His car was waiting for him and he set the pie on the front passenger seat before getting in and heading toward Arlington.
Sebastian decided to take Interstate 66 across the river when his car told him there was an accident on Interstate 395. Sebastian veered onto the ramp toward Arlington Boulevard/George Washington Memorial Parkway exit when traffic came to a stop. A beat-up rental truck’s engine was smoking up ahead. Sebastian gripped the wheel in irritation. He looked around the Y-shaped exit ramp to see if he could somehow go to the right and just get off onto the Memorial Parkway. It would be out of the way, but there were plenty of ways to get to DARPA.
Sebastian glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a group of men in suits get out of the sedan behind him and move forward. Well, hopefully they knew how to fix the truck or at least help push it out of the way. Only there was something wrong with how they only looked at Sebastian’s car.
Sebastian called up his voice assistant and was about to tell it to call Birch when the driver’s side window was smashed. Sebastian was grabbed by two sets of hands as they tried to hold him still against his seat.
Sebastian was caught by surprise, but it only lasted a second. He fought to grab the wheel, but his hands were being held back. He tried to yell for the car to send an SOS, but tape was slapped over his mouth.
His nose flared as he fought the panic from his childhood. He wasn’t a helpless child any more. He had to think. The passenger window was smashed. Sebastian fought against the hands holding him. He head-butted the one man who leaned through the window to try to get a better hold on him, but it was all for nothing when the man who came into the passenger seat shoved a needle in Sebastian’s neck and everything went black.
Greer Parker laughed as she passed the empty dessert plates to the next person to collect them all at the head of the table. The dining room table in her grandparents’ house had expanded over the generations. It had once been big enough to fit Marcy and Jake’s six children, which included Greer’s mother, their one and only daughter. They’d even managed to stuff in the spouses. But when her eldest brother, Ryan, had been born, they knew they were out of room.
Thus began the first addition to the table. They were now on folding table number four to accommodate all the cousins and their spouses and children. The table, with extensions, now ran the entire length of the farmhouse and her grandparents wouldn’t have it any other way.
Tonight wasn’t just the extended Davies family at dinner, either. Their parents’ close friends, Will and Kenna Ashton, Dani and Mo Ali Rahman, and Ahmed and Bridget Mueez were there along with their children who were friends of Greer’s and all the Davies cousins. In fact, Will and Kenna’s daughter, Sienna, was married to Greer’s brother Ryan. Their son, Carter, was married to Greer’s cousin Reagan. Then Ahmed and Bridget’s daughter, Abby, was married to Greer’s cousin Dylan. It was one big happy family where everyone had been welcomed and enveloped in love.
Tonight had been fun. It had been full of teasing, stories, laughter, and lots of not-so-sly references to those like her who dared to be single.
“I’m just saying, there are some players on the Lexington Thoroughbred team who would love to go out on a date with you,” Ryan’s wife, Sienna, said to Greer from down the table. Sienna was the pro football team’s sports psychologist as well as Greer’s sister-in-law.
“No way,” Jackson instantly said, shutting down the topic of Greer’s dating life. For once she didn’t mind her brother’s interference.
Ryan nodded in agreement. “Greer is too young to date.”
A leftover roll hit Ryan’s head and Greer laughed as Ryan looked around to see who did it. “Mom? What the heck was that for?” he asked of their mother, Paige.
“I agree with our son. She is too young to date,” her father, Cole, said with a shrug.
“Son, after all these years have you not learned anything from me?” Grandpa Jake groaned.
“Cole Parker, your little girl isn’t so little anymore. She just turned thirty, for crying out loud. I already had Ryan by that age! Don’t you dare deprive me of more grandchildren or I swear I will make that time you gave me a vacuum cleaner look like a cakewalk. Got it?” Greer’s mother threatened with a finger wagging in her father’s face and all.
The phone rang in the kitchen and everyone froze. “I didn’t know you still had a landline,” Greer’s Uncle Marshall said to his parents as he stood to go answer it.
“I don’t use it anymore, but I figured in case of emergencies it was good to have,” Grandma Marcy said with a shrug.
“Mom,” Uncle Marshall said, coming out of the kitchen with the phone stretched as far as it could on the long spiral cord. “The president is calling you again. Oh, sorry. It’s for Dylan, Abby, or Greer.”
Greer pulled out her phone and saw the series of missed calls, texts, and news alerts. It was a family tradition to mute their phones at dinner and apparently all hell had broken loose over the past ninety minutes.
Abby stood up and took the phone from Marshall. A second later she said okay and hung up. Greer was already prepared to be sent on a mission. Her go bag was in the SUV ready for the next adventure. Greer had been the first woman to lead an FBI Hostage Rescue Team and her family had high hopes of her becoming the next FBI director and in reality, she was at the top of a very short list to do just that. However, the more involved she got in the interview process, the more uncomfortable she grew with the politics of it all.
When Abby and Dylan had offered her a short-term contract working with them on the president’s black ops team, Greer had leaped at it. In fact, she loved it so much she extended it another couple of months.
“We need a secure link. Dylan, where’s our satellite phone?” Abby asked.
“Don’t worry about that,” Uncle Cy, a former spy, said as he and his son Porter stood and headed over to the television.
“Channel 1600, right?” Porter asked as he turned the television onto the channel.
“Yup, then enter your code,” Cy ordered as Porter entered a series of numbers on the remote.
“What’s this?” Uncle Cade asked as everyone crammed into the living room after removing the folding tables.
“Spy stuff,” Porter answered.
“Honey, you were a spy for all of two weeks,” his new wife, Willa, said with a roll of her eyes.
“It has its perks,” Porter said. “There you go.”
Greer looked at the television and there was President Stratton, looking completely distraught. “Sir, what happened?”
President Stratton’s head shot up to his computer. “I see we have everyone tonight. No wonder I couldn’t get a hold of you. Family dinner. We have a problem. A big problem.”
“What is it?” Dylan asked from where he stood between Greer and Abby.
The president looked around at the packed house and then ran a hand through his hair. “Screw it, you all have top-secret clearance. DARPA was bombed tonight. Someone stole a top-secret spy satellite and we don’t have any leads yet.”
“Casualties?” Greer asked.
“Most of the team working on the satellite. Dr. Erwin Hoggard and Sebastian are missing.”