Licensed to Kill

Chapter 4

I'd spent the rest of the afternoon making my rounds through the London field office, questioning Agent Lindsey's partner, and snooping through her belongings. I'd noticed Mr. Lancaster keeping a watchful eye on me throughout the day, too, which was beginning to grate on my nerves. I didn't know what his problem was, but I was about an inch away from verbally putting him in his place. I hadn't traveled all this way to be monitored like a lab rat twenty-four-seven.

Agent Carpenter, Lindsey's partner, hadn't given me any useful information. She seemed to be completely clueless as to her partner's whereabouts, as well as anything pertaining to her solo mission in Berlin. All I'd learned so far were the dates that Lindsey was supposed to have been out of the country. I'd cross referenced that information with any events that had occurred in Germany during her stay that could have impacted her mission, but I came up short with that strategy.

Five hours into my investigation, it seemed that I was completely on my own to solve this case. No one I spoke with could provide me with any useful information, and Agent Lindsey's laptop was missing, too. I reckoned there were likely some important details in her computer files that could've helped the case, but now I may never know. The only thing that I knew for sure was that if, in fact, Agent Lindsey had abandoned the Alpha Reconnaissance Taskforce, it was imperative, per A.R.T. regulations, that she be located and brought back to the U.K. for questioning and to be prosecuted for desertion. A.R.T. had zero tolerance for any agent who intentionally went A.W.O.L.

The next phase of my investigation was to contact the local hospitals, homeless shelters, jails, morgues, and coroners' offices on the off chance that Agent Lindsey might be located or might have been seen at one of those places. This was a common police tactic when dealing with a member of the general public missing. It rarely turned up any clues into cases involving government and private agents, but I preferred to have all my bases covered. I also contacted Interpol and every other U.K. government organization I could think of that Agent Lindsey might've been in contact with. When all of these avenues turned out to be dead ends, I moved on to my next strategy: contacting the German and Israeli authorities.

Neither the Bundesnachrichtendienst – the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany – nor the Shabak or Mossad in Israel could provide me with any clues. They'd each had no contact with Agent Diana Lindsey within the last six months. This information ruled out my initial theory that Lindsey might've been in Berlin and Munich to see the German feds, whose headquarters were located in Berlin and Pullach, near Munich. Since I didn't know her apparent Mossad girlfriend's name, my brief discussion with the Israeli authorities was another quick dead end. The one question every facility and agency kept asking me, though, was how come A.R.T. had waited three months after her disappearance to enter into an investigation? I was wondering the same damn thing.

When an hour long scan of Lindsey's work emails didn't yield any new information either, I was ready to start pulling my hair out. According to Agent Carpenter, all the U.K. A.R.T. division had done when Lindsey went missing was interview her friends, family, and associates, and attempt to track her cell phone, which had turned up nothing. I'd just about shit myself learning this. A.R.T. was one of the best investigative agencies in the world. We went above and beyond to close out a case with the best possible outcome. What the U.K. division had done wasn't even enough to be considered half-assed. They hadn't even tried. Something was very rotten in London and I was damn well determined to find out what it was. I had a hunch the problem was connected to Mr. Lancaster.

When the day came to an end, I packed up my new Open Case file and let Juan drive me to the Marriott where A.R.T. had arranged for me to stay as long as I needed. The best part was that my room was on the top floor and was directly across the river from Big Ben. The view was pretty fantastic and I was happy about getting to see some of the sights from that vantage point since I wouldn't be able to play tourist on this trip. I found myself turning off all the lights and standing at the window for the longest time, staring out at the city lights. London was absolutely enchanting.