Season 1, Episode 10:
Catch Her If You Can
Part 5 of 10
Styx
pushed the Lobby button once they were all in the elevator and stiffened his
shoulders slightly when he stood before Nick and Diamond, in the manner of a
bodyguard.
None
of them had said a word when the elevator stopped with a soft ding on the
lobby.
“Ladies
first.” Styx moved aside and gestured
the way for Di, who flashed a flirtatious smile and stepped out.
“I
think we should head to Germany,” Nick piped up thoughtfully, once they were
all out of the elevator. “That Jess
Nelson took the flight there, and it’s strong enough evidence where the next
crime will happen.”
Diamond
scratched her head and threw her sleek, black hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know, Nick. I don’t have any idea where we should go
next.” She sighed slowly, as her eyes
wandered around the lobby. “It’s like
we’re all blindfolded, with a stick in our hands, trying to hit the piñata. We know we hit something whenever there’s a
clue, but it never explodes.”
Nick
insisted. “I know it’s Germany this
time. The girl left very clear evidence,
named herself Jess Nelson, and took the flight to Munich. It’s a lead we wouldn’t want to miss. And we don’t even know where else to go,
anyway, do we?”
“How
can you be so sure that it’s really the actual lead and not a trap? Maybe she just wants us to go to Munich when
she’s on the other side of the world?” Styx argued. “No offense, man, but I think it’s a very
vague lead when you consider the enormity of this mission. She’s travelling all over the world, dawg;
it’s ridiculous!”
Nick
shrugged. “I just know it. And we have to start from somewhere,
especially before the Feds bust our asses.
What better place to start than the one with the stronger lead?”
“I
still think it’s hardly evidence-”
“That’s
why I’m a 008 and you’re a rookie, Styx,” Nick replied curtly, looking annoyed
at the young agent’s forwardness. “It
comes with experience and learning to trust your instincts, which you lack and
I have plenty of. So watch closely and
observe, rookie. Maybe you’ll learn a
thing or two from the master.”
Styx
rolled his eyes significantly when Nick turned his back to walk outside the
hotel and mumbled under his breath, “And that comes from someone who’s been on
a six-month hiatus for blowing an agent up.”
“I’ve
heard that, Styx!” Nick hissed over his shoulder. “You better watch where your words are going,
unless you want K to read an extensive and possibly not-very-positive report
about you during the mission.”
Sending
an apologetic smile to Styx, Diamond paced to catch Nick just as they all made
it outside the hotel.
“Don’t
you think you’re being a little harsh to Styx?” she questioned, following him
towards the car.
Nick
eyed the agent who was strolling behind them without hurry. “I like the kid, but he’s too arrogant and
thinks he has it all figured out. He
can’t learn if he doesn’t observe and listen; that’s how I learned, and that’s
how I’ll teach,” Nick stated matter-of-factly.
“I’m Obi-Wan to his Anakin. Jedi
to his Padawan.”
“Kinda
reminds me of someone in his early days.”
She poked Nick playfully in the side as they got into the car. “There you go,” she said, when a small smile
appeared on his lips. “Just give him time;
he’ll learn.”
“Whatever,”
he mumbled, starting the engine, as Styx took his place in the back seat.
± ± ±
Di
glared up from the magazine she was reading.
“Would you please stop doing that?
It’s annoying.”
Nick
stopped in the midst of his tapping on the wooden table. “Stop what?” he asked innocently, the
melodies of the song still playing in his head.
“Stop
that.” Di placed her hand on his. “The tapping.
And humming ‘Mambo No. 5.’”
Nick
grinned. “I’m bored!”
They’d
been sitting at the airport pub for the past hour and a half, waiting to board
their flight to Germany. It was all a
mystery to him that it took this long to fly from one European city to another,
but unfortunately, the next available flight to Munich wasn’t going to take off
for another hour. And it didn’t really
make the wait easier when they knew a bunch of Feds were on their tails.
Puffing,
he leaned against the chair. “My bum
went numb.” He searched through the pub
for the sights of Styx. “How long could
it take a person to grab two beers?”
