Page 2 of Set Fire to This Cardhouse

She gives them both a smile before she retreats with a quick glance at Liu. Her steps are silent on the thick carpet, and Toby wants a carpet just like that at home because it must feel great to walk around on five inches of pure money at all times. Not that he’s home much.

Taking a sip of his coffee, he groans in delight; the temperature is perfect, a note of chocolate mixing with just a hint of bitterness. “This,” he says around another mouthful, “is what I should be drinking all the time. I would be a much happier employee if you let me have this on a regular basis. Seriously. I’d shine your shoes if you let me have this whenever I want.”

Liu grins. “You’re easy, man.”

“Proud of it, too.”

Liu raises both brows, shaking his head. Then his gaze focuses on something behind Toby, his expression turning serious and his tone smooth, business-like. “Agent Redding. Thank you for joining us.”

Twisting around in his chair, Toby takes in slender fingers wrapped around a cardboard cup with the same inscription as the one now sitting abandoned on Liu’s desk. Next up: cargo pants hanging off lean hips, an unbuttoned black shirt over a white top, strong arms. Toby’s gaze stops on a lovingly tanned, even face. In his early thirties, Redding is certainly easy on the eyes. It could prove a problem when the aim is to stay unnoticed, as evidenced by the fact that Toby would have remembered their first encounter even if he hadn’t been trained to pay attention to his surroundings.

“Okay,” he says, nodding at Liu. “Differently as in: no one taught him how to dress for an average office setting.”

“Excuse me?” Redding’s brows draw together, a steep crease appearing between them. He steps into the room and closes the door before crossing his arms, leaning back against thick wood that comes with a core of steel. The once-over he gives Toby is quick, but focused.

“You” —Toby gestures with his free hand, the one that isn’t clutching heavenly coffee— “are wearing cargo pants. Which sets you apart from the normal office commuter crowd, something we are specifically trying to avoid around here. Hence our dress code.” With a one-sided shrug, he raises his porcelain cup in a toast. “That said, I hope your soy latte is palatable. My coffee wasn’t, so I found a better one.”

“Sorry the first one wasn’t worth the wait.” Redding grins very suddenly, and it changes his entire appearance, makes him look mischievous and even more attractive. “Colorful language, by the way.”

Toby shrugs. “The kid needed ages to handle your order. I don’t suffer fools well, fair warning.”

He’s joking, mostly. Even though the dress code exists for a reason, and he severely hopes Redding is better at following instructions in the field.

Redding’s grin disappears as suddenly as it came. He pushes away from the door, drawing closer with easy grace and a narrow-eyed look at Toby. “Your point?”

“No point.” Toby sniffs his coffee and keeps his tone pleasant. “Although I do wonder how you managed to be late even though you left before me.”

“Mr. Redding,” Liu intersects evenly. “Welcome, please have a seat. I see you’ve already met Toby Brown. He’ll be your partner while you’re working with us.”

Redding doesn’t sit down immediately; first, he greets Liu, then offers his hand to Toby with a skeptical glance at Toby’s tie and a smooth, “Mike Redding. Pleasure to meet you.” The last part comes with a subtle note of doubt, and yeah, the reserved judgment is mutual.

“Mr. Redding, I’m Toby Brown. Pleasure’s all mine, of course.” Toby rises slightly to shake Redding’s hand. He isn’t above tightening his grip, just to see how Redding will react, and gets his instant answer in the form of an iron hold that lasts slightly longer than necessary. They’re both competitive; this bodes well. Not.

“Please.” Redding’s smile is all teeth. “Just Mike is fine.”

Mike. All right. Chances are that’s the only part of his name that’s genuine; agents who are sent out to do field work don’t risk revealing themselves, and while Mike might be used to doing things differently, that’s one rule that applies nearly unilaterally. Sometimes, it leads to a meeting of two color-inspired fake names—brown and red? Either someone with a sense of humor put them together, or theirs is a star-crossed partnership, which suggests a violent ending and mutual death. Like Romeo and Juliet, who killed themselves. Like Bonnie and Clyde, who died in a rain of bullets.

Anyway.

Nodding as he sits back down, Toby replies with a curt, “Toby, please.”

“Great.” Liu waits for Mike to take a seat before he leans forward, lacing his fingers on top of his papers. “To expand on those introductions… Toby, Mike originally trained with the SEALs, so that’s a skill set you might want to consider. His specialty is getting in and out of difficult spaces, alive.”

“The last part, right there?” Toby says. “That’s a useful addendum because, see, anyone can exit a difficult space in a coffin.”

A grin flashes over Liu’s face before his expression turns smooth again and he turns to Mike. “Now, Toby is one of our best, and he’ll be your immediate superior while you’re assigned to us. Strategy and information gathering are his forte, including hacking into computer systems.” He gives them a second to digest this. “I’m putting one and one together and sending you to India, black bag job. We’ve identified a factory that might be shipping weapons to the Taliban via Pakistan. What we lack is evidence.” Liu leans back with a self-satisfied smile. “I believe you’re perfectly matched to address that problem.”

Toby gives Mike’s cargo pants a quick sideways glance and suppresses a sigh. Far be it from him to doubt Liu’s assessment, of course.

***

Before parting ways again, they’ve been given two identical folders with instructions, along with untraceable cell phones to contact each other. The night before Toby’s flight leaves, he selects Mike’s name from the very short list of pre-programmed numbers and calls.

When Mike picks up after two rings, Toby hears voices in the background, the connection disturbed by what might be wind, or possibly the sound of waves given the regular pattern of ebb and swell. “Toby?” Mike asks.

“Yeah. You free to talk?”

“Sure, yeah.” As everything quiets down on the other end of the line, Mike appears to wander away from the source of the background noise. “I got my plane ticket today, flying out next week. You’re leaving earlier, right?”

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