“Holy shit,” he said. “Is that thing a grenade?”
“Hooray! He can be taught!” Tam said. “I’m sorry your women aren’t here, boys. They’re the ones who really appreciate my genius.”
“We’re appreciating it, but could you hurry the fuck up, Tam?”
Tam wrinkled her nose. “Never rush a woman.” She draped herself with several more pieces of jewelry, the practical defense applications of which were anybody’s guess, yanked the skirt up, and strapped on two custom-designed nylon net thigh holsters, one for a Walther PPK, and the other for Davy’s mini dart gun.
“There,” she said. “Now I’m done.”
Nick ground his teeth as he looked at the shimmering expanse of bare chest, thigh, belly. The rest of them had bulletproof vests, gas masks, goggles, comm equipment, thermal cloaks, kick-ass firepower.
Tam was waltzing into the jaws of death practically naked. It wasn’t right. It made him twitch. But he couldn’t think of a better plan.
Tam slid out of the van, fluttering her fingers. “Good luck, boys.”
The men were all silent for the drive to the gate. When the van came to a stop, they gathered around the monitor to watch her mince, slowly and sexily, over to the heavy gate. Nick braced himself for the crack of gunfire. And another friend’s death on his conscience.
A floodlight flicked on, illuminating Tam’s fluffy mane of blond hair from above, lighting up her whorish outfit as if she were clothed in scanty strips of molten metal. “Yoo-hoo!” She jumped, making her tits bounce. “Anybody there? Hellooo! I’m lost! Anybody there? Anybody?”
The door opened. A large man was silhouetted against the yellow light inside. He moved slowly towards the gate, an automatic rifle cradled in his hands. His thick, squarish face resembled that of a bulldog. “Who are you?” he called out.
“Oh, thank God! Am I glad to see you! I’m looking for Sumner Road,” Tam said. “I’ve been going totally nuts. My name’s Brandi.”
It was always jarring to hear Tam cast off her usual crisp pan-European accent and do a flat, nasal American caricature.
“I don’t know any Sumner Road. You should go back to Kimble and get directions there,” Bulldog advised.
“Oh, God, that’s going to take me forever,” Tam moaned. “I was supposed to dance at this bachelor party, and now there’s probably not even any point in going. And it’s cold, too! Would you believe, I forgot my sweater? And dressed like this too! Just look at me!” She spun around for his benefit. “I am, like, freezing in this teensy little thing! I don’t suppose you have any nice hot coffee in there, do you?”
Bulldog looked her over. “What are you, some kind of stripper?”
“Actually, my act is a little more complicated,” Tam confided. “I use butterscotch syrup, you see. And the groom licks it off.”
Bulldog stared at her for ten full seconds. “What part of you does he lick it off from?” he asked hoarsely.
Tam let out a throaty giggle. “Depends on how much I’ve been paid, big boy. The best man for this party only wanted to spring for lips and nipples. But if the groom is up for it, and the party wants to tip me enough, he can just paint me up with syrup and…move south.”
“How far south?” Bulldog’s voice sounded strangled.
Tam giggled again. “Oh, all the way,” she whispered. “If he wants.”
Davy’s shoulders shook. He had both hands clamped over his mouth. Aaro and Seth and Connor were grinning like fools. Fucking pack of clowns, Nick thought, irritated. This was not a goddamn game.
“You mean, for a big enough tip, he can lick your—”
“I just love having it licked and licked and licked,” Tam cooed. “And if he makes me come while he’s at it, he gets a big discount.”
Long silence. “Uh…on what?” Bulldog couldn’t help but ask.
“On the next part of the evening’s entertainment. Where I paint butterscotch over a body part of his choosing and lick it off of him.”
They held their breaths for Bulldog’s response.
“Uh, want to come in and have that cup of coffee?” the guy asked. “I want to introduce you to the guys. They have got to hear this.”
“Oh, thanks! I would just love to!” Tam burbled.
The gate churned open. Tam slid her arm chummily through Bulldog’s elbow and minced along with him towards the guardhouse. It was harder to follow the sound once she disappeared inside. A guy inside was scolding Bulldog, calling him an asshole.
“Lighten up, Roger,” they heard Bulldog scoff. “It’s just a cup of coffee. Here you go, gorgeous. Cream and sugar are right here.”
