Page 70 of Wicked Suspicion

“Fair enough. Why are you pissed off? You didn’t expect us to head out immediately.”

He stayed quiet, but Oz didn’t push. Lurch would talk when he was ready. It took a while.

“I don’t like the plan.”

Oz knew that. Everyone who’d been at the safe house knew it, too. “Why not?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard the argument. He needed Lurch to start thinking and stop reacting. Sometimes asking questions got the job done.

“For one thing, I don’t think it’s going to work. For another, it requires we wait until the final day that Ramirez promised to keep Nyx safe. What if something happens to cause a delay? There’s no buffer.”

There was a small buffer, but clearly, it wasn’t enough for Lurch. It didn’t take a genius to come up with why. “Nyx will be okay,” Oz said, trying to choose his words carefully. “From everything you’ve said about her, and from the little I saw when you escaped from Vargas, she’s a strong woman. A capable woman. She can handle herself.”

“I know she can. That’s not the problem.”

They had to stop at a traffic light. The handful of people waiting with them tried to distance themselves from the two mercenaries. Oz found it humorous but considering the character of most of the mercs down here, it probably wasn’t the worst survival strategy. Grabbing the collar of his fatigue shirt, he dropped his ponytail between it and his T-shirt. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but he’d take what he had.

Once they were moving again, he asked, “What is the problem, dude?”

There was a hesitation, and then Lurch said, “What if Nyx thinks I abandoned her? What if after a day or two, she believes I’m not returning for her?”

Oz fought off the need to grin. Lurch wouldn’t appreciate his amusement. “She’s not going to think that.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t she? As time passes, she’ll have to wonder if I took the easy way out.”

“I only saw the two of you together for a few moments, but she trusts you.” Lurch started to say something, but Oz cut him off. “Not trusts you because she has no other choice. Your Nyx has complete faith in you. It was in her eyes when she looked at you. Trust me when I tell you she knows you’d have to be dead not to come back for her.”

No comment. Oz let him think about it. He was keeping a close eye on their surroundings, making sure they weren’t being followed because the rebels were looking for Lurch, no doubt about it, but this section of Trujillo was lightly traveled. The building to his left was either really old or it hadn’t been cleaned in decades. The first floor was painted green, the second story was beige, and the balcony was orange. It was part business, part apartment building, and there were burglar bars on all the lower floor windows.

Powerlines ran everywhere, along the street, crossing the street, and there was a pole keeping them aloft about every twenty feet. Oz suspected it had something to do with the age of the city, but it could just as easily have been cheaper to do it this way. Then government officials could pocket the savings for their personal gain.

They went several more blocks before Lurch said, “She means something to me.”

“I know, dude, and so did almost everyone else at the house. You’re lucky BD had his own relationship while on this op or he’d have your head on a platter.”

They were growing closer to the historic district and the homes here were each painted a different color—green next to blue, next to red, next to orange. It gave the block a sense of happiness, but Oz doubted it was true. More likely people had bought whatever color of paint they could get for cheap.

“The colonel is never going to believe I have the weapons,” Lurch said, breaking the silence.

“He’ll believe for a little while.”

“The crate is different from other weapons crates.”

Oz nodded. “True, but how many people are aware of that? Those weapons haven’t been distributed yet, not even to our own troops, and while they were stolen last year, we recovered them. The only people in this area who might ID the crate work for Torres, and he’s not involved in this mess.”

“Maybe,” Lurch allowed.

“Probably,” Oz corrected. “And about it not working? The plan is to buy time to get in close without being shot at. That’s all it’s supposed to do. It has nothing to do with fooling Ramirez for long. It only needs to be plausible enough to get into his encampment.”

“Yeah.” Lurch stopped, and ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end even more than usual. “You really think Nyx trusts me enough to know I’m coming for her no matter what?”

He needed to wait a minute to make sure his amusement wasn’t in his voice. “Lurch, there isn’t a doubt in my mind. She is one hundred percent behind you. You’re a lucky man to have a woman believe in you that much.” Oz barely paused before he said, “We’re getting close to the market. The rebels will be looking for you there.”

“Shit.” Lurch changed course.

Oz gave him a few minutes before asking, “Where are we going, anyway?”

Shaking his head, Lurch said, “Who fucking knows? I just needed to move. I couldn’t stay in that house any longer, not once I was overruled.”

“There’s a restaurant a few blocks from the convent. Why don’t we have lunch and you can tell me all about your woman.” His teammate’s tenseness had eased, and Oz clapped him on the shoulder. “Are you sending her back home when we get her out?”

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