Identity - 3. Chapter 3

The morning sun blazed through Kai’s uncovered window into his eyes, forcing him to finally wake up. Brown moving boxes littered the floor and lay for the most part unopened. Only his bed, dresser and desk were in their right place.

Kai yawned and stretched as he slowly woke up. After a few minutes lazing around, Kai got up and scratched his naked butt as he rummaged through his luggage to find a clean pair of undies.

Walking into the kitchen, he realized his mum was still sleeping. Out of habit, he walked to the fridge and opened the door to find it nearly empty. Inside he saw only a half-empty Coke bottle he had bought last night.

Finding nothing better to do and waiting for his mum to get up so they could go to the closest grocery store, Kai took the time to explore his new home more extensively.

He left the kitchen and walked though the dining room and into the living room where their new dark brown leather sofa called to him. He resisted sitting on it, knowing full well that he might just dose off again. Instead opened the balcony door and stared at the panorama that was spreading in front of his eyes.

From the top of the 23rd floor, Kai had a breathtaking view of Montreal’s downtown skyscrapers. Kai was so mesmerized by the view that he could have spent all day looking at it.

After a few minutes, Kai decided that he’d better get his day started and went to freshen up. He jumped into the shower and the very warm water hit his back and began to relax his tired muscles. As he washed himself, he almost missed the sound of a knock on the front door.

Knowing his mother was still asleep, he realized he had to answer the door himself. He quickly turned off the water, got out of the shower, dried himself off and raced to the door, tying the towel around his waist in the process.

As he opened the door, he realized that his morning visitor was in fact Neils. One could have said that it wasn’t a bad surprise. In fact, it was a very pleasant one.

Neils didn’t know what made him get up and make an unannounced visit to see his new friend. The worst part is that he didn’t even know if he could call Kai a friend since he only met him last night. Granted, they had a real good time, Neils thought, but he was breaking his unwritten rule which required that the other person had to initiate the second meeting. In fact, he had made it quite clear last night that he’d be waiting to hear from Kai.
But yet, here he was, standing on the other side of the doorway, in front of a beautiful boy wearing only a towel. That sight alone caught his little Neils off guard.

“Hey, Mornin’!” Kai said smiling when he realized that it was Neils who was at the door. “Did you sleep well? I actually wanted to drop by your place a little later to thank you for last night. It was nice of you to show me around.”

“It was my pleasure. Tho as a thank you, why don’t you come with me and get some breakfast?” Neils asked.

“Only if I pay!” Kai answered back.

“Oh! I have no problem with that!” Neils quickly responded.

At that moment, Kai remembered a word of wisdom his mum and even his oldest friend told him not so long ago -- that he’d make new friends in Montreal. As much as he was pissed that they were right, he was very glad that it turned out to be true. The fact that his new friend was attractive wasn’t a factor at all.

“Well, give me a minute to get dressed and we’ll be going,” Kai said.

Neils teased him. “Oh, you don’t have to get dressed just for me, I won’t mind!”

“Nah, I think I’ll get dressed, it wouldn’t be good if on my first day in town I get arrested for a misdemeanor or something like that,” Kai said as he went to his room without realizing that Neils had followed him.

“Seems like you’ll really need some help getting set up in here,” Neils remarked as he saw the messy state of Kai’s room.

Neils’ words froze Kai in his tracks. He thought he was alone and he was about to drop his towel to get dressed. But as he turned around he noticed that Neils had indeed made the trip all the way to his room.

Neils was about to turn his back around knowing that he had pushed his luck a little too far, that there was about just no way that he’d get a glimpse of Kai naked. But at the last second, his prayers were answered. The towel dropped and revealed a magnificently smooth and toned body.

Kai had decided to change in front of Niels after a brief mental debate, and decided to get dressed as if they were in a locker room together. Also, Kai wanted to tease his new friend in hopes of getting a reaction and finding out where Niels stood. But Kai got no answers, Niels didn’t stare or do anything to betray his true feelings as Kai put on his undies and pants.

