Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(45)

A good kill. A clean kill. George could take comfort in that.

Wiping his blade on the Russian’s coat, he ignored the tangy scent of blood and spinal fluid that drifted up his nose. After sheathing the knife, he straightened, turned, and walked purposefully for the door. One down. Five more to go…

*

Oh, sure. You can all run and shoot and simultaneously protect the wee folks of the world. But can you see patterns in online search algorithms? Can you locate terrorist cells based on their digital footprints alone? Can you tie a cherry stem in a knot with only your tongue. Huh? Can you?

To say Chelsea was butthurt and embarrassed by her assigned role was like saying Antarctica was cold. A bona fide case of well, duh. First there was Penni with that whole “trained to handle every kind of firearm from a six-shooter to a sniper rifle”—which, okay, truth be told, just made Chelsea like the woman more; chick is badass, fo sho—and now this. Reduced to playing the part of the valet and the bellboy. It was shameful. Humiliating.

Everything is coming up Chels! Not.

“For crying out loud, I passed all my marksmanship tests,” she harrumphed, looking up and down the street before jimmying the lock on the back door of the old Volkswagen cargo van circa 1990-something.

Z had given her specific directions to the vehicle. “It’s perfect,” he’d said, pointing her down the street. “Old enough to easily hot-wire, big enough to hold all of us should we need it, and while I was trailing Kozlov, I saw its owner hop on the back of some girl’s scooter and take off for what looked like a hot date. You shouldn’t have to worry about getting caught in the middle of snatching it. You can’t miss it. It’s the one with the big yellow sun on the side.”

Right. Perfect. The one with the big yellow sun on the side. Appropriate, considering this whole day has been nothing but blue skies, sunshine, and glittery unicorn farts, she thought sarcastically. “Passed with flying colors I might add,” she went on.

“Stay off the goddamn line unless you have something to report, Chels,” Z commanded. “When things start happening here, they’re going to happen fast. I don’t want to miss something Dan or Penni says because you can’t let it go that you’re underqualified for this job.”

And that was the true crux of her problem, wasn’t it? Not that she’d been relegated to a supporting role—when Penni, who is now officially a civilian, is still invited to the show. Grrr!—so much as that Z thought playing a supporting role was exactly where she belonged.

It stung. More than Z probably realized and far more than Chelsea would ever admit to anyone but herself.

Silently fuming, she sprung the lock on the bus—See? She had crazy awesome skills!—and tossed Dan’s backpack, Penni’s purse, and her satchel inside. Sparing one final glance around, assuring herself she remained unobserved, she jumped in after their gear. Climbing over the two rows of rear bucket seats, she slid behind the wheel. And there she sat for a couple of seconds, wondering exactly where things with her and Z had gone off the rails.

They’d always verbally sparred with each other. In fact, the first conversation they’d had, way back when he was still with the CIA and she was a wet-behind-the-ears analyst, had been an opening salvo. A shot heard around her world.

It had happened during a meeting when she’d been trying to explain a particularly difficult theory about online surveillance to a group of uninterested operators. Z, a hotshot field agent at the time, had leaned over to one of his colleagues and whispered, “The minute she started throwing around words like ‘skeuomorphism’ and ‘site aggregators’ it was my cue to go.”

“You mean it was your cue to go look them up?” she’d asked, trying to portray bluster and bravado even though she was a hot mess of anxiety inside. It had been her first time leading a meeting and she wasn’t doing a bang-up job of it.

Of course, any facade she’d managed to maintain was obliterated when Z lifted a surprised brow at her, a challenging light shining in his eyes. She’d blushed from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. And from that day on, they’d taken great delight in one-upping and insulting each other. But it had always been in fun, in jest, a battle of the wills that left her titillated and excited and looking forward to the next clash.

Then something changed. Something that had added a sharp edge to all their encounters. Something that made them skittish and unsure of each other. Something that—

Oh, who are you trying to fool, sister? You know what happened.

Yes, she did. And to this day, she regretted it with her whole heart.

Shaking her head and lamenting all the things she couldn’t undo, she reached up to disable the interior light that would come on when the doors were opened. That was pretty much lesson one in stealing a car. A blinking interior light could draw unwanted attention on a cold, dark night such as this one.

Lesson two was to check the sun visor, the glove box, and beneath the floor mats. No use going to the trouble of hot-wiring a vehicle if the owner had been kind enough to leave behind a spare set of keys. Going through the motions, she tried to breathe through her mouth. The van smelled strongly of BO and barbecue sauce, evidence that the owner liked his slow-roasted meats more than his showers. She did not envy his date. And unfortunately, no keys.

So we do it the old-fashioned way.

Pulling the little tool kit she’d scrounged from Dan’s backpack out of her pocket, she found the Phillips head screwdriver and went to work on the two screws holding the plastic steering column cover in place. After a bit of elbow grease that had her panting—Holy crap, I need to hit the gym more—it came free. She set it between the seats.