Sarah tried to push away Zehn's hands as they started to remove her overcoat. He just stepped forward more, trapping her hands between their bodies. Once her overcoat slipped off her shoulders, he tossed it to the side. She shivered, but wasn't sure whether it was from the slight fall chill in the air or from the situation. Her heart hammered in her chest. Her mind was telling her body to move, to do something, but it was as if all her muscles were frozen.

"If you behave, this will all be over quickly." He started taking off one of his gloves. Once he got one off, he put it in his pocket and carded the bare hand through her hair. "The things I do for my country…"

The contact loosened Sarah's tongue. "Let go of me!" She demanded. Her voice shook and she knew she was on the verge of crying. She tried to push him off her once again. Hopefully, someone had heard that.

His hand moved to her cheek and wiped away some of the tears that had dripped down it.

He was probably telling her the truth. Alemanians were fearful of the ASP, though they did a better job of hiding their fear by simply ignoring their presence whenever they were around. If anyone realized they were here, they would probably just head the other way. A part of her wouldn’t blame them.

“Nothing more to say?” Zehn mused a little bit as his hands moved to her back to pull her closer to him, not that there was really any space between them to begin with. “Perhaps we should get started then. Unless there are any other objections....”

What kind of statement was that? Of course there were objections! Her anger briefly overcame her fear and she pushed forward, causing him to stumble back a step.

“I object! To this, all of it!” She shouted, even through the tears. She didn’t care if anyone heard them at this point. She wasn’t going to go into this quietly. “Let me go, Agent Zehn, or I’ll fight you every step of the way!” Even if she was shaking and knew she wouldn’t last long in a fight against a fully grown man who no doubt had some sort of combat training.

“I would win, you know.” He seemed to consider things for a moment. For someone who seemed so eager to ravage her a moment ago, he was taking his time with it. If he was going to do something, Sarah wished he would make some sort of move. “But I’d rather not get scratched up and expend that much energy. You have something else in mind?”

“What do you really want from me, Agent Zehn? Surely not…” She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. He had finally stopped what he had been doing, she didn’t want it to start up again. “Besides, I’m sure you’d rather have an Alemanian woman. I’m just a Liban girl who got caught up in things.”

“Well, you are a bit young for me.” He admitted. The Agent hadn’t let go of her but his grip had loosened some. “What are you offering? What would you give to get out of this situation you’ve found yourself in? It has to be something pretty good.”

It was at that moment that she knew it was a sick game on his part. If he had really wanted her, he wouldn’t have dragged them into a dirty alley way and they probably would’ve had tea in a hotel where there were accessible rooms as opposed to a cafe. And she might’ve been a bit naive when it came to men and flirting, but her mother had made sure to lecture her on what to look out for. Zehn had none of those signs, though he could’ve been hiding them. The sudden change in personality was too quick, too fast, as though he was an actor switching between his real personality and role. She had just been too scared and panicked before to think about it. Still, she’d need to be careful. Her theory could still be proven wrong.

“I could translate things for you. I know you know Aboloanian, but what about Syrealian?”

“I’m decent enough with that and the department has official translators we can trust.”

That made sense. After all, she was a Liban, a possible enemy. No one would want her around anything official. Now what did Zehn want from her? He was giving her plenty of time to answer. Was he looking for a particular one or did he just want to see what she said? Did she have anything else though? Her translation skills were probably the most valuable thing she had.

“What, is that it?” He questioned. “Surely there’s more.”

Sarah pushed at him once again. This time, she was completely free from his grip. He lowered his arms and looked back and forth. Then he looked at her again.

“Well, aren’t you going to run now that you’re free? I doubt that you’re actually wanting to go through what we were doing just a little bit ago.” He pulled his glove out of his pocket and put it back on.

“I could run, but would that do me any good? You’d be able to catch up and if a soldier or another ASP agent saw me running from you, they might shoot me without hesitation.” She walked over to her overcoat and picked it up. “I don’t like it when people try to play mind games with me, Agent.”

“If you want to take a swing at me, you’re welcome too.” He straightened his hat a bit. “And it’s mind job to play mind games. Though I do wonder how you knew it was a bluff on my part.”

When she didn’t answer right away, he chuckled some. “Ah, you weren’t sure until I just said it. Once you got over your initial panic, you held your composure pretty well. We should probably head back to the port before your crew starts to worry.”

“I’m going to tell them about this, you know.”

