by W. J. May
Devon bit the inside of his lip, standing his ground.
“You need to stop saying that to me—”
“Strip!”
With as much dignity as he could muster he shrugged out of the clothes he was already wearing, lingering a moment in an awkward state of undress before putting on the things she’d purchased for him instead. As much as he hated to admit it, they fit him like a glove—giving off a kind of chic gangster look that was far better suited to his cover identity than what he’d had before.
“Very nice,” she murmured, smoothing down the shoulders. “Can’t have you going out on assignment looking like a suburban father, no matter how hard you accessorize with children’s toys.”
He opened his mouth with a scathing reply, then bowed his head in defeat.
“How do you know my measurements?” he asked instead, thinking it a safer reply.
She continued smoothing, tugging on both his sleeves. “I took them in your sleep.”
Both men exchanged a look, then swiftly vacated the basement.
There weren’t many things one could say to someone heading out on assignment, but in most cases agents settled for a quick goodbye. There were too many variables to consider the exact condition of one’s return, and it was best not to delve into such things too deeply in an attempt to preserve a useful state of mind. One thing the friends had in common was to avoid talking to the children. It was too distracting, too unnerving. Too much of a weight as you walked out the door.
Most days, the other parent took point and it wasn’t a difficult evasion.
Other days, there was very little that could be done.
“Are you going on a mission with Uncle Jules?”
Devon froze the second he stepped off the stairs—raising his head to see his daughter waiting at the very top. She had his keys in one hand and his wallet in another. From the way her body was angled, she seemed highly reluctant to give him either one.
His first instinct was to deny it. But she’d grown past that long ago.
He told gentle truths instead.
“A quick mission,” he said lightly, reaching for the wallet. “More of a follow-up than anything else. We’ve already arrested most of the bad guys. We just need the final one.”
It was already more information than she was used to getting and she froze in surprise, letting the wallet be taken from her hand. She recovered in time to withhold the keys.
“...have you seen that nothing bad will happen?”
This question wasn’t directed at her father. It was for her uncle instead.
Julian knelt down with a smile, taking her hands in his. “You know I’d never let anything bad happen to your dad.”
As the years had gone by the psychic had learned to avoid making promises, but on this particular point he never wavered. The smile was contagious and she returned it begrudgingly, watching as he eased the keys from her nervous fingers and handed them off to Devon.
“You take care of him at home, I take care of him at work—right?”
Devon glanced between them in surprise, unfamiliar with the script. But his daughter was already nodding—chanting back her reply. “That’s right.”
Molly swept in a moment later, wrapping a slender arm around her waist. “Now let’s see what mischief we can manage in between.”
There was a burst of laughter, then the girls vanished into the next room—pausing only so Molly could glance over her shoulder and give both men a silent look of goodbye. One that was as much for luck as it was a stern warning to return home in exactly the same state as when they left.
Such moments didn’t get easier with age. They only grew more frequent.
“Are you ready?” Julian asked quietly.
Devon nodded, and the two headed towards the door.
They’d just reached the foyer when there was a sudden shout behind them, followed by the quick patter of tiny feet. Both turned around just as Aria reached them once again, flushing bright red as she tugged with uncharacteristic shyness on her father’s sleeve.
“I have something for you.”
Devon knelt down immediately, watching as an iridescent marble tumbled into the palm of his hand. He stared a moment, then lifted his gaze in surprise.
“What’s this?”
“I got it at school from our astronomy unit,” she mumbled. “It was going to be a planet, but we had extras so I got to keep it.” She hesitated, then pressed his fingers shut. “It’s for luck.”
His heart stilled as Julian graciously averted his eyes.
“Come here,” he murmured, pulling her into a tight hug. The two embraced long and hard before he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll see you when I get home tonight, okay?”
She nodded quickly, then scampered back down the hall.
No, they never get easier.
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN early, but the sun had already burned through the misty clouds. Both he and Julian slipped on a pair of sunglasses, swiftly moving towards the car.
When they reached the curb, Julian glanced at the marble.
“You going to keep that on you?” he asked lightly.
It was strictly against protocol to bring personal items on a mission. A fellow agent had once been temporarily suspended for tucking a regional flower absentmindedly into her hair. But a common marble hardly constituted a security threat, and it was difficult to see the harm.
Devon considered a moment, turning it over in his hand. “Will anything bad happen if I do?”
The psychic flashed a smile. “I think we can risk it.”
Good enough for me.
They were in the car a second later, tearing down the street.
While ninety percent of the time their jobs required a length of travel, it was amazing how much trouble the criminal underworld got up to in their own beloved London. Hard to resist the pull of a wife and a bed when there were missions being offered in your own backyard.
“It’s bloody convenient, these meetings,” Julian remarked, staring out the window as they wound their way through traffic towards a more questionable section of town. “You know, this was either going to be done here or in Miami?”
