Authors: Nicola Claire
The rest of the team. Part of me was excited to be meeting the people I had only known to date by their profiles printed in a dossier. Part of me was shit scared. Because this was my first assignment on New Zealand soil in four years, and if there’s one thing a specialist learns quickly, it’s the fatality of lowering one’s guard. Being “home” was not an excuse to lower my guard.
I shook Nick's hand and said good-bye to Carmel at the front desk, her narrowed eyes doing nothing for my peace of mind. But grandmas don't frighten me. If anyone was going to blow my cover it wouldn't be a sixty-something old lady with a shotgun mounted beneath her desk.
My bike sat waiting in the underground carpark, next to several black Ford Territory SUVs and two matching black Honda CBR 650s, which I knew belonged to Koki and Brook. My cherry red Ducati Superbike 1199 Panigale stood out, and reminded me I'd have to switch to my backup Ducati Diavel after this. Black seemed to be the order of the day for ASI, and I was determined to only stand out as much as I wanted.
I'd just thrown a leg over and grabbed my helmet when the automatic garage doors began to rise, the clank of segmented metal echoing around the too sterile concrete space. Curiosity had me pausing. That and the distinctive sound of a Ducati.
I've always had a soft spot for the Italian bike manufacturer. Hondas are all well and good, Harleys are for a different crowd, BMWs have presence, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha look the part, but it's the Italians that really steal the show. Ducati being the premier pick in my mind.
There's nothing like the throaty purr of 1200ccs beneath your butt cheeks.
The Ducati that stalked into the underground carpark was pure animal. Sleek, sure footed, loud. A distinctive roar you could imagine a tiger having. Controlled, enraged, powerful.
And I froze. Perhaps the first time I have frozen when on assignment in my life. My helmet sat forgotten between my legs, my knuckles whitened where I gripped the outer edge of the face guard, my eyes all for the man who sat up straighter on his now parked Monster bike. Leathers hugging thick thighs, sunglasses covering what I knew from dossier photos to be the most stunning deep blue eyes, and a wide open smile across plump red lips. He removed his helmet completely, tucking it under one arm as he let his eyes roam the length of my body and back up to my face.
“The new girl,” he said, his voice deep and smooth like whisky.
I didn’t reply. Not from some ingrained sense of self-preservation. Not even because I’ve been trained to remain silent until my target bares a slice of vulnerable skin. But because I’d never had such a visceral reaction to another human being before. Never felt my chest tighten or my palms sweat. Or my pulse quicken at the side of my neck.
“How’d orientation go?” he asked, swinging a foot over the side of his bike with practised ease.
I said nothing. I just sat there.
He hesitated as he placed his helmet on his bike seat and then cocked an eyebrow at me, small smirk gracing fascinating lips.
Well, this was uncomfortable.
And entirely unexpected.
“Okaaay,” he said slowly. “The silent type. I like it. Too many people feel the need to fill in the silence, say something banal, and ruin their cool vibe in fifteen words or less.”
“Like you?” I queried, the words on my lips before I could vet them.
He chuckled, then ran a hand through already roughed up blond hair.
“Yeah,” he said on a huff of amused air. “Like me. So, I’m just gonna go in there.” He nodded toward the door to ASI itself. “And pretend we haven’t had this conversation. Sound good?”
I stared down at the helmet in my frozen hands, mentally shaking myself awake, and nodded my head. Pulling the helmet up, I flicked my hair out of my eyes and put it on, tightening the straps automatically underneath my chin.
“Nice meeting you, Adam,” I said, gunning the Ducati to life and drowning out any possible retort he could have made.
I was acutely aware of his eyes target locked on my arse as I roared out of the underground garage; I didn’t look back. And only as sunlight hit my visor did I realise I’d given myself away. I’d addressed him by name, before being introduced. A rookie mistake
no one
in my line of work would
ever
make.
What the hell was with that?
The roar of the Panigale rang out on the busy Newmarket street, competing with the thunder of my heartbeat, as I dodged in and out of traffic on Broadway. My mind racing and my pulse competing admirably with it.
It took three minutes and several kilometres before I could breathe steadily enough to talk without it being noticeable. I activated my Bluetooth device, said "Mal" into my helmet mouthpiece and waited for the reply.
"Talk to me," my handler instructed in his usual straight-up tone.
By the time I spoke, I was myself again. Efficient. Capable. Deadly.
"I'm in," I replied, dismissing the garage episode as inconsequential and disconnecting the call.
T
he new girl was strange
.
But I couldn’t seem to stop staring at the last spot I saw her in. Arse clad in tight black leathers, chest pressed low over the tank of her Ducati, as she gunned it out through the garage door. I will be the first to admit I find leathers fucking attractive. Throw in a powerful bike between their thighs, blonde hair and a fuck me mouth, and I’m pretty much a gonner.
