XIX – When everything goes according to plan
The hospital was of course just fitting right into the area. Pinneberg was where the high society of Hamburg was living: Execs that did not live in any arcology. Actors. Professional Athletes. Pakhet was rather sure that even the famous Emilia Valetti was living here. And just as it was the latest style with high society the buildings were not that kind of hyper-modern exterior that made up the facades of the typical middle class family home, but rather a pre millenial architecture style that gave the buildings here – including the hospital – their look.
Of course it was no authentic style, but rather that romantic nostalgia view many people had of the past. So instead of the hyper-modern walls of concrete, steel or glass many of the buildings featured facades of wood and dressed stone.
At least they had not had any problem getting into Pinneberg. For a moment Pakhet had been nervous, when HanSec had stopped then at the district's border, but thankfully only her SIN and Murphy's had been checked, before they were let through. Thankfully the terror alert level had not yet been downgraded, which made the entire “security for handymen” actually more believable.
Now, though, she was sitting in the team van, which looked close enough to that kind of sprinter that was commonly used by handymen of all crafts, and waited for the others to return. Some security guard at the entrance to the building had noticed her some time ago and was shooting her looks from time to time, as if he was calculating on her blowing up the car she was sitting in.
She leaned against the steering wheel boredly watching the building. There was a stylistic looking glass plate right besides the entrance featuring the clinic's name as well as the logo of Universal Omnitech.
She sighed. It was almost two hours since the three of them had gone inside and that she had not heard anything so far was actually a good sign, but she slowly became less attentive as there was nothing worse then boredom to get wrong-footed.
Because she was bored she started to go through the information the clinic was casting into the AR space. Mostly information about the treatments that would be available once the facility was opened (non-employees paid a huge extra fee), but also some links to media stories covering the opening. There would be managers coming for it from the UCAS – well, they would be pretty pissed, if the group went through with their plan.
Finally Heidenstein and the others came back after almost three hours. All three of them were wearing overalls, as well as baseball caps with the name of the company they were allegedly working for , while Kah Pak was carrying a tool box. All of them had put on make-up, well, actually not all three of them, as Murphy had just morphed his face until he did not look like a teenage elf, but rather a human in his mid-twenties.
“What took you so long?”, Pakhet asked when the three of them climbed inside the van.
“Nothing”, Heidenstein replied. “We just tried to make it look convincing. So we checked all the relevant electronics and got quite a nice tour of the hospital.”
“Minus some high security areas”, Murphy added. “They were quite touchy about those.”
“The laboratories belonged to them.. But we still have seen quite a bit.” Heidenstein gave a long sigh. “And I still don't like it.”
“Well, I don't like staying here any longer”, Pakhet said and started the car. Even though she rather would have driven herself, she activated the auto-pilot to make for a convincing security guard to the three handymen.
That evening they met again in the still chair-less conference room in the street clinic.
“I don't think picking this hospital is a good idea”, Heidenstein said without much introduction after everyone had arrived. “It is just too risky. Especially as we don't quite know what they are working on in the laboratories.”
Slap was actually looking annoyed. “Well, sorry if I say so, Heidenstein, but I don't think you will find anything other. I don't think, your...” He hesitated. “Your 'landlord' is going to be content with the equipment from the chop-shop on the corner. And did you not suggest to try a Omnitech facility?”
“I did, but this is too risky”, Heidenstein replied. He had sent all of them files showing the door plans Slap had found with all the security marked they had seen while being inside. “God damn it, not only that it is in Pinneberg, from what I've seen the guards are all wearing biomonitors, meaning that one of them fainting will probably set of an alarm.”
“That doesn't matter once you get me inside. If I can get to any main console inside I can disable all alarms and can erase all the security footage. From the information I have, the security is down to only three persons at night and as long as the alarm is not triggered the automated defence won't do drek.”
“But if an alarm is triggered, we'll go straight to Big Willy – if we are lucky!”
“Why don't we put it to a vote?”, Kah Pak hesitantly suggested.
Heidenstein looked at him. “In this case I am the Johnson.”
“Yeah, but since when does a Johnson care whether a runner team goes into a risky situation?”, Dacart said. “I think we'll be fine!”
“Of course you do”, Heidenstein muttered and took a deep breath. Then he looked over to Pakhet, who was once again sitting on the table. “What's your take on this?”
