. . . so for people like Olivia, this is all useless information.” Neil changed the image of a different time of day. He stopped and zeroed in on a man. “This is Charlie. The kids refer to him as Checkpoint Charlie.”
Leo laughed. “Cute.”
“Properly named. He was the proverbial guard at the front door of the school. He is a big reason Sasha and Claire are still alive. This is the man who told me Olivia was there.”
“Is he on your payroll?”
“No. But he knows what’s happening on campus. I’ve checked in with him several times to make sure a new Pohl wasn’t around. He’s always helped out. When Olivia left, I messaged him and asked that he inform me of any visitors. He refused.”
“Why?”
“Maybe to protect Olivia? I don’t know. But she must have said something that convinced him to reach out.”
Leo ran his fingers over the five o’clock shadow he’d started to grow for a woman who was running away. “He wants us to find her.”
“I think he wants to help save every kid they lost. Including the one who shot her.”
Leo could see that angle. “Looks like Checkpoint Charlie needs to be interviewed. We need to know what he told her.”
“He’s not going to tell you,” Neil said.
“That’s not going to stop me from asking. Do we know when Olivia was there?”
Neil stared at him . . . silent.
Leo stared back.
Neil looked away, typed on his computer. “Charlie didn’t say. The campus is pretty tight. When we infiltrated, we went in late, in numbers, and we hacked the then internal system to go undetected.” He stopped the footage from the service entrance to focus on a truck. “If I were solo, I’d blend.”
The words on the truck were in German, and Leo couldn’t read them, but the image of sheets drying on a clothesline told him what it was.
“When was this taken?”
“Twenty hours ago.”
“Just enough time to put Olivia anywhere on the map.”
Leo did not know how he was going to get this one past his boss. Not that it mattered. “I need a plane ticket.” He pulled out his phone.
“Charlie will never talk to you.”
“I can be convincing.”
“They won’t even let you on campus.”
“Then I’ll see him when he goes home.”
“He lives there.”
Leo sat back down and opened a Google search for plane tickets. “If Gwen were missing, would you sit here and do nothing if you knew she was breathing on a different continent?”
“Put your phone away,” Neil grumbled. “Your flight leaves tomorrow at ten in the morning. I’m sending Jax with you. Claire and Sasha were both a part of blowing up the establishment and are scrutinized. Jax walks in unnoticed. Charlie might talk to her.”
Claire’s singsong voice repeating warm and fuzzy sounded in Leo’s head. “You’re a good man.”
“I have a team based just outside of London, they know Jax. If you find information you need to jump on, they are there, and I’ll be on the next flight out. Don’t be a martyr.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Olivia had maps of the area surrounding A Róka, the establishment Charlie had told her about. The Fox, aptly named, sat in the center of District Five with the parliament building a short distance north, the Danube to the west, and Liberty Square to the east. The location offered escape routes in all directions, routes she was choreographing now.
This was uncharted territory. There had never been a time she actively sought out one of her own. She was walking an extremely tight rope. Simply walking into A Róka would expose her. Yes, she would wear a disguise . . . but as the saying goes, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter. It was easy for her to detect who was camouflaged and who was not. And when you see a familiar face and cannot place them, you tend to look longer and harder, and that would cast attention Olivia didn’t want. There was no way around walking into the nightclub. The only information about the place online was that there was a strict dress code, and cell phone use was not allowed inside.
It would take nine hours to drive there. An unavoidable route since there was no way in hell Olivia was going to arrive without a weapon.
She wanted nothing to do with searching out replacements, and getting the weapons past airport security without inside help was too risky.
Olivia’s attention started to wane.
Sure enough, it was two in the morning.
She buttoned up her desk, made sure everything for a quick