Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(22)
“You did? I never heard anything about—”
“That’s because I didn’t tell you,” he cut her off. “I didn’t tell any of you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why?” She let her gaze swing over to Dan. “Did you guys”—she was careful to pronounce the words correctly instead of the instinctive yous guys that was poised on the tip of her tongue—“suspect there was a leak even before you got here?”
“Not in so many words,” Steady admitted. “It’s just that we’ve been in this business long enough to know it’s always best to have a plan B. And most times a plan C and D, too.” After that explanation, which was really no explanation at all, he turned to clap a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Okay. I’ll call once I figure out whether or not those secondary signals lead to Abby. You do the same if you get lucky here in town, eh?”
“Roger that.” Dan dipped his chin curtly. “And speaking of plans C and D, you geeked up?”
Steady tapped the watch on his wrist, nodding. “Sí. I put it in when I changed clothes. You?”
Dan pointed a finger toward his watch. “Same here.”
Huh? What in the flip is—
“Okay.” Steady turned toward the door. “All cylinders here, bro. Let’s go!”
“Wait a goddamned minute!” she demanded, standing. She was sick and tired of feeling like she was outside the loop on this thing. And, despite her best efforts, her hysteria was beginning to bubble to the surface. “Where are you going, exactly?”
“From the current trajectory of the signals coming from the earrings”—Steady walked toward the door. The way he moved, the way he and Dan both moved, epitomized the phrase economy of motion—“I’m headed up somewhere past the spot where Jesus lost his sandals.” He pronounced the word in Spanish, so it sounded like hey-soos. And then, before she could ask what the ever-loving hell that was supposed to mean, he turned to Dan. “Speaking of… Do me a solid and call back to HQ. Ask Boss”—the way he said the word, she could tell it began with a capital B—“to send detailed topo maps as well as all the highway, road, and trail maps he can find for the central and northern regions of Malaysia to my cell. I’m itching to follow those signals and don’t want to wait to—”
“Say no more.” Dan once again pulled his cell phone from his pocket, already dialing a number.
Steady jerked his chin in a quick up-and-down, the guy equivalent of thanks, bro, before twisting the doorknob. But before stepping from the room, he hesitated.
“Wazzup?” Dan asked as he lifted the phone to his ear.
Steady’s shoulder blades hitched together. “I feel like I’m forgetting something.” For a couple of ticks of the clock, he didn’t move, remained statue still. Then he shook his head, shrugged, and slipped into the hallway.
She turned to Dan, blinking. “Up past where Jesus lost his sandals? Does that guy ever give a straight-forward answer?”
Dan lifted one big shoulder. “That’s Steady for you.” Then his call went through, and she listened to him quickly relay Steady’s request back to their mysterious HQ. Clicking off, he turned back to her. “So, you ready to do this?” He motioned with a broad hand toward the door.
“You bet your ass,” she told him, although, truthfully, she wasn’t exactly sure. She was reeling from the events of the last hour, all inside out and topsy-turvy. And it was the fact that her head was absolutely spinning that accounted for the tingling sensation in her bicep when he gently grabbed her arm to escort her from the room.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it…
Chapter Six
The northern Perak region of Malaysia
Seven hours later…
The rising sun baked the dense jungle air. And with every breath along the mile hike back to the spot where Steady had hidden the sport bike he’d appropriated off the street in Kuala Lumpur, he felt like he was dragging hot soup into his lungs.
Oh, cry me a river… That was Ozzie’s retort the last time Steady complained about the heat while they were slogging through the waterlogged rainforests of Colombia, evading a group of FARC guerrillas bent on introducing the sharp edges of a couple hand-hewn machetes to the blunt parts of his and Ozzie’s necks.
Ozzie…Dios! His best friend was probably on the operating table right now, and how he wished he could be there.
But that was not his mission.
His mission was Abby. And, saints be praised, he’d succeeded in his task because he’d found her. Unconscious and tied to a filthy bed—which was bad enough and made him seriously consider going all John Rambo and taking the entire terrorist encampment, plus the twenty-three men occupying the ramshackle huts, by storm—but she was blessedly, wondrously alive. So he’d forgo the bloodletting in order to hold his position, keep a weather eye on the kidnappers, and wait for the cavalry to arrive and assist him with her rescue. But in order to do that…
He pulled his cell phone from the side pocket of his cargo pants, checking to see that, sí, he still had ten percent battery life and two teensy-weensy bars. Good thing on both counts because the thing he’d forgotten in his haste to get to Abby was his satellite phone. He’d managed to remember the portable charger for his iPhone—which he’d completely used up while downloading the maps and topo charts Boss had emailed him while simultaneously tracking the signals emitted from Abby’s earrings—but the sat phone? It was a classic case of head/desk. If there was a desk around this hellaciously hot jungle on which to slam his head, that is. And he suspected it was all thanks, in part, to Abigail Thompson and the fact that she’d been making him forget himself, his name, everything since day frackin’ one.