Chapter 7
The girl was struggling on the backseats of the van, her shoulder-length light brown hair bouncing up and down every time she tried to get free. The girl's hands were tied together behind her back and her feet were tied together as well.
She shot one glare to the drivers and then another, again and again. She screamed at them to let her go, not even knowing why she was taken by them.
He felt a strange emotion seeping through his stone cold facade, making his head heavy with the realization of the crime they were committing.
He knew why they were doing this, but was it that necessary?
He wanted to get the target too of course, but maybe not in the most horrible way, right? They didn't need to take the girl, right?
The man's thoughts were interrupted as his partner took the girl's phone and typed in a message to send to her father, their target.
He wasn't surprised when the target responded after only a few minutes. He was worried for his daughter. They had watched him for a long time, long enough to know what his weaknesses were.
And here they were with an organization claiming they did the very best to keep their top agent a secret to everyone outside. The very best might just be not enough.
He decided not to think about the consequences of their plan – if everything worked out right, he'd be about fifty thousand dollars richer by the end of the day.
He'd be out of this whole scene and he's be home with his family and friends.
They weren't planning on keeping the girl. They just wanted the target, the father.
The girl was just the bait, a way to get the target.
But he doubted that it would be this easy to get to the big guy – if it really were that easy to just kidnap him, why would the organization he worked for make such a fuss about him? He'd be just like any other agent, or special agent.
He was eager to find out what was so special about the dude, but for this secret to be revealed to him, he'd need to get the big guy in the first place.
He and his partner had taken pictures, made a time table to know when the man was going where, followed him at any given time. There were still a lot of gaps, the target was not too keen to let anyone get suspicious of him.
When he had seen the target that his boss called “the big guy, the one they are all of afraid of, the one they can't outmatch”, he thought that his boss might just be exaggerating.
Sure, the target was at the peak of human potential or whatever, he just looked really strong, but other than that? He looked like a normal guy.
He was supposed to be around thirty or forty (they didn't even know his age or birthday because every file about him that ever existed was destroyed or very well hidden, but the target had been around for a while) but looked like he was in his twenties.
He had asked his boss what was so special about the target, but the boss didn't answer, just told him that he should just do his job which was to find the guy, nothing else.
When he'd gotten the mission, he'd been eager to complete it as soon as he saw the prize he was supposed to get.
Sure, he'd wondered why he would get 100 thousand dollars for this mission when usually his prize range was about 20 thousand, but he certainly didn't complain.
He was partnered up with someone unfamiliar to him, but he didn't care. The other guy seemed to be in a mission similar to his own, he had a family to feed at home, and no real job, so now he was doing this.
His partner tapped him on the shoulder to inform him that the girl had stopped struggling.
He looked to the back of the van where the girl was now just sitting completely still, having pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.
She stared at her knees and only the sound of her heavy breathing was heard in the car.
He felt sorry for her, knowing that once they had gotten a hold of her father and let her go, her situation wouldn't be getting any better since she most likely wouldn't see him again.
But that wasn't his problem, he was not here to feel sorry for anyone.
He was here to complete a mission and then go back to help the people he really cared for.
September 23, 2018
Steve was just grocery shopping when he noticed something odd.
He stood in front of the shop, staring into the glass windows.
Just a few feet behind him, he saw a tall man, clad in dark clothes.
Nothing weird about that. But then why was the man staring at Steve, half hiding in the shadows? And why was Steve so sure to have seen him somewhere before?
The light blonde hair that was just barely hidden by a black cap, the sparkling green eyes. The man tried to hide his face, but he was doing a pretty bad job.
Steve noticed the high cheekbones that made his cheeks look hollow, the skin so pale it almost looked like light gray ash, the circles under his eyes. He even noticed the curve of his eyebrows, the light color of them, the narrow, straight nose, the thin pale lips.
Steve had an eidetic memory, so it was easy for him to remember things like that, and he liked to call himself an artist – he liked to draw pictures, so detailed you couldn't even look at them without thinking that the thing, animal or person in the picture was something Steve had already seen once, even if it was a monster. They were astonishingly accurate and that might be because he put so much time into analyzing the small details.
