"As you say sir, I'm exhausted. I'll get some rest and call you when I finish looking through the data."
"I'll be waiting your call then my boy, I'll see you soon. I might go have a drink at the hotel bar and leave back to the council chambers. I have business to take care of there." I nodded to him and exited the room. I saw the back of CniDaria walking to the elevators, a drink in hand. Her body language didn't give upset or annoyed though she would take a sip from her glass every second or so. More of someone in control, more of someone on a mission. I didn't catch the look on her face before she entered the elevator up. I was disappointed not to catch her; I wanted to apologize for cutting our moment short. In my mind, I couldn't shake that it felt like a moment I would forever regret losing. I convinced myself that in the morning I would explain everything to her over breakfast. On my way back to my room, my mind drifted to wrapping my head around how anybody untrustworthy would know that I was here let alone that I was the chief investigator on a matter that hasn't even been made public. I was too tired to even get around to having a solid hypothesis. Once I got back to the room, I loaded up my laptop and inserted the USB I was given. Once the USB was decrypted, it loaded up files of flight logs, surveillance footage, passenger lists, hotels records, port logs. This wasn't a task I could get through quickly. Thinking of the task ahead of me, fatigue hit me like a ton bricks. My eyes tried to fight my heavy lids but my body did a poorer job. I felt weak in my arms and my neck was having trouble keeping up my head. The room around me was losing color slowly and before long all I saw was the black of my eyelids. I decided to finally give in and let sleep take me. This task could wait till morning there would be no harm.
I fell into a deep sleep. I was in castle dancing the night away with CniDaria in my arms. It was just us in the ballroom, while I wore a dashing tuxedo and her a sublime gown. Reminiscent of an animated kid's movie I watched when I was just a child. A movie where the hero gave up everything to get the girl. His overwhelming pride, selfishness, even the one thing he held dearest. Just to make that girl happy. To prove his love for that girl. Common sense told me that it was foolish but… that smile. The smile that CniDaria showed me in that dream changed everything for me. It was beautiful and radiant. It melted away everything I known and I did whatever needed to be done to keep her there. It was the most enjoyable dream until it wasn't. Before I could grab her hand to finally save the day, her body would melt away from me with her smile being the last thing to go.
I woke up hours later in a daze. I looked at my watch and I saw that it was noon the next day. Knowing how behind I was I immediately started looking at the data I was given. It was boring and confusing work. There were a bunch of reports of petty crimes and false alarm sightings in various cities around the world. Some of the reports I had already seen and studied previously. I knew I got to the end of the data when the information on the weapons trade came up. No substantial information on who he sold to, only the perpetrators bank account. However, the direct deposit made to him seemed to be made in crypto, in other words untraceable. In more words, another dead end. My eyes hurt, and I was ready to knock out again; I looked outside again and it was already dark again. I haven't heard from boss all day, probably waiting for my call. More importantly I haven't heard from CniDaria all day. Was she mad at me? Frustrated and tired yet again I fell asleep.
In another daze I awoke. It was early morning now, It was more than 30 hours since I had spoken or seen anyone. I grabbed my phone to call my boss to apologize for my absence. However, my phone had several messages and several missed calls. The message that caught my eye immediately was from CniDaria.
'I'm sorry for your loss honey, he seemed like a nice man. If you ever want to talk, I'm here.'
I was beyond confused, what did that mean. I saw that the bulk of the messages and calls were from work. They were probably checking in about the info I had yet to completely cover so I didn't pay it much mind. I turned on the TV and exited the room to brush my teeth.
"At one a.m. this morning the Secretary General of the United Nations Hassan Obama was declared dead from wounds suffered from third degree burns. Both his driver and his assistant were murdered in the assassination of one of the most prominent world leaders in living memory." I heard my toothbrush hit the floor with the softest of clinks. I rushed to my phone and started scrolling through the missed notifications. I had only one missed call from my boss and a voicemail. I clicked on it to listen.
"Good evening Nicholas, I'm pretty certain your fast asleep right now. None of my agents have told me that you left the room and to not answer my call while awake is not like you. Either way I've been thinking that this whole illegal weapons trade is a bigger problem than I initially let on. We caught the guy who sold the weapon. He was very talkative man, apparently according to him, he was dead man walking for getting caught by us and tried to tell us as much illegal dealings as he could to obtain protection. The intel we really wanted to hear however, the simple fact of whom he sold to this time around. He couldn't tell us. He didn't know the name, the face, the gender, the bank account he got paid with was a highly sophisticated encryption. The person was a ghost. Check the USB I gave you, so you can start working on unlocking this encryption I have a feeling a person who is this smart, careful, and awfully paranoid is the person or people we are looking for. Well I'm on the way back to the hotel hope to see you soon." The message ended with a beep and I promptly saved it. I put my phone down and looked at the ceiling for a minute. I can't believe the only person who ever believed me was murdered without me doing a single thing. Colleagues had left text for me, asking where I was, or messages of doubt. They must have been suspicious of me that I had something to do with this. It was understandable I would feel the same way. The message that was sent proved I was being monitored so it shouldn't be too hard to prove my innocence. 'PING' another message came in and this time it came with an attachment of a video. The moment the Secretary General was killed was on this video. The news had put it lightly. No way he wasn't killed instantly from the explosion. There was no full day needed to operate on him to save him, it was more accurate they needed more than a day to identify who was killed. I watched the video over and over again. At first look there seem like an out-of-control car crashes and the car ensues to combust. However, everything was out of context, context I would have to look further into. Why was the car out of control, why did he crash into a pole and not another car, why would crashing into a pole cause the car to blow up. Too many coincidences and not enough information. I kept zooming in to see the face of my boss right before he was killed. A look of resignation made my blood boil and shame spread through my body. I held back the tears as I looked back at my laptop and clicked on the files from the USB. He was not about to die in vain.