This time, she was making sure to keep her distance from him as he walked along. It was clear that the man wasn’t to be trusted at all, not that she had trusted him before being an ASP officer. Zehn nodded at her statement.

“Naturally. I will just make sure that there are armed soldiers between me and the cook at all times. And stay out of the range Captain’s Sherman’s cane. And away from Ms. Cunningham’s wrench. And I’m sure Mrs. Lettermen is capable of inflicting damage on me too.”

“Maybe you should ask Colonel Heinz for reassignment.” If he got to have some “fun” at her expense, she should be able to do the same thing. “It sounds like it might be too dangerous for you to be around us.”

“You wouldn’t want that. It’d be just like with a Syrealian, just instead of being called a spy all the time, you’d be called a traitor. And you would probably end up on the wrong end of someone’s fist more than once.”

She disliked how Zehn could bring up logical points without much effort and he always seemed to know what to say to shut down an argument. He must’ve had lots of practice.Sarah wouldn’t mind so much if he wasn’t so nonchalant about it, like it was something he did naturally. If he constantly bragged about it, then she could tune him out. But she found herself having to listen to everything he said in case he let something slip. She usually ignored people she didn’t get along with.

Much to her relief, they came to the port entrance soon after. The rest of the crew was there. Dave waved to them as they approached.

“We were just coming to look for you two.” He stated once they got close enough. “Of course, these two insisted on coming with us.” The Captain pointed to rather two nervous looking soldiers who seemed to be focusing on Ash more than anyone else. “At least, I think that’s what they wanted. Since you ran off with our translator, Agent Zehn, it was a little hard to tell.”

Claire, who was in something other than her coveralls for once, pushed past the rest of the crew and came up to Zehn and kicked him in between the legs. Fortunately for him, she was not wearing the boots she usually wore on the Echelon. Still, he went down.

“What did you do to her?!” She shouted at the man, even as Ash had to hold her back and the soldiers raised the weapon at her. “And don’t tell me you didn’t do anything! I can tell you tried something at the very least.”

Dave stepped between the soldiers and Claire. “Please, put your weapons down and back up! Claire, please back off.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” She screamed at him. Dave took a step back while Ash struggled to hold her. “Let go of me! You can’t just let a man like that walk away!”

Agent Zehn caught his breath and told the soldiers to back off. They did so, but very hesitantly. He stood back up with a slight wince.

“Well, since Ms. Cunningham has clearly notice something, I might as well clear the air now.” He straightened himself the best he could. “I did proposition Ms. Hidalgo…”

“It was more of a threat to be honest.” Sarah remarked as she came back toward the group. “But it turned out to be a test to see how I would react. I’m unharmed.” Though very, very unnerved. She wasn’t sure when she would feel fine again.

“You. Did. What?” Ash looked like he was considering letting Claire go to have another go at the Agent.

“My job, Mr. Lettermen. I was just doing my job and I took no joy in meanancing her. I understand how upset you are and I will take my leave for now. These two can escort your wherever you need to go and I will see you tomorrow.”

He walked off, although his gait did have an odd kilter to it. The kick from Heather must’ve affected him more than he let on. Sarah wouldn’t deny that she didn’t at least feel a twinge of satisfaction at his pain. The two soldiers looked more confused than anything else about the whole situation.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” she assured the worried crew. “We should probably get business taken care of first. Where do we do that?”

“The place that ordered the furniture picked it up, so we don’t have to worry about that part.” Dave replied as he leaned on his cane. Ash released Heather, who still looked rather displeased. “In fact, we were just going somewhere to eat. If you feel up to it that is. It sounds like you’ve had quite the ordeal.”

While part of Sarah did feel the need to go hide under the bed and never come out, she also wanted to see a bit more of Aleman, even if it was just part of the port city. The soldiers would be along, but maybe with her knowledge of Alemanian, they could handle them.

“To be honest, I’m hungry. As long as it’s not tea, I don’t care what we have.” Sarah answered. “That is, if we can afford to go eat somewhere. If not, just some of Ash’s food will be good enough for me.”

They all looked to Heather. She nodded. “It won’t stretch the budget too much if we don’t go somewhere to fancy. Sarah, can you ask our babysitters for a recommendation? Tell them we want good food, but we don’t need luxury food.”

Sarah did so and the soldiers gave an answer. There was an alehouse not too far away that served decent food. So, the crew plus the two soldiers set out for that place. This time, she would not make it so obvious that she was checking for wires under the table.