Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
J ewell held her head while waiting for her brothers to come online in fifteen minutes. She still felt like crud, but she wasn’t throwing up anymore. Zane had taken a trip down the mountain to get something for her nausea. It wasn’t something they had on hand because neither of them was prone to getting sick.
Her personal cell rang, and she pried open an eye to look at it. Her mom. She picked up the phone and answered it. “Hey, Mom.”
“Hey, Button. Zane called and told me you weren’t feeling well. That’s kind of strange, isn’t it? I mean, you haven’t been off the mountain to catch a bug.”
Jewell leaned back in her chair. “That’s why we think it’s food poisoning. It was really bad, but it’s getting better.”
“Huh.” Her mom was silent for a minute. “May I ask you a personal question?”
Jewell blinked and held the phone away from her face. “Since when do you ask?”
Her mom laughed. “Honey, is there any chance you’re pregnant?”
Jewell straightened up in her chair. “Pregnant? No …” She glanced at her calendar. When was the last time she had …
“So, you’re not late?” her mom asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never kept track of that. It happens, and I deal.” Jewell frowned. “Besides, I’m on the pill.”
“The pill isn’t one hundred percent, honey. How about I call Zane back and suggest he pick up a couple of pregnancy tests? Just to make sure. You don’t want to take a lot of nausea medications if you could possibly be pregnant.”
Jewell frowned. “I can’t get pregnant, Mom. I would be a horrible parent.”
“That’s so not true. I see you with your nieces and nephews.”
“But a baby, Mom. I wouldn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t know how to teach a baby to be normal. What if they turn out like me? I’m not normal.”
“Oh, honey, you’re more normal than most of the people in the world. You have me and Zane and your sisters and sisters-in-law. You would have all the help you ever needed.”
Jewell was silent for a long time as she tried to process the conversation she was having with her mother. “Do you think I could be?”
“I don’t know, honey. I assume you and Zane have a healthy sex life, so yeah, it’s possible.”
“I don’t want to talk about sex with you. Is that weird?”
“No. Not at all.” Her mom laughed. “If you did, I’d have to stop you because it is weird.”
“Oh. Okay.” Jewell looked at the clock. “Mom, I have to go. I have a conference I need to hook up.”
“I’m going to call Zane, okay?” her mom asked again.
“Yeah, I guess. If I’m pregnant, what will I do about work?”
“You and Zane will figure everything out. I promise. And I can come out any time you want me to. Will you let me know as soon as you know?”
“I will. Thanks for calling, Mom. Although, I’m not sure I’m happy with the idea of being pregnant.” Jewell wasn’t sure how she was feeling. She and Zane had talked about children, but that had been ages ago.
“Getting used to the idea won’t take long, and then you’ll be over the moon excited. I promise.” Her mom seemed so confident, but right then, she wasn’t too sure if she was excited or terrified at the prospect of being pregnant.
“Okay. If you say so, I have to get this conference online.” She glanced at the clock again. “I’ll call you back as soon as I know.”
“I love you, Button.”
“I love you, too, Mom.” Jewell hung up the phone and stared at it for a minute, letting all the words swirl in her head. She couldn’t be pregnant. She took her pills religiously. She had an alarm set to remind her when she was working nights, and it was her bedtime ritual to brush her teeth and take that pill. She pulled the computer closer to her and did a search on the efficiency of the pill she was taking for birth control. If taken correctly, it was up to ninety-nine-point-nine percent effective. Jewell let out a relieved, long breath. It was the flu or food poisoning. The likelihood of a point-one chance of her getting pregnant was astronomical.
Jewell went through the motions of setting up the conference and checked the security of each connection before she connected it to the meeting. Tori was first on the line. “Hey, I hear you’re not feeling well.”
“News travels fast.” Jewell tried to smile, but she wasn’t sure she managed it.
“Yeah, well, you throwing up during a mission isn’t exactly standard operating procedures.”
Her sister-in-law had a point. “I’m positive it’s food poisoning. Things can go bad in storage, and we have a massive pantry in case we get snowed in.”
Tori’s eyebrows lifted. “It could be something else.”
“No, it couldn’t be.” Jewell looked at her sister-in-law. “I’ve done the equations. Statistically, the chances of that happening are astronomical.”
Tori chuckled. “Oh, honey, believe me, I know about astronomical chances when on the pill. Your nephews are proof of that.”
Jewell shook her head as Joseph popped up on the screen. “Hey, Button, feeling better?”
Jewell closed her eyes. “I was.”
Tori chuckled as Jacob came online next. “Hey, I thought you were coming to my office?”
“Oh, I wanted to talk to Jewell for a little bit before the conference. I’ll come over afterward.”
“Or I can come there now.” He was out of his seat, and his connection was down. Jewell watched as he pulled up a chair next to his wife. “There. Better,” Jacob said, putting his arm around Tori.
Her brother Jason was the last to enter the conference call. “All right. Jewell, you good to go?”
