Page 78 of Very Special Forces

"Not onebit. He even sounded thrilled."

Ilaughed, then checked my phone and set an alarm for six hourshence. "Why are we doing such short shifts? Not that I'mcomplaining."

"Thethieves will be on high alert for anyone watching, especially if adeal is going down soon. They might panic when they realizeMcTavett’s family are gone and their man missing. I can't thinkthat they would want to keep that tank in the warehouse any longerthan necessary and it makes sense they'll move it at night whenthere are less eyes to notice a vehicle of that size. I want tomake sure my people aren't around for too long and I want us all totake different positions. I'll be watching from the street. Delgadowill hide in one of the abandoned buildings. You're getting thecar."

"Each ofus alone? Is that wise?" I thought about the weapons the guardswere toting. Given that they were professional mercenaries and Iwas a wisecracking former temp, I figured their aim was probablybetter and faster than mine. I didn't want a bullet-shaped hole inme. I had the starring role in a wedding!

"None ofus will be alone. I've assigned team members from the riskmanagement department to key support locations. We'll all be inradio contact at all times and there will be a backup van hidden ablock away. Plus, the Army will take up strategic positions lessthan a mile away. The moment they're ready to roll in, we all getthe hell out."

"Thissounds dangerous."

"You canbow out if you want. I don't want anyone doing anything they'reuncomfortable with and you've done enough already to help yourbuddies. We can take it from here."

Ithought about it. Then I thought about how it would look if theboss's fiancée did bow out. I would look weak and it might seemlike I was currying favors. I spent my whole private investigativecareer avoiding scenarios like that. This wouldn't be the time tostart.

"I'min," I said.

"Let'srun through the plan," said Solomon, starting for the boardroom. Amoment later, the office doors opened and the rest of our teamstrolled in, along with several members of the risk team. They allmade a beeline for the boardroom.

Igrabbed my notepad and pen and followed him in.

~

"Huuurrrr-sushi-hmmm-mmmmm," groaned Lily as she chopstickeda shrimp nigiri into her mouth. "I love it. I love Poppy beingasleep. I love you."

"Loveyou too," I said as I reached for another delicious piece of sushi.Lunch and Lily's company were exactly what I needed to get my mindoff the challenging plan Solomon so eloquently delivered to theteam earlier. It wasn't enormously complicated but very risky. Allwe had to do was get in and out of the area without raising anysuspicion about unusual movement in vehicular or foottraffic.

Giventhat the tank was hidden in an area few people frequented, that initself posed a problem but Solomon had already thought ahead andoutlined a plan. For me, it was going to be easy. I just needed todrive in, park on the block he designated and hunker down for acouple of hours while monitoring the road for tank movement oranything else unusual. If someone stopped by my car and asked mewhat I was doing, I would say that my radiator had overheated and Ineeded to wait for it to cool down. If I were offered a tow, Iwould politely refuse, claiming a family member would collect me ifthe engine didn't restart quickly. It was easy enough a ruse toswallow and if it wasn't believed, there would be operatives nearbyto assist me if anything went wrong.

So far,I wasn't worried. That is, not terribly worried. I was mildlyworried since watching mercenaries wasn't the safest job, but theonly thing worse than that right now would be if the nature of thejob got back to my mom and dad. Then I would never hear the end ofit. Even worse, one or both of my parents might insist on joiningme.

"Youlook worried," said Lily. "Is it the wedding? Is there a problemwith the dress?"

"Everything is fine with the wedding. There's nothing left toarrange. The dress is almost ready to be picked up and all we haveleft to do is the rehearsal dinner." That was exactly whatFrancesca told me when I returned her ill-timed earliercall.

"I can'twait. I'm so excited."

"Ichanged your bridesmaid dress to neon orange," I said,teasing.

Lilystopped chewing and her eyes widened. "Okay," she said.

"Crushedtaffeta."

"Ohh,"she whispered as she gulped.

"There'sa hat too." I couldn't help myself.

A tearslid from Lily's eye. "Uh-huh?"

"It'sstraw. It has a big ribbon bow and..."

Lilyswatted me with her chopsticks and laughed in relief. "Now I knowyou're kidding, but before that I was prepared to wear neonorange."

"I wouldnever do that to you. Even I know the limitations of friendship."We both eyed the last piece of sushi and I wondered if Lily wasthinking the same as me: did those limitations extend to thatpiece?

"Let'shalve it," said Lily.

I noddedand she roughly chopped it in half, then we both dunked our sharesin soy sauce and ate happily. Just as I swallowed, I looked up andwaved at the tall blond woman walking towards me.

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