Page 39 of The Wild Charge

“What do you want?”

Somehow, lost in his own thoughts, introspective in a way that could get him killed in the field, he’d missed the fact that they’d made it nearly back to the hotel, and that they were currently sitting in the McDonald’s drive-through line.

“Oh,” he said, flatly, while his pulse jumped, because something must be wrong with him; he never failed to take note of his surroundings. “Fish sandwich.”

Tenny made a disgusted sound from the front seat. “Do you think that’s actually fish?”

“Fish sandwich, please,” he repeated.

They ordered, and made it back to the hotel, and up to their rooms without incident. No more lights, no sirens.

“No one had our tag number,” Fox said, self-assured, as he unpacked the food onto the small, round table in his room. “They won’t find us tonight.”

Rather than sit at the table with them – there were only two chairs – Tenny sat cross-legged on the edge of one of the beds and opened his Big Mac up on his lap, raining sesame seeds down onto the coverlet.

“Slob,” Fox accused.

“Wanker,” Tenny shot back, and took a bite; spoke around it, as he was wont to do. The real Tenny had horrible table manners, and Reese found that…something. Endearing, maybe. “So that was a complete waste of time.”

“You think?” Fox asked, mildly. He held three fries in one hand, and dug the other into his jacket pocket; came out with a fistful of flash drives.

Tenny affected only mild interest – a shrug as he took another bite.

Reese swallowed his mouthful of sandwich – maybe it wasn’t real fish, but he liked the taste all the same – and said, “You found something?”

Fox abandoned his dinner in favor of pulling out his phone, which he then held up for Reese to see across the table. It was a photo, blurry in the way of all cellphone pics of computer screens, but zoomed in so that the bright yellow, spray-painted symbol on a stretch of brick wall was clearly visible. An upside-down triangle.Yield. Abacus’s calling card.

“This was by the back door,” Fox explained, retracting his phone and picking up his burger. “It’ll take some time to sort through the files I pulled, but just based on what they had pulled up on their monitors, plus the whole security situation, I think it’s safe to say they’re involved. My guess, based on the sheer incompetence of the morons you two fought tonight, and going by what we’ve learned from Luis, Abacus outsources to small-time places like Nine. They probably fund the operation – chump change for the high rollers at the top – and arrange for transport of the girls, but they don’t have a hand in the day-to-day operations.”

Tenny snorted. “There won’t be a paper trail. They’re working through so many chains of intermediaries that we could go three levels up and still only have hold of a subordinate.”

Fox said, “You’re right. We won’t ever get all the intel necessary to make an arrest – but we aren’t making an arrest.”

Slowly, Tenny’s expression clouded – went from his usual show of flippant disregard to outright frustration. He set his Big Mac back in its box and licked sauce off his thumb, scowling. “So then why in bloody hell are we wasting time with all this?” He gestured to the room around them, to the night they’d just had. “Luis gave you that list of names. Let us” – he gestured to Reese – “kill them all, and then it’s problem solved!”

Fox’s answering gaze was patient. “You’re going to have to stop thinking like that.”

“Like what?” Tenny bristled.

“Like a government attack dog whose handlers can make any and all problems go away.”

“I gotresults. I didn’t just sit around with my thumb–”

“You executed hits,” Fox cut in, evenly. “And yeah, sure, you were good at it. But then they put you back underground, after, under lock and key, and no one could touch you. So what if the hit you carried out resulted in an embassy bombing? In a truck plowing through civilians? That wasn’t your business. You went out on assignment, and then waited for the next one.”

A muscle leaped dangerously in Tenny’s clenched jaw. “I–”

“How many times do we have to have this conversation?” Fox pressed. “Things aren’t like they used to be – they can’t be. You’re part of a club. If you ran up to New York and killed everyone on our list, do you think there wouldn’t be retribution? You think the Dogs wouldn’t have to face the blowback? Do you actually think you could pull it off without being caught on film? Recognized?”

“I never have before,” Tenny gritted out.

“Yeah? How sure of that are you? How could you have known, down in the basement, chained up and muzzled?”

Tenny sucked in a huge breath, chest lifting – and then stood and stormed from the room. The cheap prints on the wall rattled in their frames when he slammed the door.

Reese took one last bite of his sandwich, and made to stand.

“Wait,” Fox said.

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