Page 58 of Baby One Last Time
My guts dropped to my feet and I leaned against the scratchy brick wall. The looks on Mai and Derek’s faces matched my reaction.
“There’s suspicious movement at the front of the house. Three armed hostiles have joined two of the night guards.”
“We’re made,” Derek said quietly.
Mai nodded, but I glowered. Mai was safe. We were ready to climb. In less than a minute, we’d be free. “Can’t be,” I protested.
“I think you tripped the backup system I was worried about,” Jensen said. “They know someone’s on the property.”
“Someone, but not who or how many.” Derek pulled off his holster and tranq gun and handed them to Mai, who strapped them over her own. “While you two get out of here, I’ll draw them away from the wall and give them someone to find. Yevhen Vanko. One of the buyer’s underlings we’ve been tracking for months.” He touched his pocket. “Penn made me an ID a month ago, thinking it might come in handy one day.”
“You think they’ll buy it?” Mai asked. Finally, someone talking sense.
“I speak flawless Ukrainian with a Luhansk accent.”
Mai glanced at me and I nodded. We all have our special skills. Derek’s was his way with languages.
“I’ll be your American handler,” I said. “A reason for both of us to be here.”
“Why in the hell would I be breaking into Beecher’s estate with a handler? Jensen, jam the phone signal immediately. Make it look like a decent-sized outage. Bring it back up when you and Alder have an intercept set up. As soon as I tell Beecher’s thugs I work for their buyer, they’re going to want to confirm.”
“On it.”
Derek slipped his phone into my pocket. “I have my burner phone on me, but no one calls unless you have one of our fluent Russian operatives patched in to do the talking. Tell them to use code B.”
Each of HEAT’s codes included questions captured operatives would be asked. We’d know his status and any other critical data he was able to learn based on how he answered them.
“Nope.” I tried to hand the phone to Mai, who was busy ignoring me.
They’re fanning out,” Jensen said. “Lee and Kessler, I estimate you have two minutes, tops.”
“Just Mai,” I insisted. “I’m staying.”
Derek grabbed my hand. “They’re not going to risk hurting their buyer’s point man, even when they find me snooping around where I shouldn’t be.”
I shook my head, but he wasn’t looking at me. “I won’t go. I refuse. No man left behind, right?”
“Two questions,” Derek said. “Mai, you ever do the fireman’s carry under fire?”
She huffed. “Of course.”
He turned to me and cupped my face in his hands. “And Cynth, do you remember Tokyo?”
A rush of memories hit my system like speed. Our secret vacation together after three months as partners fighting our mutual lust. A week spent mostly naked on Fiji. Then our first job after that. Our pact to keep it professional. Our fall into bed together the very first night in Tokyo.
He kissed me soft and slow as the sensations of his body sliding over mine replayed in my mind and rippled across my skin. Then a prick in my neck made me gasp. Derek pulled away from me and dropped me into Mai’s waiting arms. I couldn’t make my mouth work to call him a bastard because I was already numb.
My own partners had tranqued me.
Chapter 15
I cameto on the rubber floor mats, behind the van’s driver’s seat. From our speed, I guessed we were on the highway. Mai, Jensen, and me. No Derek. The last minutes at La Parisienne flooded back to me. Mai and Jensen both had their eyes on the road. She’d removed her holster and rifle strap to make it easier to sit in the bucket seat. It left her unarmed.
I inched my arm down my side. My shoulder and hip hurt, probably where my dead weight had bounced against the wall. Jensen would have had to be on the other side of the wall to help Mai lever me over, so I didn’t feel the least bit bad about what I was about to do. With half-numb, tingling fingers, I brushed the top of my tranq gun. As I’d hoped, in their scramble to make a clean get-away, they hadn’t taken the time to disarm me. I waited another excruciating minute for feeling to return to my hand, then eased the tranq gun out of the holster. In one swift move, I rolled onto my knees between the front seats and held my tranq gun to Jensen’s throat. To his credit, he only swerved a few inches into the left-hand lane and quickly maneuvered back on course.
“Turn the van around,” I said. “Drop me off, then go gather the team for the extraction.”
“Too late,” Mai said. “TJ knows the basics and is gathering the team. He expects you to brief them as soon as we get there.”
