“It was,” she said. She yawned and said, “Now you know something? I might go to sleep.”
He snorted. “That’s fine,” he said. “You get to. I don’t.”
She laughed. “You’re right.” And then rolled over.
Diesel pulled the blankets up over her, kissed her tenderly on the temple, and said, “Just sleep.” He got up, put on his boxers and jeans, and stepped out into the living room. They’d left the front door open. As he stepped out onto the deck and took several deep breaths, something cold and hard and round and metal was shoved against his spine.
He didn’t move for the longest moment. And then slowly, he turned. With his hands in the air, he faced somebody he’d never seen before. “Interesting,” he said. “Hired gun or somebody who’ll do the job himself?”
“I’ll do the job myself,” said the guy in front of him.
“And do I get to know who you are?”
“I’m her boss. “Everybody started to make inquiries into my wife’s position in the country and in the company and then her ties to China,” he said. “Of course they look at that. They always see me as a dupe. I’m nobody’s dupe.”
And, at that, Diesel nodded. “Of course not,” he said, “but she was a really good cover, wasn’t she?”
“She was. I was born in China. We knew each other when we were children and always planned to get married,” he said. “We set this up a long time ago. And because she’s not involved, nobody can blame her for anything or tie her to anything.”
“It still doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
“Nope, but we’ve had a high turnover. I’m sure Eva told you that,” he said. “And mostly because I was singling out the decent scientists, hoping that we could find the proper cures over in China. But we never could. Eva was the next on the list to be tried.”
“I didn’t realize Paul and Marge both worked for you.”
“They did. She didn’t tell you that? Not the same location though.”
“No, not so clearly,” he said, frowning. “But then I didn’t actually ask.” He shook his head. “What a fool.”
“Yeah, you see? A bright young man, like you, can get completely sidetracked by a woman.” He said, “That’s why my wife does her job so well. She sidetracks everybody into thinking something completely different, and then, when they start looking at her connections, and they get suspicious, they can’t find anything. So it all eases away again.”
“Whereas you’re in it together,” he said.
“Yep, our company’s failing. I have to keep pulling these tricks to get more investors. We’re about to shut it all down, go bankrupt actually,” he said, “and that’s a good thing.”
“And why is that?”
“Because, once we’re bankrupt, nobody will take too much notice,” he said. “We’ll go back to China, and I’m not exactly sure what we’ll do from there,” he admitted. “I know some of the company men over there aren’t very happy with us. Because of what happened. But it’s not our fault that Eva escaped. Matter of fact, we’ll blame that on you.”
“And you’d be right,” Diesel said mildly. “You would be very right. But that doesn’t stop here or now. Why come here and take her out?”
“Well, we can’t have any threads left, can we? And then everybody involved in that lab is truly gone,” he said. “That’s just the way of the world.”
“So why are you not gone?”
“Well, because I am one of the bosses,” he said.
Diesel smiled and shook his head. “No.” He said, “You were one of the bosses as long as you were delivering. You’re no longer delivering, and you’ve caused a problem, so you know you’re about to be eliminated yourself.”
“Well, if anybody else worked for us, then that would be the truth, but I’m definitely the boss,” he said, “and I call the shots.”
“I’m surprised you’re here, doing the work yourself.”
“I would let my brother-in-law do it because he really wanted to, but I figured that, if anybody saw another Asian moving around the countryside, that would be too memorable.”
“Yes, it would,” he said. “So what’s the plan here?”
“That’s easy. It’ll be a murder-suicide. I’ll shoot her, set you up for it, and then you’ll shoot yourself.”
“Wow, and why would I want to do that?”
“The oldest reasons in the book,” he said. “You fell in love. She was just using you, and you couldn’t take it. In a fit of anger, you killed her. Once you realized what you had done, you couldn’t live with yourself, and you killed yourself.”
Diesel stared at him in surprise. “That cut-and-dried, huh?”
“Life really is cut-and-dried,” he said. “Those with power use it. Those without want it and try everything they can do to get it. And we spend all our time making sure we hang on to it.”
“Got it,” he said. “Where’s your wife now?”
“She’s in town, waiting for me,” he said. “We’ve already shut down everything. My brother-in-law’s doing the last of it now.”
“And all because Eva escaped?”
“Of course. If we’d managed to take her out over there, then we wouldn’t have this problem. Yet you managed to get her back here again, so I’ll blame you for all this.”
“Right,” he said, “sorry to hear that.” He nodded toward the doorway. “And of course you have to take me out before you go after her.”
“Of course,” he said.
At that, another voice entered the fray. “Isn’t that just too bad then,” Eva said, leaning against the doorway.
Her boss turned to look at her and immediately backed up, so his gun could cover both of them.
She didn’t even appear concerned. She leaned against the door, her arms crossed over her nightie. “You know what? I kept considering why you would do this, and I just didn’t have any idea. But I knew something was wrong. I knew a connection was here that I just couldn’t put two and two together.”
“Well, that’s why I’m the boss, and