She sighed and took another look at the floor plans in AR. While she did not trust Slap, she knew he was right: This was as good of a chance as any. If they went for another clinic they would endanger more bystanders, hence this was a relatively good chance. At least they would not get any other chance to get equipment of that grade this easily. “I say you are both right. It is very risky and I don't like it either, but if Slap says he can disable all alarms once we are inside I say we take that risk and just see that we get the hell out of there if anything goes wrong.”
Heidenstein looked at her for a while, but then finally nodded. “Okay. Fine. But only under one condition: If something goes wrong we run – for real. No fake heroism, okay?” He looked around and waited for everyone to at least mumble some agreement.
“Then what is the plan?”, Kah Pak asked.
“Well, we need several escape vehicles. The van is no good, as we used it before and HanSec might notice. So I'd say we take the Jackrabbit and Dacart's new car and whatever we can get for transport”, Pakhet said.
“Actually I have somebody I would ask about the transport. A rigger I know, he is from Berlin and he is pretty reliable. He also has two trolls working for him, who could be of great use”, Slap remarked.
“I could break in through a window”, Dacart offered. “And then let you in.”
Several people looked at him doubtingly.
“What? I've broken into houses in Pinneberg before”, he assured, but nobody deigned that worthy of an answer.
“I am rather sure I could just go inside”, Murphy said. “I'll be the new doctor, who just started working there or something like that.”
Pakhet raised an eyebrow and grunted. “They'll notice that.”
But the elven boy gave a rather smug smile. “Believe me: They won't.”
She looked at him – he was a bit too confident in his abilities and that got people killed. Still, she did not say anything to him. “Well, once we get inside: We might run into guards, what do we do about them?”
“Jam their signal”, Slap replied. “As if the biomonitor was turned off. Then turn it off for real.”
“From what I've seen, there is a garage beneath the hospital”, Heidenstein said. “And there are elevators going down there.” He hesitated. “It might be that the elevators can only sent down or that you have to register a SIN to call it. From what I know hospitals like that are often rather heavily secured.”
Pakhet looked over at him. Even though he did not say so, she knew he meant “in Omnitech hospitals” as he would know that very well.
“Well, I can trick the system into thinking that we registered a SIN”, Slap suggested. “We would need that to get into the garage, too. Parking in the garage would be handy. Bringing all that stuff outside would draw too much attention.”
Pakhet nodded. “Though with security lifts one can send it down from the inside.”
“I can do that”, Murphy exclaimed.
“Okay”, Heidenstein said. “Then Slap would only have to hack into the garage door.”
Their time until the opening of the hospital was running short and Pakhet knew that this meant they would not get a second shot at this. But if they succeeded they would have fairly good equipment at the hospital, which was a somewhat comforting thought. She really wanted some bioware and she would rather have it with proper equipment then with some run-down stuff from a chop shop.
Her biggest fear was, that some of the others would mess up – especially Dacart. While he might have been good for drawing attention during that extraction mission, the last thing they needed on this run was to draw any sort of attention.
Finally, three days after Heidenstein, Kah Pak and Murphy had gone inside the hospital, their reinforcements from Berlin arrived. It was in the late afternoon that they meat with the the rigger on the hospital's parking lot.
The rigger was in fact a dwarf, who had just driven up with a large truck.
“So, Slap”, the dwarf exclaimed, “who of those guys is the Johnson?”
The entire group had gathered in front of the hospital, as they had been waiting for the dwarf to arrive.
Slap shortly and awkwardly shook the dwarves hand and then nodded at Heidenstein. “Hey, Goober”, he said. “Doctor Heidenstein is the Johnson on this run. He is coming along on this, too.”
The dwarf, who wore a very short mohawk, when over to Heidenstein and extended his hand to shake his. “Well, here I am. Name's Goober. These guys...” He pointed back to the truck.
Three trolls came climbing out of it. They were all wearing overalls and nodded over at them.
“These guys are Moorey, Clark and Anton, well at least they are for you”, the dwarf said. “They'll help carry the heavy stuff.”
“My name is Doctor Heidenstein”, the doc replied. “Thank you for coming over here from Berlin.”
“That's what I am paid for”, the dwarf replied. “So, what's the plan? I was told we are here for getting some equipment from a hospital.”
“I'll tell you on the way”, Slap said.
“So we are going now?”, Goober said apparently somewhat surprised. “It is still day.”