“Give
the kid a break, Nick,” Diamond mumbled, without looking up from the magazine.
“He’s
slow!” Nick hissed, when he saw Styx coming out from the corner with two large
glasses of beer. “May the Force be with
us if he’s be THAT slow in an actual combat.”
“He’s
so new, and he’s just learning.” Diamond
rolled her eyes. “If you let him, of
course. Even K wasn’t that harsh on you
when you first started, and you’re just pushing him too hard, unnecessarily.”
Nick
opened his mouth to argue, when the ringing of his phone cut him short. Just about at the same time, Styx placed the
cold beer in front of him and plopped down onto the chair next to Nick.
Nick
groaned when he saw the caller ID flashing on the screen. Just what he needed.
“00Carter,”
he answered huskily, which took Diamond’s attention from what she was
reading. She raised an eyebrow to Nick
questioningly, only to receive a shrug.
“We
got the next clue solved, Carter,” Leo’s voice was heard on the other
line. “The plane ticket to Germany is a
set-up. The clue leads to France.”
“France?”
Nick asked doubtfully. “Are you sure
about that, Di-Crapio?”
“Look,
dumbass, I really have no time to deal with you, alright? Just do as I say, and go to France.”
“We
have stronger evidence, let me tell ya.
I hardly think she’d just plot the whole scheme and NOT go to
Germany. How can we know that your clue
isn’t the trap and the lead we discovered is?
Can you prove it?”
He
heard Leo sigh exasperatedly on the other end. “We’re working on the same side, Carter! Shocking news huh? We’ve been racking our brains here to figure
out a bunch of fucking gibberish on a piece of paper that is encrypted in some
old World War I code-”
“What’s
he saying?” Diamond wondered, when Nick kept listening silently. Being silent and listening were not exactly
his best skills. Especially not at the
same time.
“France,”
Nick mouthed slowly.
“Is
she going to France?” Styx questioned.
Nick
gave his attention back to Leo, who was still explaining on the other
line. “You should remember the first
clue that we found in the Library of Congress, a bunch of words encrypted in a
weird code. Opal figures out the code, and
there comes another bunch of words in some unknown language. Thanks to Opal, we figure out it’s Scottish
Gaelic, and we translate it to English, and voila, there comes the meaningful
text – or, should I say, a part from a well-known book in literature, none
other than the Harry Potter-”
“Harry
Potter?!” Nick cut him off in mid-sentence, only to confuse Diamond and Styx
more.
“Shut
up and listen. So we figure out it’s
Harry Potter, and the passage is actually pointing to somewhere in London. So we go there, only to find a new piece of
paper with another set of meaningless words written in another code. Like I said, we’ve been racking our brains
all day to find out what it was. And the
ever-genius Opal figures it’s Übchi – an old, World War I era cipher, used by
the Germans in the war. So next we have
to find out what was used as the key word and whether the duplicates numbered
forwards or backwards. And here Jay has
the brilliant idea that since everything she does involves books, the key word
must be about books – or about literature, anyway-”
Nick
let out a snort. “Wake me up when you
start talking English again.”
“Would
you be serious for a minute?” Leo sniped.
“This may sound like a joke to you, but we actually take what we do
seriously-”
“I
don’t need a lecture from you for what to take seriously or not.”
“Whatever. You want to hear the rest or not? Because, seriously, I’ve had enough with your
crap.” When Nick was silent, Leo
continued. “Okay, what was I
saying? Yeah, about literature. Jay thought the key could somehow have a link
to literature. But I also thought that
it had something to do with World War I, so we started trying all the famous
novelists that have written something about World War I. We tried Barbusse, Rebecca West, Rolland,
Stallings… you name it. Finally, we
found out Remarque – Eriche Maria Remarque, that is; of course you wouldn’t
know – was the key. He was a German
author who wrote ‘All Quiet on the Western Front,’ the most popular anti-war
book of the World War I period. Ring a
bell?”
To be
honest, it didn’t. Everything Leo was
babbling on the phone was too detailed for Nick’s taste, too much unnecessary
information.
“What’s
going on, Nick?” Diamond couldn’t hold
herself back anymore. “I want to hear
what he’s saying; put him on speaker!”
