Page 70 of Surge

Garrett spun, stabbed a finger at her, the floor. He didn’t need her to lecture him. Delaney sat down, innocent hands in the air.

Surge jumped between them, eyes lasered on him, his growl thrumming deep in his throat.

He yanked his hand back. Great. He’d deserve to lose his hand. The shiny black Mal was dead right. He needed to get himself under control. To do that, he needed some breathing space, so he stormed into the postage-stamp yard.

12

JAKARTA, INDONESIA

They’d been betrayed,and that leak was trying to split their team in two. Sitting at the kitchen table, Delaney kept thinking about the argument last night.

This was a gray table in a shades-of-gray kitchen. The safe house here was nicer than the one in Singapore. More space but no color. Garrett walked in with his huge stainless steel coffee tumbler and aimed straight for the pot. Which he emptied into his mug.

She eyed his freshly showered wet hair and his tight black tactical shirt.

Delaney looked away, the heat in her cheeks telling her they were probably pink. She forced her attention to her plate and picked up her toast as he started a new pot of coffee.

“Sorry to interrupt your breakfast,” he said, “but it’s time to recalibrate our mission. Living room.” He strode under the arched entry between the rooms and claimed one of the armchairs, and Surge followed him in.

She shoved in the last bite of her scrambled eggs and pushed away from the table. Whatever he had in mind for this mission recalibration, she would make sure Surge’s nose was part of it after Garrett’s whole “overwhelm” comment last night.

She walked in behind Zim as he wiped peanut butter off his mouth with his hand. She pushed him from behind, and he grinned back at her, wiped his face with his hand again.

Caldwell already sat on the couch with his laptop, feet on the coffee table, frowning at his screen. He pushed his laptop to the table, then scowled at his phone, poking it. He shook his head.

Delaney slid off her shoes and socks and headed for the rocker. Surge sprawled on the floor beside her . . . eagle-eyeing Garrett. She knew Garrett was mad at Caldwell, not her. But Surge obviously still remembered he’d laid into her last night.

He’d hugged her in the container yard too. And he’d protected her—his team—in the warehouse. She took a breath. This took up way too much time in her brain.

Oh. He was watching her watch him. Yeah, anything between them would only be a distraction—for both of them. She tore her eyes away.

Garrett cleared his throat. “Let’s start. At the container yard, I got a picture of the cargo manifest. I’ve sent images to your phones. It lists shoes as the goods on the LD3s. No surprise, considering where we found the first stash. But yesterday, the containers were empty. Where’d they go? Any ideas, Caldwell?”

The CIA operative sighed and chucked his phone onto the couch. “I’ve been hunting for them, but no joy yet.”

“Those plastic tubes can’t magically disappear out of the containers.”

Caldwell leaned forward. “Yet,” Caldwell repeated. “No joy on the intel . . . yet.” He snatched up his phone and glared at Garrett, his face pinched like a rotten apple. “Like intel magically appears. I’m working on it.”

There was something about this man that made it hard for Delaney to figure out if she liked him or not. On one hand, he seemed skilled. But on the other . . . he took no small pleasure from annoying Garrett, to the point of acting like a victim about it.

Garrett’s jaw worked. He looked at his phone. “Be right back.” He put it to his ear and stalked toward the front of the house and out the door.

Had he gotten a call? She hadn’t seen his screen light up . . .

Phone in hand, she started looking at some photos.

“Garrett’s being a bear because he expects immediate and perfect intel.” Caldwell pulled his laptop to himself, peered at the screen. “But I’ve got seven different search engines looking for this freaking mother lode. Nothing. I tried to contact my HUMINT. Haven’t heard back. Garrett’s asking for the impossible.” He tossed his phone back on the couch. “Right, Delaney?”

Oh no. Delaney was not going down that conversation path with him. “You might call him Bear, but you weren’t there yesterday. You didn’t see that moment when we realized the container was empty. So yeah, he’s a little grumpy, but he’s on a mission—we all are. And I, for one, feel a little bearish about these guys getting away with the LD3 containers. And we all know, Garrett included, thataccurateintel is the right intel.”

Caldwell glared, but again picked up his phone and poked away at it.

Guess the meeting was over, and she wasn’t going to get a chance to bring up the power of Surge’s nose for the team. At least, not yet.

It had been a couple days since she’d worked with him on the desensitization of that triggering tone. She wanted to keep working it every so often, so she reached down to wake Surge up. But he wasn’t there. He’d gone off to explore the safe house again. Nah. Bet he’d sneaked outside with Garrett.

She heard a whine in the other room.

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