“Yeah”, Pakhet replied, “but we need to get into Pinneberg – and we cannot go all at once as it would draw too much attention.”
So they drove to Pinneberg, not as a convoy, but each of the cars on their own: Slap drove with Goober to explain him their plan, Murphy was sitting at her passenger's seat in the Jackrabbit, Dacart was driving in his pick-up truck alone, while Heidenstein was taking the group van together with Kah Pak. Pakhet had been against it, but Heidenstein had been adamant that the alleged electricians van would not draw that much attention – after all they could just be doing further work.
Pakhet took a route to drive into Pinneberg from Kaltenkirchen, which would be far away from the direct route to take from the hospital.
From time to time she looked over to Murphy who was sitting besides her. He had borrowed a lab coat from Heidenstein and was wearing it above an armoured vest. He seemed to be rather content with himself.
“So...”, Pakhet began, while they were driving through Kaltenkirchen. “You're sure you can do this?”
“Pretty much”, Murphy replied with a smile. “I'll just say I am an intern. Or maybe one of the doctors. I've looked at some pictures.”
“And you are sure they will believe you?” She looked back on the street.
“If they won't, well... I can try out somebody else”, Murphy replied. “You can trust me. I've done this before.”
“If you say so”, Pakhet muttered. She was not quite sure whether it was right to take such a young boy along. Well, at least she thought he was young, considering how he had changed his face before she was not entirely sure whether this face was his real one – but considering that he had looked like that when she had first seen him in Schmidt's safe-house and he looked like this when he had come to the hospital four days before, she was almost certain, that this was his real face.
And something just told her, that he really was only a teenager.
They finally crossed over into Pinneberg. Of course they were once more controlled at the boarder of the district – after all was the HanSec presence here overbearing. But neither of their SINs raised any flags and with the explanation that they wanted to go shopping they were simply waved through.
As it was about two hours before their mission would start, Pakhet actually drove to a small mall and went inside together with the elf, who quickly disappeared into an electronics store. Yep, definitely a teenager. She herself went to shop for some food. After all she knew that if they succeeded this would be a long night. It would take at least three or four hours to deconstruct one laboratory.
While in the convenience store Pakhet just could not resist and bought some candy bars, just to tease the boy a bit. But either he was completely oblivious to her intentions or he just acted well, as he just smiled, thanked her and bit into one of the SoyChoc bars.
Finally – it was fifteen minutes to nine in the evening – Pakhet arrived at the parking lot in front of the clinic. She parked the Jackrabbit at the very side of the parking space outside the view from the entry and waited.
Murphy meanwhile turned the rear-view mirror towards himself and started doing something with his face. After having seen him transforming before Pakhet knew he was once again changing his appearance, but this time he seemed to pay more attention to detail then when he disguised himself as an electrician. Apparently he was going for a very certain look and from what he had said she suspected that he was transforming into one of the doctors from the hospital.
A bit nervous she was looking around waiting for the truck and the group van to arrive. The last think she needed was the rest of the group getting caught when crossing the border to Pinneberg.
Finally Murphy seemed to be content with his looks and turned around. He now had the appearance of a blond human in his early thirties. “Now, where are the others?”, he asked.
Pakhet sighed. “I'm wondering the same thing.” She took out her commlink to see whether she had missed a call or a message from either of the others, but there was nothing.
Well, it was still before nine and they wanted to start their operations just past nine in the evening. According to Slap the shift changeover would be at point nine. They were counting on the new security shift having to settle in for at least twenty minutes.
Having worked in security herself before choosing the life in the shadows Pakhet just hoped that these guards were more eager to get home then some of her colleagues back then, as some of those had stayed to chat for almost half an hour after their shift had ended.
A knocking at the passenger's door. It was Dacart.
Murphy opened the window, so they could speak. “Where're the others?”, he asked.
Dacart shrugged. “I don't know. They'll come soon, I think.”
Shortly Pakhet's gaze glanced over the parking lot, which was mostly empty by now. “And where is your car?” It would be so typical if he had had an accident on his way here.
“I parked it a few blocks away and walked the rest of the way”, Dacart replied. “I thought that the pick-up might draw a bit too much attention.”
What? Dacart had actually thought for himself? Pakhet was somewhat impressed. “Okay. Well, we should get out of here.” She opened the car door and stepped outside, as she knew that sitting in the car for any longer might draw attention if somebody saw it on the cameras.
