Drew D'Amato:Bloodlines:02 by Drew D'Amato Page A

if any of the others noticed him.  They would all be human, but so would he.  Five to one is not a good exit strategy. 
    The third reason was that tomorrow really wasn’t much of a risk.  Vlad would be a human.  His sharp ears, his perfect vision, his quick hands—all of that no longer at his disposal.  And Michael would still have his powers.  Radu expected him, invited him.  It would be all too easy to sneak up and kill him from behind if he had to.  There wasn’t a risk, tomorrow was a definite.  Michael went to sleep after his heart stopped racing from his nerves.  Tomorrow was a big day.
     
    2
    J ames wasn’t sure how long he would be in Europe for this trip.  Most times his employer gave him some idea, but this time they left him with a vague idea of about a week.  There’s a lot you can do in Europe in a week.  After they landed, Jericho called and said they wanted to depart from Munich in a few days.  There were some things for him to do, but he couldn’t get drunk, and he had to stay close to the plane.  He knew from past experiences, his employer could want to leave at a moment’s notice. 
    James went back to the airport the day after the attacks.  The place was in chaos, they had no leads, and the story he heard was crazy.  Apparently the security video footage had been damaged, a circuit shorted in the security room.  It was unviewable and then destroyed.  He was interrogated by the Border Guards about his passengers.  He told them he had been working for them for five years.  He didn’t know too much about what they did for a living, but they did have money.  He said they were good guys, never any problems up to this point, and also pointed out that he landed and they disembarked a few hours before the attacks.
    They had started to allow planes to take off and land in the morning.  James had to wait.  The airport was backed up since it closed down for a few hours the night before, and there were much more important flights ahead of him.  He got clearance late in the afternoon and by night he was moderately drinking some beers at Unionsbrau Pub and Brewery in Munich. 
    He had befriended three Germans—one guy and two girls—at the bar when two men in suits flashed him some badges.  The three Germans walked away when they saw the badges come out.  The men said their names were Clerc and Bodmer.  They worked for Fedpol and needed to show him the footage from the airport. 
    “I thought that footage was lost?” James asked.
    “That was just something we told the press so the attackers thought they got away,” Clerc said.
    “Okay, but why do I need to see it?”
    “We think the men behind the shootings might have been your passengers.”
    James had a tough time swallowing that.  He started to get scared.  Did this mean that I could be held responsible too?
    “Look, Mr. Whitmore, we know whatever these men were up to, you had no involvement in.  You are their personal pilot, nothing more.  That is the only way you are associated with them.  Don’t be nervous, all you can do is help.  You’re not in trouble.”
    “Fine, how can I help?”
    “Why don’t we go back to your hotel?  We have the footage set up over there.”
    “My hotel?”
    “Yeah, how do you think we found you?”
    “Don’t you guys have like a headquarters we can go to?  Something more official than my hotel room?”
    “Fedpol is the Federal Official of Police of Switzerland,” Bodmer said.  “We have no offices here in Germany.  The footage is on a zip drive, we just need a laptop to show it to you.  We can either go back to your hotel, or go all the way back to Switzerland if you’d feel more comfortable there.”
    “No, no, we can go to my hotel.”
    James went along with them.  It made some sense to him, but it still seemed way too casual for something this important.  He suspected something odd about these men with badges.
    Clerc and Bodmer had both taken Bandini up on his