Wild Dirty Secret(85)

He flicked the cigarette. It flew in a long red arc. It only took a second for my fevered, oxygen-deprived brain to figure out where it would land. On us. Almost anyway, but it was enough—I tensed. Luke felt it, and through him, Major did too. They turned, ready to strike, to defend us against an attack that wasn’t coming. And in doing so, their defense would expose us. With one hand, I grabbed Major’s wrist, the one pressing against the wall by my head. Trust me. With the barest breath, I said, “Wait,” and I knew Luke heard me because his body stilled.

The little red cigarette landed at our feet, creating a small glare on Luke’s shoe. Luckily, the men were already heading the other direction. When their footsteps had faded and fifty-two beats had passed, Major blew out a breath. “Jesus,” he muttered. “That was too fucking close. Next time we run into someone, we don’t sit around like ducks. We disarm them.”

“We’re too wired,” Luke countermanded. “We almost blew our positions because of a fucking cigarette.”

“I would have got them.”

For the first time, I approved of the arrogance in Major’s voice. I needed some of that surety.

“We stick to the plan,” Luke said, and that appeared to be that.

The word airport was really overselling the Barracks. It was actually a set of five hangars, each with a small circuit of offices in the back. The hangars were organized into a pentagon, facing a circular pavement that led out to a singular runway.

The design of the place was simplistic, which would work in our favor. The downside was that we didn’t know which hangar Henri would be in. If we went busting into the wrong ones, we would set off alarms, and Henri would have time to bolt. So it was important that we find the right hangar before going in.

Which is why they’d brought gadgets. Specifically, heat-sensing goggles.

The building next to us was completely empty. One down, four to go.

We crept around the side, where Major checked out the next one. “Four below, two upstairs doing the horizontal tango.”

“Having fun there?” Luke asked.

“Nothing like infrared voyeurism to make my night brighter.”

“Let’s go in,” Luke said.

“We don’t know he’s in there.”

“Six people total? Those are good odds. And we’re here. Let’s go.”

“Five,” I whispered.

“What?”

“Five that could be Henri. Those are the odds. I’m assuming Major saw an old-fashioned boy-girl party upstairs, which means one of them is female.”

“Shit, that could be him,” Major said. “Having a good time while his hired helpers do all the work.”

“How was he taking her?” I asked.

“What?”

“The position,” I muttered impatiently. “What position was she in?”

“Uh…missionary.”

“Not Henri,” I said decisively. Neither man questioned my conclusion.

“He could still be on the first floor,” Luke said.

“Here. Let me see.” I reached for the goggles. “Come on.”

With clear reluctance, Major handed them over. I peered inside. It took me a couple of minutes to line up my eyesight correctly and then to make sense of the blue-red blobs on the screen. I checked the two upstairs first. Yup, still going at it. And nope, no way would Henri resort to something as intimate or leveling as missionary. Besides, he was an ass man.

I lowered the goggles to the second floor. First I only saw a single mass, like some sort of a shapeless amoeba. Then one separated and shrank a little—sitting down, I guessed. Another moved away—and sat. I pictured guys gathered around a break-room table, talking shit and grabbing a beer.

Henri wasn’t here. Even if their specific activities were slightly different, no man was singled out from the crowd, held away as Henri preferred to be. This was the disorganized chaos of jacks and marbles. Henri ruled the space around him with the rigidity of a chessboard.

“Not here,” I said.

“How do you know?” Major asked impatiently.

I really didn’t want to have to explain the marbles-and-chessboard thing to him. He’d just give me that frowny look and tell me I was stupid again.

“He just isn’t.”

Major looked ready to argue, but Luke cut him off with a glance. “Next.”

Two down, three to go.





Chapter Six





The middle hangar was the trickiest, because people were milling around. My heart began to race. Most likely this was it, if only because of the activity outside. I counted four men carrying machine guns. There didn’t seem to be any urgency to their movements—which meant our entry wasn’t detected—but energy crackled in the air. As if they were waiting.