On The Rocks (13 page)

“
What’s your handle?” He kicked the door
shut so hard the frame rattled. Shoving his gun into the space at
his back, he padded toward her, heavy footfalls echoing throughout
the room. “Never mind. Keep it. Pretty young thing like you won’t
last long enough for me to use it anyhow.”

He puffed on the cigar; let the smoke out
near enough her face to be a nuisance. Her nose crinkled, and she
fanned the air. Cleared her throat.

Too easy.

“
You bring what Bill told you?”

Her duffel thudded near her scuffed boots.
She bent at the hips, seemed to think better of giving him a show,
and then dropped into a crouch. Unzipped the olive drab case and
dug out a brown paper bag. Got vertical again.

She coughed. “You mind putting that
out?”

“
Yes.”

Lennox snatched the bag away and pulled out
the item inside.

The same item the five failures before her
had brought with them.

Pulling his KA-BAR from his pocket, he
stabbed the tip in the plastic and cardboard packaging. It
disappeared quick fast and he dropped the trash to the floor,
returned the knife to its rightful place at his side.

“
Let’s get something straight: you’re not
my partner, you’re a rookie. I’m point on this, so you do as I say,
when I say. Next, around here you’re an asset until you’re a
liability. Then you’re dead.” He bucked his chin toward her.
“Silver lining: I think you’re gonna make a beautiful corpse real
soon. Pay attention anyway.”

He stashed his cigar on the edge of a nearby
table. Wraiths of blue smoke curled up to the water-stained
ceiling. He presented the puzzle on his palm. “Know what this
is?”

“
A Rubik’s cube.”

“
Wrong, rook. This is your life before
clandestine ops. See how it’s all nice and orderly? Pretty, ain’t
it?” He turned the box, showing the solid panel of yellow on one
side, then the solid wall of blue on another. “Want it to stay that
way, I suggest you go back out that door, call Connolly, and tell
him he made a mistake. Tell him you changed your mind and you’re
not cut out for this while you still can.”

He turned his back on her and paced away,
twisting the panels as he went and ruining all that perfection.
Each face now showed a clash of colors, a mess of white with blue
and green with red, with no hope of finding order again.

With a flick of the wrist the block sailed
the short distance back to her. She plucked it from the air
one-handed.

“
That’s your life once you step into my
world,
chuchu
— straight fucked. And it’ll be a long time
before you sort it out again, if you ever do.”

She eyed him a long moment, and Lennox could
almost see the wheels turning. She didn’t want to be here, she only
thought she did. Just like the ones who came before her.

Talk about good deed for the year. He was
being downright kind to send her on her way before she got her wig
split.

Head bent over the cube, she rotated the
panels. Two yellow bricks were now side-by-side, but at the expense
of a green trio. Another turn, and the two yellows were separated,
bringing a pair of reds and four blues to huddle together.

Okay, this was a new one. All the failures
before her took the analogy in stride. Was she actually going to
fix it? That’d be just his luck to get the one rookie who was some
kind of Rubik’s cube wiz.

Her hands kept fiddling with those panels,
revolving the layers. “Baldwin.”

“
Excuse me?”

“
My handle,” she said a bit louder. “It’s
Baldwin.”

On a oner, she hurled the cube at the
closest wall like she’d been drafted to pitch for the Dodgers. It
went from puzzle to plastic firework in a flash. The bricks
exploded from the central pivot and tinkled to the floor in a
multicolored pileup.

“
That,” she jerked her chin, “is my life
before clandestine ops,
sweetheart
. Which makes me a pretty
young thing with nothin’ to lose. So maybe, instead of trying to
make me afraid of you —with that… canned speech and loud talk—
maybe you should be afraid of me.”

Lennox thundered toward her. Shoved his face
in so close he could smell the peppermint on her breath. Dead brown
eyes met his greens without an ounce of fear or hesitation.

Good.

His mouth quirked into a hard smile. “All
right then. We understand each other.”

“
No we don’t. You just think we do, and
that’s good enough for government work. Next, if you want to keep
your hands, don’t you
ever
snatch anything away from me
again.”