Devon stifled a yawn, downing the rest of his coffee. “It’s still at a club.”
For the life of him, he would never understand why people would find themselves at a rave at eight o’clock in the morning. Perhaps he was old-fashioned, but he liked to have a full day of coffee and sunlight before venturing into a neon cave and drinking his weight in shots.
Like I have to do now...
Julian gave him a sly smile, guessing his train of thought.
“It has to be believable, you know.” He pointed to a cluster of warehouses, and Devon made a turn. “Your cover has a certain reputation—”
“I know my cover’s reputation,” Devon snapped, fiddling with his sleeves. “I just don’t know why you got to be the seller.”
The psychic reached into his pocket as they rolled to a stop a few blocks away from their destination, extracting a pair of false glasses and sliding them onto his face.
“I look the part.”
Devon pursed his lips, fighting the urge to engage. “We’ve talked about those glasses before, Julian.”
The psychic flushed but held his ground, leaning towards the door as if he was worried his partner might suddenly snatch them away. “It isn’t up to you. And you happen to be wrong—”
“Sure I am.”
Devon exchanged one wallet for another, then stepped outside—wincing with a preemptive hangover as he glanced towards the club. It wasn’t the first time they’d been sent to such a location, and it most certainly wouldn’t be the last. Especially given the nature of their recent targets.
For the last several months he and Julian had been slowly dismantling a jewel-smuggling operation that had been sourcing gems from various mines along the West-African coast, then funneling them in small cargo planes over the Atlantic. Other teams had been dispatched to tra
ce the stones through Milan, Barcelona, and Paris, but most of the traffic went through London.
It was a delicate process, because they needed to keep the operation afloat long enough to ensnare all the players. Topple the empire too quickly, and those who hadn’t been trapped in that initial net would scatter to the wind. The people at the very top and the very bottom had been kept under surveillance, but generally left to their own devices until their inevitable arrest.
The person they were after today was a middle-man, a fence. And those kinds of people liked to operate under circumstances in which the people around them might not be fully in control.
“You ready?” Devon asked routinely, checking his own weapon. “You have the recorder?”
Julian nodded briskly, eyes on the warehouse.
“Then I’ll see you inside.”
THE TWO MEN HEADED in separate directions the second they stepped onto the street. Their cover identities might have been radically different, but both would keep to a stringent plan.
Julian would approach the club from the back—bypassing the public arena altogether. The moment he stepped through the door, he would be frisked by a man named Leon. This man would find the first recording device he’d brought with him. He would not find the second.
As a seller of rare and illegal gems, the psychic’s cover was cautious. Such a thing would be expected. As a buyer of rare and illegal gems, Devon’s cover was something quite different.
He would enter through the club.
Bloody hell!
The second Devon stepped into the dark hellscape, he regretted it—fighting back a wince as the sudden streaks of neon light wreaked havoc on his sensitized eyes. There was a reason people like him avoided places like this whenever possible. The same reason he kept that pair of ear plugs at the ready in his jacket pocket. How he longed for them now.
Get in character.
In a flash, that wince became a smile as he sauntered toward the bar—acting like a man who could shell out a few million for a handful of fancy stones. The second he stepped onto the floor, a silent message was passed from the bouncer to a security guard standing discreetly in the corner. The man cocked his head towards Devon, nodded ever so slightly, then vanished without a trace.
“What can I get for you, sweetheart?”
Most bartenders in those kinds of establishments tended to be men. Strong, intimidating men. The kind who had improbable scars and frightened the patrons into good behavior.
This one was a woman.
Devon flashed an involuntary smile, gesturing to the top shelf. “Why don’t you surprise me?”
She studied him a moment, taking in all those carefully planted details with a practiced sweep of her eyes. Then reached suddenly for the most expensive whiskey and poured him a double.
It slammed onto the counter in front of him.
“Enjoy.”
His fingers traced lightly over the glass, but he kept his eyes on hers—still twinkling with a trace of that smile. “You’d make a guy drink alone?”
She glanced back over in honest surprise.
“Are you serious? That’s four-hundred-pounds a shot.”
“He’s good for it.”
Another voice cut through the clamor, and he turned around to see a different woman standing behind him. This one clearly didn’t work at the club, but she was no stranger to the scene either. Just a few hours after dawn, but her makeup was artfully smeared and she was standing in a scripted pose. One that threatened to burst the seams on her dress.
“We’ll take two more.”
Devon watched as the bartender reached for the glasses, eyes flickering back to the woman as she slid casually along his arm. “Someone’s pretty confident.”
She didn’t answer. She just flashed a neon smile.
They clinked their glasses together and downed them in a single shot—doing the same thing to the next round she ordered. And the next round after that. The music picked up the pace and the lights started going haywire—searing his eyes as the bass made the walls of the room throb.
“Let’s dance.”
I was so afraid you’d say that.
