Until he caught one little line which said that she had been born and raised in mainland China and came over only after meeting the boss at a conference. He highlighted that and sent it both to Jerricho, who was sitting beside him, and to Shane on the other end of the chat.
Jerricho looked at it, one eyebrow raised. “Are you thinking this might be it?”
“It’s hard to say,” he said, “but what if she’s a mole? What if she came to recruit what the lab in China needs? In China, what she did was work in the lab all the time. And yet, since coming to the US, she hasn’t.”
He looked over at Eva to find her engrossed in her TV show. He hesitated to ask her and to raise more suspicions, but just then Jerricho pulled up an article and turned his laptop so Diesel saw it.
He quickly picked up the laptop from him and read it, and nodded. “That’s interesting too.”
Because right there, in black-and-white, was the woman’s brother. He worked at the same Boston lab as Eva did. Diesel frowned at that, wondering if that made any difference. Was it wrong? Or was it just a typical family affair? He knew many families hired within to keep the business flowing that way. It’s hardly illegal, and normally it certainly wasn’t even suspicious. As his laptop buzzed, he looked down and said, “Believe it or not, it’s time to go.”
She smiled and said, “Yay!” And she hopped up, walked to the door, and said, “Come on. Come on. Let’s go. Our future’s waiting.”
“Our future is always waiting,” Diesel said as he got up. “The fact of the matter is, we have to make sure that the right one is waiting for us.”
She waited impatiently, as he packed up his gear, and soon enough they were all heading down to the car, taking them to the airport. The whole way he kept checking in on a Spidey instinct to see if anything was setting off alarms. And there wasn’t, but it didn’t stop that one nagging suspicion from being a bit of an irritant. As they got to the airport and had to wait before going through clearance, he checked with Shane on the Russian agents’ progress.
Both of the Russians we had tagged via facial recognition leaving the Chinese lab have been scanned returning to Russia.
Anyone with them?
No. They came home without their operative after we informed them of his death prior to their arrival.
Good. Any idea what the airport shutdown was all about back in Manila?
We’re hoping it’s because of the Russians, but we don’t know. They didn’t go through the main airport, so their method out of the country is unknown.
Well, like us, I’m sure they had another way out entirely.
Chapter 14
When the trio finally landed on US soil, Eva stopped for a moment, inhaled the smog-filled air outside New York, before he whisked her away to another airport and another flight. “Why couldn’t we have stayed there?”
“Again, decoy,” he said. “I always try to keep people hopping.”
“Wow,” she said, “you’re really going to great lengths to keep me hidden.”
“Absolutely,” he said with a smile. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
There was just that note in his voice that made her believe him. “Aww, that’s so sweet,” she murmured.
“Hardly,” he said.
“You just don’t want all the time that you invested in keeping me safe to go to waste,” she said, with a chuckle. He squeezed her fingers. She looked at him in surprise. “Hey, I was just teasing,” she added gently.
He nodded. “Of course you are,” he said, “but I would not be happy to lose you.”
And, at that, she smiled and said, “Got it.”
If she thought that the trip was almost over, they weren’t done for another seven hours. When they finally came into the airport at the outskirts of Wisconsin, she stood in disbelief. Because there, in front of her, was her father. She cried out, “Oh, my God,” and she raced forward into his arms. He held her tight, and she felt the tears just pouring down her cheeks.
“They didn’t tell me,” she babbled. “They didn’t tell me.” Her father hugged her close, just rocking her gently, until she calmed down. Finally she pulled back and looked up to see tears in his eyes, and she wiped the tears in her own. “Oh, my God,” she said, “he didn’t tell me.”
Her father smiled and said, “And he didn’t need to either. It was supposed to be a surprise.”
“See? I’ve been traveling for days,” she cried out, feeling the exhaustion in her own voice.
“I know,” he said, gently pushing the hair off her face, leaning forward to kiss her on the cheek. “I’m so glad you made it,” he whispered.
“It’s been so rough,” she said. “And yet, at the same time”—she smiled and looked back at Diesel and Jerricho, who just stood there, allowing the two to have a moment alone—“it’s been really good.”
“I hear that.”
She looked at him in surprise and said, “Did you talk to him?”
“I’ve have spoken to Diesel a couple times.”
She spun and stared accusingly at Diesel. “All this time and you didn’t tell me!”
“I thought it might be a nice surprise,” Diesel said in a mild tone.
She glared at him and then realized that he would do what he thought he should do, and it didn’t really matter. Neither did it really matter in this instance. She turned back and hugged her father hard. “We were coming to you, you know?”
“I know,” he said. “And rather than surprising me, I decided to surprise you.”
She smiled, hugged him again, and turned to look back at Diesel with a glaring look.
And he just smiled and said, “You’re welcome.”
She thought about it, burst out laughing, walked over, and gave
