“Tell me what you know,” he said.
Jax flopped herself down in the chair and shouted over to the waiter for a coffee. Jax had been given the task of getting close to Sabina, engaging her in conversation and making a connection. Jax was a friendly face of a similar age and style and was there to assess whether Sailfish’s sister was compromised in any way that could upend the operation.
“She’s very Berlin. She dresses Berlin, she talks Berlin and she acts Berlin. She has embraced the city over the past few years. She likes her art, she likes music. Her art degree is coming along nicely, so she says. She works in a restaurant-slash-coffee shop a few days a week. Sometimes she plays the piano for the customers and when she’s not doing that she’s looking after her little boy; his name’s Marco. He’s four years old, nearly five, and as cute as a button. She’s boring, dull as hell and she has kept her head down. She’s anonymous.”
“What does she think you are?” said Lyth.
“I’m a British student, new to the city, split up with my boyfriend and looking to make new friends while I’m in Germany. I like music and art too, so we have common ground.”
Lyth nodded, absorbing the information. He slowly sipped at his coffee. “What about the secret world; has that infected her?”
Jax shook her head. “She’s clean. No one is on her or paying her any attention. Not Trillium, not anyone. The team have been on her for the past few days and there is not even a sniff of the opposition.”
“So her cover has held all these years… as far as we know. Excellent.”
“There is one slight snag,” cautioned Jax.
“Oh?”
Jax’s tone darkened. “An arsehole ex-boyfriend who keeps turning up to sponge a bit of cash, doss down on her sofa and tries to get his leg over from time to time. He’s a fucking narcissist and control freak. I get the impression that he used to smack her around a bit in the past, before she got her act together and kicked him out of her flat. I think she still feels a bit co-dependent on him.”
Lyth nodded. “Any thoughts on how we can deal with that?”
Jax nodded and smiled. “You leave that to me; I can deal with him. I’m more worried about if she’ll leave her little boy.”
They sat for a while in silence, enjoying the coffee, the silence and the view of the Spree. Finally she asked, “How do you want to play the next phase?”
“I think it’s time to bring me in,” he said. “Don’t lie to her. Let’s just say that an old friend from the past would like to re-connect and he’s here in town, a friend of Sailfish. Leave it at that.”
She nodded and wondered if there was more to it than the Fisherman was telling her? Instead she said, “Leave it with me, I’ll make it happen.”