Читать книгу Come As You Are - Amy J. Fetzer - Страница 8

A knock startled him and Eloisa quickly answered it, throwing the door wide. Sexually satisfied without removing a stitch, she was almost eager to be gone. It amused Ramos and warned him that she used him as well…enough to not notice he wasn’t Garcia.

“I have a few questions,” a deep voice said from beyond the door, and Ramos frowned.

Eloisa nodded and waved the man in, then looked back. “I’ll leave you two,” she said. Ramos caught the Cheshire cat smile she threw him before she disappeared.

The man stepped into the room and Ramos recognized him. Not from a past meeting but from a photo in Garcia’s files. Diego Salazar. Ramos knew he was looking at his own counterpart. Highly trained and well funded, Salazar was deadly. Not in his skill but in his cunning use of power. If Garcia was to be believed, this man worked several sides of the box at once. He was in the hip pocket of the President, which meant his loyalty stretched to Eloisa. It was rumored he was once an advisor to Fidel, and was an intelligence officer.

Salazar would be his biggest opponent because he’d once served with Garcia. Ramos knew Garcia’s enemies, and Salazar was one of them.

“Questions?” Ramos asked with authority. “Shouldn’t you be learning how they got past your men, Commander?” He didn’t want this guy anywhere near Logan and his teammates.

“I will see to that personally, señor. What were you doing in here alone?”

“Reading.”

“And you had no suspicion that these men would attack?”

“No, or I would be armed. Protection is your job, Salazar.”

The man’s features sharpened. The only sign the reprimand had hit the mark.

“If it were anyone else, I’d be dead.”

Salazar opened his mouth and Ramos put up his hand. “Enough. Let me clarify it for you.” He stood and, forcing an iron grip on his balance, he walked to behind his desk. He’d be damned if he’d let this man see him fall. “I was reading and they appeared from there.” He pointed across the room to a set of doors he knew led to the roof. He assumed they came in that direction. It was the least patrolled. “No, I did not speak to them, and the moment I saw them, I hit the alarm.”

“Wise, wise,” Salazar said, rocking back on his heels. “They gave you that?” He indicated his swollen nose.

“Obviously.”

Salazar wasn’t ruffled and moved to the window, brushing back the curtains, then peering out to the grounds below. He studied it at length, and Ramos frowned. Salazar couldn’t have seen her.

“Find out how they got in here, Commander. Now.”

Salazar glanced from under a lock of black hair, his smile almost fiendish as he straightened to attention. He did it slowly enough to be insubordinate and Ramos met his gaze, warning in every fiber. He wouldn’t mince words with this man. He meant nothing to him and for a breath of time, Ramos thought, Is that what I’ve become?

“You have your orders.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll leave you to your…recuperation.”

Ramos sat at the desk, shuffling papers, effectively dismissing him. He didn’t look up as the man exited the room. All his hope lay in Tessa getting cleanly away with the map. If Salazar had seen her, he’d hunt her, and the results wouldn’t be pretty.

Eloisa threw off her suit jacket, tossing it to a servant as she hurried toward her rooms, cornering the halls. At her bedroom, she threw open the doors, striding briskly to the nightstand. She lifted the inlaid wooden box, then sitting on the bed, she drew it to her lap.

Gold and pearl dragons sprawled across the box and for an instant, she admired the puzzle within a picture, then glanced around at her own collection before coming back to her most prized. She pressed the eyes of the dragon, then swept her finger against the grain of the scales carved from mother-of-pearl. The head popped up, the claws springing from the sides of the box. She flicked them upward, then turned the box counterclockwise twice. She pulled the head and the box opened.

She stared down at the empty silk lining, her heartbeat increasing as a wash of heat swept her skin. She looked up, searching the room for anything disturbed. Everything was as she’d left it. Her maid wouldn’t have attempted this, too stupid to understand the mechanisms. The only person who’d been in this room was her husband and he hated her puzzles. Enough that he’d banned them from the rest of the house. Anger boiled in her. It had been safe, under her control. Was this box a replica? she wondered briefly. She had the only one in existence that could have been copied.

She reversed her moves to close the box, then set it carefully back. Her hands shook as she realized what this meant. For her, for Venezuela.

