"Nathaniel!?" She said, not even believing the words that came out of her mouth.
She had hypothesised about who could have the power to take someone from the CIA and each time her mind did go to the Army. Never even in her wildest dream could she have imagined that. The one who had the power to outrank the CIA and take her away was the same person that she had befriended in law school, the only one in fact.
"Oh good, you remember my name." He answers with a silly smile of his, bringing back a lot of souvenirs from law school.
"Stop it! This is some serious matter!" She chastised him.
"Sir, do you want me to leave you alone? You seem to need to talk alone." Scott asked, preparing to leave the office.
"Thank you Scott for being sensible but I believe you need to be here and hear what we are going to say." Nathaniel answers to Scott before turning back to Na-Yung. "And I'm being serious. Do you have any idea what I needed to do to get you back?"
"I never asked for anything! You have no idea what you did and how it's going to impact my life and my family's life! I needed to enter the CIA to keep my family in the US and protected from the assassin that still wanted to harm them! Now that you took me away, there is no reason for them to uphold their part of the bargain! You just condemn my entire family for egoist reasons!" She yelled.
"That's what they told you?" Nathaniel shakes his head before sliding a piece of newspaper with a title in Korean. "Your family is safe now Na-Yung. Your uncle have been arrested three week ago, conspiracy to commit murder and complicity in the death of all the people who died in the attack against your family that night."
Taking the piece of paper with trembling hands, she read the article in Korean. She knew that it was possible that it was her uncle behind all this but it still hurt to find out that the same man that was babysitting her when she was little tried to kill her for power.
"It doesn't mean it's over! The Black Hand never relent after being assigned a target, even if my uncle is behind bars, they will stop at nothing until they kill us!" She had read every piece of information on the Black Hand that the CIA had on hand and memorized everything about them.
"The Black Hand is all but obliterated right now, the last few of their organization have gone in hiding to avoid being killed. In fact your parents are not under protective custody as of now, that's why I made the move to get you back. You deserve to be back with them and not brainwashed into a life of service. In fact, I found them a nice penthouse apartment two blocks away from here."
"You talked to my family?" She asked trouble, mixed feelings could be heard in her voice.
"Yes, they miss you very much. Your father asked me to help him get in touch with you even if I would have done it even if he did not ask for it."
"Thanks Nathaniel for everything you did but I need to go back to the CIA. I don't know why they hide all of this information from me but I think it was to not disturb my training. I own them too much to just leave like that. Without the intervention of one of their team, my whole family would have died in that hotel, I would have died."
Hearing that, Nathaniel's eyes got wide before exploding in laughter, surprising the both of them.
"Stop laughing! I'm serious!" She shouted crossly.
"Na-Yung. The CIA has over fifteen thousand employees, to cover the whole planet in terms of infiltration and intelligence. Then you count the civilian jobs the CIA has like accountant, analyst and the top brass. Considering that, how likely is it that the CIA had a strike team ready near the Hotel in the US? Think about that the organisation did not keep tabs on the Black Hand before because they never leave Asia?" Nathaniel said, looking at her.
Frowning, she started to think about it and it was indeed weird. The CIA was not omnipotent and couldn't be everywhere at once. Moreover, they had no authority to act on US territory, just being there was unlawful and they would never recognize it, especially to someone like her.
"Do you remember that day? Before the attack when we were walking outside of the campus?" He asked.
"Of course I remember. You had something to do, you left and then you called me to start working on an assignment that we just had." She smiled a little at the memory.
"I did and the moment we arrived in front of your hotel, do you remember what I told you?" He asked seriously.
"Yes, you said that you thought you saw someone following us." She remembers, knitting her eyebrows in thought.
"Which made you warn the head or your security to keep his eyes open in case of danger. After that, I was the one who warned you about the internet and cell network going down without any explanation. And the moment when the power died down, you were forced to leave and I was nowhere to be seen?" He said, trying to point her to the right direction, letting her come to her own conclusion.
"Yes, Afterward I was so happy that you had survived that I didn't even think about what you said. These guys were professional killers, there's no way that they would not have checked under the bed and… and there was your bodyguard that came armed to the teeth to save our people in the lobby. We went out a lot the two of us and I never seen them before but on this night they were here. It was y... you, from the start, it was you who killed them. How did I miss that? You were in front of me the whole time." She realized her eyes seeing a new part of him.
"Very good." He nodded approvingly. "When I left you at the exit of the campus it was to find out who those assassins were after, you or me. When I realized they were after you, I came back to keep you safe after calling the bodyguard of my grandfather to act as back up. After that, I just dropped hints to minimize the damage as I couldn't tell you right away, you would never have believed me. Moreover, I also have a family I need to protect, I could not appear on the radar of an organization of assassins." He explained before taking a zip of water.
"After that, I made sure that the marshals were going to hide and protect you all. Following that, I put bread crumbs on the road for the feds to know who it was and where to find them. Because of politics, the operation was rushed, handled badly by the DOD and a fiasco happened. An operation was launched against the headquarters of the Black Hand organisation situated in Deaguo, South Korean the twenty sixth of October . A joint operation with Korean black ops and under the command of a very talented delta force Colonel, Scott McCornaig." Nathaniel said, directing a bitter smile in Scott's direction.