“You forgot the charger for your phone, didn’t you?” Reed asked between bites of the burrito.
“I was doing so well on Candy Crush, too,” Breandan moaned.
“This isn’t my idea of the greatest way to spend my time, either,” Foreman said from just down the row. “But this plan is sound.” The fountain was a continuous roar behind us; not loud enough to bother me, but enough to add some white noise to the buzz of conversation already going in the courtyard.
“The plan was sound days ago, when it was originated, when it was fresh, and when my bum didn’t have four days’ worth of hard benches underneath it and wake-ups at all hours of the night and day to wear it out,” Breandan replied.
My earpiece buzzed with a burst of static. “Last of the passengers from Flight 1834 from Mexico City are now through customs.”
“Last of them coming through now,” I said, parroting the missive I’d just overheard.
“Using the DEA to do spotting for us was pretty smart,” Reed said. “They can watch like they normally would, thinking they’re looking for drug mules.” He gave me an amused glance. “I wonder how pissed they’d be if they knew we were just using them to keep an eye on passengers moving through customs?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “and I don’t care much, either. Maybe they’ll turn up something for themselves in the bargain, but it’s fairly irrelevant. I just need to know when each flight is finished offloading so we can take a break every now and again.” I looked down at Foreman. “Anything?”
He was looking at the customs gate with intense concentration. “Maybe.” He seemed to focus, to stare harder at the portal where arrivals were streaming through. “I think ...” He stood and started to walk toward the portal, where a few TSA employees waited around a podium to block anyone’s attempt to enter. “Oh, yeah.” He straightened instantly. “Four of them.” He pulled his cell phone out and pointed it in the general direction of the customs gate as he took a picture that I knew was immediately uploaded to J.J. back at the Agency in Minneapolis for flagging in case they got past us. “They look like businessmen—and a woman. Suits, ties, roller suitcases—”
“I got ’em,” I said, taking the lead. Reed moved to my left side, just a little off my shoulder. Foreman fell in behind with Breandan just next to him. We tried to avoid looking ridiculously conspicuous, but it was kind of hard. Subconsciously, I knew Foreman’s ability to keep us blocked from the telepaths’ power was limited by distance, and so I hung close by him, not wanting to tip our hand, especially now that we had a line on them.
It turned out not to matter.
It was the woman who screwed it up. The men were oblivious, talking, laughing, enjoying their cover assignment. It was the woman, a strawberry blond with a deeply serious expression, who looked back. Her lips were too wide for her face, her most prominent feature, I noted as she caught my eye. At least until her eyes went wide like she’d just been stabbed in the ass with a knife.
“We’re made,” Reed said, stating the ridiculously obvious.
“Made of what?” Breandan asked.
For my part, I was already running, any thought of casual behavior tossed aside. I vaulted onto the top of the planter that was between me and the group of them just as she said something to the rest of her party, prompting them all to immediately turn to look rather than run, which was what they should have been doing.
I leapt through the air and descended into their midst after screaming, “HOMELAND SECURITY! You are under arrest!” There was a brief moment of shock that rippled through the courtyard while I came down, and panic broke loose as people scrambled to get away in the moments following. For my part, I angled my landing at the blond who’d fouled up my ambush. I hit her hard enough to knock her out when I came down. I swept the next guy in line, and he cracked his head against the burnt-orange tile floor. The next tried to run, but I picked up the woman’s discarded roller suitcase and flung it into his back, dropping him like an empty bottle of Snapple—of which I’d had more than a few over the course of our stakeout.
I turned to face the last of them, but as I did, his suit swelled, muscles bulging underneath like a tent billowing in a gust of wind. He looked so diesel after about five seconds that even an MMA champion might think twice before starting a fight with him. His dark, short-cropped hair framed a face highlighted by a cruel expression—sneering lips, squinty eyes, and a definite sense that he thought he was about to come out of our altercation on top.