She angled around him and flipped his cigar
off the table. It hit the floor, and with a deliberate step she
crunched it under the toe of her boot. “This might be Death’s
waiting room, but I’m not in a rush to see the doc. You wanna
smoke, do it outside.

“
Now clean this place up, Tate.” She
looked him up and down. “Smells like an asshole in here.”

Hefting her bag again, she headed toward the
rear of the apartment where the two small bedrooms were located.
She paused at the first one —his— and then moved to the second. The
door to her room shut with a firm click.

Lennox slammed his hands on his hips. Then
he scratched over his buzz cut and frowned.

What the fuck had just happened?

His
last
cigar was on the floor,
reduced to busted casing and shredded tobacco. Goddammit, getting
Nicaraguan cigars in Belém was only a slight bump up from
impossible. And he was pretty sure he’d just been insulted… twice
—
and
threatened— by a chick who was in diapers when he was
getting his first blowie behind the dumpsters at St.
John’s.

That should’ve pissed him off.

He should’ve marched in that room, dragged
her out by the hair and chewed her a new one.

Instead, he had a smile on his face and his
dick was hard as quantum physics.

“
Well, shit,” Lennox murmured. “I think
I’m in love.”

Lennox chewed into the next slice of the
apple, crunching down on something hard and unyielding. He pulled
the offending matter from his mouth: a seed trapped in a sliver of
the core.

The door swung open as he flicked the debris
away. Bill shuffled in, not quite in sync with the cane.

“You three have a nice chat about me out
there?” He smiled.

Bill didn’t. In all the years he’d worked
for the old man, Lennox couldn’t remember him cracking a genuine
smile. He dragged one of the wheeled office chairs back and sat
down heavily.

“She on board?”

A subtle nod. “She’ll take one for the
team.”

Lennox let the dig roll off his shoulders.
He’d been in the game too long to let the old man see him
ruffled.

Bill looked ruffled himself. Like the strain
of keeping everything going had finally started to get to him.
Lennox didn’t envy the man. Better to be the one taking directives
than giving them.

“Why were you following Kizzie?”

He shrugged. “No reason in particular.
Spotted her on the subway and wanted to see if she’d recognize me
is all.”

Bill pointed to the water bottle Lennox
habitually rolled against his skull. “And what did we learn…?”

“I might have trained her a little too
well.” Lennox’s grin faded. “Why’d you send her back to Belém?”

No surprise Bill didn’t answer.

Lennox pressed on. “As much as it sucked to
hear her say it, I have to echo Kizzie’s sentiment. What am I doing
here?”

The old man’s brows winged up. “Metis, Tate.
We’ve finally got a chance to stop whoever this person is. Which
reminds me, when you and Baldwin get on site and start to
strategize, you might consider Sabine Mansoor as a weak spot for
Abrahan. You’re authorized to offer her immunity if she’ll
cooperate.”

“Okay. Now what am
I
doing here?”

“Christ, not you too,” Bill muttered. He
took a deep breath and scratched at his jaw. “I don’t have the
energy for another pep talk. You’re taking your ass to Italy and
you won’t give me any lip about it, okay?”

“Nah… Gotta give me something I can work
with. How ‘bout we start with the truth and go from there?”

“Were you even listening? We just spent the
last forty-five going over the mission. A mission
you’re
point on. Now, if you can’t handle that—”

“Bullshit.” Lennox grunted slightly, leaned
back and stretched his arms overhead. “We just spent the last hour
going over my window dressing.”

One corner of his mouth curled up, and he
leveled a stare at his handler. Former handler. Well, Bill didn’t
really have a formal title where Tate was concerned, did he?
Cleaner that way.

“What’s the real job, Bill?”

Connolly shifted in the chair. “That
is
the job.”

“C’mon, Willie. You dragged me back here
without the courtesy of notifying Kizzie of my return? Kinda fishy.
But let’s say that’s the real deal. You and that agent— What’s her
name?”

“Hayford.”

“First name.”

Bill frowned. “Rachel.”

Rachel.

Hm. Kind of plain. Strawberry blond, violet
eyes, pale skin. Had a nice shape on her for a desk agent.

