Page 33 of Ford
And okay, maybe kiss her again. This time in a place where he didn’t have to wonder why she was kissing him back.
That thought unnerved him most of all.
Yes, this woman was danger.
His hand started to sweat in hers. Miraculously, she still held on.
By the time they got off at Street 1905, the night had deepened, the stars crystalline overhead. Where they were outside the city, the traffic felt less hurried, the danger a low hum. He debated letting go of her hand, then decided against it, in case they needed to run.
Kat lived in a four-story Stalin-era flat with high ceilings. Someone had installed security, and now he buzzed for her.
“Da?”
“It’s York,” he said in Russian, and the door buzzed.
He took the stairs up by memory in the darkness, and RJ returned to holding his jacket.
She didn’t take his hand again as he stopped in front of a metal door, not unlike prison bars, and rang the bell.
The lock clicked back, and Kat opened her door and stepped out into the entry, the space between the metal door and the inner door to her apartment. She held a big skeleton key.
“Privyet,” Kat said. She wore a Mickey Mouse T-shirt and a pair of skinny jeans.
He’d met her a couple years ago at the embassy a few months before Tasha was killed.
Murdered. That part was important to remember, even if no one else knew it.
He’d used her skills a few times over the years. A black hat hacker, the petite redhead knew her way around the dark web. She could get at the source of who might be intercepting RJ’s emails. And she could get a message out to his contact, the one person who might be able to smuggle a wanted-by-Interpol suspected assassin out of the country.
As the bolt slid back and she opened the door, she startled at the sight of his companion, almost hiding behind him.
“Hey, Kat. I hope you don’t mind. I had to bring her with me. We need your help. She’s wanted—she’s all over the news—”
“I know,” Kat said, her eyes widening. “And I’ve been so worried.” She stepped over the threshold, her arms out. “What are you doing here?”
Only then did he realize she wasn’t talking to him, wasn’t reaching for him, but for RJ, who had come out from behind him.
The only warning he got was in RJ’s caught breath, a tiny noise of near pain, and then, “Coco?”
He stepped back as Kat grabbed RJ around the neck. “Rubes.Are you kidding me?”
He wanted to shush them.
But Kat did it for him. She leaned back, catching RJ’s face in her hands, and whispered, “What have you gotten yourself into?”
No. The bigger question was…what hadhegotten himself into?
4
Even to himself, the plan sounded out of control.
And Ford spent most of his life doing over-the-top. Most of his life facing impossible odds, doing what others said couldn’t be done.
Like jumping out of a helicopter miles from land in the middle of the Arabian Sea with a Zodiac raft in a box. Inflating the Zodiac, attaching a motor, and infiltrating Yemen waters to a secure location. Deflating the raft, donning fins and a rebreather to affix it to the ocean floor.
Like swimming to shore underwater, creeping onto land, hiding the gear, changing into tactical armor, and stealing inland for miles to overlook a renegade camp.
They’d eliminated two known terrorist targets wanted for the murders of hundreds of innocents. Taken their pictures.