Page 66 of Blood and Fire
“Call her,” Zoe said. “In the meantime, do something about that noise. Drug them, or something. I can’t stand the sound.”
Melanie looked uncertain. “That’s forbidden, in the protocols. They’ve had less than optimal results in the past, using sedatives.”
“So?” Zoe said impatiently. “Do something else, then. I don’t care what you do, just solve the problem.”
“I can put the stroller into the bathroom,” Nadia suggested. “If we shut the connecting door, we’ll have two doors to block the sound.”“The tandem won’t fit through the bathroom door,” Hobart said.“The supply closet, then,” Nadia said. “The door’s wider. It’ll go if we wiggle it in sideways. Come on, Hobart. Help me lift it.”
Zoe watched as Nadia and Hobart wrestled the double stroller with its shrieking cargo into the dark maw of the supply closet. The door swung shut. The volume cut by two thirds. When the suite door closed, the sound was blocked almost completely. Ah. Much better.
“Good,” Zoe said. “Jeremy, Hal and Manfred will make up my team tomorrow when we follow Sean McCloud. I’ll hook up with them in Portland, after I take care of Petrie.” She looked at Melanie, then Hobart. “You two stay here. To monitor us.” She glanced at Nadia. “You concentrate on Aaro. Get going.”
Nadia scampered away, eager to get to work as the superslut. Melanie’s mouth tightened, face red. Zoe observed this with satisfaction. It was the stupid bitch’s punishment for not even thinking of including Petrie in the surveillance net. Hers and Hobart’s. They would stay at headquarters, in disgrace. That would teach them. She’d chosen every available agent in the area for her team, except those two. Idiots.
Hobart turned to face the computer screen without comment. Probably relieved to be spared combat duty. Gutless egghead geek.
“I’ve sent a list of supplies to your coms. Add anything else you think would be useful, have it assembled and packed by early this evening. I will brief the team here, at nine PM.”
“Ah, one small problem.” Hobart was looking at his list.
Zoe spun on him. “I don’t want to hear about problems,” she said.
Hobart looked up, apologetically. “I can’t get an armored SUV for you in that amount of time. I had no idea…these things need just a little lead time. Maybe I could get one by tomorrow afternoon—”
“I can’t believe you didn’t anticipate this. We can’t wait. Our window of opportunity will close. Are you too stupid to see that?”
“Um, maybe by mid-morning, if I offered them an extra—”
“Just give me a normal SUV,” Zoe snarled. “We’ll have to manage without the armor. Is everything clear? Good. Get to work.”
They got to it.
Finally alone, Zoe placed her long golden legs up on the desk, admiring how graceful they were, right down to her slender feet in the white sandal wedges. She clicked with the mouse until she set the recording to run from the beginning. Rosa Ranieri’s triumphal return from the baby supplies store, followed by the phone call from Petrie, which had involved much wailing and carrying on in Italian.
She tried not to let herself get distracted by the thrills of anticipation, thinking about that phone call tonight, in the privacy of her room. Lying on her bed, telling King about her excellent progress.
Too bad, about the armored SUV. She would have preferred to play it safe, but truly, it was probably overkill.
Tomorrow, she would complete the task he had set her. She would undo all the damage Reginald had done. She would be brilliant.
King would be so very pleased. And when he showed her what a full Level Ten reward sequence felt like, all thirty verses…oh, my.
She would be pleased, too. Oh, so very pleased.
* * *
Lily shiftedon the chair by the stove. The tender moment on the bluff hadn’t lasted. Since his cell conversations on the bluff, which he’d taken great pains not to let her hear, Bruno had been stonily silent. She’d been appalled, on the mountain, to find out that the descent was even more excrutiating than the ascent. A contradiction of natural laws. Physics reversed, just to insult her. Water flowing uphill. What was up with that? Her knees and ankles still shook, like jelly.
But her life lately had been nothing but a series of contradictions of natural law. By the laws of emotional physics, it made no sense that a mild mannered—well, maybe not so mild, but certainly a relatively harmless chick who wrote essays for a living should end up being the target of brutal assassins. If Bruno was right, and there really was no connection to Magda, then what the hell did they want with her? Like water, flowing uphill, for no good reason. Why would water bother? Why expend the effort? It wasn’t like there was any money to be made in killing her. And yeah, she did tend to speak her mind, true, but she’d never been quite that rude to anybody. She was almost certain of it.
And Bruno, being silent. Wow, that felt like another contradiction of natural laws. At the cabin, he was a blur of activity, but scarily quiet the whole time. He built up the fire, cleaned and loaded three different handguns, made up the bed, re-stoked the fire. He cooked a delicious meal, which they ate in strangled silence. He washed dishes. He would not let her help with these activities. Evidently, her mental instability would be dangerously exacerbated by the stress of rinsing lettuce, or tucking a sheet over a mattress. She’d tried to insist, but he’d turned her down so hard, she’d ended up huddled in the chair, wishing she was small enough to slide under the door. The silence was deafening.
She tried to lose herself in the twisting, dancing flames while Bruno sloshed and clanked at the sink. Then, quiet.
Her neck prickled. She twisted around. He was holding a six-pack. He looked at the beer, he looked at her, and he put it back into the refrigerator. “Feel free,” she said. “It’s my own personal choice not to drink. I’d never judge anyone else for having a beer. It’s OK.”
“It’s not that,” he said. “Kev would kick my ass if he caught me drinking alcohol while stuff like this is happening. He’d say, ‘Lack of vigilance will get you killed.’” He shrugged. “He doesn’t say it so much now that he’s in love. Guess the world seems less dangerous now.”
“The bad guys aren’t here tonight. Go ahead,” she urged.