Persevere

Chapter 4

"Lucas Rebecca Hobbs, I haven't seen you in forever." we heard as a familiar face walked over to us.

"Rebecca?" Sam and Lani muttered.

"Do you even age? How long has it been?" he asked.

"Not long enough." I smiled.

"Six months." Luke sighed.

"Time flies."

"When we're apart." Luke finished.

"What is your skincare regimen? Because you look like a young Shirley Temple. Go, go, go, go, go." the man said, ushering Sam over as he sat down.

"Daddy, who this?" Lani asked, glaring at Locke.

"Well, this guy is, uh, he's Locke." Luke said.

"He works for the CIA, he's kind of a good guy." I told the girls.

"Your dad, mom, and I are old friends." Locke said with that stupid smirk on his face.

"We're not old friends." Luke and I said.

"Actually, Lucas and I, we're um, we're best friends. Here's the half heart." he smiles, pulling half of a best friend's necklace out of his shirt.

"I don't know what that is." Luke quickly stated.

I looked over at my husband with a raised brow, knowing damn well I found the other half of that necklace in the wash when he got back from his last mission with Locke.

"We even got some ink together." Locke said.

"We did not get ink together." Luke said.

"What is happening right now?" I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Oh, we didn't?" Locke asked as he threw his tie over his shoulder and started to unbutton his shirt.

"No, we did not."

"Oh, interesting. Well, I seem to remember getting a little something like this . . . at one point, on my body." Locke stated, opening his shirt to show a Samoan tribal tattoo.

"Jesus." Luke and I chorused as Luke pulled his shirt down to look at his own tattoo.

"Christ, I miss our playful banter." Locke smiled.

"And this is part of why I can't stand you." I sighed.

"You have one minute to tell me what you want before I knock one of your loose. Or I have my wife do it." Luke told him.

"I know what the two of you have been working on. You and I are after the same thing, say hello to the CT17 virus." he said, holding up a piece of paper. "It's a programmable bio-weapon of biblical proportions, affectionately codenamed the 'Snowflake'."

"No seriously, what the hell is happening right now?" I asked, reading the information on the paper.

"What does a Snowflake do?" Sam asked.

"Don't you . . ."

"Oh, nothing much, just uh, liquifies your internal organs. Basically, it turns your body into a giant bag of hot soup." Locke said.

"She is nine!" Luke said.

"I've seen worse." Sam smiled at us.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"Where?" Luke asked.

"Game of Thrones, Janet's house."

"I'm gonna have to talk to Janet." I sighed for what felt like the hundredth time.

"I've never heard of it" Luke started to say.

"A Lannister always pays his debts." Locke said.

"Oh Jesus, take the wheel." I muttered under my breath.

"You're never going over there again." Luke told Sam, making the girl pout.

"Back to business, there's a new wrinkle in the case, Rebecca. The specifics are all in the brief. There you go." Locke said.

As he handed over the folder Sam tried to grab it but I took it from her and Luke took it from me.

"She's ready, Becca." Locke told Luke.

"She's nine." I growled.

"This is the only unit of CT17 in existence and this Snowflake is now in the hands of a rogue MI6 operative in London." he informed us.

"I saw that on the news this morning." I said as Luke pulled her photo out of the file and gave her the eyebrow which made me raise my own.

"Dad, are all spies that pretty?" Sam asked.

"No . . . she is unusually attractive."

"What about mom?" she insisted.

"Your mom wasn't a spy, and she's stunning." he said, turning to kiss me quickly with a knowing smile.

"Thin rope, Hobbs." I said, pulling the file out of his hands.

"And deadly . . . last night, she was part of an MI6 team tasked with securing the virus. She then proceeded to kill her entire black ops squad. She stabbed one guy in the chest using a brick. Do you know how hard that is? To stab someone using a brick?" Locke said, being all extra.

"I might have to try something like that." I said.

"No, you don't. You get to the point." Luke told us.

"The point is there's no sharp edge. How did she get an entire brick into another person's chest? She either had to be really strong, or the other person had to have been like, born without like . . . bones or something." Locke insisted.

"Yeah, do you have pictures of that?" I asked as I rifled through the documents.

"Get to the larger point. Give me that." Luke said, taking the file from me again.

"She stole the Snowflake, then she went totally off-grid."

"Who's this?" I asked, pulling a surveillance photo of a small man.

"That's Andreiko and we think he created the virus."

"Great, where do I find him?" Luke asked.

"He's off-grid too. Impossible to find and maybe dead."

"You're not very helpful." I said.

"And you're the world's best tracker and she's one of the best hackers now. I'm sure you'll figure something out."

"Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm DSS, you're CIA. I don't work for you." Luke said.

"Hell no, I'm neither CIA nor DSS. I don't have to do a damn thing." I argued.

"I know you don't have to help but you'll help him. And you, your boss loaned you out. You do now, dickface."

Luke shoved the table forward and Locke quickly jerked himself back.

"I'd watch my vocabulary if I were you." I smiled.

"What did you call me?" my husband asked.

"Hey, hey, hey! Let's settle down, all right? I've already got a black site running in London. There's an operative there, top of his game. He'll be your contact." Locke told Luke.

"I don't need anybody else. I work alone." Luke quickly argued.

"We got bigger problems than your fragile ego, or the fact that a moment ago, I most definitely shit my pants. The entire world is at stake here, all right? This thing gets out, we're looking at a lot of liquified organs. And I mean like, everywhere. And not just yours and mines." he said, covering his mouth and pointing to the girls.

"Do what?" I growled but Luke held me back.

"He knows I can see him, right?" Sam asked.

This whole time Lani is just watching this strange man like, who the hell is this idiot? She's definitely right.

"He knows nothing, Jon Snow." Luke told Sam, winking at her.