Page 53 of Baby One Last Time
“Maybe he knows you’re no longer a Fed,” Jensen grinned, “and he’s stupid enough to think we’re less scary.”
“He’s not that good a liar.” I’d sat across from the guy and read his every look, movement, and breath. I knew something was off, but not so off that he was playing me. “I thinkhewas played. The only question is whether they think he’s a local nuisance sniffing around their business, in which case I’ve just set him up for a lifetime of hurt, or whether they’re worried he’s a snitch, in which case I’ve jeopardized our entire operation.”
Jensen whistled between his teeth. “Wow. Do you assume the whole universe revolves around you, or just the Milky Way?”
“I... What?”
“It’s our galaxy. Our cosmic city, if you will.”
“Jensen, I know what the hell the Milky Way is. What’s yourpoint?”
“Simple,” he said. “If they think he’s a local nuisance, he’s small potatoes and the Kremlin won’t waste any energy on him after this is over. And these guys always suspect someone is a snitch. Why do you think they’ve gotten so good at speaking in code and obscuring their operations?”
“When you put it that way.” Who knew Jensen was such a paragon of reason. “But Mai, that’s on me.”
“She made her choice to get into that SUV.” He shrugged. “But, yeah, you talked us into doing this without HEAT’s blessing.”
“One step forward, two steps back.”
He smiled. “Two steps forward, one step back.” His smile faded. “They should have taken that exit.”
I focused on the black vehicle. “Maybe they’re taking a different route.”
“No.” He pointed to the GPS. “The exit they should have taken leads into a small neighborhood that’s pretty cut off without the highway. It would take ridiculously long to get to the warehouse a different way.”
“Do you think she’s made?” I eked out the words, horrified to think what it would mean if Mai had been discovered.
Jensen’s knuckles went white as he clutched the steering wheel. “For now, let’s worry about keeping them in sight.”
Ahead of us, the SUV took the next exit. Luckily, a car and a pickup truck took the same off-ramp, giving us cover. But first one, then the other, turned off on side roads, leaving nothing but the darkness between us and our prey.
“I’ll have to hang farther back,” Jensen said, easing off the gas pedal.
“We can’t lose them.” At that point, I would rather have been made than to let Mai out of our sight.
“I don’t think we have to worry about that.” Jensen glanced at the GPS, then frowned. “I know where they’re going.”
From the sound of his voice, I wished I didn’t need to know. “Where?”
He glanced sideways at me. “La Parisienne.”
My stomach clenched so hard, I nearly puked. I swallowed down the bile that rose in my throat. “Beecher’s estate?”
Jensen tightened his jaw and nodded.
“So these are Beecher’s guys, not Miami Pete’s.” They were all bad guys, but Beecher was higher up the food chain, and more importantly at the moment, he lived behind a walled and secured perimeter. “Fuck us all.”
My gambit had gone bust, this job had gone sideways, and my partner who’d proven she always had my back, was going straight into the belly of the beast.
Chapter 14
“Let’s not panic,”I said, more for my benefit than Jensen’s.
To the untrained eye, he looked calm. But I caught the tremor in his hands as he turned off the van’s headlights and coasted to a stop a hundred feet away from the gated entrance to La Parisienne. As we watched, the SUV drove through the open entryway, then the gates swung closed behind it. Mai was separated from us by an eight-foot high brick wall and an alarmed and monitored security system.
“How long will it take you to turn off the security system?” I asked. When Jensen didn’t answer, I grabbed his shoulder. “How long?”
He stared straight ahead. “It’s a closed system. Complicated. I’ve been working on it remotely, but...”
