“Smarter than you.” De Leon nods to himself. “Stand up.”
I rise to my feet without decking the fucker. Somehow. He picks up another black box and runs it over me from head to toe.
“Signal check?”
“Body mapping. Someone looking very like you is going to board a commercial flight to England a few hours before we take off.”
Since that’s not the worst idea, I nod.
He does a few more things with the black boxes, then begins returning everything to his backpack.
“Got it. See you Tuesday.”
“What happens on Tuesday?” I ask.
“We fly to England.”
“We fucking well do not. I’m in the middle of a semester. I have an exam next week. I can’t just drop everything and go to England.”
De Leon puts his palm on the table and leans over to stare into my eyes. “That’s when I’m available. I know you don’t like me, Max. I don’t give a fuck. You can hate me as much as you want as long as you don’t get hurt on my watch. That means you do things when I tell you to. You fly when I think we’ve got a good window. You leave the hotel I tell you to stay in when I say it’s clear. You do the shit you gotta do. You get back on the plane and we fly home. You’re my problem from now until you cross that threshold when we get back.” He nods at my front door. “If you make my job harder pissing about, I will make your lifefucking miserable for the next however long. Be a professional and let me do my job.”
I hold his alpha stare for a long moment, so he knows I’m not rolling over and showing throat, before I nod. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Good.” He takes out a smart phone and hands it to me. “That’s the way you contact me until we’re back. No other way. Call comes through from me another way? That means I’ve been compromised. Send out the SOS. If we’re already in England, go straight to Liverpool airport. There’ll be an open, first-class ticket waiting for you there in the name Maxfield Bateman?—”
“My name’s not?—”
“Just listen. I know that’s not your name. When you get to the airport, go through the first-class line and tell them your friend booked the ticket for you and got your name wrong. They’ll change it for you with the receipt that’s on that phone. Ticket’s not a straight shot. It’ll take you to Amsterdam, then to Miami, then home. If you end up with a layover, do not leave the airport. Best place for a grab is when you’re coming or going from a hotel. Clear?”
I nod. “Clear.”
“Good. See you Tuesday. I’ll text you the time by noon on Monday at the latest.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have a license to carry in England?”
“No.”
“Then don’t pack any weapons. We don’t have time to get you a permit.”
“Got it.”
De Leon slings his backpack over one shoulder. “You want me to do anything about them?”
“About who?”
“The bastards who want to grab you.”
I run my hand over my face. “That sounds like you’re suggesting premeditated murder.”
“I’d call it preventative murder, but you call it whatever the fuck you want.” When I shake my head, he continues, “So there’s no confusion, if they go after you with force while I’m on you, I will kill them.”
“I understand that.”
“Then we’re on the same page.”
He sticks out his hand and after a moment’s deliberation, I shake. As I show him out, he whistles a happy tune.
