~ France, Chateau ~
Sarah left the tech-room where her Sigma army is discussing latest hacking techniques. Her phone is ringing and when she saw that it's an incoming call from Jarred, Sarah decided to take it in a more private setting.
"Old man, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"
"Hmph!", Jarred grunted. "What unexpected? You asked to find information for you, and now it's unexpected?"
Sarah paused. "Information?"
Jarred understood Sarah's confusion right away. "You forgot? Then it's not important."
"No, no, no… it's just that…" Sarah's brain was almost steaming while she thought how to get out of this. "You know I like to ask for many things, so I'm not sure to which one you are referring."
"Hmm… Not a very good excuse for forgetting, but I will take it because it is true that you ask for many things. And this ti you asked to find you sothing like a master for fighting and stuff."
"You found one?" Sarah dashed upstairs to the office room on the second floor.
"I have so information on one. If you will be able to get him to help you with whatever you need, that is on you."
"Oh, oh… tell , please."
Sarah was super-excited. They tried digging up information about any master, but everything was a dead end. So far, Jarred never disappointed. That man is well connected.
…
Aiden found Sarah in the office. She was blankly staring at the imaginary spot on the floor, and the desk surface next to her was littered with various printouts… maps, text, sothing that looked like magazine clips.
He pulled a chair and sat next to her. "Looks like sothing important if it puts you in such deep thoughts."
"Jarred called. He found information on the master, but even he is not confident that the information is legit. He sent what he has and left it up to to decide what I want to do with it."
"What do you have?" Aiden can tell that Sarah already started looking into it. That must be the reason she is missing for last few hours.
"A person. Known by na 'Master Hollow'. Of course, he is in the middle of nowhere, because why would anyone with any skills live in a civilized place with road access?" Sarah exhaled in frustration. "And listen to this: If I want to even get considered by him to talk to , I need to go through so trial."
Aiden thought how that should be expected. "It's not unusual for any expert to ask for so way to express your sincerity. Otherwise they will be swamped by wannabe trainees who give up halfway."
"But I don't want a training. It's more like… a consultation."
"And there are probably many who ca with all kinds of reasons. He can't see them all. It's a waste of his ti." Aiden tapped Sarah's nose with his index finger to wake her up from her grumpy mood. "OK. Nothing you can do about it. Move on. What else you got?"
"Well, the rumor is that passing the trial is just to get him to talk to . To acknowledge my existence. If he will do anything other than that, it's up to to impress him."
"All this is too high level." Aiden frowned while thinking. "Do you have anything else?"
"Yes. Another rumor…", Sarah gave few printouts to Aiden. "These are about his daughter. She was last seen in this college in Serampore, India. Eighteen years ago. Master Hollow is trying to find her since then, unsuccessfully."
"So, you think that if you find his daughter, he will help you out?"
"If old man's information is legit, and if this Hollow master exists and if I pass the trial and… so many ifs." Sarah sighed. "And how do I find a girl in India who disappeared eighteen years ago?"
"I assu you asked Eve.", Aiden guessed.
Sarah confird. "The only thing Eve found are few ancient blurry photos of the girl before she went missing. Even with advanced facial reconstruction, with twenty years to build on, error margin is more than I want to accept as a reason to go and approach random won in their late thirties and ask them if they are Tashi. Maybe she changed her na or… who knows if she is alive."
"If the man is looking for her, he either believes that she is alive, or he is looking for a closure."
"At the sa ti, there must be a reason why he can't find her. You think this is worth looking into?"
"I think that WE can look into this before we decide to drop it. You are looking for a master who is not related to Stella, and here you got a clue about one." Aiden gave Sarah a aningful look. "Don't give up so easily."
Sarah realized that few hours without finding much affected her negatively.
She adjusted her mood. "Who said I'm giving up? I was just thinking… thinking! And now that I have your help I know that we can find whatever there is to find."
Sarah and Aiden were busy in study room until dinner, and after dinner they were back at it.
It was late in the night when they stopped their work and summarized what they have.
Sarah was pleasantly surprised that they discovered an online backup of one email thread between two people, and one of them attempted to approach Master Hollow. Based on that and few more clues, Sarah and Aiden agreed that closest-to-facts are: 1. Person with a na 'Master Hollow' exists, and people treat him like a master of martial arts; 2. There is a trial that a person needs to single-handedly complete in order to approach Master Hollow; 3. Master Hollow is looking for a female who is young enough to be his daughter (he is rumored to be more than sixty years old).
Aiden added: "For you to get his guidance, we need to find current whereabouts of his daughter, and you need to pass that test."
"Test is easy. Whatever it is, I'm confident I can do it. But this daughter… if we can't find anything solid with Eve's help, I don't think that it's easy to find her."
"If she is in so remote place without modern electronic gadgets, it is difficult this way." Aiden gestured toward their computers. "And just two of us are not enough to go and search by foot.",
Aiden paused and furrowed his brows while thinking.
"It seems you have an idea.", Sarah asked after so ti.
"Hear out…", Aiden's start indicated that Sarah will not like what is coming. "You rember security conference? Saurabh Patel? He was interested in giving us a token in advance for our services. My idea is that we reach out to him and offer our services in exchange for a token."
Sarah frowned. When Mr. Patel gave them token in advance, she had a bad feeling about it. For so reason, her intuition scread that token cos at a high price and that she should not take it. But she can see where Aiden is going with this. "You want to use token in exchange for Mr. Patel to help us find Tashi?"
Aiden confird. "He has the manpower. And India is his territory. If anyone can find traces of a woman lost there eighteen years ago, that is him." Aiden saw that Sarah is not eager to accept that idea. He expected that. "At the end, it all boils down to: do you want to try approaching this master? How I see it, he might be your chance to get advantage over Stella. And Stella is the key of finding more about Lebedevs as well as about the other family who is after . Think about it. Let's go to bed now. It's late. In the morning we will talk more."
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