“Oh, thanks! Oh, wow, that’s cool equipment! What’s that splotchy thing on the screen? Is that, like, infrared, or something?”
“Thermal imaging,” Bulldog explained. “Hey, toots. Tell ’em about the butterscotch syrup.”
They slid out of the van. The vehicle had a thermal barrier, so they’d been invisible inside it, and the thermal cloaks covered them once they were outside of it.
The five men crept slowly, flat to the ground. There wasn’t much time before the ice-celled cloaks warmed up and their own body heat started to show.
Come on, Tam. Stop dicking around. Get on with it. Now. Please.
The guys in the guardhouse were loving it. Bulldog was now warmed up and jovial, trying to persuade Tam to go to a hotel with them when their shift was over and give them a private performance.
Tam balked, coyly. “It’s tempting, but it would be so unprofessional. I should find the Sumner Road guys. I mean, the guy’s getting married tomorrow, so this is, like, his last chance, right?”
Bulldog chortled. “Last chance, my ass. I’m married too, gorgeous, but a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do. I like butterscotch.”
“Oh, my. You great big bad boy, you,” Tam purred.
Davy’s voice cut into her performance. “Everybody in position.”
A commotion in the guardhouse. A clatter, a gasp, heavy thuds. “Oh, my God! What’s wrong with him? He, like, just keeled over on me!”
Thud, smack, a shout of alarm, several more thuds. “What the fuck are you—nngh!” A man began to scream. The sound was cut off.
Nothing. Nick held his breath. One second, two, three, four, five, oh no, six, oh fuck—
“All four down,” came Tam’s husky voice. Cool as a cucumber. The chick wasn’t even breathing hard. “Stand ready for the gate, boys.”
The thing began to grind. They slipped through and sprinted, to the guard hut. Tam was poised in the doorway. One guard was slumped in a chair on the far side of the room, a dart protruding from the back of his neck, the rest sprawled on the floor in the center of the room.
“Dead?” Nick asked.
Tam snorted. “Just tranked. Better than they deserve, the gutter dogs. They’ll all have different recovery times, but we’re good for a half hour. Unless you want to just kill them, Nikolai.”
“Nah.” He fished plasti-cuffs out of his pouch. “Bind them.”
Davy was checking out the security. “Infrared and thermal imaging around the perimeter,” Davy said. “Sentries every hundred yards. No motion detectors that I can see. The guards’ uniforms transmit an identifying signal that shows up on both systems.”
“Good. So Tam can spot us on the montitor from the guardhouse and send alerts.”
“Hell. I have to miss the big party?” Tam pouted as she collected the guns that the guards were carrying.
“You’ve partied enough,” Connor said. “Butterscotch. Jesus.”
“A hundred bucks says you try it with Erin, first chance you get.”
Con clapped a gas mask over his face by way of reply, and ducked out the door.
What followed was a race against time at a slow crawl. The ice cells in the thermal cloaks were already warming, but they still had to ooze over the ground like slugs to avoid being spotted on the infrared.
“Monitor just lit up. Sentry coming around the building on the right,” came Tam’s low voice. “He’s moving towards…ah. He’s not moving anymore. Davy, you sneaky bastard, was that you?”
“Dart,” was Davy’s terse reply.
“Cover him quick with the cold cloth. He looks bad lying on his face,” Tam warned. “And deactivate that transmitter on his shoulder. Two more coming from the other side…ah, nice work. Who was that?”
“Spray gas,” Aaro’s laconic voice said over the comm. “Never saw it coming. Fuckin’ amateurs. I’ll use one cold cloth to cover them both.”
“Would you fuckers cut out the mutual congratulation and concentrate?” Nick snapped.
“Chill, Nikolai,” Tam said. “Don’t spoil our fun.”
He ignored her, peering through the transparent window of the hood towards the building entrance. The door opened. Nick sagged into a pool of shadow. “Everybody stay put,” he murmured, as some guy peered through binocs towards the guardhouse, put a comm device to his mouth, spoke into it. Spoke again. Tapped it, irritated, when he got no response. He shut the door and set out towards the guardhouse.
His trajectory was taking him right over Nick. He slid his hand through the slit, gas at the ready…and reared up at the last minute.
