The White Feather- A story of infinite worlds

The Informant

“Tony, looks like everything’s clear. We must move out now, before the troops arrive and search the area.” Gabriel said, cleaning his knife.

“You will refer to me as Sir. And, no one’s coming to search shit.” Tony said, stretching his muscles. The confidence in his voice took every member of the team by surprise.

“How could you possibly know that?” Gabriel asked in disbelief. He was starting to think that Anthony was incapable of handling all the violence and was slowly losing his mind.

“There was intense fighting at the bridge all night. The army dosen't know that there are tunnels connecting both sides of the city, and so they didn’t pay attention if they heard about a small gunfight. Because as Ashraf said, the terrorists are more aggressive now than ever before. And this is making the army nervous. So they cannot spare any troops from the bridge for backup. We’re clear for now, but we do have to move.” Tony said, hiding the pistol on his hip under the shirt.

“So where do we go? We have to find a place to meet and also make contact with the informant.” Emma asked.

“I think we should make contact, fix a meeting and then find a place in the meantime.” Olivia said.

“No, we have to be careful and think every minute detail of the plan. First, two of us will find a place to stay while the other two make contact with the source. Both units will carry identical newspapers. The meeting spot should be noted down on a newspaper and on the way out of the graveyard, it would be switched with another newspaper with the address of the hotel in which we’re going to stay. That way, both teams will share the locations without speaking or taking the risk of being spotted.” Tony said and moved out of the entrance.

“Wow, now I am beginning to see why people compare him to Thomas White.” Emma said, looking impressed (a little too impressed, if I’m allowed to be frank).

“Well, he has surely changed a LOT in the past two hours. I wonder what he found up there.” Gabriel said, looking up at the top floor.

“Come on, let’s get going.” Olivia said, ignoring all the talks. She didn’t seem to care much about the sudden change in Tony’s behavior. But then again, we both know that spies are experts in hiding their true feelings.

“Hotel Ehsaan, quite an elegant name for this dump of a building.” Emma told Gabriel, resting her hands on her hips while checking out the four story hotel in front of her. There were cracks all over the walls and it was one earthquake away from kissing the ground. Fortunately for them, earthquakes are not a very common phenomenon.

“This should do, it is both low profile and the only hotel which is not half tore down by bombs.” Gabriel said, walking towards the entrance and waving his finger at Emma, signaling her to follow him.

“Welkhame to Hotal Ehsaan, me name is Ehsaan. What name are you amerikaans?” a fat bald man said from behind, what seemed to be, a reception desk.

“Hi, my name is Gabriel Fernandez and this is Emily Goring. We need rooms for four people, with plenty of space, to you know, roam around.” Gabriel said in a hurry but he doubted that the man actually understood.

“Room no problem here, space big problem. In room, space only for one bed and table. This is war, not vacation party.” The man said, a little furious after realizing his hotel was being judged as small.

“No problem, we get it. just get us one more room for work only. Remove the bed from the room and make sure it has four chairs around the table." Emma said, putting her manager skills to good use.

“Damn! This is not as small as that man said. We can easily plan something in someone’s room without getting claustrophobic.” Tony said, grinning and shaking his head.

As soon as they were ready to move out, the manager came to their rooms and gave them their room keys.

“The locks can be picked and people easily break into houses nowadays. You're not from…..” The manager was trying to say something but Emma and Gabriel bailed as soon as they found the chance.

“I’ll hear all your talks and answer every questions. But now, we just need to get somewhere really fast. I hope I’ll catch when I come back in the evening.” Emma said, opening the wooden front door to walk out.

"There they are!" Gabriel said, pointing at Tony and Olivia from far away. They were at the graveyard in the middle of the city.

'They have finished talking now. Act like you're listening to a song and fold the newspaper so that it matches the same pattern as the one that Tony has. Remember, one fault and this mission goes to crap." Gabriel said, looking quietly in Emma's eyes.

After ten minutes, Tony was writing something on the newspaper, and then he looked around to make sure no one spotted it. Then, he looked at Gabriel, and looked down on main road.

As soon as Tony was finished writing, he started walking out of the door in no time. Suddenly, a dumb man tackled him, making the important newspaper fall down. Tony cursed the person and took the newspaper up, hoping for some kind of an apology or an offer of help

But the apology never came, and Tony just continued on his journey to find a hotel. After some time, he casually opened the newspaper and peeped at the address of the hotel. On the other end, Gabriel was looking at the meeting spot.