Head-Quarters

At the Airbase

Chapter 3 – At the Air Base

“Now this is much nicer, isn’t it?”

I smiled at Nero, who perched on the barstool next to me.

Sick of the chewy, meat-resembling substances served in the downstairs food court of our lodgings, Nero and I had finally dared to venture away from the motel.  It was rather sad how lazy the two of us could be, sometimes.  It had taken us an entire week to muster the drive to un-stick ourselves from our routine: meetings with Maddie on campus interspersed with lethargic hours of sloth-like behavior.

It was day 8 our mission, and… nothing.  At all.  No suspicious conversations, no whisper of conspiracy.

Of course, we were never left alone long enough to look for any whispers of conspiracy.  Whenever we walked onto the campus, we were tailed by one of the faculty so faithfully a terrier would have been put to shame.  It was like they were more suspicious of us than we were of them.

“So… what do you reckon?”  I said, mostly to break the silence.  Nero and I could sit for hours in our filthy motel room in companionable silence.  But something about the atmosphere in this bar, with laughing, chattering groups and couples rubbing up against us, it felt awkward to just sit there sipping my margarita.

Nero smiled his quirky grin and prodded the ice cubes in his rum and coke with his cocktail straw.  “Haven’t we rehashed the mission status a hundred times?  I’m pretty sure nothing’s changed.”

I rolled my eyes and frowned in response.  But he was right, since Maddie wasn’t coming up with anything fast, and James was being as unhelpful as ever, we didn’t really have anything to work with.  Apparently we weren’t an important enough part of the war to be kept up to date by White and his lackeys.

But he was teasing me.  His blue eyes danced, and I had to smile.

“So what would you like to talk about, then?”  I asked, smirking back.  “Since you obviously don’t want to talk about the mission.”

“We can talk about whatever you’d like, hon. Such as why our pizza is taking so long back there…”  He patted my arm and twisted on his barstool, craning his neck to see into the kitchen.

I smiled at the back of his head, and downed a good third of my margarita in one gulp.

+++++

As the month of September wore on, ‘Neal’ and I were running out of excuses to be there. Maddie had moved in well, and according to the school, we should be back in London by now, as classes had begun a week ago. With no reasons to be up at the school, Nero and I had to content ourselves with hiding out in our motel room, mulling over the digital video files that Maddie managed to smuggle us over a secure line Codey had successfully set up.

First day in October, our first opportunity.

An obnoxious “ping!” jolted me out of my sleep.

The sound came from my laptop speakers. With a sharp glare at the machine, I moaned and rolled over on the bed. I could see Nero was still asleep and drooling halfway across the room in his nest on the couch. His feet protruded from the bottom of the quilt and hung about a foot off the edge of the armrest.

Seeing that he wasn’t prepared to take the call, I let myself fall off the sagging bed and slemped across the musty room and fell into the swivel chair.

With a click of the mouse, Maddie’s face appeared.

“Hello, mother,” she began; smiling more than was entirely decent for the early hour. My scowl deepened.  I think she liked the fact that she was waking me up.

“Wha’ d’you want, Mads?” I yawned. “It’s 6 am.”

“And if you were a student here you would have been up an hour ago.  Anyway, I needed to tell you that we finally have a decent excuse to have you two mosey about the school, as I know you’ve been dying to do.  ‘Parent Day’ or whatnot is in a week, and you can come and gawk at the facilities all you like without anyone raising an eyebrow.”  She paused, grinning in success. “But the real lucky part is, everyone is going to be there. Everyone. Chances are our little rat is going to be right there sweet talking the ‘rents with the rest of the faculty.”

All thought of sleep out of my mind, I let my lips part to reveal my teeth in a predator’s grin.

“Brilliant.”

+++++

Now of course, James and Codey had to dictate every contingency plan to us, lest Nero and I should mess up this delicate operation.  We were to stick together, so we wouldn’t be trapped feeding two different stories to the faculty without our partner to cover for us.  As if the kid and I hadn’t already gone over every possible scenario of questions that might be asked of us.

And I believe they’re over reacting.  After all, “Parent’s Day” is for us to ask question of them, not the other way around.

But alas, they held our hands through every step of preparation until the day finally came to trek back down to campus.

It couldn’t be more different then our last trip here.  The sun was swaddled in clouds, and a light drizzle made Nero’s normally smooth hair frizz.  Also, more than thirty families milled around the lobby, which had before been barren of life outside of the receptionist. 

An electronic bell sounded from somewhere, and one of the professors explained how the day would be set up.  I tuned out, never one for organization, and decided just to poke around and see what I could find.

After an hour and a half of wandering around the halls, Nero and I were sorely tempted to give up our plan.

“It’s useless.”  He pointed out on one of our numerous trips to the deserted corridor leading to the emergency exits, the only place we could stand without being jostled or overheard.  “They have all the important places we could poke around roped off, and we aren’t going to be able to tell who our rat is just by looking at him, we’d need to interrogate him or something, y’know?  We can’t just arrest someone due to bad vibes.”

Oh, how very wrong he was.

We walked back into the main meeting room, where the majority of the faculty was stationed, answering the basic questions.  We had already been through here three times, to no success.

I felt a tug on my handbag, and looked down.  A small girl stood there, no older than six, who gazed back at me with wide eyes.

“Oh, I thought you were my mommy.”  She said, slightly apologetic, but looking totally unabashed.  I smiled slightly.

“It’s ok.  Hey, you haven’t seen anyone suspicious looking lurking around here, have you?”  I half-jested, knowing full well she hadn’t, but actually starting to get desperate.

She shook her head, looking quite serious.  “Well, actually, there was this one guy in the other room, who I didn’t like at all.  Maybe he’s up to something?  Come on, I’ll show ya!”  And she grabbed my hand, dragging me into the hallway.

I was surprised into following.  First off, I had expected her to run off to find her real mum, not actually answer me.  Speaking of which, where was her mum…?

She pulled me into one of the other rooms, a smaller one that Nero and I had ignored on our first recce of the building.  Nero strode in behind me, chuckling slightly.  The little girl grinned at me, and grabbed the hand of her mother.  At least, another woman who the girl thought was her mother.

I shrugged; I might as well look interested in this presentation, since I burst in here so unceremoniously. I looked around, but my eye was drawn to the man at the podium.  There was something about that face, so familiar, yet unrecognizable… it was different.

His face was old and pitted; his hair prematurely grey.  His thin lips were parted slightly in a fake smile which he intended to be reassuring for the parent’s ambling around him.

Oh, but those eyes… I craned my head around one of the mothers to get a better look at his face.  Ah yes, the cunning brown of his eyes betrayed a man who was not yet passed his prime.  Oh god it’s him!

My breath caught in my throat, and I ducked out of the room, followed by a startled Nero.  He gazed into my stricken face.  “What, Sarah, what is it?” he hissed, thankfully unheard by those around me.

I shook my head, not here.  But as soon as I got back to the motel, I needed to tell White. 

He needs to know that Logan Koust is skulking around again.