Page 75 of Surge

Delaney settled her hand on his head, met Caldwell’s stare. “He smells what he smells. He is a working dog trained to sniff out chemicals—Sachaai’s lipid in particular.”

Garrett knew she didn’t need him to defend her, but he was the team leader, so he simply took her six.

Caldwell stepped closer. “You dug into my duffel to see what he was sniffing.”

“I did.” She jutted her jaw. “We are on mission. When Surge hits on Sachaai lipids, it’s my job to check it out, turn it over to Garrett. This was his second hit on your duffel.”

Caldwell stared at them, shook his head. “That’s insane.”

“What is the plastic?” Garrett asked as Zim aimed the FTIR at it.

Caldwell watched. “I have no clue. My Singapore asset gave it to me. I’ve been trying to puzzle it out ever since.” He shrugged. “Maybe it had nothing to do with Sachaai. I simply don’t know.”

Garrett stepped into his space. “We need to know why Surge hit on it.” And he needed to make a choice—choose to believe the spook or ditch him now. The latter seemed a stretch. So, believe it was.

A shrill beep sounded, and Zim scrolled through the report on the screen. “Positive for Sachaai lipids.”

“It is?” Caldwell balked, his face slack.

Garrett pulled over his laptop on the coffee table. “Plastic, silicone, Sachaai,” he murmured as he pounded the words into the search engine. He read his screen, pounded some more. “What’s the connection? It’s not . . . Work your sources.”

As everyone went to work, Garrett rubbed his chin. Maybe “shoes” was the terrorists’ code, their front, whatever. No. That just didn’t feel right. He strode to the window, squinted out at the river for a long minute, running through all they’d seen on the mission, starting at the shoe factory.

Then it hit him. Garrett sucked in a hard breath. The puzzle pieces suddenly fit. “Zim! They actually made shoes at the Singapore factory-slash-chem lab. Agree?”

“Don’t think they’d fill up the place with shoeboxes and leather and twenty-four sewing machines if they didn’t.”

Garrett sat back down, pulled out his phone, and clicked away on the search engine until—he popped out of his seat. “Caldwell, what about this?” He held his phone to the spook. “Shoemakers Extraordinaire is connected to Shoe Luxe on the web. They’re based in Jakarta.” He nodded. “Look at this listing.”

“Wow. The biggest shoe retailer in the States,” Delaney said, pointing down at the leather boots she was wearing.

“Unbelievable. I could have found that in a second.” Caldwell reached for his laptop.

Garrett snagged the computer. And Caldwell’s phone next to it. “No you don’t. No way are you going to leak this.”

Caldwell lifted his hands in innocence. “You can’t seriously believe I’m behind this or to blame.”

“You don’t leave my sight until the mission is complete.” He spun his index finger in the air. “Everyone load up. We’re heading to the Shoe Luxe warehouse.”

13

JAKARTA, INDONESIA

Of course theShoe Luxe warehouse was empty.

Exhausted and more than a little frustrated, Delaney rubbed her tight shoulder as they trudged back into the safe house after their nighttime sneak-and-peek.

Garrett dropped his pack in the entryway, moved into the kitchen, and pulled a soda out of the fridge. He slid onto the black bench at the gray kitchen table and opened it. He shoved over Caldwell’s laptop and smartphone, which hadn’t come with them. “Caldwell was obviously not the leak. Do you think I got it wrong, connecting Sachaai to Shoe Luxe?”

“I don’t think so.” Delaney let out a huge breath as she joined him in the kitchen. “Surge downed and gazed around the same way he did in the empty LD3s, so there must’ve been Sachaai vials in there, even if we found all shoes, no chems.” She filled Surge’s food and water bowls and signaled him to come for his dinner. Then she grabbed a bottle of juice from the fridge and sat across from Garrett.

“She’s absolutely right.” Zim slid in next to Delaney and sipped his energy drink. “We’re not Sachaai, so we didn’t get the memo about loading the chems onto a semi.” He frowned. “Or a boat. Or a train. Or a plane . . . How on earth are we going to find out where it went?”

“Don’t know.” At the table, Caldwell confiscated his laptop and phone with a scowl, then opened it up. He did some clicking and scrolling before shaking his head. “No street cams in the area to feed me intel.” He eyed Garrett. “Sometimes the best plans don’t work out, Bear.”

Garrett did a double take. “Umm, thank you.”

“You know I’ve been there before where things don’t work out. ’Bout time you got to see how these things sometimes happen.”

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