In the year and a half that Laurel had lived, practiced law, and worked private security in Chicago she had come to know many of the local neighborhoods, but there were a few that had a special place in her heart, and Albany Park was one of those.

"We'll give them a bit more time to check in, search the rooms, and set up their equipment," Laurel said to Annelie Bodin as the three women sat at the table in Noon o Kabab, "and we need the word to get out that Annelie Bodin just checked in at those hotels. Then we'll head over to your real home away from home during your stay in Chicago."

"Were will that be, do I get to know?"

She really is too fucking beautiful for her own good, Sara thought to herself.

"The Peninsula Hotel," Laurel answered, "we have a grand deluxe suite that connects to a premier deluxe suite. Plenty of room to go around. Someone will be in your room with you at all times, anyone not on duty will be in the next room, ten steps away."

"And we have more than enough bodies on standby to storm a small country," Sara added as she imagined how she and Annelie would spend their time when Sara was on duty. It was a fantasy which Sara recognized but had no intention of squashing at the moment. When the real moment came Sara would be all business, bringing her A game to the task of making sure that no one hurt a hair on that very attractive head.

"What will you be shooting while you are here?" Laurel asked.

"Some exteriors. Chicago River at night. Navy Pier. Oliver's people found a secure location nearby to shoot some rural stuff. And some interiors in the Museum of Science and Industry. We have an extended fight scene there. Most of it will be shot on a sound stage, but some of it will be in the real museum."

Laurel and Sara exchanged a look that did not go unnoticed by the blonde actress.

"What?"

"Nothing," Laurel said, "just some details that we need to work out with Nighthawk."

"Like what?"

"We'll need to coordinate with your body double from Nighthawk how to pull the switcheroo to and from all the locations," Sara said.

"Anybody waiting for you will be waiting there," Laurel said, "We can hide you in the crowd anywhere else, but you have to show up for work eventually, and that's the easiest place for them to get their eyes or hands on you."

"So the trick is to keep a tight net around you on set, and then have them following her afterwards when they think they are following you."

"Sharon."

"What?" Laurel asked.

"Her name is Sharon. I don't know her last name. She was on the team that took the four assholes that were waiting at my plane."

"I heard she put quite the beating on them."

"No, that was Trish," Annelie said flatly, her eyes traveling to her sparkling water, "Kyle ordered Sharon to kill those four men. Trish changed his mind."

Jesus fucking Christ both sisters thought at the same time.

"They killed my flight crew," Annelie continued in that flat, emotionless voice, "They tied their hands behind their backs, lay them on their hotel beds and shot them in the back of their heads. For nothing."

On one spoke for a moment.

"Sometimes I think I should have told Kyle to just kill them. It's what Bekke Reese would have done. Just walked up to them and killed them and felt nothing afterwards."

"She would have felt something," Sara replied after another moment of silence, her own voice flat and emotionless, "what she felt would have been complicated, because people are complicated, even highly trained international assassins. When you can kill and then feel nothing it's time to find another line of work. Trust me."

Annelie's eyes came up and found the face, and the eyes, that reminded her of Trish.

"I do."


The Nighthawk team reported no letters from deranged fans at either hotel, and no trouble checking in or setting up. They now had a backdoor to the hotel servers, which allowed them to monitor their private and public traffic, as well as the internal hotel cameras and the secure feed from the equipment concealed in the rooms that were, on paper at least, housing Annelie Bodin.

The rooms in the Peninsula hotel were reserved under the name Felicity Smoak, a name which would mean nothing outside of Seattle. It was Laurel and Sara's idea of an inside joke, using their friend's identity, their friend that was famous for complaining that she never got to travel anywhere, always stuck behind a desk.

"I would like to take a week and go someplace, just once a year, and stare at something that's illuminated by natural light," she pleaded regularly during their time together, "is that too much to ask?"

"We would be totally lost without you," Laurel answered.

"And somebody else's ass print would be in your chair when you got back," Sara added as her eyes went to Oliver.

"Don't look at me," he said, his hands raised in mock defense, "I've learned my lesson."

"He's not allowed within ten feet of my station," Felicity said.

"I wondered what that line on the floor was for," John said as he looked at the red rectangle painted on the concrete floor.

Whenever they would check someone into a hotel under the name Felicity Smoak Laurel and Sara would send their friend a picture of the front of the hotel, and the rooms that were reserved in her name, a picture that showed them lounging on the furniture with some funny caption that they thought up on the fly, but only after the op had concluded, and the need for secrecy had expired.

