Page 30 of Pitbull
“Tex?” Beast asked.
“I’ve been trying to get a running map of the towers her phone pinged from,” Tex explained. “But she kept turning off her phone—see here?”
Tex rose and walked over to a large screen on the far wall. It lit up and a map appeared with red dots all over it. “The past four weeks she’s gone to all these places. But the only one she visited more than once is here…”
“That’s where we work,” Anke spoke up.
“Here.” Tex pointed.
“Her apartment.” Pitbull offered.
“And here.” Tex dragged a finger across the map.
“Where we—um—well…” Anke stopped. She glanced around the room to see all eyes were on her. Her face burst into flames. “Um…”
“Spit it out, Anke,” Pitbull’s voice held a warning.
“We take classes…” Anke looked to Barbie for help but the woman only tilted her head with confusion in her eyes. “You know—sexy, dancing, classes?”
The room went deathly silent before everyone burst into laughter. Anke frowned and glanced around. While the others were doubled over with mirth, Pitbull was lounged back in his chair, smirking. Anke knew, she wasn’t quite sure how, but she knew Pitbull would make her regret the confession later.
“Look, we aren’t vain or anything.” Anke sputtered. “But sometimes a woman just needs to feel, you know? Like a woman, so we go to these classes for a little pick-me-up.”
“You don’t have to explain,” Barbie said, wiping away a tear. “I get it.”
“Well,” Tex continued. “Other than those three places, a few of the others are—a doctor’s office, a pharmacy, a mall, two bookstores and a diner. I’ve managed to get video footage from all of them except this bookstore here.”
“Dusseldorf?” Anke asked.
“Just outside of it,” Tex replied.
“I don’t recognize it. But if she’d gone there then she—” A dose of reality hit Anke hard and she shook her head. “I was going to say she would have told me. She didn’t even tell me she had a brother. So, who’s to know.”
“This is ridiculous,” Mozart said. “She must understand how dangerous this is. People are going to die! We make her tell us.”
“We’ve tried,” Anke said. “She’s hell bent on keeping this damn secret even after some asshole took a shot at us. So, Pitbull arrested her for obstruction.”
“Yeah, that’s a charge we can make stick.” Mouth explained.
Beast rose. “Pitbull, take Mouth with you and head over to the bookstore Tex found. See if you can figure out why Tex can’t get footage from it. Zero, keep working with Tex, see what else you can come up with. Barbie, you have an interview with Webber. Anke and I will have a talk with Ms. Hunt.”
Anke trembled. She didn’t like where this was heading. But if tough love was what was necessary to snap Claudia out of this funk then so be it.
The rest of the group dispersed but not before giving Pitbull reassuring pats on the shoulder. Barbie dropped a kiss to the top of his head and soon the room was silent except for herself and Beast.
“Ms. Fischer,” Beast said, standing by the door while motioning out. “Shall we?”
Without saying a word, she went with Beast across a vast compound then into another building. This one was sterile with grey walls and barely any windows to speak of. At one door, she was frisked by a female guard and given a tag withvisitoron it in big, bold letters. Beast set his gun into a safe and it was slammed shut. They were then escorted to another door where Beast had to enter a code then pressed his palm to a nearby screen. Soon they entered a room with a single table and two chairs.
Claudia was seated in one, her wrists chained to the table. The other two seats were empty. Though Beast took the one across from Claudia, Anke remained standing, back to the wall, arms folded across her chest.
“Ms. Hunt, you don’t know me,” Beast said. “I’m Commander Alric Gerhart of GSG 9 CIRO.”
“I thought CIRO was on hiatus,” Claudia said. She was less combative than the previous night. “Why are you doing this?”
“We’re law enforcement, Ms. Hunt. Just because we’re not supposed to be working doesn’t mean the job stops. Now, I’m going to make this very simple for you so there will be no misunderstanding on your part on what the right decision is.”
“Don’t you mean what my brother wants?”
