If They Knew All About You

Freak Accident

There was tranquility, a sense of peace that came with watching the snow fall. Unless you were trapped in an endless circle of futility, then watching the snow fall silently creating layer upon layer as far as the eye could see just added to that feeling of utter uselessness. That's what all his efforts had been, useless.

"Tony?"

He turned around towards the door, hadn't even noticed that Pepper had walked into the room.

"I just talked to one of the agents. There is a retired officer who lives a couple of hours outside of Kyiv, who has overseen all the cases of national and international trafficking up until July when he retired. He would be happy to talk to us about the Kamenev lead and the cases that were connected with the ring."

He looked away from her. They had been in Ukraine for two weeks and they had nothing to show for their efforts. Only dead ends. Just like Vancouver, Warsaw, Barcelona, Dubai, Montevideo, Santiago, Mexico City. Off the top of his head. Every private investigator they had met told them the same thing. Children trafficked from the US to Ukraine were always connected to kidnapping cases where the perpetrators angled for money, information, access to something, some kind of ransom.

But nobody had ever made contact. Nobody had ever asked Tony for money or weapons or trade secrets, nothing. 2 years, 9 months, 29 days. Nothing. Nobody ever asked for anything in exchange so he could get his son back. Most likely... most likely this wasn't it. The details didn't fit. But neither did they fit with any of the other leads. What was he supposed to do? Give up?

He cleared his throat. "You think we should give it a shot? Or are they just sucking as much money out of us as possible?"

"Either way, they definitely are trying to get the most money out of this they can." Pepper kept her distance. "That doesn't matter though, does it? You won't sleep for the foreseeable future if we don't drive out there and talk to the guy, wondering if it would have uncovered something. Probably wouldn't let it go 'til we came back and met with the man if we don't go now."

"I won't sleep until Aiden's home anyway, no matter what the guy has to say."

That wasn't all that true. A good bottle of whiskey could actually make him forget for a bit and let him sleep. He didn't have to point that out to Pepper though, she knew.

"I guess, we should go then."

Tony nodded, eyes on the white snow blankets on the trees outside. A couple of hours outside of Kyiv. That meant four or five hours of traveling, maybe more. They might get stuck in a snowbank on one of the rural country roads again and would have to wait for someone that would pick them up or pull their car out of the snow. That could cost them even more time. Then it would probably be another hour maybe two that they'd spend talking to this former officer. Tony checked his watch. 4:00 pm. Even if they'd left right away they likely wouldn't be back in time to fly out back to the states that same day. They'd have to wait until traffic control would open the runway the next morning. 17 hours of flight time. That would get them home sometime in the afternoon on the next day. Most likely Pepper was just trying to keep him out of his house for Christmas morning.

"We probably won't make the take-off window for today then," he pointed out.

"Probably not." She stayed quiet for another moment. "I already talked to traffic control. We could get another spot in the flight order tomorrow morning at 9:30."

Tony nodded. He was right then. She likely thought that seeing the guy was pointless. She likely thought that if they left for LA now, after chasing lead after lead for months and months, after this very last one would come to nothing as well, that spending Christmas morning in an empty house in Malibu would be too much. That the third Christmas morning at home without Aiden after all their attempts to find him had failed would simply be too much.