On The Rocks (12 page)

“Understand something, Kizzie. If I had
anyone else to send I’d send them, but we’re short-handed. You need
a partner and Lennox is the best I can do on short notice. But I
trust Lennox to be Lennox. Same way I trust you to be you.” He
turned on his heel and click-stepped away.

Kizzie watched his rolling gait as he
continued down the hall. She wasn’t going. Period. Bill and Lennox
and Rachel could huddle up and find somebody else to get to this
Metis person.

She wasn’t going.

Did she say that already?

“Hey,” she called. Bill angled back to her
and she motioned toward the cane. “Was it the hully-gully, or were
you twerkin’?”

“What’s…
twerrr-ken
?” he asked,
sounding it out.

Kizzie sighed dramatically, her voice
echoing in the hallway. Such a waste. He never kept up with
pop-culture, so he usually missed all her really good snark.

“I am going to
drag
you into this
century, William Connolly, kicking and screaming if it’s the last
thing I do.”

Bill chuckled and shook his head. “Welcome
back, Baldwin.”

5

THE NEW SOO pulled a card from her bag and
set it on the table before him.

“This your direct line?” Lennox asked.
“Y’know, in case I…uh… need anything?”

“I see why she had that gun on you.”
Smirking, she leaned forward and made a clicking sound. “That’s a
nasty-looking knot, Agent Tate.”

“You gonna kiss it for me?”

“You should get it looked at.”

“We could play nurse,” he offered.

“Agent Baldwin do all that damage?” Lennox
bobbed his head and she said, “I knew I would like her.”

She slipped on her sunglasses. With a curt,
“Tate,” she slung her bag over her shoulder and strutted away.

He watched her hips as long as he could
until she disappeared through the door Bill and Kizzie had gone
through.

Alone, Lennox planted his elbows on his
thighs and dropped his face into his hands with a groan.

Damn, his head hurt. The entire left side
felt exactly like he’d been pistol-whipped by his pissed off
ex-partner. And he was sore all over from going heels-over-ass onto
the concrete when she’d tripped him— which was a brilliant
sacrifice play, he had to admit. That he’d kept his eyes open for
the whole meeting was a minor miracle, because he really wanted to
down a couple of aspirin and chase ‘em with a beer. Then maybe,
after a nap, some food, and a little ass —or a lot of ass, and
maybe ass first and the rest whenever— he’d feel like his normal
self again.

He gently prodded his temple and winced.
Yep, there was a knot there. Maybe he should hit the hospital just
to make sure Kizzie hadn’t fractured his skull.

All things considered, their first meeting
in nearly a decade went better than he’d expected. Injuries aside,
he was alive. That said a lot given how vehemently Kizzie hated
him.

He couldn’t fault her. He hated himself.

Pushing out of the seat, he snatched up the
melted bag of ice and padded over to the kitchen area. Dropped it
into the sink and yanked open the refrigerator door.

Ketchup, some water, but nothing edible
inside. He grabbed a bottle of water for his head and rummaged
through the cabinets. Coffee, sweeteners, mugs. A lone green apple
was tucked in the back, and he pulled it out to study in the
light.

Couple of soft spots, but all in all it
looked like it would do.

Haul in hand, he trudged back to the table
and returned his butt to the pleather of a wheeled office
chair.

He sliced a hunk out of the fruit with his
KA-BAR and ate it off the blade. Then held the water to his temple,
rolling that blessed cylinder of cold against the swelling.

Too bad it couldn’t freeze the bleeding of
his thoughts.

When Bill had sent her picture to him a
couple of days before, Lennox knew he’d be seeing Kizzie in the
flesh. He’d prepared himself for an awkward conversation, for the
whys and how-could-yous. And, in some ways, he’d readied himself
for her explosive anger and a violent outburst.

What he hadn’t girded against was the guilt.
That pesky emotion sprouted up like a zombie from a grave,
meandering, creeping, feeding on his brain.

Lennox had so many kills on him he should be
nicknamed Predator Drone. He’d sniped men from hundreds of yards
away and gotten his hands dirty with nothing but a sharp knife and
opportunity. Sometimes his friend was a garrote, ever tightening
around a target’s throat until the fucker hissed out his last
beg-and-breath combo.