She waited for Murphy, before walking off the parking lot and slowly around the clinic in the hopes of not being to conspicuous.
Finally they heard the truck even before they saw him. The truck – followed by the van – drove up to the garage-entry at the side of the hospital where Slap jumped out. While Pakhet and the two adepts went over to them, Slap jacked himself in, just before the gate opened only a few seconds later.
“I'll go then”, Murphy said.
“Okay”, Heidenstein replied, while Dacart and Pakhet climbed into the van.
And off the elf went, while the two vehicles drove into the garage with the gate closing behind them.
Pakhet did not like it – but at least she knew what she was doing this for. She just hoped nobody messed up.
All of them got out of the vehicles while waiting.
“What is the elf doing?”, she muttered to herself, when five minutes passed without anything happening.
“Relax”, Heidenstein replied, while looking rather tense himself.
Finally the elevator door opened and out came an elf with bright brownish hair – but when he grinned they knew it was Murphy.
“What took you so long?”, Dacart asked.
The elf shrugged. “First disguise did not work. Had to try out something else. But no worries, nobody was suspicious. Who would be – of me?”
“Let me take care of something”, Slap said and went forward to jack himself into the console of the elevator. Once again he sat down before going in slumping over. This time it took about fifteen seconds, before he opened his eyes. “We can now use the elevator without further problems.”
“If you said so”, Pakhet commented, but got into the elevator.
“What do we get first?”, Slap asked.
“The bioware laboratory”, Heidenstein answered tensely.
“Fifth floor”, the hacker muttered, while Dacart and Kah Pak got into the elevator, too.
“Any magical defence?”, Pakhet asked the shaman, but he just shook his head.
“I've not noticed any.”
The elevator was driving up to the fifth floor and opened into a grand hall out. Three doors lead out of it, but Heidenstein was heading for the one right across the room without hesitation. Pakhet followed him, drawing the Parashield while doing so.
It turned out, that this had been a good idea. As soon as the automated door opened in front of them, a woman looked at them from behind a glass window. She appeared to be some sort of nurse or maybe a secretary as she did not wear any nurse uniform. “Who are you?”, she asked, but seemed more confused then suspicious.
“Good evening”, Murphy quickly replied (Pakhet noticed that he already looked different again). “We were sent here to talk to Dr. Goodwin.”
“I am sorry”, the nurse said and started to look a bit more suspicious when she saw Kah Pak, who just looked off with his shaman clothing. “Dr. Goodwin is not working here. You should leave.” She got out of the class cabin in which she had sat in front of a desk – and this was her mistake.
Pakhet yanked the pistol up and placed a dart right over the woman's collarbone, while Heidenstein ran towards her to catch her fall once she fainted.
“Poor thing”, Pakhet muttered. “Hope she won't get blamed for this.”
She could already see the laboratory as it had a glass wall facing towards them – this was apparently to show of the tech inside as even she could tell it was state of the art technology, even though she did not know what half of the things were for.
“We need to get around”, Heidenstein said. “When we were here before, we could not get inside.” He pointed towards the wooden doors (at least they looked wooden, but Pakhet suspected them to be steel) at both sides, which seemed to not lead into the laboratory but according to the floor plan into some sort of corridor which lead to different rooms – one of them a server room – as well as the laboratory.
“Let me handle this”, Slap said and opened up the num pad at the door panel. Once more he jacked in.
As there was not much she could do, Pakhet took the unconscious body of the woman and carried her into her small office to place her behind her desk – so that it would look as if she had fallen asleep while working. Hopefully she would not be fired for this.
When she came back, Slap was no longer jacked, but nobody had opened the door.
“What is it?”, Pakhet asked quietly.
“There is something...”, Dacart muttered his ear against the door. “Something is moving but it sounds... Weird.”
Pakhet sighed and gently pushed him aside to listen herself. It took her a few seconds to hear it, but she realized what the sound was: A drone rolling over the floor. “Security drone it seems.” Once more she took a look at the door plan in AR, as the sound of the drone became quieter. It was definitely moving. She counted the seconds until she heard it again. “I think it is moving up and down the corridor.”
“How long does it take?”, Heidenstein asked.
“About fourty-five seconds”, she replied.
“Okay. We go in, go in one of the other rooms and then to the server room”, Slap said.
Pakhet looked at him. “Are you sure you can open that in time?”
“Well, I'll have to”, the hacker replied grumpily.
