As it was, they pulled up to a small motel. She looked at it and said, “Hardly your terrorist-type hotel.”
“We don’t want one of those,” he said. They parked around back, and she was escorted inside and straight to a room.
“So all you ever do is put out a request on your phone and get instructions back about where to go?”
“Sometimes it’s a little more complicated.”
“Like?”
“Like, when we have no communication at all,” he said.
She winced at that. “I don’t think I’d like that.”
“It’s happened several times to many of us already,” he said. “So we take the communication when we can get it because it makes life easier. But we’re fully prepared to go underground, if we need to.”
She didn’t want to ask what that meant because it sounded horrible. As it was, they were doing what they could do, and she would be okay with that. She walked into the room and counted just two beds. She took the one farthest from the door and threw herself down full length on it.
“Do you want to sleep, or do you want to eat?”
“I want to fly home,” she said, “but, if that’s not an option tonight, food would be good.”
“Food’s on its way,” Jerricho said. He looked over at the two of them. “I’ll step outside and check out the lay of the land.” And, with that, he disappeared.
“What does that mean?” she asked, sitting up and brushing the hair off her face. She still wasn’t used to her newly dyed dark locks, when she caught sight of them out of the corner of her eye. Not that she cared. It just was an unusual sight.
“He’ll check to see if we’re safe,” he said, without pulling any punches.
She winced. “Meaning, we could have been followed?”
“I doubt it, but it’s possible, or somebody has been alerted that we’ve left the country and are looking at all options.”
“Still not a good answer,” she murmured. She reached up and rubbed her face, then looked down at her clothes and sighed. “Any chance of a change of clothes?”
“For morning, yes,” he said, studying her. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea for the flight anyway.”
“Well, jeans and a black T-shirt are pretty universal,” she said, with a laugh.
“But that’s also what they’re likely looking for.”
“Right, so something completely opposite.” She shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve got an answer for that too.”
She walked into the bathroom, desperate for a shower and a refreshing mind shift. So she shed her clothes, hopped in the shower, and closed her eyes, as she stood under the hot relaxing water. If nothing else right now, at this moment in time, she was safe. She was okay and, although everybody else in her world apparently was messed up, she would be just fine. And, if she told herself that often enough, she might believe it.
Diesel sat and waited while she had her shower. In the meantime, he checked in on the Mavericks chat window and asked for information and an update on Marge’s death. The information started to flow, so he sat back and read. No doubt that it had been murder, but the details were still sketchy. They also couldn’t confirm that it was connected to Marge and, therefore, possibly connected to Eva. Or was it connected to any of the other four people on the helicopter or just somebody who was disgruntled and chose a target?
In Diesel’s mind, he figured it was most likely connected to Marge, but that was also just thinking and looking for a boogeyman everywhere. He asked for an update on the Russians.
No update. They haven’t been seen.
He stared out the window and then muttered to himself, “Could mean they’re underground. Could mean they’ve been taken out. Could mean they’ve booked it and are safely home.”
There was really no way to know. Outside of keeping track of his own mission, he couldn’t do a whole lot. He had the photos of the two guards he had killed in the lab, both were Chinese though and could be tough to track. The Russian team that had been there would likely be easier. Shane had facial recognition on some of the Russians. On a whim, Diesel texted, Can you run the Russians through the facial-recognition system in Manila?
Sure, but not a whole lot of tech here.
I’ve got us booked on the last flight out tonight. We’ll head to Australia, and then we’ll take a flight back over the ocean.
Good enough, send the details.
With that done, he closed the laptop, got up, and stretched. He was hot, tired, and could use a good 10K run or, even better, a good hard swim. But those were not available, so this is what he had. He dropped to the floor and did several push-ups and then held a plank for a few minutes before doing several long yoga stretches. By the time he was on his last one, the bathroom door opened, and Eva stepped out, wrapped up in two towels.
He smiled. “Now,” he said, “you look completely refreshed.”
“Just don’t look in my eyes,” she murmured.
He nodded. “The soul takes longer.”
“It does, indeed. But that’s okay,” she said with a smile. She motioned at him. “You’re not the kind of person I ever thought would do yoga.”
“Don’t make judgments,” he said with a grin.
“Not so much judgments,” she said, “it just never occurred to me.”
“It’s really good for easing up the kinks in your system.”
“Well, I’ve got plenty of that,” she murmured.
He nodded. “And any time I can’t get in a run or a swim,” he said, “yoga offers at least something to help stretch and relieve some of the tension.”
“Well, tension I definitely understand.” She sagged onto the bed beside him, while he did several downward dog movements. “I used to do Sun Salutations every morning,” she said. “I don’t know why I stopped but after being in captivity I started again to save my sanity.”
“Like everything, it’s easy to forget, and