There was a total news blackout on the assault, everything wiped away. For an attack on the private residence, the buzz was pretty low-key. Good that the world didn’t need to know about it, and bad if no one pried, because then Logan and the others would just cease to exist. Tessa knew this was foolish, but she couldn’t let them go to some prison. For hours, she’d sat in her car and watched the residence. A few of the reporters had remained, and she’d camped out with them on the lawn across the street, using her NGS credentials to chum up.

When figures finally appeared, being led to a black van, she’d had to get two sleeping men off her car to follow. The van was moving slowly and she pushed on the gas to catch up. The little VW screamed up the road, and she drove two streets over and parallel, thinking if she could get ahead of them, she’d have a great plan by the time she got there.

Man, she really missed the cannibals.

“Who are you?” Joe McGill held a cleaned-up photo of the woman that had been fed into the computers for a match. It wouldn’t take long. She had a bewitching face and wouldn’t be hard to spot. But the only people he could send after her, for the moment, didn’t exist.

He glanced at the link to Dragon One. Dead air. They had intelligence only from the outside, from above. Satellite and thermal imaging. A cluster of thermal images put the team in the basement level of the estate next to the boiler room. That told McGill the area wasn’t normally used as a prison. No one would put felons next to the one spot where they could blow the building back to the Incas.

He tossed the photo aside and watched the satellite reposition itself as another picked up the feed. There was a minute span where alignment gave them garbage between two screens, yet he watched it just the same. He asked for refreshed thermal, then was forced to wait till it narrowed the focus.

“Sir,” Lorimer said, twisting in his chair. “They’re no longer there.”

McGill’s features tightened. “Then where?” He looked at the screen as the satellite imagery peeled back layers, narrowing to the ground.

“Heading toward the jungle.”

For no other reason than execution.

Tessa stopped the car on the side of the road, and let traffic pass by her. It shouldn’t be this crowded, she thought, and left the car, moving to the front of the VW. She slipped her pack-turned-bag on her shoulder, then popped the hood, glancing up the road before she pulled out the tire and propped it against the car. She left the hood up and peered around it as the van came into view, a black earthworm on the long, sandy road. This was one of her dumber moves, but she had to help. It wasn’t her fault they were caught and she escaped, but when the van started to head toward the Amazon, it scared her. There were undiscovered ruins all over this country. They could be executed in the jungle and never found.

Bending, she rolled the tire on the shoulder, away from the road. She was banking a lot on Logan because she could get the truck to stop, but overtaking soldiers with guns? Not up her alley. She didn’t want to fight anyone. Logan was the strategy-first kind of guy. Tessa just did it. Right now, she felt stupid being out on the road this time of night and, despite the late hour, the air didn’t move, the heat cloying. A cloud of gnats hovered under the single streetlight a good hundred yards away.

She tugged at the hem of her shorts, and damn if the little—preshrunk, my ass—things wouldn’t get longer. She held the jack, prayed this worked and waited for the van.

She didn’t get a chance to scream, the jack flying from her grasp when a gloved palm closed over her mouth.

The small jolts over the road made the ride painful. Woken after midnight and forced into the van, Logan had found small pleasure in just being still. There was some payback coming, he thought, and studied his surroundings. Three rows of seats in the van were separated by a narrow corridor between the chairs. Iron leg shackles were anchored to the floor, the chains jingling with the ride. The windows were painted black, and beyond the prisoner seats was a metal screen separating them from the driver and his backup.

Logan looked over at Max, who had an odd expression on his face, almost peaceful. A total lie, since he was concentrating. Logan didn’t know if he was counting tire revolutions or if it had something to do with that quick glance at the sky before they climbed in, but there were times when Logan thought Max had memorized the Earth. He just waited.

“We’re going away from the city.”

“That can’t be good.”

Max stared up at the ceiling as if stargazing. “Orinoco,” he said under his breath, then nudged the air with his chin. “Toward the river.”

A soldier whipped around, and from the passenger seat aimed a gun and warned them to shut up. Logan nodded and shifted, using one toe to push the knife deeper into his boot. He tried not to rattle the shackles, bristling in the cuffs that were chained to his waist. The knife was useless if he couldn’t wield it.

A fracture of light glinted off something and he glanced. Max held a pen and he quickly broke it apart.

Now we were getting somewhere.

