Page 7 of The Saint

Was that a compliment? Camden wasn’t sure.

Jared shrugged. “But it’ll probably be nothing. You hang out in the operation center and shoot the shit with Amanda and Shah. Easy workday. What do you think? You game?”

“Probably boring with the potential for more complicated?” He pursed his lips. “I don’t know if I’m your best guy on the job.”

“Brother, I dig more complicated. It’s how I pass my days.” Boss Man crossed his arms. “And I think you do too.”

Boss Man wasn’t wrong. Most of their jobs were sit and wait anyway. Wait for ignition. Wait for the target. Wait for the go. He could collect a paycheck and sit on his ass in the comfort of the operations center.

How bad could it be?“All right. I’m in.”

The operational nerve center of Titan’s Abu Dhabi headquarters hummed with electronics. Cool air pumped into the room. Screens covered the walls. Workstations sat empty without any jobs monitored at the moment.

Camden sat in a rolling chair and pushed back as a football sailed toward him. He easily snapped the ball to his chest. An electronic beep announced someone entering. The outer door whooshed open, and Amanda Carter walked in.

Her eyes locked onto Cam, arm cocked and ready to throw the football, then onto Shah. “You two are going to break something expensive.”

“Everything’sexpensive in here,” Shah pointed out.

Camden dropped his arm and instead tossed the ball to himself. “Oh, come on. Don’t sound like Liam.”

“I sound like someone who knows the cost of this equipment and the hours spent setting it up.”

“We’re being careful.” He patted the football and nodded to Shah before lofting it his way.

Shah caught it. “We have to do something. I’m bored out of my mind.”

The special phone line that apparently required the three of them to rotate in shifts was silent. At least they’d adopted a buddy system. Otherwise, this assignment, which had initially piqued his interest, would be unbearable.

Its highlight had been the bare-bones CIA briefing that elaborated vaguely on what Jared had previously explained: Hackers discovered the identities of covert agents. No one seemed to know which agents, if they were current or former, or even which continents they were on.

Still, Boss Man had the three of them focus their attention on a phone line that never rang. Camden caught the ball and gave it a smack.

“Well, you’re off duty now.” Amanda shooed Camden toward the door. “Go before you break something.”

“We just ordered food.” Shah caught the ball. “And we’re on a streak. We can’t leave until one of us fumbles.”

The phone rang. Camden’s head snapped toward the desk. It wasn’t a call made to Titan’s phone system. The screen on the desk console lit up with the caller’s location: Arlington, Virginia, thousands of miles away. Excitement—or at least boredom-killing interest—jumped in his chest, and he answered.

CHAPTER FOUR

A man answered Amelia’s call, but with the blood rushing in her ears, he sounded terribly far away. Glass shattered in the kitchen. A locked door hadn’t stopped her pursuer, and her reptile brain had panicked. She couldn’t speak on the phone or run from danger. She had options: freeze, fight, or flee. In the grand evolutionary sense, she was dead meat.

The cat brushed against her leg. Its softness shocked her system. She gasped as though she hadn’t remembered to breathe in hours. The cat walked its little toe beans over her bare feet. The sensation kickstarted her nervous system into gear and gave her two options: fight or flee. The man’s scary face came into her mind, and she vaulted up the stairs.

The cat wove and ran between her feet. Her sweaty palm gripped the phone as though the person who answered might be able to pull her through the phone line to safety. “Hello?”

Nothing.

Her pulse screamed in her ears. “Hello?” She pressed the phone to her ear.

No one was there. They’d hung up.

Amelia paused at the top of the stairs and listened. The man was probably listening for her too. She needed to hide. The main bedroom would be the first place anyone would check. She couldn’t hide in there.

Closets? Too easy. Bathrooms? Where did someone go to hide from the unknown?She didn’t have time to discover the best hiding spot and dove into a bedroom. Swimming awards and dated posters hung on the walls. It was a time capsule of a teenager’s bedroom before they’d left home for college a decade before.

She hit Redial again and tried the closet.Nope.The stench of mothballs hit. It was too packed with clothes and boxes for her to fit in anyway.

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