49

You hang up the phone quickly. You have seen in movies that they can trace cell phones, so you switch your phone off as well. You kind of like the idea of giving the research of the professor to the whole world. It has a romantic ring it. It makes you feel like a crusader, fighting for survival of human-kind. “Well, maybe a little too dramatic!” you think to yourself and concentrate on watching the house.

You wait for quite a few hours, into the early hours of the evening. You don’t know how many sandwiches and drinks you had, but you do not dare go to the toilet in case you miss the agents leaving their house. Eventually, as you reach your bursting point, Mike and Jack arrives. With them are Emily, the professor and a young woman Emily introduces as Kate.

“We can watch the house from the van,” Kate announces. You settle the bill, which has grown to quite a large amount. “Can I charge Climate Peace for this?” you think to yourself.

The van is cramped, four of you are in the back with Mike and Jack in front. One side of the interior is taken up by a small desk, with a large LED panel. Kate has a small Infrared camera attached to the roof of the van which she is aiming at the house. You and Emily take turns to go to the coffee shop and buy snacks for everyone in the stake-out, a welcome break from the cramped confines to stretch your legs.

At midnight, both men exit the house and get into their car. Mike follows the car and it pulls into the underground parking lot of a foreign embassy. Soldiers man a checkpoint leading into the parking, making it impossible for you to follow any further.

“Mike will stay here and watch the embassy,” Kate announces. “Let’s head to the hotel and regroup. I have a plan to get that disc.”

The next morning Kate, Jack, Emily and you head to the embassy. You and Emily pretend to be a couple of students applying for visas to travel. Kate and Jack will do the same, but once you are inside, you need to infiltrate the embassy and get the memory stick. You all clear security and join the long queue. The waiting area is packed, all the seats are taken. Bored people are reading books and magazines to pass the time, prepare to spend their whole day in bureaucratic purgatory.

An anguished cry fills the air. Kate drops to the floor, eyes rolling to the back of her head, limbs shaking as convulsions wrack her body. Jack drops to a knee next to her, a concerned expression on his face. “Help! Help! Please! Call some medics!” he shouts.

He queue in which Kate was standing forms a small circle around her.  The security guards at the door rushing over to see what is going on. All attention is focused on the commotion in the middle of the waiting room.

You use the distraction to quickly slip through a side door and find yourself in the embassy. A quiet hallway stretches in front of you, office doors are closed but you can hear the muffled tones of a conversation coming from behind a door on your right. You see a sign, one of the entries stating in boldly letter Intelligence Liaison and you figure that must be where the agents are.

As you move down the hallway you can hear a door opening in front of you.

If you:

Pretend to belong in the embassy, go to chapter 50

 

Look for a hiding place, go to chapter 51