Page 62 of Surge

“Well . . .” she teased back. “I’ll see if there’s something we can use as an ice pack in the freezer.” When she stood, Delaney noticed Garrett eyeing them.

Smirking, he looked from Zim to her. “You two done?”

“You jealous she’s paying attention to me now, Boss?”

Delaney nearly laughed, but the glower from Garrett silenced them both, and she headed into the kitchen.

“Okay,” Caldwell said and cleared his throat. “Since I only had overwatch, brief me on what you saw so I can?—”

“We had some leftover sandwiches.” Delaney put a tray of sandwiches—turkey, of course—in the middle of the coffee table with a bag of chips.

As they dug into the sandwiches—they hadn’t had breakfast, after all—they gave Caldwell a rundown of the incident at the airport.

Caldwell tossed aside his sandwich and grunted. Looked at the SAT. “Somebody must have told Sachaai you were coming.”

“Yeah,” Garrett bit out. “The building manager.”

Bouncing his head, Caldwell tightened his jaw. “Obviously. But who told him?” He stared at his laptop screen, squinting as he worked. “I’m looking for the manager’s connection to Sachaai. I wonder . . .” He did a few more clicks and scrolls, then a smirk slid onto his face. “And here we go—his cousin is Tariq.”

Zim scowled. “For real? The chemist?”

Garrett shook his head slowly, absorbing. “What about the LD3 containers?”

“No joy yet. My search program is looking in the container yard for the ID numbers you confirmed, but they’ve apparently done something to hide the LD3s on the official paperwork.”

Delaney groaned. “That’s going to take a while.”

Garrett stuffed the last of his sandwich in his mouth. She was right, considering the stacks of hundreds and hundreds of multicolored containers he’d seen while on the plane into Jakarta. Reminded him of his nephew’s Lego collection. “We’ll head back to the yard tonight, unless intel comes in to change that plan. Regardless, we know that Hakim, Rashid, and Tariq are in Jakarta. We’ll leave Delaney and Surge here.”

Her hand hung in the air above the bag of chips. She dropped it to her lap, her face like ice. “I’m not a member of the team—again?”

“Of course you are. But you’re untrained. Sachaai is like playing with fire.” Why wouldn’t she understand that?

Her eyes flashed. “I know I’m not an operative. Surge is. Why waste precious search time? You need his nose. After everything the past two days, I would think that you’d know you could trust me.”

“Trust you? To what, run after a terrorist?”

“Yeah, without my ‘running away’”—she used her fingers to create air quotes—“we wouldn’t know where he is. But now we do, and he’s here?—”

“And his goons nearly got you killed today! And I need you!”

The room fell silent, and Garrett found himself on his feet, Delaney staring at him. He roughed his hand through his hair. He hadn’t faced an attack since Djibouti. Didn’t want to see his team hurt. His eyes snapped up to Delaney. He lowered his voice. “I mean the team needs you. Surge—they need Surge. Which means you.”

Caldwell coughed on a handful of chips, and Zim suddenly studied the ceiling.

His eyes bored into those two men. “You two look into the parents of Tariq and his building-manager cousin. Might be something there that will clue us in to Sachaai’s purpose for the chems, give us an idea where they are headed.”

Zim chuckled and moved his chair closer to Caldwell, who began pecking at the laptop.

Garrett jerked his head toward Delaney’s backpack. “Pick yourself a room.” He looked at his watch. “For me, it’s almost time for a call from Chapel.”

* * *

Delaney grabbed her pack and headed down the hall with Surge. Their room choice wasn’t a debate at all. She chose the room with a creamy, barefoot-worthy carpet and a window that overlooked a grassy area enclosed by a chain-link fence. She guessed you could call it a yard, even if it was barely bigger than a fake grass dog potty station.

She dumped her pack next to the bed, sat down, and Surge jumped up to gaze out the window. She ran her hands over him, looking for any damage from the fight. Twice.

She had to be sure. She started back at Surge’s head.