The Greatest Pretenders

02.1

London (England)

10th Downing Street

5 04 2016

2115 hours

Poe gets out of Irina's BMW fifteen minutes later, and stares at the 10 on the door as he adjusts his suit. There are four policemen in front of the house; two right by the door and two inside a squad car.

"MI6," Irina says and flashes her ID at the policemen, before they step aside to let the three of them in. Poe's been in here before, after he'd closed a high-profile case, and was asked to go over to the Prime Minister's office to get a badge and take a photo while they were shaking hands.

The house is painted mostly yellow, with portraits hanging on the walls, and each room is equipped with luxurious furniture from the ceiling to the floor.

There is a guard in every single room, but it's not a problem to enter the Prime Minister's office thanks to a short flash of a badge.

The office is just how Poe remembers, only this time there are papers and big binders laying haphazardly on the desk, and there is a coffee mug that hasn't been washed in the right corner of it. The computer is on standby and the small Windows flag moves across the black screen as if wanting to mock them.

Poe grabs a stack of papers from the desk and goes to sit down on the chair, but Ryn is already one step ahead of him as she sits down and pulls the keyboard closer.

"What are you doing?" Irina asks, standing behind Ryn's chair, looking at the screen.

"I'm going to check his emails, recent transactions, or anything that might lead us to the motive of his abduction."

"It's password protected."

Ryn doesn't respond as she right clicks on the mouse and starts typing something that only she understands with the speed of light.

Irina busies herself with finding clues in other rooms, which leaves Ryn and Poe alone.

"Don't sit on the desk," Ryn tells Poe without looking up as soon as he sits down on the corner, one leg still on the ground.

"Why not?"

"You might tamper with possible evidence. Or leave prints."

"With what? The prints my ass will leave through these pants?"

Ryn shakes her head and then smiles at the computer. "Ha."

"What?"

"I got trough the Firewall."

Poe looks at her appreciatively, even though Ryn's bossy know-it-all attitude still gets on his nerves.

He browses through the papers as quick and efficient as possible, and finds nothing but documents from the parliament that still need to be signed, civil rights laws that need validation, and employment forms.

"There's nothing here," Poe sighs after reading through every single paper on the desk twice.

Ryn doesn't look up from the computer. "Well, I got something."

Poe circles the bureau and bends over to look at the monitor.

"The last email he read was from the US government," Ryn starts, clicking on the mail. "Asking if he'd already sent out the signed papers that were delivered to him a week ago."

"What papers?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out."

Ryn searches through further mails from the US government until she finds the one mentioning the documents that were about to be sent out.