Why the hell did a chick like that have to start working at ASI?
I shook my head, grinned to myself and pushed through the door into the stairwell. Taking several steps at once I made Carmel’s desk in under twenty seconds flat. Not even puffed.
Or at least, I’d thought I wasn’t.
“Looking flushed there, Savill,” Carmel commented, hand snaking out from underneath her desk, where she kept her shotgun, in a move we liked to call “the magician.” As in, “now you see it, now I blow your head off.”
“Carmel, sweetheart. Just excited to be seeing you.” It was crap; I was clearly still malfunctioning from lack of blood to the brain.
I marched across the reception area, determined Carmel would not locate where exactly my blood had all drained to.
“Did you see the new girl?” she queried, in a blatant display of curiosity. Carmel was the curiosity queen.
“What new girl?”
Yeah, that’s the one, Savill. My blood might be redistributing, but clearly not back to my fucking brain.
“Could have sworn her timing was perfect,” Carmel muttered.
Perfect? Perfect for what? Sure as hell wasn’t perfect conversation, now was it?
I ignored Carmel and entered the code to the back of ASI.
“Doesn’t say much,” Carmel added, as the door unlocked and I started to push through.
I shook my head, bizarrely relieved it wasn’t just with me the new girl remained tight-lipped for, and only breathed a sigh of relief when the door locked again at my back.
I felt itchy all over, as though I’d rolled in a stinging ivy bush or eaten too many apricots. I even glanced down at the backs of my hands to make sure I hadn’t come out in hives. Yeah, that’d be good. See a sexy woman and develop an allergy to her.
Just my fucking luck.
I knocked on the door to control and stared up at the camera. The door clicked within seconds of my eyeballing the lens.
“There he is,” Nick said, from his perch on a bench to the side of the room, possibly looking down Amber’s low neckline, but I wasn’t sure.
“There I am, what?” I demanded, that itchy feeling having migrated to my mood now, it seemed.
“Snappy,” Amber commented, typing with one hand while playing with a joystick with her other; a multitasking skill that had every man in the place envious of Eric.
I stared too long at the delicate and intricate movements she was making, only realising the doucheness of the act when Eric coughed.
“You need to get laid,” he said, for the benefit of all in the room, not just my ears.
If anyone asked, I’d swear it wasn’t a blush that graced my cheeks. Fucking apricots.
I threw myself into a vacant seat and swung my boots up onto a table to the side, making myself comfortable.
“Can’t find any trace of him anywhere,” I offered, as way of debrief.
“So, that’s it?” Nick asked. “Can’t find your target, so you come back to base empty handed?”
“Hoped Amber and Eric had something more to go on,” I countered.
“You could have had that conversation over the telephone,” Nick shot back.
Eric started laughing. “He got a call from Brook.”
“Brook?” Nick asked.
“Yeah,” Eric said slowly, piercing green eyes taking in my overly casual stance and no doubt still fucking flushed cheeks. Pale skin, the bane of a blond’s existence.
“And what would the call from Brook have said?” Amber asked, finishing up with her original task and moving on to something to do with my case. The woman never sat idle for long. She was the best thing to have happened to ASI in years. And everyone knew it.
“That the new girl was here,” Eric offered, eyes still disconcertingly on my face. “And worth a look-see.”
“Fuck off!” I mouthed across the room at him.
“You meet her in the garage?” Nick asked.
“Let’s see,” Eric offered, before I could reply. And then promptly ran back the tapes of the garage and the new girl leaving.
“You dirty dog, Adam!” Amber exclaimed. “Are you staring at her butt?”
“I will not deny a certain fascination with a woman’s arse on the back of a bike,” I announced, rather expertly, I think.
Amber giggled; somehow the sound coming from her wasn’t grating. Nick just shook his head, while Eric manipulated the recording until we could all hear my fan-fucking-tastic conversational skills and the new girl’s complete lack of wonder.
“Well,” Amber said, once my humiliation was complete. “You sure know how to wow ‘em.”
“I have certain skills which are difficult to display via a video camera feed,” I replied, sinking into my new found role of office leech.
“I bet you do, sunshine,” Eric quipped.
My eyes strayed to Nick’s. If anyone was going to bust my balls for ogling the new girl, it would be him. Not that he’d ever hear one peep out of us if we commented on his occasionally eyeing Amber’s more than ample cleavage. Nick would slit the throat of any soul who made that bad judgement call. Either that, or have to face Eva’s wrath when she heard the rumours.
And no man could do
that
without a few war wounds to show for it. Nick wasn’t stupid. Just a dude who appreciated a fine rack. His wife’s especially and any other that happened to be in the vicinity.
Douche.
