“He sure got out of here quick.”
“Probably because he wasn’t supposed to be flying that low over Rio.”
“Thanks for the flare, Lyle,” Lyle said, miming Wolfgang’s voice and making a face. “That really saved my bacon!”
Wolfgang laughed and slapped Lyle on the back, but he wasn’t looking at him. Megan stood ten feet away, drinking from a bottle, and when she met his gaze and lowered the bottle, they stared at each other. Wolfgang’s mind traveled back to that favela shack when she kissed him. How she leaned forward and embraced him with nothing but her lips. And how the whole world and all its imminent dangers had just . . . faded away.
Wolfgang saw her now, dirty and battered, and wanted to run to her. He wanted to sweep her up, kiss her again, hold her close, and finally be himself with her.
But Megan turned away.
“When we land, the director will be present to meet his daughter. Everybody give him some space, okay?”
Edric stood at the front of Charlie Team’s Gulfstream, both hands on the back of a seat. After leaving Rio, they flew directly back to the States and were now ten minutes from their customary private landing strip outside of Saint Louis. Wolfgang had tried to sleep on the flight, but in spite of his exhaustion, his weary mind wouldn’t shut down. He kept thinking about the favelas and all the bullets that whizzed only inches from his head. He thought about Rose chained up like something in a horror movie, beaten and bruised, abused by animals who called themselves men.
But mostly, he thought about Megan. During the ten-hour flight, he made multiple attempts to catch her gaze or find excuses to speak to her. Megan avoided him, staring out the window for long periods of time in a silence so brooding that even Edric noticed and knelt beside her for a moment, putting a hand on hers and whispering something to her.
Eventually, Megan retired to the aft cabin where Rose slept, and Wolfgang sat alone and thought about their kiss. He thought about her smile and her little joke about him being a bad kisser.
How could all of that be shut off so quickly?
What did I do?
The Gulfstream touched down with a shriek of tires on pavement. Wolfgang looked out the window at the beautiful expanse of Missouri farmlands and sucked in a deep breath. It had been less than a week since he was home, yet it felt like an eternity. He never imagined it could feel this good to be back on American soil.
The stairs whirred down, but Edric motioned for everyone to remain seated. Megan appeared from the aft cabin with Rose in tow.
The girl wore a clean set of pajamas, and her face was freshly washed. Bruises still covered her arms and neck, stretching as high as her cheeks, but she held her head high now, pausing at the door to look back at Lyle, Kevin, and Wolfgang. “Thank you,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes.
Wolfgang smiled but said nothing, watching through his window as Megan led Rose to the foot of the stairs.
A black Cadillac sat twenty yards from the plane, and as soon as Rose touched the tarmac, she ran toward the car. A tall man with salt-and-pepper hair appeared from the back seat and wrapped the girl in a hug, pulling her off her feet and spinning around until Rose squealed.
Wolfgang smiled and blinked away the blurriness in his vision. He thought about all the movies he’d seen with reunions like this, but none of them brought on the feels quite like the real thing.
“Come on,” Edric said. “Nigel wants to see us.”
Nigel?
Wolfgang followed the others down the steps into the bright Missouri day. He cast another hopeful look at Megan, but again, she ignored him. As they reached the tarmac, Wolfgang noticed another black Cadillac parked near the nose of the plane, and standing near it was a tall, skinny man with wispy blond hair. He wore black from head to toe—a black suit with a black shirt, a black tie, black shoes, and a black belt. Even the belt’s buckle was black, and dark sunglasses completed the look.
“Who’s this?” Wolfgang whispered to Edric.
“Nigel,” Edric said. “He works for the director . . . kinda like a secretary.”
Doesn’t look like any secretary I’ve ever seen.
Charlie Team assembled around the trunk of Nigel’s car, and the unsmiling man offered a stiff bow. “Congratulations on an outstanding job. The director asked me to present each of you with a token of his gratitude.”
Nigel pressed a button on a key fob, and the trunk of the car popped open. He reached inside and withdrew a white shopping bag, then dispersed little cardboard boxes to each of them. Wolfgang was last in line, and when Nigel reached him, he paused. Wolfgang couldn’t see behind his glasses, but he had the very real impression that Nigel was staring into him more than at him.
“Thank you for your valor,” Nigel said.
Thank you for your valor? Who says that?
Wolfgang accepted the box and slipped the lid off. He blinked in surprise. Nestled inside the box was a silver Rolex watch with a black face and a metal band. It gleamed in the sun as the second hand ticked slowly over the word Submariner at the bottom of the face.
Wolfgang knew almost nothing about watches, but he knew what a Rolex was, and he knew they weren’t cheap. He looked up in confusion and saw that Nigel was still standing directly in front of him. Still unsmiling.
“Do you like it?” Nigel asked.
“I . . . um . . . yeah.” Wolfgang glanced down the line of his teammates. They all received watches, and Kevin and Edric were excitedly comparing theirs while Megan held an elegant gold lady’s watch in the sun to admire its crystal face.
Wolfgang looked back at the Submariner, then