Salazar sped up the recording, freezing it on the woman again. He ran his finger down the hazy silhouette of her body on the screen, but she was hooded. He hit PLAY and saw her pull it off, yet she remained in the shadows, her body turned just so. He tried another camera, on the far side of the room, the zoom-in distorting the picture. He worked the keyboard, cropping the photo, cleaning out the shadows and lighting her features.

He saw jawbone and her lips, but it was still unclear other than she had long hair. Lovely, he thought, though he didn’t need to know why she was with his Vice President. Only that he wasn’t surprised to see her. After that, the lenses went black.

She was gone, that much he accepted. He leaned in the chair and pulled up another stream of video. Part of him loathed himself for watching, for enjoying her abandon. She was straddling him on the sofa, bare to the waist, and the same skirt she’d smoothed over her knees earlier today was hiked high, exposing her. He watched, her hips gyrating and breasts bouncing.

His phone hummed against his chest and he answered it.

“We have a problem.”

Salazar turned away from the console. “I’m listening.”

He catalogued his orders, already mentally breaking them down, but what surprised him was who was giving them.

“I want to be certain we’re clear on the next steps.”

He glanced at the video, smiling to himself. “You want them to disappear. They already have. To the hacienda.”

Over the phone, he heard her soft intake of breath.

“I can work better there. In private.”

“I cannot hear the details,” she said sharply, then softer, “Get it back, Diego.”

His name sounded good on her lips. “I will.”

His gaze was still on the video and his body clenched when she tipped her head back and looked directly into the camera as she climaxed.

Beautiful.

He closed the phone, slipped it inside his tailored jacket and stood. Salazar understood his position, what was afforded him because he kept out of sight, and all confidences. Most didn’t know he existed except by name. He preferred to watch, and slipped the CD from the security system, then erased any copy. He was keeping her privacy, he told himself, though few knew of this room’s existence. It gave him delicious anonymity, kept any trail to him hidden and ensured his position in this administration. Beyond that, he’d follow the money, the power. As long as he was paid, he would do as ordered.

He opened his hand radio and contacted the driver. When there was no answer, he tried another frequency. He tapped the door. It sprang open and Salazar slipped out, then down the back staircase while demanding a response from the van of his prisoners. He hated repeating himself and changed frequencies.

Quickening his steps, he ordered the helicopter to the lawn.

Logan stared out the windshield at the woman in the middle of the road. The driver slammed on the brakes, throwing them forward. For several heartbeats, the guards just stared, then made a couple rude comments about the crazy woman, yet when a man followed after her, limping really, the guards left the truck, weapons drawn. Max immediately popped apart the pen and used the parts to work the locks.

“Was that Riley?” Sebastian asked, sitting forward.

“And Tessa.” Chained, they could only watch.

She ran back, playing the role of hysterical female rather well, and neither guard noticed the nunchucks in her hand. She spun the wooden rods so quickly, Logan saw only the results. A crack to the head, the back slashes to the other’s chin. Like glass, they broke and fell to the ground.

“Clearly, the woman is skilled,” Sebastian said.

She certainly was, Logan thought. However, the woman he knew eleven years ago wouldn’t have dared that alone.

“Another rule shot to hell,” Tessa muttered, stuffing the nunchucks away before she searched them for keys. She kicked away the guards’ weapons, then unlocked the door and yanked it open.

“Oh Christ, it is her,” Max said.

Tessa smiled. “Underdog, here to save the day.” She wiggled the keys in the air. “Go on, say it, you’re glad to see me again.” She met Logan’s gaze, every cell in her body gone still as she waited for the reaming she deserved. But he just smiled, a delighted little sparkle in his eyes that went right to her soul.

“You’ve been a very bad girl.”

She winked. “I thought that’s what you liked about me.” Then a man left the van and she frowned as he passed her. “Jeez, you guys look awful.”

Logan snatched the keys. “Gee, thanks Tessa, and you don’t look so bad for a walking corpse, either.” Terrific, in fact, and he was still rocked to see her alive. He focused on springing the cuff. “Where’s the guy who was chasing you?” Free, Logan handed the keys to Sebastian.

“Out cold on the ground. You might want to leave him to them.” She inclined her head to the downed guards.

“Irish accent?” Logan eased out of the van, Sebastian behind him.

She frowned. “Yeah.” Oh hell. Just then, a man hurried between them. “Him.” She pointed.

