Francis, was tired, he'd been called into the office on a Sunday for an urgent update on the situation in England. The meeting had started at 2pm, over two hours ago; and nothing mentioned so far could be described as urgent or an update. The British government were still blaming the Russians, which in Francis' opinion was probably on the money but some weird claims by the then Foreign Secretary had muddied the waters about the provenance of the nerve-agent used in the attacks. The fact that two more people had been exposed was a surprise, it didn't seem likely that those people had links back to Russia. Was this second contamination a smoke-screen, to discredit the British, it was certainly a viable option and, quite frankly viable to the other supposition that a 'rogue element' had access to Novichok.
The meeting wound up; with as
Francis had suspected nothing new, nothing concrete, he wondered if the British were sanitising their intel. Something that seemed more and more likely given the current political status and that would make everyone's job a lot harder. The only thing that the analysts could agree on was that there was no evidence of this becoming a wider problem but without having viable suspects keeping tabs on any groups likely to be using nerve agents was next to impossible. All the known elements were on watch-lists already. Nothing else could be done at this stage.
Francis made his way back to his office, locking the paperwork in his secure filing cabinet. Turning to leave his hand brushed the top drawer of the unit under his desk, he stopped and on a sudden whim opened the drawer. He was surprised to see the blinking light on the phone, he'd missed a text! Quickly unlocking the phone he checked the messages, there were three from the same 'unknown number'. He frowned, why three messages? Usually he got two, location and drop off that was it, no more no less, always two addresses. He scrolled down, the first address he recognised it was the Manhattan Mall the second an address on Lexington Avenue, the third simply said 'Meet Holden, identify yourself as Hector'.
Francis check the text messages again then his watch, he could get to both places in about an hour, he wasn't sure exactly where the Inflexion Avenue address was but his guess would be somewhere in the 90's, he'd check once he got the the Mall - that was his first 'port of call'.
Unlocking the bottom drawer he took out his Glock 19 and fastening the holster to his belt. Pocketing his 'Green phone' he left his office and headed out across St Andrews Plaza towards Chambers Street where he could ride the subway to Penn Station, it was only a couple of hundred yards walk from there to the Mall.
The Mall wasn't very busy but at this time yesterday the place would have been quite packed with 'Saturday Shoppers'. He knew the way to the lockers, he'd been there twice before. Always directed by the text messages and both times to collect an item to be dropped off elsewhere in Manhattan, though never to the address on Lexington Avenue. The combination to the locker had been changed. He punched in the digits and opened the door, he couldn't help but look around and was relieved to see there wasn't anyone close by.
There was just a large white plastic carrier bag in the locker, Francis picked it up and double checked there wasn't anything else inside before closing the door and re-engaging the lock. He headed for the east exit, Google told him that he'd miss the next no 6 subway train but he should have enough time to get to the 33rd street subway to pick up the one after that.
Finding his carriage almost empty
Francis took a look into the bag, there was a uniform of some kind inside, one of the fancy ones, used for formal occasions and something else. Silky to touch he almost laughed realising it was a ladies wig. Blonde, a long blonde wig, kind of weird. His other assignments had been sealed boxes, metal, locked, like the one that his son's scout troop used to collect keep money in. Petty cash boxes, that was they type he'd collected before, not some random items.
This was definitely odd, perhaps it was a test, he shrugged mentally - it was almost a year since his last 'courier job'; perhaps things had changed.
He rode the rest of the journey trying not to think about why he'd been contacted again and was soon standing oppose the address on his phone, the sign said 'Rare Books' the windows were empty, the place was vacant and yet a petite woman with dark hair was sweeping the foyer. Crossing the street he approached the door, and knocked on the glass.
The woman stopped her work and approached the door, unlocking it and pushing it open a little.
"Yeah.. what do you want." she said in a disinterested voice, dark eyes looking directly at him.
Francis smiled,
"I'm here to meet with Mr Holden, I'm late though... is here here?" he asked, his eyes narrowed, there was something almost familiar about the woman, not her voice, the way she'd walked across the foyer maybe?
