Page 71 of Devil
“Tell me more about the cologne. Will it be gifted to the president this evening?” Lily asked. Tina nodded. “Did you add the virus to the bottle yourself?”
Tina shook her head. “I left both in my trash bin this morning.”
“And who was supposed to pick it up?” Lily asked.
“I don’t…I don’t know. She only said that someone would.”
“When did she tell you this?”
“A few days ago. I think. Before I went to New York, but not much before.”
The sisters had gone to New York on Monday. It was possible Jennifer had phoned them before the lab accident.
“And did you ever find out who the mutual friend was? The one who suggested she reach out to you in the first place?”
Tina shook her head. “No, she said it was someone from DC and that she’d known for more than twenty years.”
“Any guesses?” Lily pressed. “Man? Woman?”
Again, she shook her head. “No, but I got the sense she knew the person well. Not like romantically, but like a friend.”
Darius flickered a glance at Lily, but her gaze remained fixed on Tina. Finally, she nodded and rose. Tina startled at the movement and gripped her hands in her lap again.
“I’m sure you’ll understand that we have to keep you here for now,” Lily said. She looked to Dominic, who nodded.
“I can’t go home? I’ve told you everything I know,” Tina said, her voice once again trembling. Darius rethought the debate about whether she was playing them or was really that naive. She was part of a plot to infect the president of China with a deadly virus and she thought they were going to let her go home?
“I think you’ve told us everything you think you know, but there’s still a lot more we need to get through. So, no, you don’t get to go home. Not to mention the fact that you were part of a plan to unleash a biological weapon on the president and, likely, his staff. All in all, Tina, I know you think you had good intentions. I know you think you were justified in what you did, that he needed a wake-up call. But the reality is, you’re not that different from him, not in this. There are people with families, people who want peace and prosperity and opportunities for their kids, that are around the president every day,” she said, echoing what the woman had said moments ago. “What you tried to do, what you planned, wasn’t ever only going to affect the president. And for a woman who claims to love the Chinese people, I find it hard to believe you didn’t think of that.”
And with that, they left the room.
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
“We have a problem,”Stella Matthews Zatoro said as she approached Devil and Darius, her husband trailing behind her.
“Just what I wanted to hear. Lay it on me,” Devil said. Despite having spoken to Stella on the phone several times, she hadn’t met the woman in person until today. Like her brother, she was tall and blond and had striking blue eyes. Other than being tall as well, her husband, Hunter Zatoro, was about as opposite as a person could get with his deep brown complexion, black hair, and eyes nearly as dark.
“The president decided to leave tonight, not tomorrow,” she said.
“Which means DSS is doing final checks on the plane with his security team,” Devil said. Both Stella and Hunter nodded. “Where is Highborn?”
“Given the sudden change and the compressed timeline, he went with the team to the airport,” Hunter answered.
“How many are at the embassy?” Devil asked.
“About two-thirds of the president’s security team and about the same of the DSS agents,” Stella replied.
“Who’s with Highborn at the plane?” She wasn’t as concerned about the cologne as she had been before she realized how unstable the virus was. Now she was almost convinced that it was a red herring, something made up so that the Lam sisters would believe themselves to be part of the plot. To be clear, theywerepart of the plot; they’d broken into Lab 14andtransported the virus from New York to DC, but they weren’t part of the final plan. That final step that would lead to the president being infected.
Stella rattled off four names. She recognized them all from the list Chad had provided, though Highborn and Crawford were the only ones she had any intel on.
“I don’t think the cologne is going to be the delivery mechanism, but to be sure, they are X-raying the gifts, correct?” she said.
Stella nodded. “Nothing has come up, and definitely no cologne bottles.”
“What did the three people from the council bring?” Darius asked.
“A small, hand-carved jade teacup with an etching of the embassy on the side,” Hunter replied.