Nick
ignored her request. “It doesn’t, and I
don’t give a shitball,” he spoke finally.
“While you bookworms have got your noses buried deep in the history of
literature, we’re the ones trying to catch a felon here AND run away from the
FBI all at the same time! So I don’t
have time to dwell on the details. And
frankly, nothing you just said made a damn bit of sense to me, and I still
can’t see how this could be stronger evidence than a flat-out plane itinerary
to Germany, where we know she’s
heading!”
Leo’s
patience was growing thin. “Because it
fucking makes sense! There’s a pattern
there! She steals books, she leaves
clues from books, and she’s pointing out where she’s gonna be stealing from
next! Her first clue lead to London, and
she stole Beowulf. Does your brain function at all, or did you
lose it on a plane ride somewhere? The
text we deciphered was in fucking FRENCH.
Do you care at all what it says?!”
“Fine.” Nick heard the rustling sound of the papers
on the background.
“So
here it goes: Is a prison the fitting place to talk to me about power, grandeur, and
even royalty? You wish to make me
believe in splendor, and we are lying hidden in night; you boast of glory, and
we are smothering our words in the curtains of this miserable bed; you give me
glimpses of absolute power, and I hear the step of the jailer in the
corridor,- that step which, after all, makes you tremble more than it does
me. To render me somewhat less
incredulous, free me from the Bastille; give air to my lungs, spurs to my feet,
a sword to my arm, and we shall begin to understand each other.”
“So
according to your theory, what book is that from?”
“The Man In The Iron Mask,” Leo
replied. “It was talking about Bastille,
and I read the book a while ago, so I could remember it easily. Do you know anything about the book at all?”
“I’ve
seen the movie.” Nick shrugged and then
snickered, as his face lit up. “Speaking
of which, that dude looks kinda like you with long hair. Though, I have to admit, he was better
looking than you, even with that iron mask on.”
“Okay,
do you have any idea what those two are talking about?” Styx muttered to
Diamond, who shook her head, causing her new raven locks to dance around her
shoulder.
“Fuck
you, Carter. Just cancel the flight to
Germany, and go to France, alright? The
next plane to Paris takes off in half an hour, so you better rush. And that’s a direct order coming from Jay, if
you’re interested to know.” With that,
Leo hung up.
“Finally!”
Diamond let out a hiss when Nick put the phone down. “What the hell is going on, Nick?”
Nick
got up from his seat, taking a big gulp from his now warm beer. “I got a bad feeling about this. It doesn’t feel right,” he muttered. “Come on, I’ll tell you on the way. We have a plane to catch.”
Fifteen
minutes later, they were all buckled up in the comfortable first class of Air
France.
“I
still don’t get why you have a bad feeling about going to France,” Diamond
wondered, as she watched Nick tense up on her right, grabbing the sides of the
seat tightly. She smiled and put her
hand on his arm, in hopes of soothing him.
His fear of flying… she’d always found it cute. “I think Vitruvian has a very strong lead
that could take us to the thief. We
should follow that instead of Germany.
Why don’t you trust his clue?”
Oh, don’t you start using his
fake stupid alias. Because I hate his
guts, and he’s always trying to get his way around you, and you’re falling for
it, and it’s just annoying to see that, to top it off, you believe him now, Nick thought inwardly. “I just don’t,” he replied dryly, as plane
took to full throttle.
Diamond
looked across the aisle. Styx had his
headphones on and eyes closed, tapping his feet along to whatever he was
listening to.
“Don’t
be such a whiny baby, you,” she teased Nick. “We’re trying to catch this woman and we’re
all trying to do our best here, I believe Vitruvian has the same intentions
that you do. Give people more credit,
will you?”
Nick
shrugged and closed his eyes, as he felt the wheels of the plane left the ground. He could use a nap.
± ± ±
Federal
Agents Tom and Hank stood in the now-vacant hotel room in Beijing, looking
around for any clues as to where the insufferable Carter and Ms. Desai were
headed.
“I
need answers!” Tom barked. “C'mon,
gentlemen!”