He’d fuck her…

Bill cleared his throat and Lennox brought
his attention back to the apple in his hand. Bypassing the knife
routine, he took a healthy bite.

“Say you and Hayford need someone to go in,”
he smacked around the tangy flesh, “tag a phone, maybe contact
this… Sabine woman. Immunity, right? Say that’s all legit. That
doesn’t answer one fundamental question. Why me?”

“Why not you?”

“‘Cause you don’t send a fox into a
henhouse, Bill. And you don’t send a killer to play Cap’n Save A
Hoe.”

“Wow. And all this time I’d wondered why you
never had a steady woman.”

“‘Cause I have
plenty
of women, Bill.
And I keep it simple. They all fall into one of two categories:
either I’d fuck her or I’d fuck her twice.”

Bill sighed heavily. “Bet your momma’s real
proud of the man you’ve become.”

“Careful where you go with that, William.
Two women on earth you don’t talk about. Mama Tate’s one of
‘em.”

“And the other?”

A tic started in Lennox’s jaw. In spite of
the fact that Bill knew his number —could probably
speculate
about the number of bodies
not
sanctioned by the CRU— the
old fart had the nerve to press harder.

Forearms on the table, Bill leaned in and
cocked his head. “Did you sleep with Kizzie?”

“Wasn’t that the point of you sending her to
me? Have big bad Lennox break in your new wonder girl?”

“No. I sent her to you for training. That’s
it.”

“That’s it.” Lennox echoed. Uh huh. Right.
He turned his head away and huffed a sharp breath out his nose.
“Yeah, Bill, I just trained her. Exactly like you wanted me to
do.”

And he’d been living with the fallout of it
ever since.

Another nip off the apple. “And since I know
you’re
dying
to know,” Lennox goaded, “I fucked her more
than twice.”

Fucked her like she was the only one, even
if she wasn’t…

Bill’s eyes narrowed. “And still you walked
out on her.”

“I didn’t marry the girl, Bill.”

Something hardened in the older man’s eyes.
“She wouldn’t have you.”

Heat flooded his system, and Lennox dropped
the apple on the table. His fingers brushed the handle of his blade
and a deep breath was all that saved Bill from being gutted where
he sat.

“We can measure dicks another time. Who’s my
target? Galletti?”

Bill flicked his gaze down to the knife.
Back to Lennox’s face. “Can you walk out on her again, Lennox?”

“When you called me, Bill,” he picked up the
KA-BAR and made another clean slice of the fruit, “I was balls deep
in three broads. Kizzie’s a good girl, but she’s nothing special to
me.”

Lying, after all, is mission critical in the
world of covert operations.

Good lies were ones you told other people
and got away with.

The best were the ones you told
yourself.

“So, if walking out is what it takes…”
Lennox shrugged. “I always do the job you send me to do, which is
what I’m here for. The
real
job. Not this whack-a-mole op
Hayford’s running.”

Rheumy blue gaze locked on Lennox, Bill
pulled a manila envelope and burner phone from his breast pocket.
He dropped them on the table. Tented his fingers atop the pouch,
but didn’t move to slide it over.

“Pay this time is double. Half deposited in
fifteen minutes, half upon completion.”

Lennox studied the apple, searching for the
best place to get his next bite. There wasn’t much left outside of
the core and stem, but he managed to find one more teeny bit to
chomp off.

“Rule change. Pay in full up front
and
I want out. After this, we part ways. You wash your
hands of me, and I of you.”

Bill hesitated a long moment. They’d had
this discussion a few times before, and every time the answer was:
“Not possible. You’re one of my best assets.”

“Bet you say that to all the girls.” Lennox
batted his lashes prettily. “I’m the longest running, too.
Eventually a man gets tired of killing.”

“Killers don’t get tired of killing, Tate.
They get bored with the methods. I advise you to find a new
method.”

A hint of a grin graced that weathered face,
and Lennox decided he might not like it if Bill smiled after
all.

“Pay up front, and you get it done in two
weeks.”

“Pay me, cut me loose, and I’ll have it done
tomorrow.”

Bill shook his head. “Assist with Metis
first. If that's not done before the two weeks, you can peel off.
But this is secondary.”