“You will learn to pick up on these things.” Patrick had assured her, “You will notice friends who ‘aren’t just friends’ giving long hugs. You will notice people quickly changing direction, or crossing the street suddenly. You will pick up on folks staring at things for no reason, or looking over their shoulder frequently. Just know that you notice these things because you are trained in surveillance… no one else does, and no one else cares.” Then, with a sardonic wink, he had added, “Unless one is as bad at it as you are.” much to the annoyance of Lena, who was trying really hard.
After a few minutes of desperately trying to notice things, she realized that Brown-jacket still wouldn’t appear that easily. So, frustrated, she started down a slightly less busy street, “Remember!” Patrick had yelled at her, “Take busy streets to lose them, and take quieter streets to spot them! You have to include both areas in any pre-planned path!” She walked for a few more minutes, failing to make any real headway. The calmer street helped her see Wart-face and Red-hat, of course, but Brown-jacket was still nowhere to be seen. Eventually, she began to realize that they were absolutely in control of the situation, which was something Patrick had told her specifically not to allow.
“They are following you; not corralling you.” he had told her after a particularly botched training mission, “First and foremost, if you allow them to force your movements, then it tells them you know you are being followed. Normal people who are doing normal-people things don’t think about being followed. Second, it allows them to move you into a position to kidnap you if they so choose. Which,” he added with a dire tone, “if you are acting so neurotic as to allow them to control the movements, they may feel you are so inept at your job so as to be unable to prevent a kidnapping.”
Lena’s heart-rate was thumping profoundly in her chest, and she realized that she was quickly losing control. It was far too easy for them to follow her on the open street like this, and she was wasting precious time that she would need to get to the Metropol. Thus, she hatched a particularly brilliant plan: she would grab a bite.
Walking into a little cafe just a block away, and looking around for a seat that would give her the best view, she settled on one at the back of the establishment where she could easily see anyone who entered. Satisfied at her plan, and looking forward to re-balancing the caffeine level of her blood, she sat down, motioned for the waitress, and ordered coffee.
As she waited, she noticed Wart-face sitting across the street, reading his newspaper and idly checking to make sure the sidewalks outside the cafe were still grey. She also noticed Red-hat taking a slow stroll in no direction in particular. No doubt, he would soon be inspecting meters, or observing a particularly lumpy length of pavement. As dumb as it looked, Lena was quite glad that they were taking it so easy on her by televising what they were looking at. She knew her real goal was Brown-jacket, and apparently, so did they.
Yet by the time her coffee had arrived and been drank (along with a second round that been ordered and drank as well), Lena decided to order food. Once that arrived, she ate it. Eventually, she paid for it. Then, she contemplated buying another cup of coffee at the expense of her waitress’s patience, which by now was beginning to wane. Yet still nothing changed. Wart-face was re-reading the same five pages over and over, flipping back and forth, back and forth. Red-hat was in a store across the street awaiting the word from Wart-face to step out, and Brown-jacket was still nowhere to be seen. Honestly, Lena was beginning to wonder if perhaps Brown-jacket wasn’t actually following her. After all, she had no proof that he was. Yet neither Wart-face nor Red-hat showed even the slightest amount of consternation. Indeed, they seemed perfectly content to just relax, awaiting her inevitable failure.
She didn’t feel the same at all. It was now eight and she had precisely one hour to get 45-minutes away—meaning she had ten minutes to find Brown-jacket, five minutes to lose all of them, and… well, that would have to be enough. Soon, a red-flush of embarrassment began to spread across her face, followed by the tale-tale sweat in her palms that only confirmed the level of stress she was experiencing. She really wanted to pass this test. She really, really did. But she also didn’t want to be late—that would actually be worse. Her brain was racing a million-miles a minute, and she realized that she needed to calm herself down.
Searching desperately for distraction, she began looking around the cafe and studying the patrons. A man with a brown jacket, another man with a brown jacket, another man with a brown jacket… “How easy they have it!” she whined her many woes inside her head, “All they have to do is sit there, drinking their stupid coffee, enjoying their stupid life, and just being… stupid!” Every one of them was a terrible person, completely ignoring how horrible her life was right now. It was all their fault, Lena whined. Even the lone woman sitting at the counter who had been flipping through the menu for the last thirty minutes was personally to blame for all of this.
Lena looked at this lone woman, hating her profusely. She just sat there in her gray pants, with her bulky leather jacket, slowly sipping coffee that had to be cold by now, refusing to order anything, “Who does that?!” Lena shouted inside her head as she stared daggers, “Who comes into a cafe, barely drinks her coffee, and then spends thirty minutes not ordering anything?!?” The woman seemed not the least bit interested in anything, least of all Lena. The only thing she seemed to care about at all was checking her makeup every now and then, and checking to make sure her tight bun was still in place. This was silly, by the way, as both her hair and makeup were fabulous. Lena could tell, because every time the woman raised her makeup mirror to check her face, it reflected back at Lena perfectly.
Then it dawned on her.
Oh, she had never considered this at all. Why, oh why had she never even considered that Brown-jacket was a Woman?! Why, oh why didn’t Lena ever think?!
Oh sure, she didn’t know that the woman was, in fact, the third member of the surveillance crew. You could only tell that for sure if they followed you through a particularly windy path, or one-direction path (Like a pedestrian bridge—Patrick called these ‘choke points’) and kept a reasonably particular distance. But there were always signs—particularly in her dour (and masculine) clothing, tight bun and lack of earrings.
Any good super-spy kept a rolling list of strikes against someone. Many were benign, and only helped to build a case. Still others were major signs. Makeup-lady was alone; Minor check, but a check, nonetheless. She wouldn’t order anything; slightly less minor check, but again, still a check. Wearing that clothing; well, maybe she was just jumping to conclusions, but hey, it didn’t hurt—especially in conjunction with that tight bun she had, and those work shoes Lena had just noticed. Her body facing completely away from Lena’s direction; take one check off. But her makeup mirror; well, that was a major check if you factored in that the woman had just winked at her through the mirror. That was all the proof she needed.
Lena mouthed an almost imperceptible “thank you!” towards the woman who almost imperceptibly winked back, and then quickly tapped her wrist, as if checking a nonexistent watch to see if it was still working—the signal for ‘spy stuff is afoot’.