Page 50 of No Time Off

I closed my eyes. “I don’t like it.”

“I agree, it’s not ideal. But our options are severely limited. It would be golden to catch them discussing their plans and the coup. Manny already has some solid intel on the connection between Maivia and the Chinese—he’s got photos and videos he took during his own personal surveillance of the compound. I’m going to send all that to Candace tonight. We’re collecting the other evidence we need, but we still need a smoking gun, a solid tie between this coup planning and execution and the Chinese.”

“So why doesn’t Manny break in?” I asked. “Why does it have to be you?”

“You know why. He’s nearly thirty years older than me.” Slash scrubbed his face with his hands. “While he’s sharp and certainly capable, I’m not convinced he could stealthily climb the fence and get out of the compound undetected. Look, the one guard I saw at the gate was barely engaged. They’re stretched thin in terms of manpower. They’ll be relying heavily on the security cameras, so if we can bring those down or use them to our advantage, it should be easy for me to stroll in and plant the recorders. In and out within ten minutes.”

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. “Okay, I’m in. I don’t like you putting yourself in harm’s way, but I understand the reasoning and the urgency. I bring down the cameras, you plant the devices and get out. Then what?”

“As soon as Manny and I return to the farmhouse, we get the prime minister out of here. She’s been in this spot too long and is in imminent danger of discovery.”

“It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours,” I exclaimed.

“This is a small island, and the longer the prime minister remains out of their grasp, the more dangerous she is to their plans. They will, or already are, ramping up search efforts to find her. We must keep her out of their hands and get her the resources and information to fight back. While we need to worry about everyone’s safety, those are our priorities.”

I sighed. “Well,mypriority is finishing our honeymoon with lots of relaxation, but that doesn’t appear to be in the cards.”

Slash stopped and took my hands. “I promise you,cara, we’ll have our honeymoon. But now we need to stay focused on the endgame to make sure we get out of this situation alive.”

“I know, I’m just frustrated.” I squeezed his hand. “But this situation did precipitate a new addition to the marriage code, number four. We give each other grace when we’re irritable or scared in high-stress situations.”

“Grace under pressure,” he said. “I like it. Number four is a must for us, given our line of work and that little black cloud of ours.”

I stared at him for a moment not sure I heard what I thought I heard. “Wait a minute, you saidourblack cloud. Are you implying you want to share ownership of my diabolical puffball?”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “Your puffball is my puffball. If it affects you, it affects me. Together we’ll weather any storm our little black cloud decides to unleash on us.”

My heart stumbled in my chest. “Oh, Slash, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me besides our marriage vows…twice.” My thumb touched the back of my engagement and wedding rings. “Thank you.”

He smiled and cupped my cheeks. “You can’t even fathom how you’ve saved me,cara. I can’t live this life without you, which is why I’d do anything to protect you, even against that infernal cloud.Te adoro. Il cuore mio.I adore you, my heart.”

He kissed me, and I wrapped my arms around his waist. We stood like that for a long time. Then I reluctantly pulled back, knowing we had to keep working.

“So, now what?” I asked.

Slash shoved his fingers through his hair. “I gather the intel and photos Manny has collected and send them to Candace as soon as possible. Then Manny and I will try to convince the prime minister and her team to move as soon as we’ve returned from the compound in the morning. How about you?”

“Things are progressing, but it’s going a lot slower than I’d like. The bandwidth is killing me. However, Elvis and Xavier—who are not hampered by said bandwidth—have made good progress on getting the information we need on Signet and the compound. They haven’t penetrated their networks, though, and doubt they can do so, unobserved, to meet our timelines. They recommend we pursue the Maivia angle. I’ve made good progress on that front and hope to have control of his government account shortly.”

“Good work all around. Time is not our friend.”

“It’s not. Also, Xavier reports that Wally, Piper, and Brandon are close to hacking into the government’s social media accounts and webpages. I expect they’ll be ready when the time comes.”

“They will.” He gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll be back shortly.”

I nodded, and he left the room. After drinking some more water and another stretch or two, I got back to work on my laptop researching the cameras Wi-Fi router’s possible vulnerabilities.

Slash returned a bit later, letting me know the prime minister had agreed to move to a different location in the morning and already had a safe place secured.

“There’s a yacht anchored just offshore that has already been searched,” Slash explained. “It belongs to a close friend of hers. It will be stocked before she gets there, and gassed up, in case she needs to make a quick exit.”

“Smart to choose a place already cleared,” I said. “Although, as you know, I’m not much into boats.”

“Hopefully it won’t have to set sail,” he said, patting my shoulder.

We decided to work for a bit longer, so Slash set up his computer next to mine, and hours blurred into night as we worked in tandem on penetration options. At some point, Rangi brought us food and drink, but otherwise, no one bothered us. At some point, I had a sudden thought and went and found Rangi.

“Rangi, we’re going to be heavy users of the local Wi-Fi bandwidth tomorrow. It likely will be critical to our success or failure. I will need every byte that your system can manage. Could you arrange to have everyone log off the network before going to bed tonight and not log back on until I give the all-clear signal tomorrow?”

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