Slept like a baby after each one.

But leaving Kizzie in Belém made him shoot
up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.

As the minutes passed without signs of Bill
or Kizzie or whatever that other agent’s name was, his mind drifted
back to the first time they’d met…

Out on the little balcony of the rented
apartment, Lennox Tate dragged his last stogie under his nose and
took a deep inhale. Chocolate notes over spice, so vivid the flavor
filled his mouth from the smell alone. He let the breath out real
slow, savoring every bit of it. Nothing could top the heavenly
taste of a fine Nicaraguan cigar. Well, almost nothing. That woman
last night —long brown hair, plush body, mouth like a brand new,
velvet-lined Hoover? She came pretty damn close.

And pretty damn often.

KA-BAR in his grip, Lennox made quick work
of separating the tip of the cigar clean off the shoulder. He
struck a wooden match and toasted the foot over the flame, gently
rotating the fat cylinder as he went.

He hated training ops. This was the sixth
such mission in half as many years, and the thought of teaching
another scared-shit sack of balls the ropes put him in a pissy
mood. The Agency always sent him the same type, too. Like there was
some factory stateside pumping out cookie-cutter, asshole military
rejects with tons of knowledge but not an ounce of the nuts n’ guts
required of Bill Connolly’s CRU members.

Case in point, his last trainee. Victor…
Vinnie… V… V… V…
Vut-the-vuck-ever
the guy’s name was. He’d
shown up in creased jeans and boots clean enough to eat off of.
Looked more like a businessman than a potential agent with his
pressed white buttoned down and tie. Outfits could be altered, so
Lennox was willing to give him half a chance. Until he saw the
wheeled duffel bag the schmuck pulled behind him from some dainty
little handle.

Wheeled
. And a
handle
.

He’d brought the one item Lennox required of
all his trainees, so that was a plus. And he knew the Agency’s
manual front to back— much good as that would do him. Knew his HK
in a “there are others like it, but this one is mine” sort of way,
all rigid and stuff.

But when Lennox took him on his first
gauntlet, a meet and greet with a low-level cartel member looking
to move up in Buenos Aires’ slow-moving drug trafficking ranks,
things went sideways and the new guy —Vernon, maybe?— lost his
shit.

Like, literally
lost his shit.

Got hosed off and shipped out the same
night.

Fucker was probably workin’ some square job
now. Bank teller or accountant. He looked the type to go back to
hard work for slow money. Probably married with kids. In therapy to
put his brief time with the CRU behind him. Or maybe telling the
wife tall tales about the time he helped bring down a smuggling
ring in the gritty streets of Argentina. The kind of superhero
story husbands told their wives to get some ass.

Lennox would never have that problem, lying
to a wife. Relationships were the farts of clandestine ops— stunk
to high hell, sometimes they lingered, but they didn’t last. And
even the ones you tried to keep silent were deadly.

It wasn’t fair to get involved with a
girl, let her melt his ears going on and on about her hopes and
dreams and plans for their future when
his
future was more
minute-to-minute negotiation than sun-will-rise certainty. C’mon,
he wasn’t a
complete
asshole. Besides, the women he
preferred didn’t speak much. Unless “Oh, yes! Oh god!
Ayyyy que
riiiico, paaapi!
” counted as conversation.

“Deep
conversation,” he muttered, as a
wisp of smoke curled up before his eyes.

Grunting a laugh, Lennox shoved the cigar
between his lips and puffed until the end started to glow. The
first pull kissed his lungs. Chin tipped up, he blew the smoke to
heaven with a sigh.

This was livin’, wasn’t it? Waiting on a
trainee he didn’t need to fuck up an op he didn’t want.

Another sip and he kicked up his booted
feet, letting the heavy weights clomp onto the surface of the
rusting metal bistro table. Eyes closed, he enjoyed the gentle
patter of warm rain and his last few moments of solitude. In a
couple of hours, he’d have a new guy invading his space and the
added burden of ensuring the idiot didn’t get them both killed. Or
shit himself, ‘cause, yeah, that wasn’t fun. So he had to savor
moments like—

A sharp knock sounded on the apartment
door.

