Liam shifted slightly in the leather seat, overcoming and inexplicable urge to start moving for cover. He adjusted his sunglasses and self-consciously adjusted his suit coat. He looked carefully around the five seater black Mercedes and out each of the windows, as though he was looking for something.
Nothing, just the rest of the Mercedes that held the other members of the team. They had picked them up at the international airport and were now driving directly to the University of Brunei Darussalam for a brief luncheon with the Dean. The plan was that the Dean would invite them to the graduation ceremony as his esteemed guests, giving a cover for their presence there if nothing extraordinary happened. The Dean knew exactly who they were and what they were doing and was apparently more than happy to have them there.
‘You alright?’ Rae asked, leaning towards him slightly.
‘Yeah…it’s just…’ He sighed, ‘I honestly think I’m going insane. I was just about dozing off there, and then I had a sudden attack of agoraphobia. Something’s going wrong somewhere…’
Rae scooted across to him, ‘from the way you’ve been frowning since Singapore, my guess is that it wasn’t just a sudden attack that makes you feel that way. You started frowning after we left the briefing, what’s wrong?’
‘You’re not going to believe me, but you know Natasha?’
Rae stiffened slightly at the name and pursed her lips, but nodded slowly, ‘yes Liam. That was about two hours ago.’
‘Yeah-well, I saw her.’ He removed his sunglasses and turned to her, voice serious. ‘During the briefing, Natasha’s photo flashed up at the end. Matt switched off the screen before I could read the file. Natasha is going to be there, I’m sure of it.
‘Rae, if she’s there when we walk in, I’m completely screwed. Utterly, and you know it.’
Rae sucked air in through her teeth. ‘You’re right,’ she said, sitting back and folding his arms. ‘You are insane. There’s no way she could be there, I did an extensive background check on her and it turned up nothing.’
Liam smiled slightly, ‘nice to know you do care, Rae. But tell me, when you did this check…did you actually look in the SYF database or did you go straight to an outside source?’
Rae was thinking hard now, she was certain she checked everywhere. ‘Yes I did. There was nothing, anywhere.’
Liam groaned and put his head in his hands. ‘You do realise what this means, don’t you? CIA job. There aren’t any records because none were taken.
‘I’m going to have to sneak around, and so are you. We’re going to have to get the others to take the reins on this one, at least until we verify if she’s there or not.’
Rae already had her phone in her hands, while it rung she looked pointedly at him and said, ‘Liam, we love you so I’ll let that one slide. We’re meant to work as a team. Technically we all hold the reins.’
‘Fine. Ryan and Eve though. They’ll suss it out while we wait-
-yes Ryan. Right, Liam feels that Natasha may be one of the students…right…so you reckon you saw her too? Ahuh…okay. Yes, we both feel that’s best. We’ll wait right here-…we can’t? That doesn’t make any-…oh…I see. Fine. We’ll wait in the Dean’s office.’
Rae hung up and put her phone away. ‘Ryan says that the cars won’t be able to park there, security reasons…and apparently the media is going to be there. With us donating a technological services…well, let’s just say that no good deed goes unpunished. We’ll have to wait inside.’
‘Rae?’
‘Yes?’
‘Why are you smiling like that?’
Rae looked out the window as she spoke. ‘No reason, just thinking about Natasha-oh look, we’re here.’
Liam frowned at the back of her head and put his sunglasses back on as the car turned into the campus. He could see the cluster of photographers and a man with a microphone. As the car pulled to a stop he prayed that the man would be only able to speak Malay so that he could be brushed off with a plastic smile. The car stopped and Liam got out, walked around, and helped Rae out. She took his hand and they both walked past the throng of media people, careful to keep their faces angled so that the cameras wouldn’t have a full profile.
‘Keep walking, quickly now…’ Liam muttered to himself.
He waved at the cameras in such a way that, when the photographer developed his film, he would have a lovely shot of a waving hand, and his nondescript features. They passed the man speaking rapidly at the camera, and then they were in the doors and into the building.
Behind them, the others were getting out of the cars and pretty much taking the same approach to the photographers, and blatantly ignored the man with the camera. It didn’t matter; the reporter was too enraptured by the camera. As the last of the agents were inside, he looked at the building carefully and told his cameraman to pack up.
