Yes. Just that."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Were you a fan of Samurai when they were big in the early 2000's?"
"Sure."
"I was a huge fan. Bought all their albums. Knew all their songs. I got to see them when they played Stockholm in 2005 during their world tour, just a couple of years before they broke up. I had a major thing for Kerry Eurodyne.
He did an interview in Rolling Stone magazine years later, and he talked about Samurai's big hit song Bleed the Beat. He said most people think it's about sticking it to the corpo fascistas. He wrote that song while he was working on a cruise ship, working his ass off serving drinks to wealthy guests, waiting tables, and in his spare time composing until his fingers bled. He had to make sure he didn't get blood stains on their precious white linen table cloths.
He said it's really a song about bleeding in service of the rich, but people hear what they want to hear. I got to see Samurai in 2020 when they did their one show reunion at the Red Dirt Bar in Morro Bay, the bar where they played their first gig ever in 2003. I visited the band backstage afterwards, and I talked about that interview with Kerry."
"Okay."
"I told him that's what I feel like sometimes. Bleeding in service of others: studios, fans, agents, agencies. Bleeding in service of everyone except myself. And now this fucking asshole, whoever he is. This asshole who tried to make me bleed, and killed four people in the process."
Jesus.
"It's understandable that you feel that way. You've been through a lot."
"I'm a fucking actress. I'm an entertainer, I specialize in make believe, but people see what they want to see," she said as she looked at me before glancing back at Sharon and Michael, who could not help but hear what was being said, "You're the ones who bleed for a living, not me. I just pretend for a living. And I get paid a ridiculous amount of money to do it, while you get paid crap. That never strikes you as unfair?"
Trish took a few seconds to slow her breathing and her heart rate as Michael and Sharon glanced at her, and she glanced back before returning her eyes to the woman sitting next to her.
"Not really, no. You don't take up this line of work as a vocation because it pays well, and the benefits are good."
Trish fell silent for a moment before continuing.
"All of us came to this job in different ways, for different reasons. I was getting ready for a class at the School of American Ballet, about five miles from the World Trade Center, on 9-11. If I had still been in California I might have reacted differently. If God, or Karma, or the Universe, or whatever, had not given me the abilities that puberty had unlocked completely, I might have reacted differently. But in that hour, on that day, I was what I was, and in that moment I realized that I wasn't given these gifts just to dance, or model, or to make money, I was given them to use them in service of others, to bleed in service of others. In a manner of speaking, just like you."
The tears had started to flow down Annelie's face while Trish was speaking, and it took a fair amount of willpower for Trish to keep her eyes dry.
"I wish I had your strength," Annelie said as she wiped her face.
"That was a gift as well, but a different kind of gift. I have a very good friend named Hank who helped me more than I can describe, in too many ways to count. He showed me that strength is a skill, like any other, like dancing on pointe. That I could learn it. I just needed the right teacher. That teacher was Hank."
"Is he accepting new students?" she asked with a laugh that was half a sob.
"He lives in San Francisco with his wife Abigail. He's sort of retired, and he's always been a bit of a recluse. He doesn't travel anymore."
"Would you teach me?" Annelie said as her eyes caught Trish's and held on for dear life.
It took Trish a minute to know how to answer.
"I'm already too close to you, emotionally speaking. Technically I shouldn't even be here. It's a real question whether I can even do the job that I was hired to do," Trish said in Swedish.
"Kyle has people in Chicago to protect me. And as little as I know you, I know enough that I trust that no one will hurt me when I'm with you," Annelie answered in her native tongue.
"Let me think about it," Trish answered as her hand found Annelie's arm, "give me until we land."
"Okay," she said before standing.
"Where are you going?"
"To the cockpit, to tell Simon to step on it."
Trish scanned the hashed, encrypted, QR code from the woman named Laurel's phone while Annelie looked back and forth from Trish to the woman named Sara.
"You two look so much alike it's not funny," Annelie said as she shook her head slightly, "You two could almost be twins."