“Tom,
give them a break. They knew agents were
coming. Someone warned them, and-” Hank was unable to finish his statement.
“Warning,
warning!” Tom shouted. “If they’d taken
what I told them seriously, the field agents would have them in custody, and we
would be taking them home.” He glared at
the two agents who had been sent out from the FBI’s office at the American
Embassy in Beijing to apprehend the culprits while they were still on the
flight to China.
“The
only thing going our way is the fact that that pompous Carter called us,” Tom
grumbled, as he walked away and punched some numbers into his cell phone. “Carl.”
The Boston accent was stronger than usual. “The only lead we have that is Desai is with
Carter. Get this: he said he'd call later.” He paused for Carl to respond. “Yeah, I got it.”
Tom
hung up the phone and punched more numbers into it. He looked over at Hank, who gave him a
questioning look. “Littrell!” Tom barked into the phone. “It seems you might be holding out on
us. Carter called us and told us they
were together. We need to know what you
know now, or else this is going to turn out very bad for you in the end.”
Hank
watched as Tom listened, presumably, to Brian Littrell on the other end. Hank did not know the words that were being
said, but he could tell it was not what Tom wanted to hear.
“We
wait for the Carter kid to call us,” Tom growled and threw himself into the
nearest chair.
± ± ±
“00Prick
better be on his way here,” grumbled Leo, as he stuffed his cell phone into his
pocket. “So help me, if he takes the
other team to Germany instead…”
“Chill,
dude; they’ll come,” Jay assured him.
“Nick may not like you, but he’s got enough respect for me to haul his
ass here if I tell him to. And hey, if
he doesn’t, we can always get K on the line to chew him out.”
The
two men chuckled knowingly.
Opal
didn’t even smile. She stood apart from
them, frowning down at the piece of paper in her hand, then looking up and
around the square. She did this several
times before she asked, “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
Jay
consulted the map of Paris he’d picked up at the airport. “I think so.
This is Place de la Bastille.”
“Well,
then, where’s the Bastille? I mean, I
know it’s been demolished, but I thought there would be something here, some
ruins or… something.” Her eyes scanned the modern buildings that
surrounded them: an opera house, a
subway station, numerous cafés and bars.
The only thing that looked historical was the monument in the center of
the square, a tall column she’d thought for sure would have something to do
with the Bastille. It had stood out like
a beacon, drawing her straight to it, but the plaque on its base revealed that
it had been built to commemorate the July Revolution of 1830 instead. “Do either of you see anything even related
to the prison?”
They
all looked around, puzzling for a few minutes.
“It has to be somewhere in this square,” Leo said assuredly. He was the one who had led them here. “This is where the Bastille used to stand.”
Maybe
we should ask someone,” Opal suggested.
Jay
scowled. “We don’t need to ask for
directions. It’s a clue; it’s for us to
figure out. We can do it; we did with
the last one.”
“Yeah,
but the last one led to a pretty specific place…”
“If
you’re a Harry Potter nerd like Jay,” Leo interjected, flashing Jay a teasing
grin.
“…
This one just points us to the Bastille, which no longer exists,” Opal
continued smoothly. “The next clue has
to be here somewhere, but look around – this square is huge! It’s going to be like finding a needle in a
haystack unless we know where to look.
We need to ask someone who’s familiar with the area where there might be
some remnant or reference to the actual Bastille.”
“Alright,
fine. You’re the woman; you go get the directions,”
said Jay flatly.
Opal
looked to Leo, who nodded in agreement, still grinning. “Fine,” she sighed, and set off to find
someone who didn’t look like a tourist.
She spotted an old man, leisurely sipping coffee outside a sidewalk
café, and approached him hesitantly, self-conscious of her hot pink hair and
crazy, Europunk outfit. She was too old
to dress this way; she looked like a rebellious teenager. Then again, it was Jay who had picked out her
new wardrobe, and he wore eyeliner and painted his fingernails black, so she
shouldn’t have been too surprised. “Excuse me, sir?” she asked the man
politely in French.
