Niki stepped tentatively out of the room. Taylor was dressed and shared a room-service breakfast with Vickie and Bungees. She was about to ask them what they were doing when she looked at her watch.
"Holy shit—eleven in the morning?" she asked and followed it with a yawn large enough to trigger a twinge in her jaw. Although maybe that pain came from another source too. "Why the hell did you let me sleep in that late?"
Taylor raised an eyebrow at the accusation. "Well, if the alert from the front desk that we had visitors didn’t wake you, I decided not to try. I did have some concerns for my health, you know."
"He has a point," Vickie commented, her mouth half-full of bacon. "I thought I would be safe since I'm your cousin and everything, but this was mostly to get back at Taylor for waking me at all times of the day or night for my help."
She shook her head and sat on the only seat that was still open as she fought another yawn. "Well, it was a wise choice, I guess, if self-preservation was the idea. I'm not sure what time we got to sleep, but I might have needed that rest even though I slept like a fucking rock on the flight here."
"It could be that you have a case of the joblessness blues," Bobby pointed out and popped a grape into his mouth. "Oh, right. Desk told me you quit your job at the DOD and are looking for work now. And that you don't need to get yourself a job, especially if you invest the money you made wisely."
"I didn't make that money," she protested. She grimaced, still not up to eating a full meal yet. Hints of being hungover the day before lingered, and she had a feeling it would be a long day if that continued to plague her for the remainder. Gone were the days when she could go six beers in and order shots while still being perfectly fine the next morning.
Taylor noticed it, poured her a glass of water quickly, and slid it across the table.
"Well, yeah," Bobby muttered. "Desk talked about that too."
Niki scowled. "Jennie will have to write privacy software for that AI. Otherwise, she'll spill my secrets all over the goddamn place and I'll be left with fucking nothing about my own life that's private."
"Well, that ship may have sailed already." Vickie looked around with a guilty expression on her face and covered it hastily with a mug of coffee. "But in our defense, we only do it because we care."
"We?"
"Me and Jennie. And Desk by association, I guess."
Her expression unimpressed, Niki shook her head. "You guys need to mind your own business."
"But minding your business is so much more interesting!" The hacker ducked under the bagel her cousin flung at her.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door.
"You shouldn't have done that." The younger woman laughed. "The hotel doesn't take kindly to you wasting their food!"
"It's not that," she retorted. "I think, anyway. Who could it be?"
"If we had any more outside guests arriving, they would have called from the front desk first," Taylor asserted. "So either it's the hotel staff here to punish you for wasting food, or another hotel guest has come to visit."
He moved to the door, where a small screen illuminated to reveal who stood outside. Her fears were unfounded when she realized it was Maxwell and Jansen.
"I should probably get dressed if we'll host the whole group," she muttered and traced her fingers longingly over the soft, comfortable robe she had on.
"I don't mind the view." Taylor winked. "But if you need to get dressed, I guess I'll have to content myself with memories of it."
"Get a room, you guys," Vickie complained.
"We did," he snapped in response, unlocked the door, and motioned for the two men to join them.
"Are you guys still having breakfast?" Jansen asked.
"We had a late start to the morning," Taylor explained.
"Yeah, we can see that," Maxwell muttered and looked around. Niki's mouth went dry when she realized her clothes were still where they had tossed them the night before.
She moved quickly to gather them and motioned furiously for Taylor to join her in the bedroom, where she closed the door behind them.
"What?" he asked.
"You couldn't have fucking cleaned before you invited half the party to our hotel room?" she demanded and punched him in the chest hard enough to feel the impact all the way up her arm. It still felt worth it, though, as he rubbed the spot gingerly. Vague memories of the night before told her there would be scratches and maybe a few bruises up and down his chest and shoulders, which left him a little tender in places. "Sorry."
"It’s worth it." He smiled and winked. "And I didn't invite them in. Or…well, I didn't invite them. They simply arrived. I didn't have time to clean up before they got there, and I didn't think to afterward. I'm…sorry."
Niki scowled but found that staying furious at him was more difficult, especially as he didn’t make excuses or jokes. The guy had genuinely apologized. How could she stay mad after that?"
"Never mind. It's fine," she mumbled and looked through her clothes. "I…wait, where's my bra?"
He paused and thought about it for a moment. "If memory serves, I may have gotten frustrated with trying to undo the clasp in the back and I ripped it off and used it…uh, during."
She looked where he indicated and grimaced at the piece of clothing that adorned the head of the bed. "I…right. Last night was something of a haze, wasn't it?"
"A nice one, though. So, will you get dressed?"
"Yeah…wait. Why?"
"I thought I might stay and watch."
She punched him in the chest again but softer this time. "Ass. Get out there and entertain our guests before we get…sidetracked."
"Good call." He winked again and slipped out of the room as Niki tracked down her suitcases. She wasn't dressing to impress anymore, so a pair of jeans and a t-shirt was all she pulled on before she returned to where almost the full group was assembled. For a brief moment, she wondered what prevented Elisa and Tanya from joining them but didn't want to give voice to the sentiment. Maybe they needed to get work done at the strip mall.