Before leaving, Kai wrote a note to his mum saying that he was heading out to get something to eat with his friend and left it on the kitchen table in plain sight and they were on their way.

They decided that to go to this little restaurant called ‘Eggspectation.’ Well actually, it was Neils’ choice since he was the one that knew the place, but Kai realized, after having his first bite of a delicious pancake, that they had made the right decision.

“So, is there anything else that I should know?” Kai asked as they were once again talking about what they like to do in their free time and what there is to do in Montreal.

“There’s not really much that I do,” Neils started to say but realized that there was one thing that he could mention to get Kai’s attention.“Well, we’re close to the Bell center and to the bars on Crescent, meaning that during the hockey season, on game night, you can always come across the players, mostly the young unattached ones,” Neils finished saying, hoping that he had been well interpreted.

“Cool, so we can check them out,” Kai blurted out, then after realizing how it must have sounded, he corrected himself. “I mean, we’ll be able to see that.”

“Ya, I knew what you meant,” Neils reassured him.

A little later, after finishing their meal, the waitress brought them two additions.

“Could you make only one addition?” Neils asked the lady.

She agreed and went to make the required adjustment and came back but this time with only one piece of paper and handed it to Neils. “There you go, when you’re ready, you pay at the cash.”

After knowing that the waitress was out of earshot, Neils handed the addition to Kai. “Here you go, if I recall correctly, it’s supposed to be your treat.”

As he got up to pay the addition, Kai stuck his tongue out for the benefit of his friend to see.

Having no cash on him, Kai had to pay by interact. As he was waiting for approval of the transaction, he looked around the restaurant. A man’s face caught his attention, he had seen that shaved head guy before, but at that moment he just couldn’t remember where he last saw him.

Right then Neils snuck up from behind without being noticed. “Something wrong, Kai?” he said.

“Ya, I just thought I recognized someone, over there,” Kai said pointing in the direction of the guy, but the person wasn’t there anymore. Kai looked around, the front door, toward the bathroom to see where the man had went but saw nothing, no sign of movement. “He was there!” Kai whispered.

“Who did you think you saw?” inquired Neils.

“Bah, I must have been seeing someone that wasn’t there,” Kai said. “So, ready to go?”

“Yes, of course! So, back to your place?” Neils asked. “I did tell you that I would help you get settled into your place after all.”

“Well, actually, I also wanted to get something for my room, some decoration, a poster or something,” Kai stated.

Neils shrugged. “Well, the stores are open now, we could simply go to the mall. What kind of poster are you looking for?” he inquired.

“I was thinking about a movie poster,” Kai answered.

Neils knew just where to take him. “Then let’s go to Metro Video, you’ll have plenty of choices there,” he said.

The two of them walked east on Maisonneuve for a block before getting back inside the mall at the metro Peel.

Kai, who hadn’t yet seen the underground passageways of Montreal got his first glance of it as they passed from one building to the other.

The shop that they were looking for was just under the movie theater downtown in the building right next to “les cours du Mont-Royal.” Once inside the store, the two boys took their time to browse through the extensive collection of DVDs that were on sale. The titles were as varied from the most popular new releases to obscure independent foreign movies. Of course, Kai found out that the store was carrying a huge number of posters, from big budget films to classic academy award winners.

For some reason, Kai felt like a pair of eyes was watching his every step, his every movement while he and Neils wandered through the store. But every time he looked around, he didn’t see anything and stopped worrying that he was being followed.

With the help and opinion of Neils, Kai picked up a poster for the “Bourne Ultimatum.” After paying for it, the two of them walked out.

“Can we just make a quick stop at the restroom before going back to my place?” Kai said as they were about to get on the escalator to go outside.

“Actually, I won’t say no to that either,” Neils responded.

They made their way to the men’s room that is in a little corner near the food court. It was deserted when they got inside, and both went to the urinals right next to the other.