"Wow," Sara said as she viewed the rooms, "nice work if you can get it."

"Search now, wow later," Laurel said as she began her own inspection of the rooms while Annelie walked into her temporary bedroom and dropped her travel duffel onto the floor next to the bed.

"Home sweet home," Annelie said with a heavy sigh before sitting on the mattress and falling backwards, "once more into the fucking breach."

"We'll be finished soon," Laurel said as she inspected the bedroom, using an electronic scanning device in addition to her eyes, "then you can change into something more comfortable and use the bathroom."

"Take your time, I'm not moving from this spot."

"We're scanning RF, Wi-Fi, and Blue Tooth. We'll pick up anything that's actively transmitting."

"What if it's not transmitting?"

"If it's just storing recordings to an SD card our scanner won't find it, which is why we do a visual inspection. But that sort of camera is going to be some hotel employee perv, not the assholes that are after you."

"Assholes are always after me, but normal assholes, not this psychotic version of assholes," Annelie said as she turned her head to look at Laurel's back as the elder of the Lance sisters stood on a chair to look at a section of wall, "this level of asshole is not something I'm used to."

"Good. Don't get used to it. They won't be around that long. You probably don't have much experience with ultra-high security services like Paragon or Nighthawk. Trust me, we'll put these people in the ground soon enough. Then you can get back to your life."

"Yeah, back to my life," she replied in a tone that made Laurel stop looking at the wall and turn around, only to be immediately captured by two crystal blue eyes.

Jesus, I know that blank stare.

"This sort of thing can seriously fuck with your head. And it doesn't just go back to normal once the bad guys are dead. I'd be nice if it did, but it doesn't. Take some advice from someone who has been there, find someone to talk to who specializes in trauma, someone expensive."

Annelie's eyes and Laurel's were still connected, and the actress could see for herself that the woman in front of her knew what she was talking about.

"Nothing on the scanner," Sara said as she walked into the bedroom before stopping as she looked from her sister to the prone actress and back again, "what are you two doing?"

"Talking about trauma experts," Laurel said as her eyes returned to the wall.

"Can you recommend someone?" Annelie asked Sara.

"Bill Rivers was good. He helped me a lot after the Somme," Sara said, "but he's been dead a hundred years."

"I don't understand," Annelie said as she looked at Sara.

"It's a long story," Sara said.

"Literally and figuratively," Laurel added.

"Mind your own business." Sara said to her sister.

"Someone more recent and, you know, alive," Laurel replied, "who was that guy you talked to after Tangshan?"

"A friend of Martin's," Sara said, "he's dead now."

"I have no fucking idea what you two are talking about," Annelie said.

"We'll fill you in over dinner, once we have finished out sweep."


"How's she doing?" Renee asked.

Sara and Annelie were eating take out from a local Chinese restaurant and watching Outlander on Netflix while Sara pointed out all the historical inaccuracies. Laurel's dinner was interrupted by a call from her friend and employer.

"She's hanging in, but barely. That dead flight drew is really weighing on her. She'll probably do better once she gets to work, but right now she has too much time to sit and think. They've cancelled all her press and TV appearances."

"How are the Nighthawk people?"

"We saw them for a total of thirty minutes, but they seem fine. Professional. Not the usual east coast assholes."

"Good. But remember, they're on our turf now. We're primary. If it goes badly, it's on us. Careful with the hand-offs."

"We'll be careful."

"Regular status updates," Renee said just before ending the call.

"What did she say?" Sara asked as Laurel sat down to resume her dinner.

"Careful with the hand-offs."

"No shit."

Laurel's phone vibrated again.

"Trish is on her way. Ten minutes."

"I'll put a plate together for her," Annelie said as she began to stand up.

Neither sister failed to notice the improvement in her mood.

"She can't feed herself?" Sara asked as her face and voice adopted that look and tone that Laurel knew from experience meant she was playing up the pouty jealous type, "you didn't put a plate together for me."

Finally, a fucking smile appears, Laurel thought as the tall woman flashed her very white teeth.

"Did you want me to?" Annelie asked as her voice adopted a deeper, more intimate tone.

"It would just have been nice to be asked," Sara answered as her head tilted down and away slightly.

Jesus Christ, Laurel thought, you don't think she knows acting when she sees it?

From the look that Annelie gave Sara as she went to grab a clean plate from the kitchenette, Laurel concluded that the answer to that question was No.