Pffsssss. Down he went on top of Nick like a half ton of gravel.
“Good job, was that Nikolai?” Tam asked.
“Yeah.” Nick struggled out from under the man’s three-hundred-pound bulk, and jerked out a pouch with a camo thermal blanket. He ripped the transmitter pin off, and tossed the cloth over the guy’s sprawled form, which would make him invisible until the ice cells melted.
He placed the transmitter on a rock and smashed it.
“Heads up. The rest of you reptilian sons of bitches are still invisible, but our hot-headed Nikolai is starting to show,” Tam said. “Pick up the pace, gentlemen. Your window is closing.”
Nick cursed. His goddamn elevated core body temperature could blow it for all of them. “I’m going for the door,” he said.
He crawled forward, icy-cold condensation drizzling down from the inside over his face. He peered at the door through his binocs…shit.
A red light was glowing on top of a large black palm lock device.
“We need one of the guards,” he hissed into the comm. “Palm lock.”
“I’ll bring mine,” Davy said. “He’s scrawnier than yours.”
An irregular camo’ed lump glided towards him along the building. It was Davy, with the guard slung over his shoulder under the cloak.
“Davy, you’re heating up too,” Tam said. “And Nick looks like a neon sign.”
“Almost there,” Davy said calmly.
Nick and Davy converged on the door. Nick groped for the guy’s limp hand, and splayed it against the pad. The light clicked green. The door sighed open. Another guy was on the other side, eyes bugged out.
Pfffsssssss—another squirt of gas. The guy went down. They leaped over him. Bam. Connor stumbled back. Davy’s arm swung up.
Thhtp. A dart spat into the shooter’s throat. A guy peered around the doorway of the control room, took aim—
Thhtp. Nick nailed him in the shoulder with another drugged dart.
Nick rolled over to Connor, who had dropped to the floor. “You OK, man?” he demanded. “Tell me you’re not shot.”
“Nah,” Connor gasped out. “Took it in the vest. Knocked out my wind, though. Broke some ribs.”
Alex Aaro and Seth, on the far ends of the fan of cloaked creepers, slithered in like a couple of camo’ed ghosts. They shoved off their hoods. “Did we miss the fun? Aw, shit.” Seth sounded miffed.
Davy came out of the glassed-in control room, wiping his brow with his forearms. “The room’s secured,” he said. “Tam can tell us who’s coming from the outside.”
Nick peered out the door into a long, empty corridor.
He turned to the others. “You guys stand guard. I’m going in.”
“You don’t need us all to hold the guardroom,” Aaro said. “We’re with you.”
“Whatever,” Nick muttered. “Just let’s move.”
They took off down the corridor at a dead run, boots thudding.
The smell of Zhoglo’s cigarettes made Becca nauseous. Though it could be argued that she would be nauseous anyway. Considering.
At first glance, the scene looked almost convivial. A man and a woman, on lounge chairs on a huge deck perched over a cliff. The view was a vast, spectacular panorama of Seattle cityscape, moonlit water and jagged mountain ranges, still topped with snow. A fragrant breeze swept over the deck, a chorus of crickets chirped. Owls hooted.
A bottle of wine sat on the table between their chairs. The ruby liquid rolled around in the goblet of the man as he savored the aroma.
Then, an observer might notice bizarre discrepancies. For instance, the semi-automatic rifle in the hands of the man behind them. The tape over the woman’s mouth. The cuffs on her wrists, attached to a dog chain, which was wrapped around one of the four-by-fours that supported the huge deck. More duct tape was wrapped around her chest, binding her to the chair. Zhoglo had been amused by the chain, and had elected to leave it attached to her wrist.
Zhoglo ground out the butt of his cigarette. “To be honest, I was hoping he would kill you,” he said, in a chatty tone. “For betraying him. My idea was that once he knew his error, his punishment would be his own guilt. Very dramatic.” He sipped the wine, swishing it in his mouth with pursed lips. “But this scenario has its charm. I understand Solokov’s specialty is quick death. So quick the victim does not even know that he is going to die. Pah. Anticlimactic.” He leaned forward and flicked her cheek with his finger, chuckling when she flinched. “And that, my dear, is not what I have in mind for you.”