Chapter 40.

Pieces.

Uccle had a library just as grand as its villas. Oliver ascended a marble staircase to the third floor, running his hand along gold-laced railing beneath a stunning mural of angels. Its eastern windows faced a fountain surrounded by a green lawn, where a winding concrete path led between some out of season cherry blossoms.

"When we get home, this place will seem like a dream," Sara said.

Oliver had joined her in a little reading nook by the window. She had a book open in her lap, pretending to leaf through it. It was in Dutch.

He nodded, tracing the path with his eyes until it disappeared in the shadow of the trees. "I learned a lot about Richard Martin today."

"So did I," she said. "You first."

Oliver hesitated. "He had a visitor at the coffee shop." He told her of the meeting, the things he had overheard, and that Richard Martin had plans that night. "Maria gave me a book about the building he works in. Apparently it has secret tunnels beneath it."

"That was nice of her."

He sensed hostility in her tone. "I think you're missing the point here. Secret tunnels."

"I heard you." She flipped another page in her book, pausing on the image of some king from another era. "I'm getting some conspiracy vibes."

"I don't think Maria has anything to do with it."

"I was talking about Richard Martin," she corrected.

"Oh."

Sara eyed him, "Why would you even think I meant that?"

"I didn't."

She snorted. "Okay, then. While you were putting down roots, I found out who Richard Martin really is."

Oliver waited, and then groaned and prompted her, "Who?"

"Garret Dwyer."

She paused again. He said, "Who is that?"

"A very mysterious man."

"Sara, please…"

"Sorry. Richard Martin is an alias. Garret Dwyer was a weapons developer for the US Government. He was supposedly killed in a car accident, but a bomb with his signature killed a bunch of people in Arizona. He was flagged as a terrorist and linked to other bombings. The only possible alias they dug up was Richard Martin, but the name is so common that they've been sitting on it for years with nowhere to start."

She sounded almost gleeful, reporting the information like she had just heard a juicy rumor. Oliver wondered if she was taking this as seriously as she should.

He simply said, "Waller left that out."

"She left everything out."

Oliver tried to look past the fact that Waller could have been sending them to their graves. His house could be rigged to explode. He could be dangerous. She hadn't bothered to warn them at all. Did she want them to find this information? Was this some kind of test?

"Hey," Sara said, nudging his knee with her foot. Her tone was softer. "Whatcha thinking?"

He must have been wearing a dark expression. He tried to wipe it away. "His meeting tonight is probably about selling bombs."

"So… what are we gonna do?"

That was the million-dollar question.

"I've found that less people die when Waller doesn't get what she wants."

"What's our plan tonight?"

"We follow him and see what he's up to – and then we'll know if we should intervene."

"He's selling bombs, Oli. Why wouldn't we stop him?"

"Some things are out of our hands, like it or not."

Sara started to say something, and then stopped herself. She crossed her arms and glared out the window for a few minutes, drawing out the silence between them. And then she said, "You said we were heroes back home. A hero would stop him from selling weapons that could kill people."

"We have our own problems to deal with right now, Sara."

"Yeah, but once we get home we still have to deal with what we did while we were here!"

"I know that," he snapped, a flash of anger disrupting his composure. "Don't you think I know that? I dealt with the repercussions of my actions for years. It tore me apart, and it still does."

Her scowl softened, but only a little.

"We can't save everyone," Oliver insisted. "Once you try, you end up losing more people in the end. We have to find out what Waller wants with him before we interfere."

"So, you don't think it's worth trying at all?"

"I didn't say that." Oliver forced himself to calm down. He had to remind himself that this version of Sara only had a taste of the darkness he had known in the future.

Sara said nothing for a little while, and they both watched the fountain through the window.

"I guess we should go stare at Richard Martin," she said at last.

Oliver took a settling breath. He wondered what he was going to do – if Richard was going to end up dead, or if he could find a way to free them from Waller before then. His greatest fear was that his reluctance to kill Richard would end in Waller punishing them. He was walking a thin line, risking his loved ones for a bomb-making fugitive.

But he said he could do better this time, so he had to at least try.