“We gotta go,” Riley said. “The van is hot.”

“Defuse it.” Logan said.

“You know each other?” she asked, glancing between the two.

“Until Daisy Duke here showed up,” Riley said right over her words. “It would just blow the tire, like an accident. It’s pressure sensitive and the van’s sitting on it. And exploding on a stationary object with a gas tank…”

It would toss the van like a ball. “Good God, Riley, don’t you think that was excessive?” Logan joined Max to collect weapons and communications gear.

“It’s just a little charge,” he defended.

Tessa stuck her head back inside the van. “Some guy’s trying to contact the guards on tact 27.”

Logan tuned the guard’s radio and listened for a moment, then chambered a bullet. “We’re getting company. Where’s the truck?”

Riley gestured up the hill, walking stiffly as Sebastian caught the keys and ran to it. Logan pulled the unconscious guards off the road.

“I’m sorry,” she said, alongside Riley. “I really am.”

“I’m just glad it wasn’t a nunchuck.”

“I wanted to stop you, not kill you.”

“The apology and kiss on the head was a nice touch,” Riley said, introducing himself.

Tessa blushed. She’d never kneed a man in the groin and felt bad. But then, he shouldn’t have scared the hell out of her.

“How do you know Logan?” he asked.

“It’s complicated.”

“Very.” Logan was there, guiding her with him. “And if you two are through?”

She looked at him, dazed for a moment. God, it was so good to see him. Men always looked better with age, and Logan was no exception. After a decade or so, there were a few more lines, a couple of scars, but he hadn’t changed. His dark hair was a bit longer, not the SEAL look she remembered, and like a pop flash in her mind, she had the image of her fingers pushing into that thick mop. A long time ago, she thought, then recognized his locked posture.

“Logan, I know this is a shock—”

“Not now.”

Tessa had a sneaking suspicion bitch was mentally tagged to that.

But Logan didn’t know what to feel, just looking at her blew the one horrible night into oblivion. He glanced, recognized her uncertainty and gave her a quick squeeze. Then he looked behind himself, to the sky. “Oh hell.”

He heard it before he saw it. A glossy black helicopter swept in between the trees. Then Sebastian barreled down the hillside, the black SUV fishtailing across the road. Riley and Max headed for it.

“Split up!” Logan shouted as they climbed in the SUV. “Bug out the CP.” He’d catch up when they didn’t have so many soldiers climbing up their ass.

The chopper engine grew louder as it closed in. Logan pulled her with him toward her VW, threw down the hood and climbed in, then turned over the engine.

She was already beside him. “You can’t outrun that chopper.”

“I don’t have to.” He got out and leaned against the hood as if he had all the time in the world.

“Those guys are armed, you know that, right?”

“They’ll think we’re civilians.”

The chopper lowered over the area, kicking up dirt and leaves in an opaque spin of debris. Then the door slid open.

“Logan. Let’s go.”

A man hopped out before the skids touched down, and two more followed, armed with assault rifles. Prisoner guards didn’t carry more than a pistol. The leading man hurried forward, then froze when Logan aimed.

“You’d better be ready to shoot something—!”

“I’m trying. Hush, please.” Logan realized the man wasn’t looking at the weapon trained on him, but at Tessa. He fired. The van exploded, the charge ripping the tire off the rim and pushing the vehicle on its side.

“I don’t believe you did that!” she said as he got in. “Cool move.”

He threw it in gear and hit the gas. Dirt spit from the tires, and they shot forward, bouncing over the road. A secondary explosion rocked the darkness and she flinched, hunched, then twisted in the seat to see it tear through the side of the van, ripping metal like tissue and kicking the rear up. It landed on its roof.

“Do you always piss off the host before you leave a party?”

“When we don’t have cover, and he knows this land better than we do, hell yes.”

She couldn’t argue that. “See, that’s why you’re the commando and I’m not.”

Logan glanced in the side-view mirrors. “Damn, it didn’t hurt the chopper.”

“Wonderful, a few more deaths averted.”

“I don’t remember you being this whiny.”

“It comes with age.” She smiled to herself, and despite the danger felt only relief that he hadn’t died on some operation in a Third World country in the name of democracy.

Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes, turned the wheel, throwing her against the side as he drove the car down an alley. They splashed through puddles, the little car struggling up a hillside. Once they crested it, he took his foot off the gas, coasting the car on its own power. He didn’t check the streets, but the sky.

