Nathaniel wondered if this might have been where he had ended up but for a moment of teenage anger that had split him off from the others twenty years ago. Except that without that, they might have turned into a corporation or a social club instead of mercenaries for justice.
Too late now to go back and redo it all. Best he had was the option to save the world today and slip out the side door while Jake and the others took all the credit. And they were welcome to it. The underworld didn’t need to know how deeply involved Nathaniel had been.
Well, not true. There were always going to be more anarchists out there. Punks were fine. They were just pushing back against The Man and had been allies frequently because Nathaniel liked tweaking the System.
But not to burn it down.
Nobody won if everything was destroyed.
They climbed into the truck, with Nathaniel up front again, though Amanda was on the right behind him instead of in the middle. It was her contact. Rik drove. Grant and Spencer followed.
Bonn was a lovely town. Everything was green today as the drizzle came and went. Tourists and locals out for a bit of a pleasant late afternoon, unaware of how dangerous things were growing around them.
Calm waters hiding the monsters swimming below.
They crossed to a spot not far from the old government buildings. There was a gorgeous park nearby. Rik pulled to a curb and left the keys in the ignition as she and Amanda got out. Grant and Spencer had kept driving, presumably to circle around from the back in case there was trouble.
Blind meets in daylight were always a problem. West Germany had had all manner of terrorism problems back in the 70s and 80s, mostly Baader–Meinhof Group/Red Army Factions when the Western World had been lurching back to the right under Reagan and Thatcher. After Unification, they’d turned inward for a while, because the Soviets had also imploded and stopped funding so many revolutionary fronts and cells.
Seems they were back, from what Jake had mentioned earlier. Was Russia behind Lord Wraith, instead of one of the other billionaires? Nathaniel doubted that Lord Wraith had ever actually met the man funding him, whoever he was. Probably just interlocutionaries. Could have been fronting for anyone, as long as there was a big briefcase of cash handed over.
Or a pallet, in this case.
All the more reason to capture those files and that man, in order to find out the truth.
Save the world.
Nathaniel kept his grumbles to himself and watched the two women walk.