Page 11 of Baby One Last Time
Derek turned away from me and addressed TJ. “Ready to in-brief the team?” He swiped his keycard and held the door open for me in what I interpreted more as a dismissal than good manners.
I swept past him and hightailed it down the hallway and into the first-floor gym. The four-story building, with its ground floor workout center, fully staffed kitchen, meeting rooms, and enough space to lodge dozens of agents at a time, had been my first home in HEAT. It was the West Coast training center, and I’d come here straight from that night in Vegas a year ago, after I’d had my wild night with Derek and we’d parted ways with an understanding between us. Everything would have been aces if we’d stuck to our agreement that there would never be a repeat performance.
“Kessler!” Two voices rose in unison as I entered the open space that was part dojo and part team meeting room. Jason Jensen and Kate Alder, who had run IT and comms on the Aussie Attaché Job—later unofficially renamed the Aussie Asshole Job—greeted me.
I blinked hard. There was no crying at HEAT—an unwritten rule, not a policy—and I wasn’t about to be the weak link who changed that. But man, X knew how to screw me to the wall, reuniting me with my two most trusted teammates. Well, two of three, but Henderson wouldn’t be on this team, thanks to me. Okay, two of four, but Derek’s hot-and-cold act was making him less trustworthy by the minute.
My old teammates hugged me, then reintroduced me to Samantha Bond. (Yes, she took a lot of shit, having that last name in our business.) She was one of HEAT’s best medics and I’d only worked with her once, also on that botched job. The last time I saw her, she was covered in Henderson’s blood. I blocked that nasty memory and covered it with a smile as I shook her hand.
Bond and TJ were the team-lead unit, or Command, and Jensen and Alder made up the IT crew. I would be part of, Tactical, which was a catch-all term because the company had yet to come up with a better name for what we did. We were the ones who got in the faces of the targets and took them down while the rest of our teammates provided backup support, unless things went to shit, in which case it was all hands on deck. The fourth unit, Cleanup, didn’t appear to be in the room, unless the tall, thin man across the gym punching a heavy bag was the male half of that squad. The boxer shifted and I corrected myself. She might be the female half.
It was another unwritten rule that each unit within a team was comprised of a man and a woman, with the exception that non-binary colleagues could be paired with any gender. Equal treatment, equal pay, equal opportunity, equal risk.
“Sparks and Penn are on Cleanup,” TJ said. “They’ve already been briefed and they’re working on the log plan.”
We all nodded. “Cleanup” was another misnomer. In addition to literally cleaning up any mess the rest of the team made and transporting the bad guys we took down to the secret locations where they’d be held, Cleanup was responsible for the logistics plan, team movement, and—my personal favorite—execution of the E&E, the evasion and extraction plan to save our sorry asses if things went pear-shaped in the field. I’d never worked with Tamela Sparks and Martin Penn, but their reputations preceded them, and I was honored to be in such rarified air.
But that left open the question of who would be my partner on Tactical. There was only one man in the room who wasn’t spoken for, and he slithered up beside me like a sidewinder.
“Don’t look so scared, Little Red Riding Hood,” Derek whispered to me. “I told you, I won’t be in the field with you.”
My stomach dropped, but I didn’t know whether that was from disappointment or relief. If pressed, I wasn’t copping to the former. Maybe X had finally figured out I was kryptonite to crewmates and she had assigned me to go solo. The company had toyed with that model in the early days—long before my time—as a cost-saving measure, but when the country lost its collective mind and put a useful idiot in the highest office, and on-the-books agencies had both hands bound behind their backs, HEAT’s off-the-books budget had tripled. Someday, the world would recover from the shit-show and our budget would shrink. Probably. Possibly. I’d gladly pilot the solo plan so we’d be ready.
“Lee, come meet your teammates,” TJ called.
The boxer dropped her stance, pulled off her gloves, and trotted across the gym. She was tall and thin, with short, dark hair and great biceps.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “She’s on Tactical?”
“Yes,” Derek confirmed. “A special arrangement, just for you.”
Said the person who was the reason X didn’t trust me to work with the owner of a Y chromosome.
I glared at him, but he was talking with Lee. In addition to being about four inches taller than me, putting her at about six feet feet even, she had perfect skin and kind, dark eyes. Derek smiled a little too broadly when he shook her hand. I reached across him and held out my hand to her, “accidentally” elbowing him—hard—in the ribs. I ignored his grunt.
“Kessler,” I said. “Cynthia to my crewmate.”
Her grip was warm and a little sweaty from her boxing gloves. “Mai Lee.” She pulled her hand away fast, like she needed to limit contact with me. Interesting, and not in a good way.
She exchanged idle pleasantries with Jensen and Alder and laughed at TJ’s gentle ribbing about her boxing technique. Which was fucking flawless, by the way.
“Newcomers.” TJ pointed at Jensen, Alder, and me. “Find your rooms and settle in. There’s a class of new recruits on the second floor, so our team is on the third. Your names on are the doors. Everyone, we’re back here”—TJ pointed to the long wooden table in the meeting area of the room—“at 1800 for the mission in-brief. Team dinner is at 1900, so that’ll give me just enough time to hit the highlights.”
I was back to living on military time, where 6 p.m and 7 p.m. were 1800 and 1900 hours, respectively. Mai waved to the rest of the team, gave Derek a slight nod of acknowledgement, and took off without sparing me another glance. This time, I was more vexed than interested.
“What’s her deal?” I asked Derek.
I hated asking for others’ opinions about people, being perfectly capable—in fact, extraordinarily so—at reading faces and body language and subtext and figuring them out for myself. But I needed to know what I was getting into with my new partner, sooner rather than later. Later, I might be counting on her to have my back. I’d prefer she not step aside and let someone sink a shiv into it.
“You know how it is with new partners,” Derek said. “The chemistry takes a little time.” He shrugged and wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“I don’t recall the chemistry with you taking any time to develop,” I said while he appeared to be fascinated by TJ writing notes on the whiteboard across the room. “Or with...”
I didn’t finish. Henderson and I had hit it off immediately. He was newer to HEAT than I was, and acted like a younger brother in awe of an older sister, eager to learn. He’d been impressed by the way I could read a room and predict what the assholes we were dealing with would do next. He’d called me the psychic Sherlock. He’d trusted me. That had been his downfall.
Well, shit. Mai or Lee or whatever she would want me to call her was smart to keep her distance. Unfortunately for her, that’s not how HEAT missions worked.
“You’ve gotten sloppy during our time apart,” I whispered to Derek. “You need to work on looking me in the eye when you lie to me. You used to be really good at that.”
