The Plaza Hotel, Gatsby Suite, Manhattan

“Do you think everyone will show?” she asked Nick.

“We can only hope. Do you have it?”

Nicole withdrew a USB drive from between her breasts and held it up for him to see.

“Nice touch,” he noted. “Is that the real one? Or…” She watched him remove one from his pants pocket. “Is this it?”

Feeling smug, she whispered in his ear, “Neither one. The real drive is in the hotel’s safe.”

Nick placed a gentle kiss on her neck. “Beautiful and smart.”

“Yeah, well…”

They laughed together, but only for a moment. The show was about to begin.

Nicole swiped Ms. Terrill’s all-access card that let them into the Gatsby Suite. It was set up board room style with a long table in the middle of the room covered in chocolate brown and surrounded by executive chairs. She slipped in and took a seat at one end of the room with Nick sitting at her right. Fourteen or so chairs sat about with at least twenty lined up in the back for the other people they were expecting.

He reached over and reassured her with a pat on her hand.

And then, they waited.

* * *

At exactly 7:30 p.m. the door to the meeting suite opened with the two Terratech security guys, aka the goons, bursting in like they owned the place. Then she remembered the Samoan-looking man.

“Ms. Hunt, you’ve caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people,” he said to her. “You need to come with us.”

Nick raised a hand to him, daring him with his eyes to take a step closer. “Hold it right there, douche canoe. Get in line and wait for the meeting to start.

Nicole hid a smile not only at Nick’s tone, his choice of words, but the sheer disgust and confusion on the men’s faces.

“You heard him,” she added sarcastically.

He didn’t appreciate the nickname at all, but stood back.

Immediately following the security men were the three Chinese suited men from the board room that Saturday morning. They were Mr. Wu, a second man, and the third, she now knew him to be Mei-Ling’s father, Mr. Zhang.

In perfect Mandarin, Nicole asked him, “How is your daughter, Mei-Ling?”

He raised an overly thick and graying eyebrow at her. “She’s fine,” he replied in English. “Though I can’t say the same for you.”

Nicole treated him to a half grin. “I’d say I’m just fine, thank you. I hold all the cards here.”

“Or, so you think, young lady,” Mr. Wu stated.

Nick perked up. “No… she’s got you by the short and curlies.”

She tried to kick him under the table, but missed and hit the chair leg.

Next, Doyle McDonough, Bob Worthington, both execs at Terratech came in, obviously confused by the entire set up.

“Only a few more players,” Nick announced.

Two senior officials from the Secretary of Defense’s Office—a couple Navy men in full uniform—arrived with her father, Brig. Gen. Hunt with them.

“Nicole?” her father stated. “What’s the meaning of this? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Dad. You’ll understand soon enough.”

He eyeballed her, and she nodded reassurance. Taking her signal, he walked over to sit with the two men from DOD.

“What game are you playing, Nicole?” Bob Worthington blurted out. “You’ve caused quite a problem back at the office with your disappearing act. The resource files for TDE-5X are gone and Ryan’s shitting himself trying to find backups that match the recent uploads. You’ve cost us hundreds of lost man hours.”

Shaking her head, Nicole said, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about Ryan. Ask him who really did all the work and who was out getting drunk and getting laid. Why do you think I was at the office so late the Friday night/Saturday morning? It was so Ryan could go have a threesome and get his rocks off with some booze and blow. He’s got quite the nasty habit for all three,” she said, much to Bob and Doyle’s chagrin.

Bob’s face grew beet red. “Why you—”

Nick stood to block the path between Nicole and Bob, clearly showing him what measures he’d go to to protect her. Her heart stretched in her chest at his sheltering nature.

“Shut the fuck up, Bob. Seriously.”

Doyle McDonough frowned at her choice of language and said, “You’ve brought us on a wild goose chase, Ms. Hunt. All because you stole something that wasn’t yours in the first place. Now, if you’ll just give us what we’ve been wanting, we’ll part ways quietly and won’t blacklist you from any further programming jobs with high-security clearance.”

A feeling of power surged through her, and she pointed at the thin man. “You can shut the hell up, too, Doyle. We’ll get back to you.”

Finally, Nick motioned with his head when X29 and two other men from The Company entered, followed by about three dozen men in suits, standing erect and serious.

“Is this where the press conference is?” a young woman asked.

“What press conference?” Wú snapped. “What is the meaning of this?”

“In here,” the woman called out and next thing Nicole knew, she recognized the credentials for reporters from CNN, FOX, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the New York Post. The cameramen pushed in and quickly set up in the back and side of the room, panning the cameras around.

Wú and Zhang, disgusted by this, attempted to get up and leave, but Nick’s human barricade of suited men blocked the way.

“Let us pass. Who do you think you are?” Zhang asked tersely.

Nicole switched on the microphone and said, “They think they’re from the CIA, Homeland Security, and the Federal Trade Commission, right Nick?”

He smiled and nodded, obviously letting her take the lead here.

She shot a weak grin at her father. Dad gave her a thumb’s up, even though he had no idea what was going on.

The buzz and hum of people arguing, fussing, and daring to walk out were drowned out when Nicole cued up the overhead LCD projector with a remote control streaming from the laptop near the front of the room.

Specs of the TDE-5X device flashed on the screen. The reporters turned their cameras to the information and listened as Nicole narrated.