“Yep.” She wasn’t feeling sick to her stomach at the moment; although Tori’s words made her more anxious about the possibility of being pregnant.
“So, give me the rundown.” Jason leaned back and tapped the end of his pen against his desk.
“I’ll start.” Jacob leaned forward. “We’ve been in contact with the British authorities. The men were released on their own recognizance because they were all British citizens.”
“Are they? Really?” Joseph asked.
“As far as we know now, yes. Brando has photocopies of the passports, and he’s running them to see if there are any anomalies that would key us to believe they aren’t.”
“How would he know?” Joseph asked.
“He worked for the DoD in counterterrorism. He’s been briefed on almost everything we know about duping passports,” Jacob countered.
“And if he misses the things he’s unaware of?” Joseph shot back.
“Let him run them. If he doesn’t find anything, you and he can work together and see if he missed something. If he did, you’ll brief him on what you found and how you found it. You don’t need to be in that portion of the business any longer,” Jason answered. “What else do we have?”
“The one sentry on duty at the aircraft swears no one has exited the plane,” Tori said, looking at her tablet. “He was relieved by two guards because we stressed the importance of ensuring Abrasha wasn’t on the aircraft. The British government stated unless he was in the hold with the latrine waste, he wasn’t on the plane.”
Jewell’s stomach rolled. “Oh, man, don’t say things like that.” She covered her mouth and willed the excess saliva to stop forming.
“Damn, sorry, Jewell,” Tori apologized.
Jewell nodded and used her hand to tell her family to keep going as she tried to settle her stomach.
Joseph leaned in and spoke. “Berserker just reported in. The camera shop in Sydney sold Eisenberger an old Cannon film camera and film for it. Two rolls of film. He said the clerk let him look at the security footage, and he confirmed through the photos we sent him the man who purchased it was Eisenberger.”
“So, if what Ethan relayed is correct, Eisenberger was working for Abrasha but meeting Trueman behind Abrasha’s back, and someone at the US Embassy arranged it,” Jason stated. “Have we found out who at the embassy arranged the invitations?”
Jewell looked at the file for the embassy. “I don’t have anything on it. I can run that to ground after the call.”
“No, have Brando do it. You, Ethan, and Con need downtime. I need you sharp and on your game.” Jason countermanded her decision, and Jewell was more than fine with that. She typed Brando a message and got an immediate response that he was on it.
“He’s working it now.”
“Good. What else?”
“Eisenberger was paying for two apartments. One where his groceries were delivered, and the other, well, there are no indications of whether he used it or not.”
“Do you have the address?” Jason asked.
Jewell sent the address to him and closed her eyes again. Man, she wished Zane would hurry up with that nausea medicine.
“Magus is in London. I’ll send him to both places to see what information he can gain.”
“Do you want to send backup with him?” Jacob asked. “Abrasha is in England. There’s no way he isn’t. That aircraft couldn’t sustain an open door at the altitude it was flying, so he didn’t parachute out. He’s either still on the aircraft, or he left it when security wasn’t looking.”
“I can send Centurion to inspect the plane,” Joseph said.
“She’s on downtime, too,” Archangel reminded him.
Joseph growled, “In my day, assassins didn’t have downtime.”
“Yes, and how many scars do you have because of that policy? How many broken bones? Or perhaps you can tell me how many near misses you had from the lack of sleep?” Jason crossed his arms over his chest. “We have a different way of doing things now. It’s more effective and less hazardous to our people.”
“By definition, being an assassin is a hazardous job,” Joseph retorted.
“Which we won’t make more dangerous by not giving our people downtime when we can. The British government has assured us he’s not on the aircraft and has doubled the security on the plane. It’s Abrasha’s plane, and the British government has seized it because of sanctions against Molchalin for his participation in the events in Switzerland. Waiting until morning to send Centurion won’t make any difference. The plane isn’t going anywhere.”
“But Abrasha might,” Joseph argued.
“Do you think if he was on that plane, he isn’t already off of it?” Tori asked Joseph.
He looked at her and sighed. “I would be.”
“There you go,” Tori said.
“We’ll reconvene when Magus gets a look inside the residences. Jewell, you’re on downtime until I say otherwise.”
Jewell simply nodded. She wouldn’t argue with anyone unless they made the conference last longer than it should. Jason continued, “Due outs on embassy call logs, Abrasha’s way into the country, having Centurion inspect the aircraft, Magus to search Eisenberger’s two residences for any information. Having Con and Brando continue to sift through the passport information to include a complete background on all of the personnel detained by the British government, plus the embassy call logs and video feeds for that day. We have POTUS approval on this. He wants to know why Trueman was executed. The world is waiting for answers. Somehow, we need to find out what was in that film container. Let’s make it happen.”
Jewell sent the mission directives to Brando and terminated the conference call, ensuring all lines were closed and the secure transmission was halted. She put her head down on the desk, and a tear slipped past her eyelashes. Could she be pregnant?