He
looked up from his drink. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb
you. I’m here studying the Bastille, and
I was hoping you could point me in the direction of any relics of it that might
be preserved here.”
The
old man frowned, scratching his whiskery chin.
Finally, he replied, “All that’s
left of the prison is a pile of stones from one of the towers. They were excavated from underneath the
subway at the turn of the last century.
They’re in the Square Henri Galli now, down Boulevard Henri IV.” With his gnarled index finger, he pointed
down a nearby street.
“Thank you!” Opal thanked him profusely
and hurried back to Jay and Leo. “This way!”
she said excitedly, leading them in the direction the man had pointed. They clipped along Boulevard Henri IV at a
brisk walk, not realizing how many blocks they’d gone until they could see the
Seine River up ahead. Just before it,
they came to a small park, the square the old man had named, and it was there
that they found the circle of large, stone bricks that had been part of the
Bastille.
The
small monument was unimpressive compared to the massive July Tower, but it was
surrounded by beautiful flowers. Opal
picked her way carefully through them, Leo on her heels, and squatted down to
read a small plaque at the base of the stones.
VESTIGES DES
FONDATIONS
DE LA BASTILLE
LA TOUR DE LA
LIBERTÉ
DÉCOUVERTS EN
1899
ET TRANSPORTÉS
SUR CET EMPLACEMENT
The
plaque was in French, but she translated into English as she read it out
loud. “Remains of the foundation of the
Bastille, the Liberty Tower, discovered in 1899 and transported to this
location.”
“This
is it,” Leo said confidently. “Start
looking. Check all the cracks; it’s
probably wedged between two stones.”
They
split apart, working their way slowly around the pile of rubble, running their
hands over every stone, poking fingers into every crevasse. Jay and Leo even had small flashlights, which
they shined into the cracks too tiny to reach, but they found nothing.
“It’s
gotta be around here somewhere!” cried Jay in frustration, kicking at one of
the stones. “Where else could it be?”
“Maybe
we were right the first time,” said Leo.
“Maybe it is back in the other square, where the Bastille actually was.”
They’d
been so sure they would find the clue in the pile of stones, none of them
wanted to admit they were wrong. They
searched the monument one more time, but still came up empty-handed. Admitting defeat, they turned and headed back
to Place de la Bastille. The long walk
took even longer than it had the first time; they trudged along, slowly and
silently, deep in thought.
Opal
stared down at her feet, watching the sidewalk give way to cobblestones as they
entered the large square. She noticed
large white paving stones set into the smaller, gray cobblestones, forming a
sort of pattern – an almost-complete circle that veered off into perpendicular
lines stretching off in two different directions. A
corner, she thought, and it was then that she noticed a small plaque on the
wall of a nearby building. Leaving the
men, she scurried over to read it.
PLAN DE LA
BASTILLE · COMMENCÉE EN 1370
PRISE PAR LE
PEUPLE LE 14 JUILLET 1789
ET DÉMOLIE LA MÊME
ANNÉE.
LE PÉRIMÈTRE DE
LA FORTERESSE
EST TRACÉ SUR LE
SOL DE CETTE PLACE
14 JUILLET 1880.
“Guys!”
she shouted, running back to Jay and Leo.
“This could be it! Look down…
these white stones, they mark the perimeter of the building; they show where the
Bastille stood! Maybe the clue’s under
one of these!”
The
two men glanced down skeptically. The
flat stones seemed firmly embedded into the ground. But Opal was convinced she was right. “We just need to find one that looks like
it’s been disturbed,” she said confidently.
They
set off, walking the “wall” of the Bastille as if it were a balance beam. They followed the perimeter across streets
and around buildings that it seemed to cut right through. Even to the crowds of tourists, they must have
looked odd – two grown men and a pink-haired woman, walking in a single file
line with their heads down, eyes fixed firmly on the ground.
Even
her careful attention did not prevent Opal, who was in the lead, from catching
the toe of her Chuck Taylors on one of the stones and tripping. She stumbled forward, arms outstretched, and
managed to catch her balance before she fell.
Far from being embarrassed, she whipped around to look at the stone
she’d tripped on. Jay and Leo were
already squatting on the ground.