“Later this afternoon, we should go by the Apple store on Ste-Catherine, I’ve seen that Hanson is playing there today,” Neils said, breaking the awkward silence.

“Oh, so the whole, helping me getting set up is all forgotten now, eh?” Kai said, making an emphasis on the typical canadian ‘eh.’

“Wait a minute, that’s not what I said!” Neils started to defend himself.

Absorbed in their conversation, they both missed the fact that someone had crept into the restroom. Once inside, Mr Miles quickly took out of his jacket a piece of cloth. The fact that his target wasn’t alone at the moment caused a problem for him, but there was no room for error so he had to act. He quickly wrapped the cloth over Neil’s nose and mouth and with no time to defend himself, Neil lost consciousness and dropped into his attacker’s arms without a fight.

At the same moment, Kai felt the intruder’s presence and turned around, but was just too late to stop him. The man held Neils’ limp body in his arms and had a knife at his neck ready to cut the young man’s aorta.

“Now, don’t try anything foolish here,” Mr Miles said calmly and slowly. “You might get away from me, but your friend here would end up dead. Something tells me that you wouldn’t want his death on your conscience,” Mr Miles said. “Just come with me, don’t resist and nobody will be harmed.”

Kai rapidly searched his head for other options but thought of none that could save both him and Niels. He knew that he had to cave in and follow the man’s instructions, at least for now.

“I’m gonna do whatever you ask, just don’t hurt him,” Kai said.

**

Travis and his team had arrived in Montreal a few hours earlier and had already settled into their hotel room downtown when agent Becker rushed into the room holding his laptop in his hands.

“I think we need to touch base with the local authorities, sir,” he said immediately.

Travis didn’t like to repeat himself, especially for things that he deemed simple to understand the first time. “I already said that it’s a covert operation, we need to find the boy and his mother and protect them without being caught. No locals on this one!” Travis insisted.

Becker sighed. “I know, but I think that they’re already following this, or they will be very soon.”

Becker realized that he needed to explain himself when he saw everyone in the room had question marks on their faces.

“I was doing some research for unusual activities in the area to see if the man who was looking for Kai had drawn attention to himself. Well, I stumbled onto a police report from earlier today, it seems a good samaritan called 911 to report that someone might have been pushed into a car against their will out of a local mall this morning.”

“And why does this matter to us?” Mr Thorpe said.

Agent Becker walked across the room and opened his laptop on Travis’ desk. “I took the liberty of doing my own research on this and after some work I managed to access the security footage”

“You mean you hacked it!” Thorpe interrupted him.

“I did what needed to be done, and that’s how I traced Kai,” Becker explained. He turned the laptop so the two men could see the screen playing the video file. “This is from the side alley, captured from the building across the street,” Becker explained.

On the video, Travis saw three unidentified people coming out of a backdoor and entering a black car that, moments later, drives off.

“You can’t seriously tell me that you can identify anyone on that tape,” Thorpe started to say.

Becker restarted the video but this time zoomed in on the people. This time, it was much clearer, Thorpe saw that Kai got out of the security exit first, followed closely by Mr Miles dragging Neils while still holding his knife. Becker froze the frame just as Kai was about to get in the car.

“Recognize the boy?” Becker asked to the both of them.

“Damnit!” Travis yelled. “We need to keep this quiet, we can’t let the local LEOs into this, it’s a matter of security!”

Thorpe tried to restrain his boss’ eagerness to control the situation. “I don’t recall Quebec being part of the Union. We can’t stop them from investigating. We don’t have any other options here.”

“We simply can’t have them interfering with our operation,” Travis said decisively.

“Well, in that case, we need to talk with the mother before she notices that her son is missing,” agent Becker noted.

Travis nodded. “That’s a good point. Let’s get going then, but it would be better if we had something good to tell her.”

“I’ll try and hack into the traffic cameras and track down where that car went,” Becker said.