Drink Me

32. A LOVELY DAY OUT

A LOVELY DAY OUT

At five sharp, Alice entered flat eight to find Riley already there.

A small victory for Riley, a meaningless one for humanity.

"Good morning!" Alice cheered with a bright smile. She seemed in an excellent mood.

Riley took a sip of the coffee he had just prepared and greeted her back.

"Nice to see you light-hearted for once," he said.

Alice smiled again.

"Small missions always put me in a good mood," she explained and walking to the sofa, she stole the cup from Riley's hands and took a long gulp of the steamy drink.

Riley frowned in annoyance but let her have his coffee, pouring himself another mug from the pot on the table.

"So, David Cormak," Alice started, her tone business-like. "He's a small fish in the sea of MI6 bureaucracy; paperwork administration, files archiving and so boring on."

"Why do you think they want to talk to him so urgently?" Riley wondered.

Alice shrugged as she thought. "You said the man is selling information; he must have come across something he thinks is big and useful to the organization. A better question is: what's his relation to Noraid? He's obviously not on their payroll..."

Riley pondered for a while. "He's being threatened, maybe?"

Alice's head shook slightly as she crinkled up her nose in doubt. "If that was the case, then he wouldn't ask for money nor the organization would want information about him."

Riley thought again. "Maybe he's a supporter? And trying to get some money out of it too?"

Alice smiled, pleased with Riley's getting closer to the point.

"That's certainly possible. So the question now is: how does he know about Noraid? How did he get in contact with them? And if they did, how did they find him?"

Riley puffed some air out, his eyes widened shortly. "That's a lot of questions..."

Alice chuckled. "Welcome to my world. Do you want to know what I think?" she asked, pouring the both of them more coffee.

"Always," Riley replied, thanking her with a nod.

"I think Cormak is either very brave and, casually coming across some information about Noraid, he went all the way of contacting them and ask for money... Or we need to look for a middleman," she stated.

Riley bit his lip, thinking about her words. "A mole in the agency?" he asked.

Alice nodded. "Precisely. Someone who uses him for information, making him do the hard work." Then a thick smile appeared on her lips. "If Aidan and Caroline are talking directly to him, the middleman might be cut out. That will cause some drama...."

Riley nodded in agreement as he analysed her theories. "So he is a person of much interest," he declared.

"That's why we need to get to him ASAP and extirpate as much information out of his brain as we can."

That was a very strong word to use.

"Le temps est tout," Alice declared, eventually rising from the sofa. "Have you ever interrogated someone, lieutenant?"

Riley couldn't say he had, so he shook his head.

"Excellent, so you might learn a thing or two today," Alice declared with a wink.