“Okay”, Heidenstein just said before Pakhet could argue with him. “Then let's try.”
“I'll stay here”, Pakhet replied. “Just in case any guard will get up here.”
“Remember their biomonitors”, Slap said.
At that she got the jammer out of the pocket of her jacket. “I'm covered.”
The hacker did not say anything to this but rather waited together with the others in front of the door. Then, at a cue from Dacart, they punched a number into the pad and opened the door, while Pakhet covered behind the corner in case somebody came through the door.
After only a few seconds a message appeared on her screen and almost automatically she accepted the request for a voice connection and put the in-ear monitor back in. There was silence at first and then there was whispering.
“That are voices”, Dacart said.
“Guards?” Slap's voice.
“Or doctors”, Heidenstein replied.
Then there was more silence, before it was again Heidenstein who talked: “Pakhet. Can you hear me?”
“Yep”, she replied.
“I think we need you here”, he said. “Guards. It seems.”
She sighed. “Okay. Sent Kah Pak or Dacart. Somebody needs to guard the door.”
“On my way”, Kah Pak replied.
“I'll leave the jammer here.” Pakhet put the small device onto the desk, then went towards the door and listened for the drone.
“The number is just one-one-one-one”, Slap explained.
She did not reply anything. The drone was approaching and she waited, one hand already at the num-pad. When she heard the drone turning around she punched four times the one-button, before pressing “open” and indeed the door opened up. Quickly she put her helmet back on, as she had taken if of when entering the building, hoping to not look that conspicuous this way.
With some respectful distance she followed the drone, hiding behind the corners, until she saw Heidenstein waving her into one of the rooms.
She ran over to him and entered the room. They closed the door just before the drone came back around the corner.
Heidenstein, who had put his helmet back on himself, just nodded at the other door of the small room they were standing in – it seemed to be a locker room. Pakhet could hear it, too: There were voices coming from the other door.
Well, no matter who it was, she had the right thing with her: She loosened a small gas-grenade from her belt and showed it to Heidenstein. “NeuroStun”, she quickly explained.
“What about the biomonitors?”, Heidenstein asked.
Pakhet shrugged. “I don't know.”
There was a moment of silence, until Heidenstein got a deck out from underneath his jacket. “Wait a moment.” He did something – Pakhet was not entirely sure, what it was, as she had never owned a deck herself. But she could see that after a few seconds her commlink did loose any connection to the matrix. “Makeshift jammer”, Heidenstein explained when he was done.
“Well, then let's go”, she said and went up to the door. She activated the air supply she had build into her helmet and suspected Heidenstein did the same. Most of her body was covered up pretty well, so she was rather confident that the NeuroStun would not affect her – after all that was the last thing she needed, but she feared they'd needed to stay in the room for the jammer to work properly.
Holding up her fingers with each number she counted to ten and then opened the door and activated the gas grenade and kept it in her hand, as it did not explode but just let the gas stream into the room.
The man inside were clearly guards, but they just looked at them in surprise for a moment.
“What...?”, one of them said and stood up, just to stumble and fall down.
The other two fainted on their chairs.
“Their biomonitors”, Pakhet said into the microphone of her helmet.
“On it”, Heidenstein replied – already stepping towards the guards. It only took him about a minute to disable all the biomonitors.
Then Pakhet opened the window for the gas to dissipate. She did not want to take any risks.
“All clear”, she said, once Heidenstein had disabled the jamming function of his deck. Then she started to take a look at the equipment the guards were wearing. It was clear – not only from the cups of soykaf in front of them – that they had been having a break. They did not wear any weapons but Defiance EX Shockers with them. But they had ID-cards and without thinking too much about it, Pakhet took them. Maybe they would get into the other rooms more easily with them.
“What did you do?”, Murphy – who came into the room first – asked.
“Knocking them out”, Pakhet replied.
Once all the others had gathered in the room, she took one of the ID-cards and listened for the drone. When the drone had passed she went outside and went over to what should have been the server room to try to open it with the card, just to be greeted with a red “Access denied” which appeared over the door in AR.
“Drek”, she muttered and went over to the laboratory entrance to try the card there, just when the drone came around.
Pakhet already had her hand at her Ares Predator, when the drone just passed her without engaging.
“Of course”, she muttered, as she realized that the drone had probably seen the ID-card, scanned them and hence had seen her as somebody who was allowed to be here. Well, that made things easier.
