“Dox told him we’d do it.”
“Shouldn’t he have checked with us first?”
“I’m sure he had a good reason. And it’s only for a few hours.” He paused, then added, “I’m sorry.”
She suddenly had a bad feeling about all of this. It had been a nice moment on the plane after they landed. But now she could see in his eyes that the relaxed demeanor of Paris and Kamakura was gone. In its place was another facet of his personality, the facet she had first encountered a long time ago in Macau. She wanted that part of him to be confined to the past, and it was upsetting to see it abruptly recrudesce. It reminded her too much of how cold he had become, how much he had reverted, when that megalomaniac Hilger had rendered Dox. But she realized she was being stupid. They were operational now, whether she liked it or not. Did she want him to be sloppy?
She told herself there was nothing to worry about. This wasn’t like the thing with Hilger. Dox wasn’t being held. There was no gun to his head, at least not literally. John wasn’t going to spiral. They would pick up these three passengers, babysit them for a little while, and go back to Paris as though none of it had ever happened.
She hoped.
They got off the plane directly onto the tarmac less than fifty meters from the terminal. They were at Leesburg Executive Airport, about forty miles northwest of DC. Dulles would have been the more obvious choice, which was of course part of the reason Kanezaki had used this smaller regional outpost instead.
Just ten minutes after landing, they were driving out of the airport in the car Kanezaki had left for them—a Honda SUV she assumed he had selected because of its popularity in the region, and therefore its unobtrusiveness. Delilah was behind the wheel. She preferred to drive, and was glad John didn’t have the typical male need to be in control of the car. Besides, he was a better shot than she was, so it made sense that he would be their first line of defense with one of the two Glocks Kanezaki had left for them under the two front seats, each with a bellyband holster.
It was only a few miles to the meeting point—a Hampton Inn motel in Leesburg. But they took a circuitous route involving surface roads and several quiet neighborhoods. On this, she deferred to John’s instructions. She had never known someone with better countersurveillance instincts. Traffic was light, and it was easy to confirm they weren’t being followed.
They pulled into the motel parking lot and drove to the periphery, where there were fewer cars. She saw the vehicle they were looking for—a silver minivan. It was in one of the center spaces, no car left or right, room to drive forward or back as circumstances required. A good tactical spot. But that wasn’t unexpected.
“Pull up next to it,” John said. He was holding the Glock. “Slowly. So I’m next to the driver-side window. And be ready to gun it.”
She rolled forward as he’d asked, giving it almost no gas, her foot poised to mash the pedal if there were any problems.
As they got closer, she could see the driver. An attractive Asian woman. Kanezaki’s sister, John had said. Yuki. And a pretty brunette in the passenger seat. Maya, presumably. Was she holding a stuffed animal? No, it was an actual dog, some kind of terrier. Good God, they weren’t here just to babysit. They were going to be dogsitting, too.
They stopped. Yuki nodded and rolled down her window. John did the same.
“Hey,” John said. “It’s good to see you.” There was a surprising note of warmth in his voice.
Yuki smiled. “Isn’t one of us supposed to say The moon is blue or something like that?”
John laughed. “I think that’s only for people who don’t know each other.”
Delilah was surprised—John hadn’t mentioned that he knew Kanezaki’s sister. And the laugh was a little unlike him, too. Under any circumstances, and especially now, when he’d been so focused.