“This
one’s been messed with,” said Jay, his brown eyes large and gleaming. “It’s uneven.
Someone’s pried it up and tried to wedge it back in again, but it’s not
a perfect fit. This is it, kids. Help me get it up.”
Opal
stood back out of the way as Leo and Jay strained to pull the heavy stone out
of the ground. With a lot of grunting,
they finally managed, flipping it over onto the cobblestone. Leo’s hand shot out to snatch a small,
plastic baggie that had been flattened beneath the stone. Opal’s heart began to race with excitement as
she saw the white piece of paper folded inside.
She
and Jay crowded around Leo as he opened the bag and pulled out the next clue.
± ± ±
When
Nick, Diamond, and Styx arrived in Paris, they took a cab straight to the
location they’d been asked to meet, a little sidewalk café that overlooked a
marina. Nick eyed the boats wistfully,
but there was no time to dawdle; Leo, Jay, and Opal were waiting for them. As the two teams greeted each other and
gathered around a pair of tables they’d pushed together, Nick noticed Leo being
quiet, avoiding the new arrivals’ gazes.
Something was up. Nick could feel
it.
“Alright,
pretty boy,” Nick shot out to Leo.
“What's next?”
“Well,
the good news,” Opal started, “is that we found another clue. The clue is written in a pictogram language
that I am sure I can crack.” She whipped
out a piece of paper to show the second team the new clue.
Everyone
looked at the most recent clue. “Looks
like the little men are dancing to me,” Styx chuckled to himself
Opal
stared at Styx for a moment, lost in thought.
“Dancing men,” she repeated.
“There is a code that uses...”
She got up and wandered away from the group, concentrating on the page
with the encrypted clue in her hand.
“She
said that was the good. That means
there's bad?” Nick asked, glaring at Leo.
Whatever it was, he was sure it was his fault.
Jay
slid into Opal’s seat, putting himself between Nick and Leo, and turned towards
Carter. “There's been some news,” he
started. Jay looked serious, and Nick
knew he wasn't going to like the news.
“Have
the Feds caught up to us?” Nick
scowled. He saw the group shake their
heads. “Brian isn't in any more
trouble?” He was just starting to like
that guy; he didn't want to see him lose his job or, worse, end up in a federal
prison.
“No,
according to our sources, the Feds are still running around like chickens with
their heads cut off back in China.” Jay
looked from Leo back to Nick. “We just
got word that another book was stolen.”
“From
France? Do you think there's still some
time to catch her here?” Nick looked
around, half-expecting to see the woman standing around watching them.
“The
book was not stolen from here,” Leo interjected. “It was stolen from the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek.”
“The
what?” Nick, Diamond, and Styx said at once.
“The
Bavarian State Library, sometimes referred to as BSB,” Leo continued. “It’s one of the best research libraries in
the world.”
“One
of the forty-eight remaining copies of the Gutenberg Bible was stolen from the
library. It was a perfect copy on paper
and one of the only two copies with an index of rubices,” Opal explained,
dropping back into an empty chair across the table from Nick.
“So
we were on our way to Germany, and this 'agent’-” Nick sarcastically emphasized the last
word. “-tells us to come to France, that
we were wasting our time going to Germany, and…” Nick finished his statement by yelling in
aggravation, “You know what, Di-Craprio, it seems to me that you’re sabotaging
us on purpose!”
“Me,
sabotaging? And where exactly is Drums
right now?” Leo shot back.
The
two agents rose from their seats and stood almost nose to nose, staring each
other down. “Don't test me,” growled
Nick. “You question my skills, and this
is what you get! A chance to catch the
thief, ruined by this growing pain!”
“Chill,”
Jay interjected, moving between them again.
“Nick,
take it easy. It was an honest
mistake.” Diamond stood up beside Nick
and placed her hand on his shoulder, attempting to calm him down.
Leo
smirked briefly at Nick, giving him a look that seemed to say, Ha, she's defending me.
Still
glaring at Leo, Nick slipped his arm around Diamond's waist and smiled
broadly. “Come on, sexy. We have a plane to catch.”
± ± ±