“I know. You’ll all be here, right?” she asked.
“We will. We’ll be near the door, pretending as if we’re still trying to figure out what’s happening.” She nodded, moving toward the table for breakfast.
“Good morning, professor,” she said smiling at him.
“Oh, good morning, Marissa. Crazy night, huh?”
“I guess. I slept through it all. A lot moving around in my brain and I’m trying to find a way to get it out,” she grinned.
“Well, you could always write it out or type it out,” he smiled. “You always were my best student and certainly one of the fastest most accurate typists I’ve ever known.”
“I prefer a computer,” she grinned.
“Still,” he said with a heavy sigh, “we could just talk as if we were in class. You could express your thoughts and ideas to me.”
“Maybe,” she said taking a bite of the eggs placed before her. “I’m thinking that this might not be my passion. I mean, its caused so much trouble that maybe I need to change the direction of my work. I’ve always been interested in improving food formulations.”
“That’s ridiculous!” he nervously laughed. “You were made to be a weapons chemist. A brilliant mind like yours could control nations.”
Marissa stared at him, cocking her head.
“That’s an interesting choice of words,” she said staring at him. She noticed that his hand was beneath the table but didn’t dare look. With her own hand behind her back, she signed to the others that he was holding something beneath the table.
“Just a phrase. Probably not timely,” he said. She nodded.
“So, did you see the amazing light show last night? All the meteors streaking across the sky?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I did,” he lied. Suddenly Rush, Connor, and Ham were standing over the professor.
“That’s interesting, professor. There wasn’t a meteor shower last night. In fact, no one was supposed to leave the hut. But you did, didn’t you?”
He started to stand but got nowhere. While Rush pushed on one shoulder, Connor pushed on the other. Ham gripped the hand below the table and found what they suspected he held. A recording device. But it wasn’t an ordinary recording device.
“For a man who doesn’t like technology, this is pretty fancy,” said Ham. “Looks like just a regular old-fashioned cassette recorder but it’s not. It’s a transmission device.”
Joey took the device from Ham and spoke into the small speaker.
“Sorry, Vasily. Looks like you struck out again.”
“No. No, you don’t understand,” said Mills. “I had to!”
“No, I don’t think you did,” said Rush. “I think you were working with Vasily all along and you let Creek take the fall for you. Real manly thing to do. Hide behind a woman.”
“You gave those instructions to all of us,” said Marissa. “You assigned those things to us because you knew what could be accomplished by them. Not Vasily.”
Mills glared at the woman, realizing even he had underestimated her intelligence.
“We were partners in this. I was to be head of his ministry of health and science.”
“You would have been dead before you ever landed in Russia,” said Connor. “Vasily doesn’t cooperate with anyone or partner with anyone. He’s a megalomanic. He wants all the glory, all the praise, all the fame but doesn’t want to do the work himself. You’re a dead man.” Ham stared at him and nodded, gripping his upper arm and pulling him toward the MPs.
“One way or another you’re a dead man. Either by Vasily, the MPs, or us.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“I can’t believe he was doing this to all of us,” said Marissa. “He’s responsible for it all. For the girls that sucked us all into the plan, for those that turned us in, all of it!”
“He’s pretty unassuming,” said Christopher. “Don’t blame yourself. He just looks like a geeky professor, not some international terrorist. Although, we should have guessed that it could have been him.”