My gaze snagged on the frozen image up on the screen of the new girl’s arse on the back of her bike. Eric had stilled the footage precisely there for one reason and one reason only. I met his green gaze and shook my head.
And OK, maybe I was a bit of a douche too, for that matter. But fuck, what a fine arse the new girl had.
“What’s her name again?” I said, to fill the silence.
“Charlie Downes,” Nick offered, voice steady.
“Lieutenant Downes to you, sunshine,” Eric added.
“Sir, for when you’re ogling her butt,” Amber chimed in.
Funny. Real funny. Laugh a minute, this lot.
“I’m assigning you as her trainer,” Nick announced, in effect ending the hilarity.
“Me?” I said as Eric asked, “Him?”
“Don’t be so surprised,” Nick offered, to me or Eric, I couldn’t tell. “She’s been in the defence force for the last eight years. Six of them teaching. She’ll need an adjustment period. Someone to bring her up to scratch.”
“And you’ve decided Adam’s the one to do this?” Eric pushed.
Nick turned ice blue eyes on him. We’d all gotten used to the Anscombe chilling stare, but that didn’t mean we enjoyed receiving it. Eric held his own, but then Amber diffused the situation by stretching lazily in her chair, making her tight fitting t-shirt ride up her belly, drawing every eye in the room to the potential for more. The woman had immaculate timing.
“You’ll get your chance,” Nick said, a second or so later than necessary. “She’ll need to be made aware of modern electronic equipment used in our line of work. A lieutenant teaching languages at Philomel would hardly be up on some of these gadgets.” Nick waved a hand over Eric and Amber’s stash of goodies off to the side.
“So, what am I doing with her?” I asked, and all manner of images came to mind, which required desperate effort to ignore.
“Why don’t you take her on this hunt?” Nick offered.
“The hunt’s a bust, I thought we’d established that when I walked in here.”
“No, we established your butt fetish,” Amber helpfully offered. “Not whether the hunt was a bust. And, incidentally, it’s not. I’ve found reference to your man on radar. Got a couple of spots for you to try here.” She indicated a map on the screen in front of her, showing Papatoetoe and some not so well known locations for purchasing drugs.
“He wasn’t there yesterday,” I said, leaning forward in my seat, fully engaged. This was what I lived for. This was what made the blood pump furiously through my veins. The chase. The hunt. Stalking. “I checked,” I added. “Been checking it every other day. Meth-heads love that strip.”
“True,” Amber said, bringing up another screen with a picture of a guy I’d seen in Papatoetoe on more than one occasion. Why the cops didn’t pick him up, I had no idea. But everyone on the street knew he was good for some fast crystal meth, or as it was more commonly known; P. “But Davey Parata just got arrested and if our intel is right, your man will likely take his place tomorrow night.”
Friday night. The prime time for shifting methamphetamine.
“The cops are surveying the area this afternoon, according to their chatter,” Amber added. “The mall will be abandoned this evening, but business as usual tomorrow night, once the boys in blue have all gone.”
“Excellent, Amber,” Nick said with meaning.
“That’s my girl,” Eric added, pride filling his tone.
“And you’re sure this Davey Parata won’t be released before then?” I asked, playing devil’s advocate, but someone had to. Nick and Eric were both besotted with Amber. Rightly so, but someone had to keep his head.
Yeah, not going there.
“As sure as I am that you’ve got a thing for Charlie’s butt,” she casually replied.
“Would you fucking leave her butt outta this!”
“Hey!” Eric growled. “Don’t swear at Amber.”
“I’ll stop swearing at Amber when she stops harping on about my butt fetish.”
“Your words,” Amber mumbled. “And I’m not a harpie.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I muttered, and then found myself pressed up against the wall of control, Eric’s fist wrapped up in my t-shirt collar.
“Apologise,” he growled.
“Eat shit!” I grinned back.
“Boys,” Amber tried, while Nick stood up from his semi-recline on the equipment table and took his time straightening his clothes as though readying for battle.
Both Eric and I stepped away from each other, rolling our shoulders and cracking our necks.
“Chill, brother,” I offered, eyes locked on Eric, but somehow keeping the bossman in my peripheral. Never turn your back on Nick Anscombe when he’s about to kick arse. “Amber knows me.”
She snorted, Eric just shook his head, muttering something indecipherable, but I could have sworn it related to getting laid.
And Nick stood with his hands on his hips and a disgruntled look in his frosty blue gaze.
“Charlie’s got assessment tomorrow,” he announced. “By five she’ll be approved for the field. After which, she’s all yours.”
“If you can keep your eyes off her butt, that is,” Amber mocked.
Eric started laughing. Nick’s shoulders visibly relaxed.
And just like that the air was sweet again in control.
And I had a new assignment. One that strangely scared the shit out of me while it also bizarrely excited.
Keep my eyes off her butt?
Easy.
After all, I’m a professional.