Chapter 122: Mallory’s Analysis
At that moment, an imposing older woman stood before him, looking about sixty.
Her short silver-gray hair was combed perfectly into place, and she wore a sharply tailored dark outfit. She stood ramrod straight, like an old pine.
In her hand was a tablet. Her gaze was sharp and steady, and everything about her carried the hard edge of someone with a military background.
Beside her stood a handsome middle-aged man.
He wore a refined dark suit, his hair carefully styled. His features were deep-set but mild, and a faint smile hovered on his lips.
Around the warehouse stood six or seven security guards in black uniforms. Every one of them was stone-faced, their waists bulging enough to make it obvious they were armed.
Sameer stood in the middle of the warehouse, staring at the scene in front of him, his mind struggling to catch up.
He had thought he would be taken to some dark basement to meet one or two shady informants.
But this was clearly a well-organized operation.
Who the hell were these people?
And why were they looking for him?
"Let me introduce myself."
The older woman spoke first. Her voice was calm and forceful, carrying the authority of someone used to giving orders.
"My name is Mallory..."
After introducing herself, she paused, then raised a hand and pointed to the handsome middle-aged man beside her.
"This is Adana, President of the Church of the Collective. He has a great deal of dirt on Vought."
Sameer’s eyes widened slightly.
Colonel Mallory. He had heard the name before, though he had never met her.
She was a former senior CIA official who had once overseen Supe affairs, and she had a strong reputation in both intelligence circles and the military.
As for the Church of the Collective, that seemed to be some kind of cult.
How had these two sides suddenly joined forces?
And more importantly, what did it mean that they had come together to find him?
His heart lurched.
"You... you know why Neuman abandoned me?"
Sameer’s voice was urgent.
He did not care about pleasantries or small talk. He just wanted an answer.
"Of course."
Mallory’s answer was blunt.
She took two steps forward, turned the tablet around, and held it out in front of Sameer.
The screen was lit, showing a photograph. It was a still from a security camera.
It had been taken outside the entrance of a luxury hotel. The lighting was bright, and the image was clear.
In the photo, a man and a woman were walking arm in arm out through the hotel’s revolving doors.
The woman wore a finely tailored dark dress, her hair pinned up in an elegant bun, with a smile on her face that Sameer knew far too well.
It was Neuman. His wife. The mother of his daughter.
And the man whose arm she held was tall and powerfully built, wearing a dark coat. His stride was steady and confident. Even in a surveillance still, the pressure rolling off him was impossible to miss.
It was Soldier Boy.
The two of them looked intimate and natural together. Neuman’s body leaned slightly toward Soldier Boy, and the way she held his arm was full of attachment and trust.
The smile on Neuman’s face was not a politician’s practiced fake grin for the cameras. It was genuine, from the heart.
And the background behind them, the sign of that luxury hotel and its revolving doors, said everything.
A man and a woman walking out of a hotel arm in arm late at night.
The image needed no explanation.
...
Sameer’s fingers clamped around the edge of the tablet.
His lips trembled a few times before he said, "That’s... that’s Soldier Boy... and my Neuman..."
"Sameer,"
Adana spoke from the side with a pleasant smile. His voice was gentle and magnetic, but his words hit like a knife.
"Let me correct you. That isn’t your Neuman. She’s Soldier Boy’s now."
Sameer snapped his head up and stared at Adana, his eyes bloodshot.
Then his gaze went blank.
His wife, Neuman, had cheated on him.
But the affair itself was not what confused him most.
In America, that kind of thing was far too common.
So if it was just cheating, Sameer did not care at all.
What he truly could not understand was something else.
His brow was tightly furrowed, and his haggard face was filled with confusion.
He said, "But why? Why would Neuman abandon me?
"They just slept together once, didn’t they?
"She’s divorcing me just because of that?"
There was even a trace of innocence in his voice when he said it.
In his worldview, an affair and a divorce did not naturally go hand in hand.
A man and a woman sleeping together was, in their circle, nothing more than a harmless little fling.
Who would blow up a ten-year marriage and tear apart a whole family over something that small?
Neuman did not care about that kind of thing. She never had.
Even when he did it himself...
So why this time? Why did she not only care, but care enough to divorce him at damn near light speed?
Mallory looked into Sameer’s bewildered eyes, and the corner of her mouth twitched slightly.
The truth was, she did not really understand it either. Logically, Soldier Boy definitely would not care, which meant the one who cared was Neuman.
"Maybe Neuman fell in love with Soldier Boy. Who knows?"
"As far as I know, Soldier Boy has always been a womanizer. The number of women he’s been involved with, across all types, is probably impossible to count."
"And for a smart, forceful woman like Neuman to be drawn to him, then cling to him for support, that’s hardly strange."
At this point, Mallory’s voice suddenly faltered for a moment.
An old image flashed through her mind against her will.
The smoke over the battlefield in Nicaragua. The young men in uniform. Gunfire and blood. And Soldier Boy’s cynical face.
She suddenly remembered that, back when they had first been on the battlefield in Nicaragua, that bastard had flirted with her too, hadn’t he?
That must have been decades ago. She had still been young then, and he had been wearing that sleazy helmet, saying filthy little things to her around camp in that careless tone of his.
At the time, Mallory had only thought he was an irritating playboy.
And that helmet really had been ugly as hell. Sleazy, too.
***
...
...
If you’d like to support my work and unlock advanced Chapters, you can follow me on p-@-treon.
[email protected]/PinkSnake (10 Chapters Ahead).
You can also follow as a free member to read a few advanced Chapters.
***