I need a drink.

But I have a team, and I need to make sure that they don't get hurt.

I also need to find Mint without all the technology our age has to offer. Lacking the gadgets of the Agency, I'm cast back to the previous century. It's classic agent work now, trying to find contacts, traces, and patterns in the chaos, asking around, using my eyes instead of a whole surveillance team. No pre-processed data this time.

But failure is not an option. Mint has Gabriel.

No matter what I said to my team, I'm worried about her. Mint doesn't know how to treat her. She must feel terrible. Her nervous system isn't designed to spend so much time with a brute who's clueless about her needs.

We must be quick.

We.

The word makes me wonder. What have I become? I'm working with a psychotic psychiatrist who thinks he's a super-agent and an amorous kindergarten manager who refuses to go home since I gave her a ride.

I'm known to work alone. Everyone else slows me down, but, on the other hand, no man is an island, indeed. With my old team, under Gabriel's command, we were like a family.

She also told me something about my lone wolf tendencies before she was kidnapped. I didn't understand half of it, to be honest, and I didn't care much, either. Something like we work with a different kind of equation now, because she knows the result, but one of the variables is tricky, and that's why I can't prevail all alone. She didn't explain what she's talking about, though, and I didn't ask. It didn't seem that important at the moment, it was just one of her theoretical thingies she loves to indulge in.

It's highly improbable that she was thinking about Nicole and Frank. She wanted to make sure that I wouldn't kill Mint, hinting that we might need to cooperate. Well, I promised that I wouldn't kill him in exchange for her help, but we're not working together anymore, are we?

"What are you thinking about, captain?" Frank asks, out of the blue, startling me. I got too used to being alone, as it seems.

"About the possible traces we could follow," I tell him. "We can try to find Gabriel, or we can try to find Mint. They're together somewhere, so both ways lead to the same place."

"Who'd you like to start with?"

"With Gabriel," I answer without thinking twice.

"Okay," he agrees. "Let's talk about her habits and preferences first, then. If she has a say in deciding where they are and what they do, and you seem to think that she has, every little piece of information might help us. Tell me everything about her that may be relevant."

I stare at him for a few minutes, trying to come up with something useful. Then, with something not so helpful, but still interesting. Then, with absolutely anything that I know about her and may or may not help us locate her.

"Um," I mumble, accepting that I won't find the answer in Frank's eyes, "there's a coat she left at my place, and there might be something in its pocket, a possible clue, maybe."

"Very good." He nods without the slightest trace of irony. "Let's talk about Mint now, okay?"

"Okay. Well, I'm sure he didn't move far from his previous headquarters because he's practical to a fault, and that would mean a waste of effort. I'm also sure that he chose a simple house, one that could pass for an office building, not just to avoid being detected again, but it's also a matter of taste; no matter how much money he has, he'd never turn into one of those over-compensating assholes with twenty Jaguars in the garage. It's probably a busy street, with heavy traffic, because last time, the relatively quiet environment was the main reason his army's coming and going stood out, and he's not a man who makes the same mistake twice. He also avoids certain districts, not even consciously; he just hates them because of some bad childhood memories or stuff like that; I can give you a detailed list about those."

I still could go on and on for hours, I'm afraid. But I'm out of breath.

"Very good," Frank repeats, in all seriousness. "Now, let's move to your conclusions."

"We're looking for an office building in an adjacent district, and I know the exact date they moved there, so we're quite good."

"Not that one, Duke," he says, looking me deep in the eyes. "Your real conclusion. I could summarize it too, but it's much more effective when the patient says it out loud."

"I know nothing about Gabriel!" I burst out. "And I know everything about Mint!"

I wish I sounded less desperate. And I wish I had reminded Frank of the fact that I wasn't his patient anymore, just the way I planned when I opened my mouth.

"Exactly," he says. "See, that's what professional help is good for. Now let's talk about your plan of killing Mint."

"It's not up to discussion. It must be done. It's—"

"Okay, slow down," Frank says, touching my shoulder. "I'm not blaming you. I'm trying to help you to communicate your feelings."

"I don't want to talk about my feelings! And I don't want to communicate at all! We're not here to have a conversation! We have a mission!"

"Indeed, we do," Nicole joins in. "But maybe Frank's not entirely wrong thinking that—"

I kinda forgot that she was here, too, listening to Frank analyzing the shit out of me.

"I don't care," I interrupt her.

It's time for her to face the harsh truth. I'm not Bond. I'm fucked up. And I'm going to kill Mint, even if it breaks me.

"Let's talk about action, shall we?" I go on without allowing any of them to cut in. "Nicole, I need you to do fieldwork. I know it's a huge thing to ask without any previous experience, but I trust your skills."

"Do you... do you need me?" she asks, gasping for air.

I hope her intel-gathering abilities are better than the logical ones she uses to detect the gist of a sentence.

"You must collect information about companies moving around the district," I inform her. "Ask around. Call moving companies. Whatever. Can you do that? For—"

"For?" she asks with a dreamy expression in her eyes.

"For the cause," I finish my sentence.

"Oh," she sighs. "Okay. I'm on it. For the cause, of course."

"And you, Frank," I say, turning to him, "you should find a way to know if there was a sudden peak experienced in the number of minor crimes, somewhere around there. Mint is clever, but his men are not. And where there's smoke, there's fire."

"I should infiltrate the police, in other words."

"Infiltrate? Hell no. Just go there and ask for their statistics. It's public data, man."

"Oh." He pouts. "That doesn't sound very interesting. Do you want to keep the danger and the action for yourself, captain?"

"Yeah. I'm going to fetch Gabriel's coat and check its pocket. If I'm not back by sunset, I died of too much excitement, dumbass."

They disperse without further questions.

I forgot to tell them to wear a mask. But they will be reminded by seeing other people wearing it. I wish they knew how lucky they are. When I started to do fieldwork, I couldn't just put on a mask and get lost in the crowd. Now it's too easy to protect your identity; it almost feels like cheating.

I take a deep breath before I enter my safe place. It's always a different feeling to be here than to be anywhere else, like arriving home, in the original sense of the word. And the fact that Gabriel's been here makes the place even more special.

The serene feeling lasts until I close the door behind my back.

Someone was here. Someone who knew how to neutralize all my secret alarm mechanisms, and then, before leaving, put them back in working order as if nothing had happened. All of them, except for one. The one I started to use after Mint left the Agency.

He was here.

In my sanctuary. The only place that wasn't tainted by his ever-lingering, ever-disturbing, filthy presence.

He found his way here. After invading my thoughts, my peace of mind, my conscience, my dreams, he set foot on the only place I wanted to keep intact. The only place I denied him.

I feel violated. And so angry that I'm trembling.

Gabriel told him about the location.

For a fleeting moment, as cruel as it sounds, I hope that he extorted information from her by torture. But I know he didn't.

How could she betray me like this?

I wish I were as simple as Mint, and breaking things could calm me. But I'm not an animal. I'm something worse.

I need a drink.

Fuck the world. Fuck my team. Fuck Gabriel, that fucking lying turncoat.

But most of all, fuck Mint.