Crazies

Chapter Eight

~Chapter 8~
(Edited)

*~*Owen Blackbourne's POV *~*

I dig my fingers into the rough brick wall beside me and lean just enough to see around the corner. I scan the crowded street of people until I spot them.

Two men wearing black suits calmly resting against a building on the opposite side of the street. Both of them have the old fashion earpieces hanging from their left ear with a pair of large Aviator sunglasses covering their faces.

Decoys.

I want to roll my eyes at this very lousy attempt to distract us from the 'hidden' agents spread throughout the busy street. With just another scan of the crowd, I quickly find five more agents trying to blend in with the tourist walking in and out of the stores. I even find one on top of a building farther down the street from where I stand.

"How's it looking?" Dr. Green asks from behind me.

"Not good," I answer gravely pulling myself away from the opening of the alley. I head over to the metal fire escape deeper in the darkness of the ally where Dr. Green is sitting on the steps with Mr. North Taylor leaning against the railing. "At least eight agents are waiting for us, but with the tactics they're using they know nothing about us."

"This is fucking ridiculous," Mr. Taylor growls in frustration as he pushes himself away from the railing. I allow him to pace back and forth for a minute before grabbing hold of his arm.

"You need to stay calm, Mr. Taylor." My commanding tone forces him to snap out of his panic and focus solely on me. "Sang is waiting for us and I will not allow you to lose yourself to your frustration right now."

Just hearing her name pulls him from his anger and I feel his tight muscles slowly relax under my hand as he takes control of himself again.

"Okay, I'm good," Mr. Taylor tells me in a calmer voice. I gently squeeze his arm once before letting go.

"Okay, so if these agents don't know who we are then why are they after us?" Dr. Green inquires to get us back on the task at hand. I smooth my hand down my tie as I run through everything that's happened so far, but nothing lines up.

I know for sure that these agents are not linked to the mission we came here for when we only just arrived less than two hours ago. I never even got the chance to get in touch with the Martin team to set up a meeting together, so no one knows we are here except for Dr. Roberts since he sent us. The only thing we've done since arriving is to try figuring out what's occurring back home with Sang.

Could they be here because of that?

"The only connection I can think of is what's going on in Charleston." Dr. Green slowly nods his head in agreement as he comes to the same conclusion.

"Victor hacking into that satellite could have given them our location," he explains. "Which then can account for them knowing just our basic information but not anything too in-depth."

"But that doesn't explain why they're fucking after us," Mr. Taylor huffs in anger. "That satellite wasn't even government-owned, so why would they care about someone hacking it?"

"Not to mention," Dr. Green adds, "how would they know about it so quickly?"

He makes a good point.

It was barely thirty minutes from the time Mr. Morgan was kicked out of the system before those agents came looking for us.

"Something just is not adding up," I think out aloud. "The only way for the government to know about the hacking is if they were already in the system."