Bobby and Taylor focused on a couple of forms they were working through when she rejoined them, sat next to Taylor, and felt the breakfast foods call to her a little.
"Is that what I think it is?" she asked and chose a piece of bacon.
"Yeah," Taylor answered. "I’m transferring most of the ownership of McFadden Mechs—"
"Which will be Zhang and Novak Power Armor Repair and Restoration," Bobby interjected.
"Sure. Anyway, I’m transferring most of the ownership to them while I stay on as a silent partner. Everything will probably be the same, otherwise. The building is still in my name and I'll still live upstairs, but Bobby and Tanya will take the lion's share of the profits from the mech business. Elisa will stay on with them, and Vickie and I will branch out."
"And me too," Niki corrected and poked his shoulder.
"Oh…well, I never had an answer from you on whether or not you would be a part of McFadden's Mercs." Taylor looked at her, unsure if he had made some kind of relationship mistake.
"We're not married to the name," Vickie pointed out quickly.
"Amen to that," Niki stated quickly. "I've already worked up the McFadden and Banks Consultancy firm. MBC for short."
Taylor narrowed his eyes. "Uh, it doesn't really—"
"And I assumed you wouldn't give me any problems with the name since I brought in our first business." She gestured to Maxwell and Jansen. "They'll head up a task force that will tackle international cryptid problems, and they need professionals on call to deal with any situations that might come up."
"I…okay," Taylor started to protest, but he shut himself down and shook his head. "We'll have to talk about this whole ‘assumed’ business as well as taking work on before you're a part of the team."
Vickie nudged his shoulder. "Come on, don't be shitty. She was always a part of the team. You're merely whining for the sake of it."
"True, but my point still stands."
Niki nodded and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. "Sure it does."
"On that note, we should probably go over what is likely to be our first job on this front." Jansen connected his tablet to the closest tv for them to see everything he was looking at. "It's not the most encouraging sign that these people bought an entire fucking island to work from, and it only gets worse from there."
"Off the coast of Algeria," Taylor noted and read what was on the screen aloud. "That's fucking close to the Zoo, comparatively speaking. I'll go ahead and guess that was intentional?"
"There's unrest in the country at the moment, according to our intelligence in the area." The man tapped his tablet to show images of protests in the capital city. "Anyway, they picked the island up for peanuts under the promise that they would get the solar and wind energy farms on it working again. According to the paperwork, they've even started a wave-energy power station based on the infrastructure left from when it was an American Base during the Cold War.
“Up until that point, there wasn't anything interesting besides the sudden uptick in construction activities and what looks like a shit ton of soil brought in. That changed when they began to import testing equipment from all over the world and tried to sneak it all onto the base under everyone's noses. The Chinese, Russians, and Americans all had red flags raised and they sent assets onto the base to discover what was happening. Three were killed, but an old friend of mine from my navy days managed to get the others out, and they had worrying intel to share once they were debriefed."
"Fuck me," Taylor muttered and leaned closer as the intel was displayed across the screen. "How did this go under the radar?"
"It didn't, technically," Maxwell countered.
"It did if they managed to get a Pita plant out of the Zoo and onto that base. And the operatives only managed to escape the island because the full security system wasn't in place yet, which will probably have changed once they left. If we head in there, we don't have nearly enough intelligence regarding what their defensive capabilities are."
Jansen nodded and a grim expression settled over his face. "True enough. More importantly, the only reason we were alerted to their possession of that plant in the first place was thanks to a heads-up from some old friends of yours. Heavy Metal gave us a tip that at least one plant they knew of had been taken from the Zoo. Anyway, the DOD isn't willing to let them continue operating. The dangers of a facility like that would be… Well, the higher-ups were insistent that we have boots on the ground as soon as possible."
"How soon is that?" Niki asked and took another bite of bacon.
"We need to be wheels-up in fourteen hours."
"Shit," she snapped.
"Yeah," he muttered. "It’s one hell of a first job, I know. And the best part is that no one wants to be officially involved if things go sour. It means that the Chinese, Russians, and our government want to be hands-free, which is why they asked my taskforce to be in charge of the operation. It’s also the reason why they want us to enlist outside consultants to add a little more convenient plausible deniability."
"I’m not happy about that," Taylor protested and folded his arms. "Will it only be us involved?"
"Maxwell and I probably shouldn't be involved in anything that happens on the ground," Jansen corrected him. "Again, it’s the issue of plausible deniability. They could still deny that we operated on official orders, but it makes things considerably trickier. Anyway, the point is that no official DOD people can take part in the operation, but if you need extra support, you're welcome to call in any local talent you might know to help."
"But you still intend to participate?"
"You put so much work into training us. It feels a little ungrateful of us to simply sit on the sidelines."
Taylor scowled. "There had better be one hell of a flying bonus involved in this."
"As usual, you're in charge of the invoicing for your team."
He glowered and ran his fingers through his beard. Niki didn't need to be a mind-reader to know he was considering turning the job down. He was far more reckless with his own life, but now that he had other people in it with him, he showed more caution than usual.
