Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes #1)(57)
“Well?” she eyed Hector.
“I don’t know what the hell happened.” Hector peered out through the window. “Last I heard, they were set up to do surveillance, listen and wait only. Next thing, I get a text from Rand that shit’s hitting the fan, and there’s going to be trouble.”
“What do you think happened?” Irene watched the corners of Hector’s eyes, how his nostrils flared.
“I think either they got into trouble and Rand had to kill the guy to protect them, or this is a set-up. There’s too much evidence linking Rand and Sarah to this. We need a gag order or jurisdiction or something, or our guys are about to become D.C.’s Most Wanted.”
“Wait. If we do that, we might as well tell the Chinese we’re in on this. That’s only going to give them more ammunition to go after Rand and Sarah.”
“And you want the cops to slap them with this?” Hector thumbed over his shoulder.
“Let me think of something.”
“Well you better think fast. We’ve got as long as it takes us to get to the first floor.”
…
Rand handed the bagel over to Sarah. It was still early enough that they blended into the foot traffic. He scanned the crowds, looking for anyone out of place, but most were too intent on their destination or cellular device to care about them.
“Okay, what are we doing here?” Sarah’s nervousness was a palpable undercurrent disrupting his calm.
He couldn’t tell her to take it easy or stop being so jumpy. He’d have to work with it. “Andy. He’s an intel guy. Someone like me.” And a crazy son of a bitch, at that.
“You think he’ll help us?”
“He’s got a funny code of ethics. If he thinks something is the right thing to do, he’ll do it. Put him in hot water a time or two with the company. You have to know how to talk to Andy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Meaning, if you tell him you need someone to disappear, they better be a bad guy. Don’t give him the gray-area jobs, because then he takes it into his head to do the right thing, sometimes for the wrong side.”
“You think he’ll help us?”
“He will.”
“Are we really the good guys in this?”
“We don’t kill our own. Besides, Andy owes me.”
“How are we supposed to meet him?”
“We won’t. He’ll find us.”
“I’m so confused.”
“You’re doing great.” Rand kept his eyes open, scanning the crowd.
He was rather surprised Andy was Stateside. Last Rand had heard, he was in deep somewhere in the Middle East. His mixed heritage allowed him to blend in easier than someone like Rand, who was as white as Casper’s ass. At least in Seoul, there was enough business with America he could pass himself off without much trouble. Still, Rand was grateful. Andy’s ethical code would make him predisposed to helping them. They couldn’t have had a better turn of luck.
A dozen feet away, a guy wearing a ball cap and reflective sunglasses paused. It was the way he glanced in their direction that was…different.
“There.” Rand planted his hand on Sarah’s back, the bulge of the gun under his palm, and propelled her forward. “Move.”
They hoofed it across the courtyard, bisecting the metro traffic and down a side street. Rand didn’t see the cap ahead of them, but he knew the man had gone this way.
The strains to Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child of Mine” reached his ears. Rand searched the buildings for the source. A beat-up door stood open a dozen or so feet ahead of them. He glanced behind them, but didn’t see anyone out of place.
“Through the door. Go on.” Rand nudged her through the opening and shut it behind them.
Andy was something of a rock and roll nut.
“What is this place?”
They were at the foot of a staircase with no other doors around them.
“Let’s find out.” He wouldn’t be surprised if Andy were squatting in a vacant space.
Rand led the way up the stairs. At the first landing, a door to their left was open, the music louder. “Hello?” he called out.
Andy might be a friend, but Rand wasn’t alive because he threw caution to the wind.
“Was wonderin’ if you’d get it or not.” A man stepped around a half wall partition, a lopsided grin on his face. His skin was tanner since the last time Rand had seen him. His brown-gold eyes were full of curiosity. The one surprise was his hair—longer, streaked with sun-bleached blond and brown. Come to think of it, Rand had never seen Andy with hair.
“That was kind of obvious.” Rand searched Andy’s face, but didn’t see any screws loose, nothing unusual.
“Hi, ma’am.” Andy held out his hand toward Sarah.
“Hi. I’m—”
“Don’t need to know,” he said quickly.
“Oh. Right.”
“It’s okay. You’ll get the hang of it. Or not. Hopefully you don’t have to. Shut the door and come in.”
Rand flipped the lock on the door and followed in Andy’s wake. The space was an open loft, probably a small office, by the looks of it.
“I started digging last night after I got your S.O.S.” Andy sat on a crate pulled up to a desk and tapped at a laptop. Despite the pauper’s furniture finds, the equipment he’d set up wasn’t run of the mill. Three monitors and a stack of units that did…something.