Page 112 of Agency
Goddamn.
Goddamn, she looked gorgeous right then. Even more gorgeous than when I’d first come down, or even that first night when she’d been all done up and dressed to the nines. A sexy little black dress’s curve-hugging form would never compare to the look of a well fucked woman, I realized.
“Wish you and Andrew would have stayed down here, though,” she said, her eyes still on mine as she spoke in a voice barely louder than a whisper. “Would’ve been even hotter.”
“Wasn’t part of the mission briefing,” I said with a genuine grin.
She let out a sharp bark of laughter that sounded throughout the farmhouse, and apparently that was enough to get Jericho stirring. He’d always been the one to wake up at the drop of a pin, but now… Well… Maybe we actually had relaxed his defenses.
“Andrew,” he groaned, bringing up a big, beefy arm and wiping a hand down his face. “Am I in the habit of hovering over your bedside in the morning?”
“No,” I replied, slapping the GPS tracker on his chest. “Not unless it’s important.”
“Is this world-ending?” he asked, seeming to instinctively pull Ambyr closer as he picked up the device and blinked down at the screen. “Or, can I at least have my coffee first?”
“No sir. It’s world ending.”
He looked down at the device, continued to blink. “Then walk me through this shit if you’re not going to caffeinate me, first.” More blinks. “What am I seeing here?”
“These dots,” I said, reaching down with two manipulating fingers and zooming in on a particular section of the Missouri river that was miles downstream from where Ambyr had tossed the tracker-filled vials into the drink. I’d been keeping an eye on the trackers’ progress since we’d pulled away from that bridge, and had been hoping the rice-sized devices would make their way down to the Mississippi and, from there, to the gulf.
Unfortunately, the luck of my Irish forefathers didn’t seem to extend to me. The trackers had either gotten hung up on a sandbar of some kind, or hit a piece of debris. Agents must have been dispatched after the stall, not to mention Joergensen’s radio silence.
“Three dots,” I continued. “Agents. Yesterday, they were on the east coast. They converged sometime over night while we were asleep, and are now right on top of where Ambyr and Joergensen’s devices settled down.” My eyes flickered to Ambyr’s, and I swallowed hard. “They’re going to realize you two aren’t actually together, and from there it doesn’t take a mastermind to figure out why he’s been quiet.”
Ambyr’s eyes went wide, and the blanket was falling away to reveal her nude upper body as she went to sit upright. “Shit.”
“Shit is fucking right,” Jericho said handing the device back to me so he could throw back the blanket the rest of the way. Both naked, he and Ambyr began to wriggle from the confines of the couch while he continued: “How much time do we have?”
“Not sure,” I said, already up and off my haunches before his bare feet had touched down on the floor. “Hours? A day maybe, if we’re real fucking lucky? They’re going to eventually realize we have this, though.” I held up the device for emphasis. “And they’ll likely extrapolate our destination. It was a calculated risk to bring this thing along, and we knew that. But, depending on how savvy their operatives are, we might have some time.”
“They’re savvy,” Ambyr said, getting up from the couch. “Real savvy. Don’t bet on having time.”
Jericho and I both looked to her, and she must have seen something in our eyes.
“Don’t act like it didn’t take four of you to subdue me, or that I didn’t stopmyselffrom killing the target when none of you could. I gave up the fight when I recognized all three of you, and decided I couldn’t just start dropping your bodies.” She paused as she stood in front of the fireplace, but only a split-second. When she spoke again, her voice was more quiet and subdued, and she was already at the kitchen door, with one hand pressed against its dingy front. “Also, let’s not forget: I was by myself, and these three are working in a group. Sure, they’re probably ad hoc and not as well oiled as you three, but you need to assume they’re on your level, and that there might be more than just three on the ground by the time we reach my aunt. You step into the ring with these guys, remember they’re going for blood. Don’t underestimate them, because they won’t be underestimating you, or me.”
She didn’t look back as she spoke. Didn’t have to. Her tone was severe enough to carry the seriousness of her words.
Jericho and I glanced to each other as she slipped into the kitchen.
“She’s right,” he said, his voice more quiet than I’d heard in a long time. “She’s fucking right.”
“I know she’s right.” I extended my hand to him. Flat and horizontal, I didn’t shake or tremble as I looked him in the eyes. “See that, though?”
He took a deep breath, nodded. “Not a shake.”
“No sir. We can do this.”
Footsteps sounded overhead, then, and our eyes immediately went to the ceiling as Andrew began moving around. First, the sound of his steps headed to the bathroom, and there the toilet lid lifted.
“You get him moving,” Jericho said, eyes coming back down to mine. “We’ll get moving down here.”
“Roger.” Tossing the GPS tracker on one of the couch cushions along the way, I was up in a flash and half-running up the stairs, barking as I went: “Andrew, get your bullshit, slacking ass in gear. We’re rolling out!”
Clearly naked, he poked his head out the bathroom door as I reached the top of the steps, the toilet behind him roaring like the king of the jungle. “Excuse me, sir?”
“You got a cock stuck in your ear? You fucking heard me. We’re rolling out, and we’re doing it within the hour. Enemy is closing in.”
