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  “He is dying,” Wick yelled at him. “I need him to breathe for five minutes, that’s all I need. Do something.” Wick turned back to the dying man. “Albert, who’s my father? Who’s Lauren? What’s her last name? Speak, look at me...” but Albert wasn’t responding. He couldn’t anymore. His eyes had started to bleed, his tongue was curled upwards, his gaunt face was expressionless.

  Wick stared at his dead body. The doctor checked his pulse. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Wick showed no emotion. The man who was yelling a moment ago silently gazed at Albert who hadn’t meant anything to him a few minutes ago. The doctor and the nurse looked at him with apprehension. The silence was unsettling, as if something in Wick had simply switched off. Wick said nothing for the rest of the flight. And when the plane landed, he was the first one to get out. He didn’t wait for the body to be picked up. He reported to the base and then left for the safehouse.

  So his childhood was nothing but a lie. He had to do something! But what? Was his mother still alive? Lauren. Was she even his mother, married to his father? If Albert knew him and his parents, then there must be others too. This revelation had turned his world upside down. The sense of betrayal was unbearable. They had given birth to him and then left him to die. Why? Was he born out of wedlock, an unwanted child? What if they knew he was alive? What if they knew what he did for a living? What if it was they who paid for his schooling and the academy through that PO box? Had they been watching him from the shadows? Or maybe they thought he was dead. Maybe they had come looking for him and he hadn’t been there. Maybe, just maybe.

  He was eager to give them every benefit of the doubt if only he could meet them once, but what would he do then? What would he do with their presence in his life? There was a time when he had wanted to see them at any cost, but that desire had died long ago. Did he really want to see them anymore? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t a normal guy living a normal life. He killed for a living. He risked his life. He dealt with the concept of death in real life, day in day out. What would he do with the two people about whom he had stopped caring eons ago?

  For the next two weeks, he pondered over these questions. Should he go and look for them? There would be thousands of Laurens in the world. The number of US Presidents Albert might have seen probably hovered in double digits and he had no way to know which one Albert was talking about. Without a year or a specific duration, that part of the search was a non-starter. Albert was dead and buried. He wasn’t coming back. Wick had no other source. For the next two weeks he sat in his room, thinking, analyzing, deciding.

  Then the call came from his handler Riley, for this mission. At first, he’d said that he needed time but then he agreed. A diversion would do him good.

  But sitting in that plane, he realized that he couldn’t run from his own thoughts. He could not un-hear or un-see what he knew. He could do nothing to stop his mind from wandering into the dark bylanes of memory. He was still angry and he had no outlet for his anger. Sitting in that plane, he was burning from within.

  “Landing in two minutes,” the pilot announced on the radio.

  “You ready?” Jessica touched Wick's shoulder softly and he jerked as if he had been in deep sleep. He nodded without looking at her and bent down to grab his bag from under the seat.

  The aircraft descended, its flaps down, its powerful Rolls-Royce engines working to their maximum capacity, trying to stifle its speed all the way back. The tarmac at Vienna International Airport shone in the distance while the jet maneuvered for the touchdown. As soon as they landed, the countdown began.

  CHAPTER 7

  A nondescript minivan waited for them outside the airport. Jakob, the TF-77’s asset in Vienna, was driving. He didn’t need any instructions, he knew where he had to take them. The minivan navigated the city traffic expertly, never going above the prescribed speed limit. No one stopped it. No one tailed it. But Jakob continued to take random turns and drove through the back alleys as a precaution. Inside the van, Wick and Stan were peering at Mac’s laptop screen. Blueprints of the Venezuela consulate were spread across it. Mac had uploaded the copies of the blueprints on his and Jessica’s laptop just before leaving. They had gone over them during the flight. Wick and Stan heard what they had to say and occasionally asked questions about stairs, exit doors, back channels, size of the rooms. Mac, and sometimes Jessica, responded to their queries. Once they were satisfied, Wick asked Mac to move to the names and profiles of the people who had landed in Vienna from Venezuela in the last forty-eight hours. The list had seventy-two people on it.

  “Can you remove the names of people older than forty and younger than eighteen?” Wick asked.

  Mac put the filters, and the number came down to thirty-seven.

  “Can you triangulate their locations using their cell numbers given in their profiles?”

  “It will take some time,” Mac said.

  “Okay.”

  “If you could tell me what it is you are looking for, I could help better,” Mac said, hesitantly.

  “People who are here for business or pleasure should be easily trackable, but the ones with off-the-grid phones, they are possibly the ones using a burner cell or a sat phone. We need to have those faces and names.”

  Mac nodded, trying not to look stupid and embarrassed. It was common sense and he should have applied that logic himself. Sitting behind Wick, Stan smiled at Mac’s flushed face. Mac noticed it and shrugged. Wick couldn’t see Stan’s reaction but he noticed Mac’s. Said nothing. He opened his bag and took out the manila folder that had the photos and names of consulate employees.

