After locking her front door’s standard lock, Alice clasped down and locked the three other precautionary locks she had installed on her door during her two year stint in the hotel. She walked over to her bar fridge and grabbed a beer before walking over to her living room window and cautiously peeking out through her heavy curtains onto the street below her.

There were seven cars parked in the length of the side street, all with New York plates and all unoccupied. Scanning the sidewalks and the flats opposite the hotel she spotted a number of business men walking towards the subway, a couple of joggers and just the usual number of ordinary people whom one couldn’t quite guess where or what they were doing out on the street at 8 in the morning. Finally convincing her that there weren’t any suspicious characters around, Alice drained the rest o her beer and walked into her bedroom, taking off her shirt and track pants and hitting the bed face down, falling asleep almost immediately.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Silence. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Alice lifted her head just slightly off the bed to visually locate her mobile which was going off on her bedside table. Grabbing at it with one of her hands, she clumsily opened the phone and put it to her ear.

"Morning Xavier."

"It’s one in the afternoon Charlie," Xavier replied curtly. Alice let her eyes wander to the clock on the wall. 1:07pm. "You really need to sort yourself out a better sleeping pattern. I don’t even want to know what time you ended up crashing this morning."

"About eight," Alice replied. She swore she could hear Xavier role his eyes at her response. "And don’t give me that sleeping lecture Xavier, you’ve got the easy job in this relationship. I know for a fact that if you had to do the dirty work even once in your life, you’d have a little trouble sleeping too."

"I choose not to find out," Xavier answered seriously. "Now as for your next… assignment. 11:43pm, George’s."

"I’ll be there." And with that Alice closed the phone and settled back into her uneasy sleep.