She went for the laboratory door and tried the card: It did not work either. And so she went back to the others. “Good news and bad news.” She showed the cards. “The drone won't engage if we carry them. But they work for neither the server room nor the laboratory.”
“And there is at least one scientist here”, Murphy said. “I've gone through the lockers and four of them are open. Three are the guards but I think the last one belongs to a scientist.”
“If it's a scientist, he might have access to the laboratory, though”, Heidenstein said.
“Let me take a look”, a deep voice Pakhet did not recognize said.
She turned around only to see a dark figure standing right in the middle of the room. And something about this figure seemed of: While metahuman in appearance it had some sort of misty quality to it. A spirit? She looked at Kah Pak, who seemed to be rather tense. Probably.
The spirit just floated through the closed door. Pakhet opened the door behind it and waited for something to happen.
Again it took a while but when she saw the spirit again it was floating behind a man, who was not wearing a lab coat but neither a guard uniform. That man went towards the server door, put a number into the pad and then had his handprint scanned, before just turning around and going back to whatever he had been doing.
The door opened and Pakhet just thrusted one of the ID-cards into Slaps hands before she ran over to hold the door open. Thankfully Slap quickly followed so that once more no alarm sounded – at least not audible for them.
Slap jacked in and soon sat besides the console completely limp.
For a moment Pakhet thought about going back, but then she decided it was better to take care of the hacker if somebody else was to come inside this room.
“Doc?”, she whispered into her mic.
“Yes?”, was the prompt reply.
“Take care of that scientist, okay?”
“You don't need to tell me”, Heidenstein replied tensely. “We are already on our way.”
Pakhet smiled for a short moment. “Good.”
After a few minutes Slap awakened from his limp state and looked around as if to confirm that no guards were around. “We can now get into the laboratory. And the security cameras will run on loop for the next six hours.”
“Good”, Pakhet just muttered.
They left the server room and went for the laboratory to check whether the door would really unlock for them – and indeed it did without any problems. Slap put some code into the door panel, had his hand print scanned, just before a green message appeared in AR: “Access granted.” The door opened.
“Doc? Everyone? We can get inside”, Pakhet said.
And like that they were in the laboratory – marking at least the first part of their mission as complete.
Goober and his trolls took the elevator, as they had waited in their truck to make sure there would not be any fighting. And together with Heidenstein the dwarf started to disassemble the laboratory.
While Slap went back into the server room to be able to properly surveillance were all the other guards were – as well as to take control of all security measures – Pakhet, Dacart and Kah Pak helped Heidenstein by partly helping with the disassemblement and partly just carrying some smaller parts to the elevator, while the trolls did the heavy lifting.
After Slap had disabled all the alarms protecting that glass wall, they had just opened it with the help of some special tools Goober had brought with him.
All the time Pakhet just waited for something to happen – for a guard to come up or anything like that, but nothing did happen. They just spent a little less then four hours disassembling the laboratory and bringing down the parts into Goober's truck. Then they went down two floors to get a medical laboratories – as this one had smaller parts Dacart, Pakhet and Kah Pak were of more use then they had been with the other lab.
Another two hours and they had disassembled pretty much everything from a medical laboratory and two surgery rooms with all their equipment.
Some of the smaller equipment they put into the van Heidenstein had brought for exactly that reason and when they were done both the van and the truck were rather full.
“What about the cyberware facilities?”, Slap asked, when he took a look at the filled truck.
“Well, I think we neither have the time, nor the space to take them, too”, Heidenstein replied. “And besides: They use nanoides.”
“So?”, Slap asked.
Well, it seemed rather obvious that he would have interest in Heidenstein having a complete cyberware facility. “Let's just say that I'd preferre to stay more low tech”, Heidenstein replied.
Slap did not seem very happy, but he did not complain any further.
“Well, I'd say we get out of here”, Murphy said with a yawn, as he had spent all the time sitting around just in case some guard showed up.
Pakhet shrugged. “Sounds good.” And just like that they left.
She and Murphy went back to the Jackrabbit, while the truck and the van took to the road. They got back into the car, drove off the parking lot and fifteen minutes later out of Pinneberg. Nobody stopped them.
Pakhet looked at the time display as it was almost four in the morning. Well, she had known it would be a long night. But she could not help to be surprised: It had worked out. It just had worked out. Without even so much as a fight. “Well, who'd know”, she muttered, while taking the road to Bergedorf.