“We need to get out of sight.” Deep, he thought, thinking like a wanted felon and doing the opposite.

She tapped him, pointed. “Under there.”

Logan turned the wheel and slid the car beneath a blue tarp awning sandwiched next to a house. He shut off the engine.

“It might not start again,” she said.

“We have to leave it. Come on.” He got out.

She stood on the other side. “We lost them, we’re okay.”

He gave her a dry look over the top of the car. “You never were very good at this.”

“That’s why I left.”

His expression darkened, and she came around the back of the car. “It was the way you did it.”

“I had my reasons.”

“Care to share them?”

“Not really.” Not if she wanted her life back. She knew all this was a desperate attempt to recapture the moments before that call, and behave as if nothing had changed. But as she stared into his eyes, she knew nothing would be the same. It was cruel, but Logan wasn’t ready to hear it. He’d never believe her. “I did my part, you’re free to do whatever it was you were doing.” She flicked her hand the way they’d come, then turned in the other direction.

“You’re just all sorts of misbehaving lately, aren’t you?” He swung her around with him in the other direction, walking the alley.

“Stop talking to me like I’m some kid, Chambliss, and why are we rushing?”

“To get out of sight.”

“And why should I come with you? Jeez, Logan, slow down.”

“Tessa,” he said patiently, though she was practically running beside him. “They’ve chosen to hunt us instead of my team. They won’t stop looking. There was surveillance in the house we didn’t know about.” Not to that extreme, Logan thought. Someone had a voyeuristic fetish. “They know our faces and they were looking for something.”

Her insides seized.

“Now, I don’t have a thing from Ramos, but you were already there. So what did he give you?”

She felt the clamminess of the leather tucked against her stomach and Tessa had two good reasons for not showing it to him. This was her problem, and he’d want to help. He was that kind of guy. Well…except maybe now.

“They don’t have video of me. He told me where the cameras were located.”

He scowled. Their pursuers’ interest in her in particular said otherwise.

“I knew how to get to him, and it was easy. I studied the layout.” She shrugged. “Somewhat. The plans are public record, the press knows his routine.”

“Clever. You haven’t been working the game?” But he knew the answer.

“Oh God, no. I’m a National Geographic Society location scout.”

“No roots.”

“I couldn’t have any.”

“Except him.”

She blinked. “You’re jealous?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I could have told you not to trust him. Or didn’t I mention that before?”

“Now you’re just being sarcastic,” she said.

“But that doesn’t tell me what he gave you.”

“We talked.”

“So then, what did he tell you?” Frustration laced his voice.

“Do you really want to get into this right now?”

“Just so you know,” he said, taking her by the arm. “I’m not long on patience anymore.”

“Yeah, well,” she said. “You’d be surprised how stubborn I’ve gotten over the years.”

He’d already noticed that difference in her and the irony of this struck him. She’d pretended to die, while Ramos, as Garcia, pretended to live.

His problem was that eleven years hadn’t lessened her effect on him. He felt choked by it, and when he turned his head to look at her, he got the full impact of her pale, pleading eyes, the rich brown hair streaked with gold flowing wildly past her shoulders. Her skin still looked incredibly smooth, tanned, and his gaze slid to her throat, dove lower as rounded skin disappeared under the clingy neckline, the dark shorts exposing her muscled thighs.

She was still gorgeous in a kick-your-ass sorta way. More striking than delicate. Everything about her was vibrant, and very different from the woman who was shaking in her boots when she’d passed herself off as a Chechen courier and fast-talked her way around hired guns to access a faction leader. He frowned, dragging his gaze from her and staring at nothing in particular as he remembered her hand on his arm, as if she wanted human contact one last time before she faced the devils with AK-47s and bad attitudes.

That was then, he thought, and the longer he considered her orchestrated death, the more lies piled up. Her lies. She used him and, worse, Ramos was part of it. Yet Logan was the one who had suffered. Ten feet away was a woman he’d mourned. Jesus, he’d visited a gravesite with no one inside. He felt like a complete and utter fool. And while he wanted to hate her for it, his heart was screaming with joy.

