Yager led them to an empty building and stood proudly in front of it. “Thisa was our old Headrooms when didn’t operate sola out of the Iron Eagle.” He explained. A couple of the other pirates nodded in confirmation. “It’s the prefecte place to take someone if the… inquisitation is going to be muy loud.”

“Pleasant,” Sarah commented dryly. It certainly looked like a place no one would want to enter. The windows were boarded up, some of the brick was falling off, and it seemed like it would fall apart if someone touched it. “Maybe I should stay out here. I’ll just get in the way if I go in with you and we encounter trouble…”

Yager shook his head and pulled her up to where he was. “No. You still owa me for my padre pida.” He held up his bandaged foot as well as he could. “You’re a quiet person, mi frienda, which makes you the perfecte persona to scout things out.” He pushed her to the door of the building. “Come backa if du find anything.”

“Maybe I should go, Yager.” Ash volunteered. “If I run into trouble, I can get out of it easier than she can…”

“I don’t trust du to not try something.” Yager gave her another shove. “Just take a quicky peeky. If you see signage of someone, come backa. Got it?”

Sarah nodded. “Yes, Captain. I understand.” She knew she could probably sneak out of the back of the building and no one would ever know, but she could leave Ash and Heather stuck with the pirates, even though they probably knew how to handle them by now. And if Yager was right about the others being here and in trouble, she couldn’t leave knowing that and not tell someone.

The building was more intact on the inside than the outside, though it smelled of mold and the walls were cracked. But she didn’t feel like it was going to fall on top of her, so that was a plus. She carefully walked along, making sure not to let the floor creek under her. There were no signs of anyone on this floor. She came to a set of stairs. Should she go up or down?

If the radio shows or books had taught her anything, the bad things were in the basement. But this was real life, so maybe they would go up higher thinking people were more likely to check the basement. Or maybe it would be easier to keep things unheard in the basement. So many choices, if only there was a sign of some kind…

Approaching footsteps caused her to retreat to a nearby corner. A man came up the stairs to the floor she was on. He bit a cigar and lit it. She couldn’t see all the details of his face from where she was but she could tell one thing. The man was wearing Dave’s coat. It was a bit snug for him, but he didn’t seem to mind. He took a puff of his cigar. Then someone came down from upstairs.

“>”

“>” The man with the cigar replied.

To Sarah, this was confirmation of Yager’s Alemanian agent theory. Now, they could just be a gang made up of Alemanians and had nothing to do with the government, but they didn’t seem like typical thugs or even members of an organized crime group. The smell of the cigar came to her location.

“>”

“>”

Sarah knew he hadn’t tossed it because he was curious about what it meant and didn’t want to make things difficult if they ever had to do business in Aleman again. It was hard enough when the Alemanian government didn’t trust them, it would be worse if they got on the bad side of the freedom fighters also. He wasn’t in a position to burn too many bridges.

“>”

“>”

The man with the cigar put it out and stuffed it into his pocket. They went down the stairs and she heard the door close. Sarah rushed out as soon as she was sure they weren’t coming back up. Everyone was leaning against the outside wall, even the usually proper Heather.

“So what did du find?” Yager questioned as he limped up to meet here. “I see du are vida, so that’s a guda signage.”

“They’re probably Alemanian agents like you thought. I only saw two of them, but there could be more elsewhere right now. They have Dave downstairs and the other two upstairs.” Sarah reported as calmly as she could even though her heart was racing. “They seem to be more focused on Dave because they think he knows something about what was in the fake cigar and something about who the contact is. But apparently, he hasn’t said anything on either of those.”

“The contact is Yager, though he probably didn’t expect him so soon.” Ash got off the wall. “I don’t know about that first one.”

“Itz obvious. Recke sends me an item that represents what she necesitas. Then I get it to her. But only moi and her conozco the code.” Yager looked rather pleased with himself over that fact. “So nein, I would nae expect that wooden-legged pilot to know, even if he looked inside da cigar. I told her that du were a reliable buncha and dat du wouldn’t talk to any authorities about it.”

“Nex time you decide to do business with a freedom fighting group, leave us out of it!” Heather turned to Ash. “So what do we do? Go in and save him ourselves or report this to the authorities? I’m sure they would want to know that Alemanian agents are on Aboloan soil.”

“No, no poliza!” Yager declared while slamming the cane down on the ground. “It sounds like we outnumbre them, so we should win if we va in there. Und the sooner, the better if du want the others back in one pizza.”

“We certainly won’t have the element of surprise if you keep yelling like that.” Ash went to the door. “Okay, Heather, Sarah, Yager, you stay out here in case we need back up. The rest come with me.”

The pirates looked to their captain who nodded. They withdrew their weapons from where they had hidden them and followed the cook. Heather pointed to an alley next to the building.

“Maybe we should wait there instead of out in the open, in case someone else comes along. Something tells me that there’s more than two of them that are involved in this.”

“And you would be correct, Mrs. Letterman. There are more than two of us,” said someone from behind them. The clicking sound of a hammer being cocked back was becoming way too familiar of a sound to Sarah. “There are six of us, and one is one the roof with a rifle, so I would think twice about trying to draw a weapon if I were you, Kapitan Jaeger.”

Yager removed his hand from his coat and held them up in surrender. “It es Yager! Not the way you sprecken it.”

“It’s not my fault you somehow manage to mangle every language you attempt to speak.” A hand snaked around Yager and pulled the gun out of his pocket. He probably hadn’t been holding his gun since he only had one spare hand. “That alone should be a crime worthy of execution. Now turn around, all of you.”

They did so and saw one man, definitely Alemanian. Two other men joined him with weapons drawn. Too bad the street was so empty. But that was probably why they had chosen it, no disturbances.

“And here we thought we would have to go looking for you all over the continent or in the bay, Kapitan. How nice of you to come to us,” the agent continued as the other two started searching them.

Sarah saw one pull out the money from the most recent job from Heather’s coat pocket, but he put it back. The one search her pulled out her notebook and opened it. He took it over to the leader and handed it to him. He put away his gun and riffled through it. She didn’t know what would be so interesting. That was just her notes for languages. She kept the important stuff under the floorboards of the ship.

“Ah gut, a translator. Now there will be no misunderstandings.” He closed her notebook with a snap and pocketed it. The other two agents searched Yager much more thoroughly. At least they knew not to underestimate him. They only found a knife in his boot, but nothing else.

“If you would all kindly enter the building, we have a lot to discuss.” He motioned with the gun for them to go on.

Sarah found herself entering the building once again. Now they were in for it. Unlike Zehn, these guys wouldn’t be playing around with them. They meant business and she feared the end of that business meant that no one was walking away, pirate or otherwise.