  “We are near the safe house, have you checked your bags under your seats?” Jakob said without turning back.

  Wick took his bag out and checked it - new identities, passports, use-and-throw money cards, some cash, and clothes. Jessica, Mac, and Stan did the same. Weapons and their disguise they would find in the safehouse.

  Their covers were airtight. Wick was an IT contractor from London, Jessica was a journalist from Spain, Stan was on a business trip and Mac was an Audi salesman here to attend a sales retreat.

  Carlos’ meeting was the next morning and their plan was to leave for the consulate at dawn. Wick had already decided how to use that time. He knew that once he sneaked in the consulate, he might not even get time to breathe.

  CHAPTER 8

  SAFEHOUSE, VIENNA

  Jakob dropped Wick and Mac at the safe house. Jessica and Stan had some other work, so they left with Jakob. The arrangement made Mac nervous. He didn’t like being alone with Sam.

  He was like a brick wall. Cold. Detached. Removed from his surroundings. Mac hated the fact that he could not get a read on him, like he could on Jessica, Stan or even McAvoy.

  Wick didn’t dally in the hall and went straight to the room assigned to him. A black oversized duffle bag was already on the bed. There was some food on a round coffee table along with a bottle of sparkling water. He went to the door and saw Mac fiddling with his computer. “You want to eat something?”

  “I already have mine in my room. What you got?” Mac responded instinctively and regretted it instantly.

  “I don’t know, you can check.” Wick turned and walked back in. Mac reluctantly followed him.

  Entering the room, Mac saw the bag open on the bed, revealing a veritable armory of dismantled weapons, numerous clips, and boxes of ammunition. He went to the table and briefly considered checking the food and then leaving, but then rejected the idea as overly rude. He ripped the cover open, leaned on the side table and began to eat.

  Each one of them had a packed meal based on a form filled out by them long ago. It wasn’t like they were asked to submit a form before every mission and despite Mac's efforts, he couldn’t get his changed. It was a grouse that he carried everywhere. So it was a nice change to have something different. The second reason was that Mac saw this as a chance to get a foot in the door in understanding Wick. One’s food tells a lot about oneself but based
on Wick's palate, he resembled an innocent bank teller.

  Wick stood near the bed, cleaning the first Beretta from the bag. He paused to take a deep swig from the bottle of water. Once done, Wick pulled back the slide, studied the gun with a keen eye, released it, carefully loaded a clip with bullets, and slid it into the pistol. Locked and loaded.

  From a small wooden case, he selected a silencer that he screwed onto the gun. He set it down next to a pump action sawed-off shotgun, a sniper rifle, an old school Uzi submachine gun – silenced – with a polished mahogany stock, a K-Bar knife, and another Beretta.

  “Did you get anything?” he suddenly uttered without looking at Mac.

  Mac had his mouth full when he caught the question. He coughed twice in a bid to respond. Wick handed him an unopened water bottle and waited for him to catch his breath.

  “I have found ten names who we might find in the consulate.”

  “Why these ten?”

  “Their background checks have thrown some interesting anomalies.” Wick was listening, so Mac continued “Somewhere in their timeline, there is a blip. For some years, they literally dropped off the grid as if they were dead or abducted by aliens.” Mac tried injecting some humor, Wick responded with a mere nod, so Mac continued grudgingly, “... and then they resurfaced again with the same first name but a different last name.”

  Wick agreed with Mac's assessment. He knew even the best operatives had a hard time leaving their first names behind when they went for a new identity.

  “How long will it take to vet the rest?”

  “Couple of hours, maybe. It could be sooner if I get some alone time.”

  “Okay,” Wick said and turned back to the open bag.

  Instead of returning to his unfinished meal, Mac decided to ask Wick the question that was bothering him. He coughed to draw his attention. Wick looked at him.

  “What is the plan?”

  “Still a work in progress, but it will involve us joining the regular consulate cleaning crew.”

  “You mean you and Stan, right?”

  Wick nodded.

  What about Jessica?” Mac asked his next.

  “She will be a part of the consulate’s security detail, since we expect to find people in double digits as you have just mentioned, and we don’t know what they are planning to do with Carlos. There will be civilians and diplomats too, so it’s an all hands on deck kind of situation.”

  “What if they kill Carlos before we can get him out?”

  “They won’t, but if they do, we’ll try to get his body out, or anything that would be of relevance.”

  “You’re going into a high-security government building without a concrete plan?”

  “I’m working on it. You’ll be the first to know once it’s ready,” Wick said, without irritation or sarcasm, but also without a smile.

  Mac asked nothing further. He finished his meal and fed the leftovers to the bin. He got up and walked towards the door. Wick’s back was toward him.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to get your friends killed in the field,” Wick said without turning back.

  Mac stopped in his tracks, not knowing how to respond. He articulated a weak “Sure thing,” and beat a hasty retreat.

