Christian and Marie, France

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Christian and Marie continue gathering intel.



Molina De Aragon was beautiful; a Spanish town that had over a thousand years had grown numerous castles, walled redoubts, and strongholds in the fractious history of Guadalajara. Sitting at a modern cafe, sipping fresh chocolate thick enough to stand a spoon up in, and watching a bar man carefully squeeze tiny limes and oranges into a glass bottle didn't feel like it should belong to a town surrounded by towering stone battlements. One almost expected knights to be roaming the streets instead of tourists and locals, bundled up against the cool air.

Christian Kane looked at home in the environment; a handsome old man, dressed in quiet but tailored and expensive clothing, speaking Spanish with a liquid familarity. He could have easily been taken for a wealthy retiree, which made Marie's presence assumed to be somewhere between personal assistant and young lover, or even occupying both. Kane dropped all kinds of misleading clues through every place they traveled, sometimes his attention and body language that of an employer, then a lover, and then even a grandfather; the mutable, mercurial nature of his actions were obviously the product of a lifetime in intelligence, but hard to keep up with for someone casually thrust into the life.

Paris, Rome, Madrid; they'd flashed through them all in a manner of days, mostly quick stops and a few phone calls, followed by quiet deliveries or circumspect visits to drop areas or safety deposit boxes, meetings with bartenders and hotel owners holding on to bulky envelopes, addressing Christian with any manner of names other than his own, and him entirely comfortable with it. They had reached Molina De Aragon late last night, and Kane had made a single phone call prior to turning in. Now, after killing the morning wandering the town, Kane had chosen this small cafe for lunch, and sat with his coffee, staring out the window and taking the odd sip.

"Enjoying Spain, nieta?" He said, looking back at the bartender. "Nieta, right señor? That's how you pronounce it?" The bartender smiled indulgently, obviously carefully husbanding a large tip from clueless tourists, and nodded back at Kane, and turned back to Marie with a smile. Obviously today they were family.

Marie ran her hand over the simple silk sheath dress she was wearing, a style that allowed her to slip between the various covers required, though she wasn't sure how it would hold up in a fight. She'd learned from Christian that it was key they blend in, something that wasn't a simple task for the Southern girl. Luckily people rarely looked twice at her gloves due to the winter weather, though some seemed curious when she didn't take them off indoors.

"Ah'm just waiting to see if it holds the sites Ah'm hoping to see," she said taking a sip of her own coffee. The past week had been a whirlwind...Marie wasn't the naive girl from Mississippi anymore, but neither was she used to the tempo of international travel the pair had undertaken.

The bartender went off to take a phone call, and Kane turned back to the table. "The best cover is often right out in front of everyone. Well done." He said, nodding his head. Over the last few days, Marie had been given more flexibility on her own, without Kane explictly explaining every detail or step they took, a sign that could be taken as some trust in her ability to learn the complex nuances of the shadowy world she'd stepped into by following Christian. "Anything useful in that Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale report?"

Both of them had been shifting through the intelligence at night that Christian's contacts made available, but there wasn't much. It was believed by Interpol and the FBI that Magneto's funding and financial support was mostly based in Europe, where secretive banking laws and complex cross border arrangements made it easier to hide his funds and funnel them where ever in the world it was needed. The attack on the car had involved advanced ordinance, and if they could find the money trail, it would lead them to the first rung on the ladder of the organization.

"Nothing with a direct link, of course," Marie said, some of her evident frustration leaking out in her tone. A couple possible trails that led to La Rochelle, in France. Some fairly large amounts of cash flow heading through there, but that's all Ah found."

"La Rochelle is used by a trio of accountants in Malta as a flow through for African militias." Kane said, eyes tracking the people going past. "I can't imagine that they'd work with Magneto though. Prejudices."

"Because he's a mutant?"

"Because he's a Jew. They'd happily profit off a three headed man as long as they didn't blame him for killing Christ." A brief smile flashed against the grey beard. "This world has been holding grudges since the rise of Rome, Marie. It's important to remember that, because it defines how our opponent is forced to operate."

The door opened and a man walked in. He stepped up to the bar, and placed his satchel and folded paper on the top, motioned for the bartender. They had a short exchange in Spanish as Kane walked up to refresh his coffee, and then the man turned to leave. Kane picked the paper up off the bar and called to him.

"Sir, you forgot your paper." He said as the man was headed out the head. There was a brief exchange in Spanish before he closed the door behind him and went into the street. The bartender poured Kane a new coffee.

"He said he's finished it. Would you like me to throw it out?"

"No. Perhaps I'll see how well those Spanish language tapes have worked." Kane said, passing over a bill and sitting down. When he opened the paper, Marie could easily see
him transfer a sheet from it to his lap, and then under the table to her notebook, where they had put some of the information they'd collected, camoflagued in a typical university style folder.

"Maybe while you practice your Spanish, Ah can look over our itinerary for tomorrow," Marie said, pulling her notebook from her lap to set it on the table. She casually began leafing through it until she reached the paper Christian had transfered to her. Studying the short list of names and bios, Marie was careful to block the page from anyone else's view, despite the emptiness of the cafe.

"No bus tours. They always serve marginal paella, and I can't take that." Kane leaned his elbows on the table, an almost perfect mimic of his son, and leaned forward. "Any names leap out at you?"

A look of pain briefly crossed Marie's face as the similarity in motion was not lost on her. Pitching her voice into as carefree a tone as she could muster, she replied, "Ah was thinking maybe one of the wineries. This one here has good reviews," she said, turning the notebook to face Christian and pointing at a name - Alis Hebert. "Ah know Ah've heard that name before, many times." Lowering her voice, Marie continued. "Lots of charges, all dropped when the witnesses mysteriously vanished. And by vanished, Ah mean gone without a trace...not even a blood trail to follow."

"He's got a checkered record even before he hit the big time. Believed to be involved in two bank robberies, a kidnapping." Kane smiled at her. "But it's not him."

The older man took a sip from his coffee and shook his head. "He's a professional criminal, which is different from a terrorist. The violent disappearing of witnesses is organized crime involvement, and not the Brotherhood. You see, Marie, a professional terrorist, at least the good ones, are as close to anonymous as possible." Christian took the list of Interpol Brotherhood suspects that he'd acquired through his contacts, and rand his finger down the page, stopping at the last name. "Byron Calley. Arrested twice in university during pro-mutant rights demonstrations, both times the charges were dropped. Moved to Marseille to complete his masters in sociology at University of Provence Aix-Marseille I, and settled there. Belongs to several pro-mutant groups, a few of them on Interpol's watch list as considered possible fronts for funding anti-human violence. No criminal record in France, but made the list because of an ongoing correspondance with an suspected Brotherhood operative arrested last year."

Marie nodded as took mental notes of Christian's comments and pulled the notebook towards her to study the brief biography. Really, it made sense. They weren't looking for the person who was on the radar...they were looking for someone off of it. "Byron Calley," she repeated. "Well Ah guess it's time for that field trip."

"I do love the south of France this time of year." Kane said, his voice pleasent, but a cold purposeful look in his eyes.

Marie's own eyes held more of a wistful look. She'd always wanted to travel...she'd had a map on her wall as a teenager, back when she was normal, of all the places she wanted to go. Well, in some sense she guessed she was getting her wish. She just wish it hadn't had such a cost.