He sipped at his stogie, let the flavors
dance on his tongue. Whoever it was would go away eventually.

The interruption came a second time.

On the third, Lennox cursed.

He dropped his feet to the ground, and
palmed the Ruger he kept handy. He’d been in Belém less than a
week, and since this was a new city there wasn’t a chance he’d made
enemies already. But as the old adage went, if you stay ready, you
don’t have to get ready.

Pistol, cigar, and mean mug firmly in place,
he yanked back the ratty screen door and stepped inside. Stalked
across the worn wooden floorboards. Eyeball shoved to the peephole,
he stared out and found the nuisance.

A…woman?

He frowned.

She stood off to the side a bit with her
body angled away so he couldn’t see her face. Dark hair was slicked
back into a stubby, perky ponytail. Droplets of water covered the
toned brown curves of her shoulders, and her wet tank clung to a
rigid spine.

Without turning, she knocked again, and
Lennox finally obliged her.

Her head snapped around, granting him his
first look at her face. Thick lashes and brows over huge, dark
brown eyes. Lush lips that would look amazing wrapped around his
cock. Grinning, he dragged his tongue over his teeth.

She scowled. “You Tate?”

God, and that voice. Sent a flash of heat
straight to said cock and he didn’t care if she noticed. In fact,
the faster she did, the faster they could get down to business.

“
Whatever you’re sellin’, I ain’t
buyin’.” He gave her a thorough once over, from her full tits to
that tight belly to those long shapely legs. Legs like that, the
woman no doubt had a great ass on her. Gaze back on her chest he
added, “Maybe I’ll make an exception for you,
chuchu
.”

She took in an annoyed breath, which only
made her chest heave.

Lennox smiled wider. “How can I help
you?”

“
You could answer my question.”

He drunk in his cigar smoke and slowly
exhaled into the space above her head. “D’pends on who’s
askin’.”

A droll stare came back.

The silence stretched.

Great body
and
didn’t talk much?
Had he just found the ideal woman?

“
Yeah, I’m Tate,” he drawled.
“Strip-o-grams’re international now, huh? Well, come on in and take
it off.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m your partner.”

He blinked. “No, really, who are you?”

More silence. More staring.

“
Bullshit,” he said on a chuckle. No way
Bill sent him a woman. Especially not one who looked like jailbait.
She couldn’t be older than eighteen, maybe nineteen with the right
makeup and heels.

Heels that would make those legs look even
longer, tip that ass up just the way he liked…

She hoisted the strap of her duffel bag onto
her shoulder and pushed past him.

“
I’ll be damned…” From his post at the
doorway, Lennox stood, awestruck, eyes glued to the back of her
head. Okay, more like glued to the back of her jeans, but the few
times he did see that dark head twisting to and fro, it was clear
she was assessing the sparsely furnished home.

The greenish paint on the walls was peeling,
revealing a layer of chipped off-yellow that it’d been covering up,
and a dingy red beneath that. Chances were high they all had lead
in them. A threadbare couch that might have been pulled from a
landfill sat against a wall. The TV was roughly twenty inches. An
old tube model with faux wood paneling. It got four channels in
black and white so long as the wire hanger was angled just so,
otherwise it got two, and one of those was all snow. Bonus: they
had hot water in the tiny bathroom. Cold water was harder to come
by.

A cluster of beer bottles and takeout boxes
littered the little coffee table, and unless they sprouted legs,
they wouldn’t be moving any time soon. Cleanliness was next to
Godliness, and Lennox had fallen from grace long ago.

The accommodations would be four-star had
it just been him, but trainees needed to understand there was no
luxury here. This was the
real
CIA, the nitty gritty. Not
for the faint of heart, and definitely not for some kid who should
be working a job hocking hot dogs on a stick at the mall or
something.

Christ, she was young.

“
Where’s my bunk?” She craned her head
toward him, her face void of expression.

Oh goodie, a hardass.

Probably shaking like a leaf in a stiff
wind on the inside. Hell, she was twice as green. But if this was
his newest trainee, so be it. He hoped Bill didn’t think he’d go
easy on her just ‘cause she was… well… a
she
. Lennox gave
her two days before she crumbled and then he could get back to
doing the things men like him did best: killing people on the
government’s dime.