Page 55 of Surge

Though Garrett hesitated, his gaze found hers. And he locked it for a long second. Simply nodded.

She stopped breathing a moment, captivated by the smile crinkles around his eyes—Garrett’s light side.

His Adam’s apple bounced as he broke the connection and focused on his phone. He walked down the hall.

Holy moly, what was happening here?

“All right then. Getting my bag ready.” Zim gave her a fist bump on the way out of the room.

Laptop in hand, Caldwell headed into the kitchen and sat down at the table. His low voice rumbled as he talked with Damocles about needing a fast jet from Singapore to Jakarta.

A little bewildered and in awe of how things were changing, Delaney just sat in that straight-backed chair, absently petting Surge with her foot. She’d never been to Indonesia. Hakim, Tariq, Rashid . . . she knew what could lie ahead of them.

There was another thought she couldn’t get rid of: two times in the same meeting, Garrett had listened to her.

She could be an asset to him. As long as her stupid heart didn’t get in the way.

Because it was dangerously close to getting in the way.

9

JAKARTA, INDONESIA

“Still can’t believethey slipped out from under our noses.” Garrett slouched with his team in their green SUV, parked outside Cargo Building T63, which bore a red clay roof that matched the one on the Soekarno-Hatta/Jakarta International Airportand every building on the property.

Since there’d been no time to intercept the Combi 777, they’d done the next best thing and hired a faster jet to get them to the scheduled destination first.

Early morning sun shone strong, giving them a clear view into the wide-open building. And a view of the Combi 777 jet parked inside. Per intel’s triple-check of the flight manifest, the nine passengers in the front third of the plane were simply shipping executives not affiliated with Sachaai. But the two Sachaai containers packed with chemicals were aboard.

Garrett adjusted his ball cap. They needed to access the cargo section and get those chems. Now. People began deboarding. “I count nine leaving the passenger section.”

“Same,” Zim answered, his toe tapping as he used his long-distance camera lens to stare at T63. “You’d think they’d take their eyes off their phones long enough to deplane.”

Garrett lifted a shoulder. “The more they’re focused on their phones, the less attention they’ll pay us. But yeah, we need to get in there.”

Behind them, Surge stuck his nose between them, woofed.

Garrett shifted in his seat and scratched Surge’s ears. “You’re ready to go, aren’t you, boy? Me too.” He wanted the passengers cleared out, preferably off the entire Soekarno-Hatta property.

Delaney leaned forward, her green jacket brushing his shoulder. “Who are the people that just deplaned?”

Garrett monitored the passengers heading into the cargo building. “Executives from one of the companies shipping things from Singapore to Jakarta. Now we wait for the pilots to leave too.”

Zim indicated toward the plane. “And here they come. Crew is unloading the shipping containers into the building.” He looked back at Delaney with a grin. “They won’t be going in the wind.”

They high-fived. “Like I said.”

Conversing with one another, the pilots followed the rest of the group toward the long cargo building with large bay doors.

The building manager, no more than five feet tall, stood at the bottom of the stairs of the plane and waved at them. “Everyone’s off. Unload crew is already finished with the combi. You’ve got about an hour before the plane will be moved to the runway.”

Without another word, he caught up with the pilots on their way into the building.

“We’re clear.” Garrett flexed his hands, blew out a breath. He needed this mission to succeed so he could get his team out safely. With the chem vials.

“Stay here a minute,” he reminded Delaney in the back.

Surge woofed.

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