| "No Respite" | ||
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London June 3, 2008, 1102 hours Lima Time The kidnapping had made the news, albeit not the front page. Apparently this Daniel Odds was well connected, and therefore newsworthy. Innokentiy had trouble working out just exactly what Mr Odds did for a living. Ah, there it is, he runs a strip joint. Very nice, he thought. Now, did this have anything to do with Nikolai? That was the question. He had already set Yelena on the task of trawling through the Internet to see if there were any connections. The advent of the Internet made the job of an intelligence officer so much easier. It was a real problem solver, something he needed right now, seeing as he had a problem. He had been horrified to step off the plane and find Yelena climbing out of the cargo hold. His heart had promptly run a lap around his body, bouncing off of his rib cage before finally settling back in its accustomed place. What the hell was happening? What was she doing here? His mind had gone into overdrive. Of course Sergei would have to be notified of his daughter's presence in England, but how was he going to explain it? Fortunately Yelena had taken the lead on that count, explaining her reasons to her father. Then the phone had been passed to him, and Sergei had said `Take care of her'. Great, he had thought, now I'm a fucking babysitter! But there was nothing he could do apart from deal with it, which is what he was doing right now. She was good with computers, much more so than himself, so he put her talents to use. They had started picking up pieces of the trail, and with each new day they had advanced a bit more. The trail was not easy to follow, and more than once they had reached a dead end, but perseverance, particularly from Yelena, had gotten them through. Nikolai had left absolutely no clues whatsoever. He wouldn't have expected anything less from the kid but it sure did make things harder for them. The clues they were following came from other sources, the most valuable of which was a contact that he had had for many years know, so he knew the information was reliable. It concerned the activities of a London crime lord, a fact which immediately peaked his interest. It made sense for Nikolai's target to be dirty; he could not imagine the kid going after an innocent. "I've found something," Yelena said, beckoning him towards the screen. He obliged, taking up position behind her, looking over her shoulder. "I managed to run down some links, most of them useless or obscure, but I did find this." She moved her fingers over the keyboard and called up a picture. It showed a group of youths standing along a wall covered in water and flour. His eye caught it at once. One of the figures standing there was Daniel Odds, though obviously younger. He scanned along the line of smiling faces, stopping cold when he saw Nikolai. This is the connection they needed. He was now sure that Odds was Nikolai's target, and that meant that he would have a fighting chance of finding him. Still, he needed clues. A scan of the web page did not reveal anything useful, not even names of the others standing with Nikolai. In fact, the picture had no information attached to it at all. Its only function was to provide a link between a missing person and a kid practised in the art of making people disappear. It wasn't much to go on but it was a lot more than they'd had up to a few minutes ago. "Well done Yelena". "Is it good?" she asked, her face full of hope. "Yes, it is very good. I now know who Kolya is after. It is just a matter of locating his target now." "Lets go then," she replied, logging off of the computer and standing up. She picked her coat up off of the back of the swivel chair and put it on. "Where to?" "I will need to consult with my contact first," he replied. Her eyes flickered with disappointment; she knew she was not allowed in on the meeting. Instead she would have to wait outside the door as she had done before. A Nondescript Apartment Block June 3, 2008, 1220 hours Lima Time They sat as before on the well-used sofas, the dust billowing out in an expanding cloud as their weight fell into the soft furnishings. It had once been an expensive fixture; years of abuse had soon diminished its aesthetic appeal. Now it served as a place where one could sit without fear of electronic bugs being planted in it. Simply turning your head caused the springs to creak in protest, a noise easily capable of sending an uninvited listener screaming from their headphones. The walls were bare, not a scrap of wallpaper left on them. The cracks were clearly visible to the naked eye, running the length of the wall in a diagonal orientation all the way up to the ceiling. Without a light the ceiling looked dark and foreboding, a force just waiting for its opportunity to pounce on its prey, crushing it beneath its mass. The fixture where the light had been removed now looked like a dark eye, watching its prey below. The blinds which blocked out light from the street were in disrepair; more than one of the components was cracked; weeds grew through the cracks. The cracked blinds didn't matter though, the window had not been cleaned for a number of years, and had any light been able to penetrate the layers of dirt they would have found only a bare floor, for the sofa was situated on the opposite side of the room. There was nothing else in the room, save for dust, dirt, and grime. A few cockroaches scuttled across the naked floor, stirring up the still air as they went past. There was a hole in one of the walls, down in the skirting board. A rat darted out as the cockroaches ran past, pouncing on the nearest one, its knife-like teeth sinking into the creatures back. "So, tell me about Mr Crowe," Innokentiy said, turning away from the battle for life being played out on the floor before him to face his contact. Return |
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