Chapter 29
When they were close enough to land, Bean pulled out his phone and sent a text to Garnet, telling her that he was in the US, but wouldn’t be home for at least two, maybe three days.
Before ending the text, he told her that he missed her. It took a moment to send, but she replied quickly, telling him she was excited to see him.
He smiled at her message, thinking he had to be the luckiest man in the world. Garnet wanted to be with him. He liked the idea of them being together for a long time.
Stanley leaned in close, his mouth at Bean’s ear. “What’s that smile for?”
Bean rolled his eyes. “Nothing.”
“Sure. You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”
He snorted and shook his head. The plane rolled to a stop, and they grabbed their two prisoners. The pair still had no idea where they were, and he and his team weren’t answering any questions. These men wouldn’t escape punishment, and they probably knew it.
After getting some food, Bean took on the task of looking into the background of people who worked with Garnet. They’d already been through the list and dismissed everyone, but he had the suspicion they’d missed something critical.
On the surface, none of the people Garnet worked with were guilty. Maybe if he went to the office where she worked, he might find something. But his team didn’t want to alert anyone to the fact that they were looking into the possibility that one of them was guilty.
After a few hours, Bean stood and stretched. He needed a break. He hadn’t made any headway. They needed a miracle to figure out who was behind it all.
He shut down the computer he’d been using and stepped out into the hall. The rest of the guys were standing around. He walked over, listening to their conversation.
“They aren’t talking yet,” Keel said.
“Do you think they know names?” Stanley asked.
“We’ll find information on the computers. Maybe not names, but we might be able to link them to whoever gave them the initial information,” Mick said.
Bean turned to Mick. “Maybe we could cross-check information.”
“Cross check?”
“Yes. People who work with Garnet and email addresses or phone numbers on those computers.”
Mick nodded. “Yeah. That’s good.”
Stanley raised his hand and moved past him to the room he’d just come out of. “I’ll get started on it. We shouldn’t connect the computers we picked up to our system. We can get a file of information and put it on a thumb drive.”
“Good idea,” Bean said. “Let me stretch and hit the head, then I’ll help.”
“I’ll join the party,” Link said.
“Maybe we can get this figured out in the next few hours,” Chase said.
Bean rubbed his hand over his face. “That would be good. I’m absolutely exhausted.”
“I want to go home, too,” Keel said. “I’m worn out, but I know we need to get this taken care of. We can’t have Garnet looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.”
Bean nodded. “No, it will wear on her, eventually. She needs the freedom to live.”
Chase nodded. “Good idea. Run with it. We’ll keep at these two for another few hours. If they don’t crack, we’ll hand them off to the CIA. I’m sure there is more than just this incident they are involved with.”
Bean washed his face and took a moment to grab something to eat.
He washed it down with a glass of water and then headed back into the room he’d been working in.
The guys had the five computers set up along with the phones.
They were searching the computers, looking for anything tying the information to anyone Garnet worked with.
Maybe they wouldn’t find anything, but maybe they would.
He had to keep trying so Garnet would be safe.
He and his team could keep her safe if they were home, but they wouldn’t be at home all the time.
They had missions and were called out for things like this.
She needed to be able to live and not have to worry about someone coming after her.
Having a target on her back would exhaust her. This had to end now.