Page 11 of Set Fire to This Cardhouse

It’s Mike who turns away first. He pushes his door open and jumps out with the lithe energy of a predator. After a reassuring touch to feel the gun under his shirt, Toby opens the passenger door, hops out and inhales deeply, filling his lungs with the fresh evening air that comes on the heels of a hot day in the desert. He tastes salt on his lips, and the gritty bitterness of sand.

Squaring his shoulders, he averts his eyes from the rapidly dwindling brightness, the ocean seeming to soak up what little light remains at the western edge of the sky. Then he follows Mike into the shadows.

***

Similar in style to most of the buildings here, their target location is a two-floored affair, which lets Toby hope that its similarities extend to lack of a basement. Unfortunately, the architect wasn’t a fan of bright spaces and replaced normal windows with uninspired rectangular holes, dimly lit against the rest of the walls and too small for even the most dexterous adult to squeeze through. Thick walls; might be sound-proof.

They creep close without raising any alarms, bellies to the ground, and separate. While Mike slithers around to the back, Toby moves to assess the situation on the other side.

When he peers around the corner, he finds the front door standing ajar, light spilling out to paint a bright stripe onto the ground. He creeps closer, listening intently.

Footsteps. A dissatisfied grunt. Rustle of paper.

The light flickers, steadies again.

He stills, rising up on his fingertips, ready to beat a hasty retreat.

“C’est de la foutaise,” someone says. Bullshit. The footsteps continue, someone pacing in a circle, probably on the phone. Heavy boots.

Torn, Toby hesitates for a second, then inches forward, hugging the ground. Quiet, quiet.

“On doit agir.” We need to make a move.

Through the gap between door and frame, Toby catches a pair of boots passing by, spots a machine gun before it disappears from sight again. Further back, a second man is perched on a chair, leafing through some paper. Young.

“D’accord. Bon.” All right.

Toby retreats as quietly as he came. Using a neighboring building for cover, he waits for Mike to join him.

It doesn’t take long: one moment Toby’s alone, the next Mike is right there, a fluid quality to his every move that Toby can’t help but admire. He himself was built for efficiency and precision rather than grace.

“Think I found them,” Mike hisses. “On the other side. Hard to see through the window, but—”

“Actual window?” Toby interrupts. “Can we get in?”

“Too small. Same as on this side.” Mike shifts. His knee presses into Toby’s thigh, and Toby counts to three before he puts an inch of space between them. “Got a look inside, though,” Mike continues—which means he found some way to climb up. “Saw a door, guy posted outside. No windows for the room he’s guarding.”

Jackpot.

Toby breathes a little easier—they’re in the right place. For now. “Think they might be about to move,” he tells Mike, quickly sketching out what little he caught. “Guy was speaking French, by the way.”

With Toby’s senses on high alert, adrenaline buzzing in his stomach, he registers Mike’s quiet hum like a ghost touch, travelling down his spine. He dismisses it as irrelevant to the job.

“Mali?” Mike suggests. “Or Senegal.”

“Possible. Either way, I’m getting an amateur vibe.” Which isn’t necessarily a good thing, could make them more likely to act on irrational impulse. Nothing to be done about it. Shifting on his haunches, Toby keeps an eye on the building. “So, since you saw the layout, what’s your take?”

***

What most movies don’t show is that the action tends to go down fast, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. Most of the time goes into preparation, travel, information and equipment gathering, and then, afterwards, there is paperwork to complete because the Agency has yet to come across a form it doesn’t like—and that’s nothing to say of the slew of additional documentation required if the whole thing kicks off judicial proceedings.

Executing a plan is the short-lived culmination of all that prep work, and doubles as a bridge to the work that comes after.

***

It’s two steps between the door and the pacing terrorist in the front room. Toby can’t miss, really.

Before the first body even hits the ground, Mike is already past, sprinting for the corridor that leads to the back room. Toby’s second shot finds its echo inside the house—it’s the Walther, Mike’s Walther, thank God—and then silence, a heart-stopping second of it.

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