  CHAPTER 9

  SAFEHOUSE, VIENNA

  Jessica and Stan arrived two hours later. Mac was in the hall trying to get into the consulate’s mainframe server.

  “Where's Wick?” Jessica asked

  “I think he went for a run,” Mac said without looking at them.

  “He told you that?” Stan said

  “His outfit did,” Mac responded sarcastically.

  “Great, so now we can gossip about him.” Stan smiled.

  Mac gave a fake laugh.

  “I thought you liked gossip,” Stan said.

  “I do, but not when I am trying to create a backdoor in a highly secured server.”

  “But thank God you both are still alive.” Stan was not going to let Mac off the hook so easily.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing.” Stan grinned innocently.

  “You definitely meant something, and you are going to tell me NOW,” Mac said getting up from his chair.

  Stan raised his hands defensively. “All I meant is that you don’t seem to like him very much.”

  “He doesn’t like the fact that he cannot get a read on him,” Jessica said.

  “Is that so, Mac?” Stan gave a smirk.

  “I have no issues with him and if your mom can tolerate you, I’m sure I can work with him,” Mac retorted.

  “Don’t bring my mom into this.” Stan’s smirk was gone.

  “Well, she did bring you into this world without asking anyone,” Mac smiled defiantly.

  Stan stepped closer to him.

  “Stop it guys,” Jessica yelled, waving them both down. “Mac, you focus on your work, and Stan, I think it’s time for you to call your mom and tell her that you’ve arrived safely,” Jessica paused for a moment and then she and Mac burst out laughing.

  “Et Tu, Jessica!” Stan protested.

  “Well, it’s funny that big Stan still lives with his mom,” Mac said.

  “She needs me.”

  “Is that the reason none of your girlfriends stay for more than three months?” Mac needled him.

  “No, that’s because of this job. But how would a thirty-year-old virgin nerd like you understand that?” Stan was back in the game.

  “I am more manly than you ever will be.”

  “You are so manly they will cut off your dick and keep it in some museum for generations to see and that will be your legacy; probably your only one.”

  This time even Jessica smiled.

  “It’s no use talking to you,” Mac said turning back to his laptop.

  “On a serious note, Mac, have you seen anything strange in Wick’s behavior?” Jessica asked.

  “You mean the grumpy daddy behavior he threw at us during the trip? No, I didn’t.”

  “I am serious.”

  “I don’t know, Jessica, I’m working with him for the first time and it appears to me that all the stories about him are a figment of someone’s imagination. He seems like any other agent to me - grumpy and full of himself. You’ve worked with him earlier. What do you think? Is he really that good?” Mac asked. Stan also eyed Jessica. This was important to him, “In one sentence, if I have to take only one person with me into any battle, it will be him.” she stated.

  “That good, eh? Hmmm… now, I am fine with this assessment, but I guess Stan is hurt. He really hoped that at the end of that sentence, you would take his name.” Mac smirked at Stan. Stan made a face.

  “Seriously, is he really that good?” Stan asked Jessica.

  “There are many good agents, perhaps even better than him, and I have worked with most of them, but in a battlefield where even the best agents sometimes freeze, Wick consistently picks the right moves ninety-nine out of a hundred times. That can be the difference between life and death. His decision-making ability under extreme pressure is exceptional. With him on our side this might be the easiest assignment for us this year.”

  “I am impressed,” Mac said. “Not by him, but by the way you talk about him. You guys aren’t dating or something, are you?”

  “Yeah, sure!” Jessica glared at Mac who sheepishly avoided her look.

  CHAPTER 10

  Wick walked four blocks from the safe house and then took a cab to Sankt Elisabeth-Platz street. A DSLR camera hung around his neck, his fake passport was in his back pocket, a Nike cap, Ray-Ban aviators along with a t-shirt and a pair of jeans completed his tourist getup. The outing was a routine he preferred to follow on his every mission—to visually soak in the details of the location in advance and mark out possible roadblocks.

  The cab dropped him near the Wieden Elisabeth Church at St. Elizabeth Square on Sankt-Elisabeth-Platz Street. He waited for it to leave before moving forward. The driver turned left towards Viktorgasse and Wi
ck started to walk towards the Schloss Belvedere. The Belvedere was on the Prinz Eugenstraße. It was a historic building complex with two baroque palaces. Acres of green lent it a peaceful air. The grounds were set on a gentle gradient and included decorative tiered fountains and cascades, ornate sculptures, and majestic wrought-iron gates. Wick’s interest, however, was in a building opposite the Belvedere grounds, but on the same street—the Venezuela consulate.

  Wick walked past the embassy, casually checking the locations of the closed-circuit TV cameras. There were five—two covered the Belvedere garden view and the remaining three covered the street. One, in particular, was focused at the opening of the consulate. Wick steered clear of all five, keeping his head down.