Hidden Tracks | ✓

01 | ready for it?

Arm at shoulder level, support weight under left hand, ready, aim, sh--

"Winter, how's shooting practice going? Any good? Better score than last time?"

Restraining myself from punching him, I flipped Soler the bird as I aimed my pistol at the target dummy. I could feel his mocking smirk directed at me, but I chose to remain silent and focus on the target ahead.

3, 2, 1....and shoot.

The bullet hit the dummy's forehead, smack in the centre. I let out a satisfied breath and turned towards Soler, who was scowling.

"That was pure luck. I know you suck at shooting, Winter."

I shot him a smile. "It wasn't. I hit the dummy right this time 'cause I imagined it to be your head I was blowing off instead."

I knew my playground insult wouldn't do anything to deflate his ego, but I reveled in the moment anyway. I could seldom say anything to Soler when it came to shooting. This was his turf and we both knew it.

He opened his mouth to come up with a smartass remark when my earpiece buzzed to life. I noticed his did too. I could tell, since his eyes immediately shifted away from mine and his head slightly tilted towards the right, to focus on the earpiece in his right ear.

I heard the no-nonsense voice of Director Vonnegut through my earpiece. "Special Agents Kaia Winter, Miranda Liu and Marco Soler to report to my office immediately."

I raised my eyebrows. This was strange. Director never called me to her office unless it was for a new mission, and I was seldom assigned with a team. I almost always worked alone. That's how I preferred it, anyway.

I'd always been more efficient on my own. Being in a team dragged me down. It wasn't conceit on my part, I just knew my abilities and they worked best when I was left by myself.

Soler may be the best at combat here at the Transatlantic Intelligence Agency, but I was decent enough to go on solo missions. Everyone knew that, including the Director, so I was left wondering why she would call me, Agent Liu and Soler together to her office.

Soler seemed to be as puzzled as me, judging by the look on his face. Together, we took the elevator to the top floor and walked briskly up to the Director's office.

Just as we were about to enter, Agent Liu also came walking to the door. She gave us a brief nod and we entered together.

Director Vonnegut looked up from a stack of papers neatly arranged in a binder. Clearly a case file. Her reading glasses were nestled atop the bridge of her nose, meaning this was an important and detailed case.

Whenever she read a case file for a trivial mission, it would be a brief process and she would just skim over the details and hand over the rest of the work to us. But when she pulled out her reading glasses, you knew it was a big mission. She'd read every bit of the fine print meticulously, before assigning it to one of her agents.

My eyes discreetly skimmed over the case file to make out its contents. From my position, I couldn't make out anything, except that this was a missing persons case. Why would Director give such importance to a missing persons case? Those were almost always treated as one of the 'trivial' missions. Unless...

Unless the missing person (or people) in this situation were high profile.

My eyes also noticed a few papers marked with the stamp of Interpol, and two passports lying on the desk.

So this mission was assigned by Interpol, and two possibly high profile individuals from the UK and France are missing. My bet is on politicians.