"Really?" The old woman, whom Frank called Victoria, looked at Jack suspiciously.
"Absolutely. I'm not his student. My name is Jack, and I'm an FBI agent." Jack displayed his badge and empty holster to demonstrate his sincerity.
Victoria looked a little surprised. "Hmm? FBI? Are you being hunted by the CIA too?"
Jack sighed. "Honestly, ma'am, this matter might be a bit complicated. We have two friends outside. Now that the misunderstanding is resolved, can we sit down and talk it over?"
"Of course. It's tea time now." Victoria's right hand slowly pulled out an MP5 submachine gun from beneath the flowers and gave the two a playful smile.
This expression, normally reserved for a young girl, now appeared on the old woman's face, surprisingly seamless.
She turned and pointed at the windowsill behind her. "Let Marvin in, if he doesn't want to get hurt."
The bushes outside the window swayed, revealing Marvin's dazed face and the muzzle of his gun pointed toward the house.
"So, how did you all become friends back then?" Jack asked curiously, following the two into the dining room.
"Anyone you're not sure you can kill is considered a friend." Frank raised his eyebrows slightly, a half-joking, half-wry smile.
As they passed through the hallway, the door opened again. Anna, always quick-witted, walked in with a cat-like gait, one behind the other, Marvin.
"Who is this girl?" Victoria, who had been smiling and looking back at the door, suddenly narrowed her eyes. "FSB?"
Anna paused slightly. Though she hadn't made any unnecessary movements, Jack could feel her muscles tense up in that instant, like a cat with its fur standing on end.
"Well, she's with me," Jack said, placing his hand on Anna's shoulder. The girl finally relaxed.
Frank's eyelids fluttered, and he too put his arm around the old woman's shoulder. "That's a complicated story, too. Victoria, could you get us some snacks? We're all starving."
Marvin timidly poked his head in from behind. "Any almond muffins?"
—
Steaming hot tea and a vast array of snacks, including the almond muffins Marvin had requested, filled the entire table.
Jack declined Victoria's offer of milk and left the sugar and honey on the table untouched. Instead, he placed a small slice of lemon in his cup.
The British add everything to their tea: milk, sugar, jam, ginger slices, diced apples, cinnamon, sweet cloves, and other unusual additions.
Of course, Jack wasn't a master tea connoisseur, but he was already as good as he could be, adapting to local customs and adding a slice of lemon. Milk tea without red beans, pearls, or coconut flakes was considered "heterodox."
Frank devoured a fish sandwich in a few bites, like a cow chewing a peony. He murmured, "It's incredible, Victoria, how do you do it?"
"Fresh salmon is delicious no matter how you cook it. Would you like another helping?" The elderly woman, a veteran of MI6, wore an apron and tortoise-shell glasses, looking incredibly kind.
"No, uh, give me another one. I mean, how did you adapt to retirement life?"
Frank's eyes were full of envy. "You look so calm and comfortable. You really enjoy this kind of life."
"Because I like these." Victoria smiled as she spread sauce on salmon and bread slices. "I like quietness, I like baking and flower arranging. I like the life of a normal person."
"Cough!" Anna, who was a little choked, coughed softly. Seeing everyone looking at her, she quickly waved her hand to put down the teacup, and sat up straight very obediently.
"Okay." Victoria handed Frank the sandwich, her expression slightly embarrassed. "Sometimes I get restless, so I pick up some odd jobs."
She explained, her intentional attempt to hide the truth. "You know, people like us are always busy, aren't we?"
Frank chuckled and nodded in agreement. "Who says we aren't?"
"It takes time to adapt to a new life; you can't just change it all at once."
Victoria spoke so truthfully that Jack chuckled to himself. Someone who didn't know better would have mistaken her for an elderly person who couldn't stay idle at home and went out to do odd jobs.
"Frank's different from us. He even found himself a girlfriend, almost 20 years his junior," Marvin grumbled as he ate his almond muffin, not forgetting to tell tales.
Victoria's interest suddenly piqued, her wrinkled face slowly relaxing like a blossoming flower. "Wow, really? Tell me about her?"
"Ah, that." The usually cool bald head suddenly looked a little embarrassed, glaring at an FBI agent who was strategically sipping tea, holding the cup to hide a smile.
"Sarah is the woman who makes me feel like I can truly embrace a new life, a real life." He subconsciously took a sip from his teacup, a smile of happiness he hadn't even noticed spreading across his face.
"Oh, Frank, you're such a romantic." Victoria clasped her arms across her chest, looking happy for him. "You've always been a romantic, a tough-looking boy with a sentimental heart."
Frank: "?"
Feeling that if they continued their conversation, he and Anna would be at risk of being silenced later, Jack pulled out the Guatemalan files they had looted from Langley from his briefcase.
He started with the list left by the New York Times reporter, then talked about Frank being inexplicably hunted, and then mentioned his and his female boss's speculation about the real culprit behind the scenes, and finally talked about the death of Beckett's mother and the series of murders that followed.
"The speculation that the person behind the scenes may be the same person, that is, Senator Bracken, is still just a speculation.
Although we found the original files of the Guatemala operation, most of the second half of the report was blacked out. Obviously, there were people inside the CIA who tried to cover up the truth at the time, but this does not match the time when Cynthia Wilkes joined the CIA. That was at least 20 years ago.
I compared the names on the list, including Frank and Marvin. Almost all of them appeared in the report, and they are all dead, except this person."
Jack tapped on the note, "Alexander Denning, his name did not appear in the report, or it may have appeared, but was erased.
I checked this name through the FBI system, and the files showed that this person disappeared fifteen years ago."
"Alexander Denning?" Victoria put on her tortoiseshell glasses again and looked at the note carefully for a moment, "I think I know him. His name should be Browning Orvis now. He was also a CIA."
"The guy who later became a defense contractor?" Frank seemed to have some impression of the name.
"You're a money-hungry villain." Marvin, who was eating a small cake nearby, also interjected.
(End of chapter)