That's how he knew he had seen the guy before.
Steve decided not to keep staring at the man. If he wanted to play hide and seek or whatever, he could quite well play that game too. He entered the shop, grabbing things he hadn't planned to buy. He didn't want to give off information about the way he lived.
He decided not to buy many things, knowing that this would tell somebody following him that he didn't live alone – or that he needed to eat more than possibly any other human in the world.
His suspicion was proven to be right when he noticed the man follow him through the shop.
He picked up the man's heartbeat, it was fast and strong, and the intense glances at his back. He picked up the sound of the man's shoes, being incredibly sensitive to even the quietest sounds.
He saved the information in his brain and went to the cashier to pay for his stuff before leaving, not giving his pursuer the vibe that he was in a hurry and trying to get away from him. He had only looked at the strange man for just a few seconds before walking into the shop acting completely normal, so he hoped the guy didn't notice that he noticed him.
If Steve were a normal person, the man would be doing a good job of following him, but he wasn't normal, and for someone trying to follow him for whatever reason, he was not doing a great job.
Steve wanted to know what he was dealing with and he knew that he could just ask the guy what his problem was, now that the man was even following him to the train station – and no, the man hadn't bought anything in the grocery store. But if he asked the man (and maybe punched him a few times if the man didn't tell him without violence), he'd risk that there might be other people watching him, watching them.
He took the train, getting out after three stations, then walked through the city he ended up in for a while before taking his groceries to a house where somebody he knew lived.
He just wanted to get rid of the stuff, but since he didn't want to risk his friend being hurt, he left shortly after. He took the train and went back to his city.
By the sound of his heart, his pursuer was getting weaker. His movement was slower, more sluggish now. His breathing was fast.
He didn't always keep basically right behind Steve, but he could still hear his heart pump blood.
A few times, the man needed a break or whatever, giving Steve the chance to walk away quicker.
It took another hour to get rid off the man, but it worked.
Steve then walked around for some time and bought the real groceries and after checking that nobody was following him, he went home.
He would not forget that weird day, and maybe it would help him one day.
November 28, 2018
He pulled up his collar and pulled down his cap so it might as well have hit his nose. He couldn't really see where he was going, but didn't care anyway.
His target was in sight, walking to a house that looked like every other house.
He would have never guessed that the man lived here, but it didn't matter.
He had been following the man for a while now and he was doing a good job at not leading him to his goddamn home, and that was the only thing he needed to know (okay, not exactly, he needed more information than just his address, but his address would be helpful).
So when the man now entered a house that seemed to be his, he was really glad.
He and his partner were keeping a schedule, but it had many gaps since they didn't know if every time the man was outside, were the only times he was outside, or if he had gone outside at other times when they hadn't been watching.
His partner wasn't there that day, but he was sure he could manage for a day to do this alone.
It was only watching, after all.
He had complained once that once they had found out the address, they could just send out a group of agents to catch the man when he was at home, but then people might notice that something was going on and would call the police. That was also why they couldn't just kidnap the man somewhere in town, why they needed to strategize.
Besides, they still didn't know if this was the right person.
SHIELD, that's what the target's organization called themselves, was trying really hard to keep it low with information about the mystery guy.
December 11, 2018
The man was home a lot now. His partner and other agents were controlling streets and stores, but the man didn't go outside a lot anymore.
His schedule said that the target went jogging every morning so early that he had tried to argue with his partner to take the morning watch (with no success), but now he only went out on some days.
It had been their original plan to wait for him in the forest when he was out running, but then the target just had to decide that he was stopping having a routine – after his team had waited every morning for three days straight along the lap he usually took, and the target didn't show up, they had decided not to go after that plan anymore.
It seemed like the man had taken another lap now anyway. He didn't know why.
The target had a wife and kids, they realized that some time ago.
They planned on taking either the wife or one of the children and use them as hostage, but they'd need more planning for that.