Shadow Men – 5 – Rafe and Steele

After dinner, Rafe returned to his room to change clothes. The plan was for him would work two sides of the area around St Nicholas Church while Steele would take the other two. Neither of them had high expectations they'd actually find Jensen but they hoped they might come across someone who had at least seen and remembered the man, no matter how vaguely. To that end they each had a picture of Jensen tucked in their wallets.

With the Do Not Disturb sign hung, Rafe locked the door behind him and went down the hall to the fire stairs, descended, and exited by the side door of the hotel onto the street. Not too much later he was looking at the church from across the lawns that surrounded it on three sides. After staring at the impressive building for a long moment, he turned and started methodically working his way from shop to pub to restaurant in the immediate area. To anyone who asked rather than just shaking their head when he showed the photo, he said that Jensen was his brother-in-law who had walked out on his family. Some commiserated, some asked for details, which he freely gave, but still no one admitted to having seen Jensen.

As he moved farther afield to the next streets over from his starting place, Rafe wondered if Steele was having any luck, even though he knew his partner would have called if he had. He also wondered if this was, in fact, a wild goose chase. In the two days since Jensen had last communicated with the Colonel's people, he could have gone, or been taken, anywhere.

With a bored sigh he walked into his next stop, a small pub. It was apparent after he entered that someone was celebrating something they considered momentous from the number of well-dressed people happily mingling around, ties hanging loose on the men, shoes kicked off the women's feet.

Rafe inched his way through the crowd to the bar and after a few moments managed to catch the tender's eye. He ordered ale then showed the man Jensen's picture. The tender studied it for a moment, shook his head and disappeared, returning soon with Rafe's drink. As he did his eyes flicked toward a hallway door off to one side of the main room before he turned to take care of the next customer.

Interesting. Rafe casually took a small sip of his ale while resting back against the bar. He looked around as if he was just interested in the goings on, chuckling when one of the men staggered and had to be held upright by his less than happy female companion. His eyes landed momentarily on the door the bartender had glanced at and he saw it was open just a crack. The hallway itself led to the restrooms if Rafe didn't miss his guess. He pushed off the bar, and headed in that direction.

As he got to the door he stopped to make certain no one was paying attention to him while his slipped hand under his jacket to slide his gun from its holster. Then he quickly shouldered the door open and stepped in, the gun now held at his side. Light from outside the room did little to illuminate the interior but Rafe could tell he was in an office.

"Please close the door," a voice said quietly from Rafe's left. "And re-holster your gun if you would. I have no intention of harming you unless it becomes necessary."

"Just why should I believe that?" Rafe asked, making no move to defer to either request.