"Getting my J.D. worked a different set of muscles," Laurel said, "Sara's studies went in a different direction."
"You can say that again," Sara said.
"Getting my J.D. worked..."
"I didn't mean to actually say it again, Jesus!"
"They sound like sisters to me," Michael said.
Everyone's phone vibrated at the same moment as Simon verified the encrypted group broadcast feature on his custom phone.
"Stay available," he said to the group in general, "The four of us need to maintain our cover, but we won't be idle. Paragon is primary on security for Ms. Bodin while she is in Chicago. Trish will assist, but she has business of her own that will require her to be away at some point."
"But not for too long," Trish said to Annelie.
"Got it," Sara said as she looked at Annelie with what could only be described as eager anticipation. Laurel simply nodded.
"I'm the AIC for our team," Simon continued, "Which of you is AIC for Paragon?"
"I'm on point, but Sara and I will be working in rotating shifts," Laurel said, "Renee Montoya is in charge of our detail overall, and we can always ask for more bodies if we need them."
"And CPD is forming a dedicated team for site security," Sara said, "men and women hand picked by the Commissioner, officers he knows personally, all uniformed, no mistaking them. Nobody is slipping through any cracks."
"Glad to hear it, but she's your responsibility. It's on you two if something goes wrong. We clear on that?" Simon asked.
"Crystal," Laurel said.
"You're in good hands," Sara said as she smiled at the tall actress, "promise."
Annelie looked at Sara before turning to Trish.
"My hotel room has a king sized bed, right?"
Trish's phone was sending out and receiving pings every sixty seconds, an interval that decreased to five seconds when she and the woman at the other end of the connection were less than one-hundred yards apart. When they were less than fifty feet apart the individual pulses from her phone where it rested in her front left pocket could almost be mistaken for the standard silent vibration of a phone call.
It was a woman with auburn hair and green eyes that Trish was approaching, a woman who returned Trish's gaze and emulated Trish's motions as she left her phone where it was and used her left hand to silence it through the fabric of her slacks pocket.
"Could you tell me what time it is in Berlin right now?" Trish asked the woman who was about the same height as Jessica, but a bit more muscular.
"No, but I know the time in Buenos Aires," was the proper reply that she provided.
"I'm Trish."
"Dakota. Pleasure. How's Luke?"
"The same. Could eat a desk and not gain weight."
"Could eat a desk and still be hungry, if I remember correctly."
"You know, he owns a bar but I never see him eat there. Funny."
"I got your request and did some digging. Interesting case."
They had picked Grant Park as their meeting place, and they walked slowly away from Buckingham Fountain towards North Rose Garden, stopping at the fountain known as Crane Girl.
"Interesting is one word," Trish said as the thought of four dead innocents, and what the last few moments of their lives must have been like.
Dakota North didn't react to the comment, but continued to speak in soft even tones.
"Did Kyle show you copies of the letters?"
"No," Trish said, "things spun up pretty fast. Did he show them to you?"
"No. I got them from a different source. What do you know about them?"
"Nothing, except what Annelie told me. They've been getting sicker, and they've been showing up in places they shouldn't."
"True. She said nothing about the content specifically?"
"No, but we've only been together for two days."
"Together?"
Shit
"This is only the second day of my protection detail. When I started yesterday the contents weren't important. I knew she was in danger, and if anyone tried to hurt her they would die and their motives would die with them."
Trish's words seemed to take the woman by surprise.
"No orders to subdue and remand to custody?"
"No. I had no limiting parameters, past not killing innocent bystanders."
"Okay. So Kyle knew it was serious, but didn't fill you in on the details."
"Not specifically. He told me he was activating a wet team."
Dakota North was silent for a moment again.
Seems like she doesn't have all the details either.
"And how did you interpret that?"
"That it was serious, and that he was not telling me everything."
"Well," the auburn haired investigator said as she handed Trish a thin black aluminum attache case, "that's certainly true."