She’d staged her death and hidden herself from the world to protect herself. Although he planned on getting it out of her, he didn’t think it was a good time to tell her he’d been wearing video equipment that night. A direct relay with no recording, so the Venezuelans didn’t have it, yet even if the Vice President’s security cameras didn’t catch her on film, McGill did.

It wouldn’t be long before the intelligence community knew she was alive. And for her sake, he hoped the eyes only classification kept her under wraps. Something had scared her into doing that and from the way she was behaving, it wasn’t over.

As they moved, his hand on her wrist loosened, his fingers sliding to thread with hers. She clutched back and they raced away from the explosion still lighting the night sky.

Salazar jumped back into the chopper and ordered the pilot to lift off. Yet before they made air, a second explosion tore through the van. He cursed and took the controls, struggling to get the chopper above the heat and flames. The craft bucked in the sky, rocking right, and he stabilized, lifting higher. He called up reinforcements, blanketing the city with officers and closing roads. They would find the black truck while he searched for the couple.

He flew the helicopter over the city, using heat signatures to locate the green bug of a car. Then he turned over the controls to the pilot, watching between the land and the thermal monitor. He found it, lowering the chopper, and the blades kicked back the tarp. The rusted German car sat like a fat frog in the mist.

“Send a car right there,” he ordered, then pulled off his headset and climbed between the seats. He reached for the cable and drew out a few feet before he clipped the hook on the cable and stuck his boot in the loop. Without missing a beat, he jumped. The pilot frantically hit the switch, then looked at the others. Two men gaped, the pilot only shrugged and held the craft still. As Salazar lowered to the ground, people peered through bleary windows, cracked open their doors, yet didn’t step into the light. They knew better and went back to their small lives.

Salazar slipped his foot free and hung on, then dropped to the ground. The chopper lifted and he walked to the car, laying his hand on the hood. He jerked back, smoothing his scorched hand over his pants leg, then with a penlight checked the ground. The prints were faint and dusty, and he followed the logical path into the city, the stone walls hovering over him like sentinels. He’d never cared for the city, the musty smell, the drunks and dealers crowding the streets where children once played. A car with flashing lights headed toward him and he hailed them to stop. He ordered the men out, climbed in, then drove off. Pulling out his cell, he contacted a few men he trusted, ones who understood the kind of efficient discretion he needed.

This will be over before nightfall.

In the truck, Max grabbed the GPS tracker and turned it on. A green dot glowed, showing the beacon lodged in Logan’s belt. “Logan’s going in the other direction.” He ducked to look at the sky. “Crap, the chopper’s headed toward them, too.”

“We can’t help them, not if we don’t get away,” Sebastian said as they raced from the chaos. Knifing pain bled through his hand, numbing his fingers. “Riley,” he said, “I hope you have some tricks planned.” Sebastian pointed to the right, and several blocks down, they could see the spinning lights of the police coming toward them.

“Go to that store, there, with the red front,” Riley said, pointing from the backseat.

Sebastian turned toward it and slid the SUV into the store parking lot.

“Wash it.”

“Jesus, you don’t want much, do you, gimp?”

“It’s the best I could do with limited resources.”

Sebastian left the truck and ran to the hose coiled on a rusty hook on the side of the building. He grabbed the bulk and uncoiled it toward the truck as Max turned on the water. Sebastian shot the stream at the dark truck, washing away the paint and turning the black truck a hideous light blue.

“This is it? You really think this will work?” Sebastian asked, using his hands to loosen the paint.

“Anything’s better than more torture,” Max said, trying to spray the top. Within four minutes, they were back in the truck, dark watery paint sliding into the street. The radio snapped with Spanish, orders popping back and forth.

“The checkpoints and roadblocks are closing us off,” Riley said.

“We need to go around,” Max said, focused on the map.

“Back the way we came? No way.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Max said. He adjusted the frequency on the radio, picking up the police. “They’re closing in on them.”

“We get to the CP first, agreed?” Sebastian asked, glancing in the rearview. He dropped his speed, the police vehicles closing in behind them, then blocking the streets.

Riley handed weapons over the seat.

“Max, get us out of here,” Sebastian said when they faced a police cruiser barreling toward them.

“Stop,” Max ordered.

“Hell no!”

“Pull over and stop,” Max insisted and Sebastian obeyed, but not before he laid the pistol in his lap. The police car closed in behind them.

“Any more brilliant ideas?”