Devon glanced wistfully towards a darkened hallway at the far edge of the crowd. He’d been waiting with increasing impatience for a summons to the meeting. Julian’s portion ought to have concluded by now, and yet no one had been sent to retrieve him. And now she wanted to dance.
“Are you sure?” he stalled for time, vaguely aware that he’d reached his limit in terms of drinking and the bar was no longer an option either. “How about we get a table—”
“Let’s dance!”
She grabbed his arm a second later, shrieking with laughter and dragging him on to the floor.
Even with all his training, there was no way to keep steady. The room itself was pulsing, and the most he could do was hold on to her fingers as she pulled him through the writhing crowd.
A cloud of tinted fog descended from the rafters, mixing with the heavy stench of sweat and beer. The people churning around them thrashed together in what felt like slow motion, nothing but shadowy silhouettes and faceless eyes glittering in the dark. Then a faster song echoed down from the speakers, met with the screaming approval of the crowd, and all at once...she was upon him.
Whoa—
He stepped back for balance as she turned momentum on a dime—throwing herself on top of him with little regard as to whether they remained standing. In the space of a heartbeat their bodies tangled together, damp with sweat, flushed with heat, careening dangerously closer.
“Hey,” he caught her shoulders, leaning ever so slightly away, “let’s slow this down a little.”
She laughed as if he’d made a joke, pressing her lips to the side of his neck.
“And why would we do something like that?” she asked coyly, sliding both hands down the length of his chest. His breath caught sharply as they vanished into his pants. “I was under the impression you wanted to...” Her fingers closed around the marble. “...what’s this?”
That’s not for you.
He seized her wrist, feeling stunningly and inexplicably sober. A wave of anger rose up inside him, but he kept a smile fixed on his face even as he pulled himself free.
“Believe it or not, I’m here on business.”
She took a step back, standing in that stilted way women did when wearing heels too high for comfort. His wife had taught him this. His wife didn’t have the best balance.
He thought for a panicked moment that she was going to make a scene. Odds were, she had been rejected precisely twice in her life and didn’t have the sobriety to handle it well right now.
Then she did the very last thing he ever expected.
She pulled a gun and pressed it into his stomach.
“Believe it or not, so am I.”
Chapter 11
There were a few things one wanted to avoid in a high-stakes transaction with international jewel-smugglers. Entering the room half-drunk and at gunpoint was fairly high on the list. Having one’s best friend witness the shame was fairly high on that list as well.
But in this case, Devon was nothing but relieved to see Julian.
The psychic twisted around in his chair the moment the door opened, taking in his friend’s bloodshot eyes and compromised position for only a second before turning forward indifferently.
“I see you found him.”
The woman flashed a feral grin, earning an indulgent look from her employers.
“We might have gotten a bit carried away...”
There was a beat of silence, then the tall man standing on the other side of the desk threw open his arms with a burst of laughter. The gun vanished. A chair was procured instead.
“You’ll have to forgive our little Irina,” he said apologetically, gesturing for Devon to take a seat. “When she found out you were coming, she was excited to meet a kindred spirit.”
That’s a generous way to phrase it.
“That’
s quite all right.” Devon flashed a similar grin, leaning back in his chair. “I was excited to meet a kindred spirit myself...but we have some business to take care of first.” He twisted around towards Julian, pretending to notice him for the first time. “I believe you have something for me.”
“For a price,” the psychic replied coldly, turning that arctic stare to their mediator. “Can we speed things along? While I appreciate the spectacle, my employer is not a patient man.”
The man nodded apologetically, producing a computer from his desk.
“Of course. If you could type in the wiring information, my people are almost finished authenticating the stones. Mr. Canby, may I offer you something in the meantime? We were just sharing a late dinner.” His eyes twinkled with amusement. “Might help to clear your head.”
A late dinner...at nine in the morning.
Only then did Devon notice the plates on the desk, though he’d be hard pressed to identify anything they were eating. A cloud of sharply-spiced steam wafted towards him, making his eyes water.
“How could I resist?”
If he and Julian had been assigned this same mission several years earlier, he might have declined. And he might have gotten some trouble for it. When the stakes were high enough to include guns and several million pounds, you learned to go with the flow. Oftentimes, this included an ironic stab at normalcy on the part of those hosting the meeting.
Sharing a toast. Sharing a meal. Partaking in some custom of their native land.
In this case, an early-morning hangover cure.
Devon leaned gingerly over the bowl placed in front of him, nodding distractedly as the man continued lecturing to his people, missing all the psychic’s frantic attempts to catch his eye.
Julian had indulged in this bit of pageantry as well. It was the reason it had taken so long to summon his partner from the floor. But while his Hungarian blood had prepared him for such a culinary encounter, there was a chance his friend’s English palate wouldn’t be up to the task.
“Easy does it,” he warned under his breath.
But the damage was already done.
