criticalbreak5

Christopher rounded a corner before he dared remove the glasses. He opened and airport locker with an orange plastic key, and he exchanged his coat for a crisp black business jacket and a tie. As he stared at himself in the locker’s tiny magnetic mirror, the earthy, sickeningly sweet smile faded, and the brightness in his eyes dimmed to a practiced harshness. He looked like he’d aged ten years in about four seconds.
   And the man called Christopher Patterson, who he had been for so many years, ceased to exist. It wasn’t a perfect change, not the way the girl or the first Pretender, Jarod could manage, but it was close. Close enough for the work he did.
   He reached into the locker, dumped the glasses on the shelf, and pulled out a cellular telephone. He pulled up the antenna and dialed a telephone number he had meticulously memorized, and now would meticulously forget.
   The voice on the other end of the line hissed in and out, as the man who owned it struggled to breathe. “SL. . .” Breath. “Twenty-Seven”
“Is this a secure line?” he asked, his British accent breaking slowly back into the original American. He would not speak unless it was.
   There was a click, and a short fuzz. “Report.”
   “This is Proteus.” That was not, of course, his correct name, but it was the one that got paid, and he used it often enough. “We may have a problem, Mr. Raines.”
   Breath. “What?”
   “I followed the girl, as you instructed. She just got on an airplane bound for Dover.”
   Breath. And another. “This is a. . . difficult situation.” Breath. “Why didn’t you act?”
   “I was not informed that I was to take further action upon her escape.”
   “Get. . .on the next flight. Do not lose her.” Breath. “And do not, under any circumstances, allow her to come in contact with. . .” Breath. “. . .the original subject. That is of the highest priority.”
   “One of them will die before he or she meets the other,” he promised. But this was not entirely true. Proteus believed in giving the other players a fighting chance. It made the game interesting. But the Centre would get them both in the end. The game was entertaining, but it was the money—and his obedience—which kept Proteus alive.
   “Your check will be dropped in the regular box.” Breath. Breath. “And there will be a bonus for discovering the girl’s escape.”
   Proteus cut the line first, as a matter of asserting his authority; Raines was only a bit player, and Proteus saw fit to remind him of that often, so there would be no difficulties in their arrangement.    The Centre, and the other organizations Proteus had the pleasure of working for, had quite the way of tying off the strings, when they thought they were in power.
He assumed a businesslike façade, and tossed the cellular telephone into the nearest trash can as he passed.
   Then he went back to the American Airlines desk and booked a ticket for the next flight to Dover.
   He would leave in an hour.