Page 38 of Baby One Last Time
When we stopped at a red light, Mai slid her sunglasses down her nose and met my gaze, eye to eye. “You’re sure about that?”
I must have been doing a shitty job of projecting confidence. With good reason, because hell no, I wasn’t sure. But that was not what my crewmate needed to hear from me.
“I’m sure.” As I said the words, my stomach roiled in visceral warning.Just nerves. Probably.
God help us all if I was wrong.
Chapter 11
By 1500,3 pm to civilian types, I arrived at the team house in response to Penn’s text summoning me to the SCIF. Alder and Jensen, sitting side-by-side at the conference table in the meeting room, were the only ones in unclassified space. I relaxed my shoulders and inhaled a deep breath, relieved I didn’t have to face Wilder so soon after my meeting with Frankie. I couldn’t risk my ex-partner catching my off mood and getting all up in my business. I’d been telling myself I didn’t want his attention for months, but this time, I finally meant it.
I exchanged greetings with the IT section of my team and headed for the 6’x6 foot, floor-to-ceiling metal box at the back of the room. A mobile SCIF, the kind all the three-letter agencies could erect in a couple of hours when they need a secure nerve center in the field. At HEAT, we prided ourselves on setting up our mobile units in under an hour. Other differences that inspire our elitist conceit were the fourth letter in our agency acronym and our low kill rate. It was the little things.
I scanned my ID card and punched the five-number code into the cipher lock, then entered the claustrophobic space. It was well-lit, well-ventilated, and humming with high-speed computers. There the room’s charm ended. It was just about the right size for a small office cubicle, and barely able to accommodate two people comfortably. And right now, there was one person too many in the box.
I pulled the door closed behind me. Penn and Wilder both glanced my way.
“Afternoon Kessler,” Penn said. “Enjoy your sightseeing tour of the city while the rest of us worked?”
So our absence had been noted. It was a hazard of the profession when you worked with spies. But there was no tension in his tone and his half smile indicated his joking mood. That wouldn’t have been the case if anyone on the team had suspected what Mai and I had been doing.
“Miami is a joy to behold,” I said, adopting the same nonchalant tone he’d used. “Nothing says Christmastime like palm trees, sandy beaches, and shirtless surfers.”
Penn grinned. “Except maybe flamingo yard displays, overpriced convertibles, and shirtless wannabes.”
“Don’t forget ruthless mob-money launderers posing as little old ladies.” I couldn’t help smiling. Was this banter? Were Penn and I bonding?
Mr. Tall, Dark, and Disinterested, on the other hand, didn’t spare me another glance.
“Kind of a tight space for three people,” I said. I looked from Wilder back to Penn, a question in my eyes.
Penn’s shoulders tightened and his ease evaporated. Which meant he’d probably keyed into the bad energy between Wilder and me. Then again, the two were old friends. Maybe Penn knew more of the truth about us then he’d let on. Hell, maybe he knew more of the story than I did.
“I won’t be staying long,” Penn said. “I’ll just show you the form I’ll need you to complete regarding E&E, which I’ll use for my logistics plan.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “And then?”
“Then you’re all Wilder’s.”
The tension in the tiny SCIF went from taut to choking.
“He’ll go over everything Tactical uses,” Penn added. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck.
Yeah, I feel you buddy. I was pretty stressed by the close quarters myself. Meanwhile, Wilder oozed calm and serenity, like he’d just stepped out of a two-hour yoga class. I wondered if Penn hated him as much as I did in that moment. Maybe we could bond over that, too.
True to his word, Penn didn’t stay long. It took less than half an hour for him to go through his piece of my training session. He showed me how Tactical’s escape and evade plans translated to the larger logistics plans I was used to reading as part of my mission briefings. He helped me sign into and navigate through the database used for logistics, where he and I would collaborate on the plans until they meshed perfectly and became the logistical blueprint for whatever field task was at hand. Then he handed me a manila folder with preliminary E&E plans he and Derek had worked out for urban warehouses.
“You remember how to find the specs I set up for the mission?” he asked me.
“Absolutely.” Scouring databases for deep background had been the only part of my FBI desk job I’d actually liked. “And I know where the blank forms are to build my own plans.”
“Good,” Penn said. “For today, do one that’s easy, then use its counterpart”—he rested his fingers on the folder—“as your answer key. I’ll review them later and we’ll discuss any discrepancies.” He looked at Derek. “She’s all yours.”
That threw a wet blanket of silence over our small group. Penn skittered away, leaving Derek and me to deal with the fallout of his offhand comment. We ignored it like the professionals we were, and Derek slid into the seat beside me.
“Now we’ll look at the tactical management database,” he said. “Sign in with your credentials to make sure they work.”
This database was built with the same underlying structure and key commands as the one for logistics, which wasn’t all that different from other systems I used for my job. Thankfully, that meant less than thirty minutes of sitting within inches of Derek, smelling the subtle woodsiness of his shampoo and watching his long fingers fly over the keyboard as he opened and explained more advanced tactical plans and reports to me.