"Vickie, put me in touch with the Heavy Metal team," he said finally and continued to study the intelligence displayed on the tv pensively. "They're local, and I'll put money down that they expect to be involved in an assault on that island."
Vickie nodded and immediately pulled her laptop up. Less than a minute passed before she motioned to him. His phone rang and he answered and put it on the screen so they could all be involved in the conversation.
"Taylor McFadden," said the youthful Hispanic who greeted him with a smile. "It’s good to hear from you again. Do you guys have more consulting for me to do?"
"Something like that," Taylor answered and cracked his knuckles before he continued. "I think you guys know a thing or two about Pita plants being taken out of the Zoo and delivered to an unknown location."
Jacobs' cheerful expression faded into sour lines. "Right. In fact, we reported that. We might have been involved in getting that plant out in the first place, but it was only because we tried to catch the people involved in a trap that…well, it didn't work."
"Of course it didn't," Taylor muttered before he said in a louder voice, "Anyway, US intelligence had tracked the plant and we'll head in there to put a stop to all the idiots working on shit they don't understand. Simply put, we could use backup. Since it's more or less in your back yard, we thought we might extend you the invitation. It's a small island off the coast of North Africa in the Mediterranean. I imagine it’s pleasant there at this time of year."
"You will be well-compensated for your efforts, of course," Jansen interjected. "The DOD is unofficially sponsoring the mission, although the official word will be…you know, not. We'll go in with you guys, but if something goes wrong, everyone in charge will deny everything."
"That sounds about right," Jacobs said and glanced around the room he was in, likely to get confirmation from the others he was in business with. "Well, we've wanted to put these assholes into a corner for a while now, and while we would have been happy to do it for free, getting paid is the better idea. Plus, we have a couple of experienced team members we can include, so we can put together a smallish team but an effective one. Oh, and I know a Russian who knows a few other Russians who would be able to fly us to the base—none of whom have any ties to their government I might add."
"As long as they are armed and ready for a fight." Taylor's expression relaxed a little. "We don't exactly have the best eye on what we'll face in there. The chances are we'll have to plan for the worst."
"And that is?"
"Humans and cryptids having a pajama party."
"Right."
"We'll be wheels-up in fourteen hours," he continued. "Plus another twenty-four hours that it'll take to get there from Vegas, more or less."
"Are they giving you some kind of flying bonus?" Jacobs asked.
"We're still in negotiations on that."
The young researcher smirked. "All right. We'll send the invoice to the DOD as usual, and we'll be ready and waiting for you guys in about…shall we say forty hours from now?"
"That sounds good." Taylor paused to confirm with Jansen, who nodded. "We’ll see you on the ground. Stay alive out there."
"You too."
The line cut off and he turned to the rest of his team. "I guess we have packing to do."
"Well, sure," Niki agreed. "I'm already packed, and my suit is…still on the plane, right?"
Jansen nodded. "We'll take off in fourteen hours, so we have to take care of logistics in preparation for once we arrive in Africa to make sure our quarry doesn’t know we're coming."
"That's mostly your job now, right?" Niki asked and grinned cheekily.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." The man didn't look very happy about the switch in responsibilities. "Anyway, I'll drop you guys a line if there are any changes in the plan. Until t
hen, yeah, get ready and be at the airport in time for us to get wheels up."
"Now, will this be the regular kind of airport?" Vickie asked and looked around. "Like, the kind where you have to arrive two hours earlier since it's an international flight?"
"She's going?" Niki countered and looked at Taylor with a hint of panic on her face. "Why is she going?"
"I'm the man in the van, that's why," the hacker explained. "The technical support. The…you know, robot dog."
"What the hell are you talking about? I thought you could do your work from far, far away from the front lines?"
"Well, if you guys need my support on the ground, wouldn't you prefer that I be there and not however many fucking thousand miles away?"
Niki looked at Taylor again, hoping for support, but he simply shrugged.
"She's a part of our team," he said. "Our technical support, and if she thinks we might need her on the ground, she'll at least be in a position to help us. Do you disagree?"
She wanted to think of something she could use to change their minds but in the end, they had both made good points. Despite this, she still didn't like the idea of her cousin so close to the action, much less that close to the Zoo. Even being on the same continent as that fucking place gave her heart palpitations.
"Fine," she snapped and shook her head. "Not that you guys were looking for my permission anyway."
Bobby pushed from his seat. "I'll have Taylor and Vickie's suits readied and crated up for when you guys need them. For the moment, though, I need to get back to my business."
Taylor stood and shook the man's hand firmly before he headed out. Niki realized he did have work to get to since he would take over most of the owner’s responsibilities.
The rest of the group left as well. Vickie needed to pack and likely advise the college of her travel plans. Niki was more or less sure that the hacker was still attending.
In less than a minute, only her and Taylor remained. He probably also had something to get back to but he hung back and seemed to think he and Niki still needed to have a word or two.
"Good luck," the younger woman muttered in parting and patted him on the shoulder before she stepped through the door.
Monster In Me (Cryptid Assassin Book 8) Page 19
