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faces and now as I thought back, I did remember Joed standing somewhere near Seth, watching the whole exchange. I realized he had as much of a vested interest in her as I did.
    I could feel someone watching me and I closed my laptop before I looked at Alison. She was watching me as she had done in the airport. But she had a different look in her eyes now. I could tell she had questions she wanted to ask, but she wasn’t sure she could.
    “You ok,” I asked turning my body to face hers.
    “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”  She shifted in her seat and sat facing me.
    “No worries, I’m done anyway. “
    “Can you tell me anything about what is going to happen once we land DC? Where are we going?” She looked at me searching for some sort of answer. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an answer I could give her.
    “I am not sure. There should be someone there at the airport to meet us and take us to a safe house. But I am not sure how long we will be there. I am hoping that you get to go on home. But I honestly don’t know.”
    She struggled to digest my words. She looked nervous and scared and she had every right to be. Her world had just been turned upside down. “Will you be coming to Albuquerque with me? Or am I on my own?”
    I made the mistake of looking directly into her eyes. Looking into them gave me no other option but to be honest and up front with her.  I was hoping that I would go on to Albuquerque with her, but I wasn’t the one who had been tailing Tom there. Someone else had been assigned to watch him. “You won’t be on your own, but I don’t know if they will send me on to Albuquerque with you,” I said honestly to her. “Whoever it is will protect you.”
    She nodded her head in acknowledgement. She half laughed and looked at me, “Not a whole hell of a lot I can do about this is there? I guess whatever information I have, I’ll give it to you. I am just afraid it won’t be enough.”  Her words were sincere but I could tell she was full of fear of the unknown.
    “Thank you,” I responded. I wanted to change the subject and help her relax a little bit. But I wasn’t sure what I could talk about. I decided it was best to keep it neutral. “I read your paper on the Middle East conflict and technology.  You should be at the State Department or Langley.”
    Her eyes lit up as I praised her.  “Thank you.  More money in biology” She hesitated for a minute realizing I knew something more about her. “How did you know about those?”
    “You could say it’s my job to know as much as possible about the people I protect,” or hunt.  I didn’t include that last part in our conversation. I was more than a protector, I also played the deadly game of seek and destroy on occasion.
    “How many of them did you read?” I peeked her curiosity and her attention was fully mine now.
    “The last three.  I like the one you did on India.  I guess with all the talk of Iran and North Korea and China, mainstream often forgets what a potential problem India could become.”
    “India, and definitely Pakistan aren’t as friendly as we would like to believe.” 
    I wanted to talk more with her, but now wasn’t the time and this plane was not the right location. “Why didn’t you pursue it?” I wanted to know what would have pulled her away from her dream job.
    She smiled innocently. “Wasn’t what I wanted at the time. Plus it’s one thing to write about technology transfer, it’s another thing to live it!”  She hid the fact from me she had been offered an analysts position with the State Department when she graduated. “I wanted a quiet job and look what I got?” She laughed at her own joke, but behind the laugh was a look of confusion and fear.  “Do you think the state department job would have been safer?”
    A chuckle came up through my chest. Ironically, a job at Langley would have been less exciting than the one she held now. She would have been stuck behind a desk. I had