“My name is Nicole Hunt. I’m a programming engineer for Terratech in Silicon Valley. Those gentlemen—” she pointed toward Bob and Doyle “—are with Terratech and can address any concerns once we’re finished.”

Bob glared at her, and she smiled.

“Now, Terratech was given millions of dollars in US government contracts to develop a decryption and encryption device for the military, named TDE-5X as it is known in development. For long, long months, I’ve worked on the team, believing we were building this piece of technology to protect our country. Then I learned that Terratech was selling this technology to the highest bidder on the black market—namely Mr. Wu, Mr. Zhang, and Mr., I don’t know your name yet, sir,” she said to the third Chinese gentleman.

He narrowed his eyes and called out to her, “Tā mā de.”

Nicole let out a chuckle. “For those of you in the room who don’t speak traditional Chinese—particularly the press—this lovely gentleman just told me to go fuck myself.”

Several people in the room laughed, most were shocked by her language.

“Oh, get over it,” Nick added. “Don’t act like it’s the first time you’ve heard it,” he said with a snicker.

“So, you see… Terratech took Uncle Sam’s money to develop TDE-5X and then turned around and made a sales arrangement with this business representing the Chinese government. And, get this, guys, the Terratech executive scumbags weren’t even selling you anything close to the final version. It was one of the first betas that would only encrypt. You were going to pay out the ass for something that wasn’t the correct version. How would you know?” She pointed at Bob and Doyle. “You put your trust in these men, these business representatives, yet, you forgot to factor in the most important aspect. Anyone care to venture a guess?”

The room was silent and then she heard a firm voice say, “Greed.”

She looked out and saw it was her father speaking up. Rather than pointing him out, she said, “Thank you, sir. That is correct.” Gripping the microphone, she stood and paced the floor a bit. “I do believe intention to sell a National Security Council commissioned project to a foreign entity was in violation of several codes. I’m sure the gentlemen from the NSC, CIA, and Homeland Security can explain more, particularly to the gentlemen from Terratech and China who are attempting to slip out.”

Nicole glanced over at Nick. “That only leaves the question of who hired Nick to gather intel only on me, then changed their minds and put a hit on me. An order to kill!”

Nick looked to X29, but he had nothing to say. When Nick threw his hands up, X29 did the same. “I don’t know, Nick. All I do is pass on information.”

He stood and put his body almost in front of her. “Look, no one’s leaving here unless we know who wanted her dead.”

‘I did.”

Every eye in the room fell to Retired Brigadier General Hunt. Nicole’s father.

It was as if her heart had stopped beating at his admission. First, he was responsible for her mother and now this. “Daddy?” she said in a voice that reminded her of the twelve-year-old girl who’d lost her best friend to a hit and run. A hit, as it turned out. “You want me… dead?”

“No, baby,” her father said. “That’s just it. I wanted to keep an eye on you, so I hired The Company to do so. It was strictly intel, following you, keeping you out of harm’s way.”

“So you did let the Terratech and Chinese hit men know we were hiding out at Nick’s cottage?”

“No, honey, I didn’t,” her dad said firmly.

“You were the only one who knew!” Nicole shouted.

The general hung his head in shame. “I screwed up. I accidentally called the Admiral here,” he pointed to his left, “to tell him what was going on and there must have been a wiretap on my regular phone. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was concerned about you, so I wasn’t thinking.”

The idea was plausible to Nicole, but she had to wonder…

“Then, why the kill order?” Nick snapped out as if reading her thoughts. “What about the weapon I received?”

The general snickered. “Son, did you ever really take a good look at the gun the man passed off to you at JFK?”

Nicole wasn’t aware of this exchange, so she deferred to Nick.

“Yes, sir,” Nick responded.

“It was a decoy. A fake with a tranquilizer strong enough to make it appear Nicole was dead if shot with it. After that, if you’d carried out your orders, you would have been instructed as to what to do next, where to take her, and how to revive her.”

Nicole didn’t get this at all. “So, you wanted to fake-kill me?”

“Right,” her father said. “Just as I did with your mother.”

“M-M-M-Mom?” Nick’s warm hand encircled her waist as he must have sensed she needed support through this. “She’s… alive? All these years?”

Her older, bald father nodded with tears filling his eyes. “She’s in London. That’s why I wanted you to meet me there. I could get you away from this nonsense you’d fallen into, and I could finally tell you Anna was all right, safe, secure.

Nicole couldn’t stop the hot flow of tears. She glanced up at Nick. “My mother’s alive. She’s not dead!”

“But why?” Nick asked the general. “Why the lie?”

“To protect her,” he said. “To protect both of them, in fact. A man will go to any length to protect the woman he loves.”

“Yes, sir,” Nick said. “I certainly understand that. However, you owe me a cottage, rather someone does.”

The admiral spoke up. “I’m sure we can do something to make amends.”

The three dozen suited men completed their handcuffing of the Terratech execs and the Chinese men, hauling them out for booking. Confusion ensued as the reporters rushed forward to interview anyone and everyone.

Nick knew this was his cue to get the woman he loved out of there and to safety.

“Let’s go,” he said next to her ear.

Nicole’s eyes synced with her fathers and she mouthed, “I love you.”

He did the same. She was sure right then that once this nightmare blew over, they’d be together. All of them. Her, Nick and her parents. Both of them.

And, she couldn’t wait.