Page 79 of Secret Weapon

Alex had been watching, and as Ana and Hallie approached, he swung open a back door.Five seconds later, Moscow was safely stowed on board, and it was my turn.

“Hey!You shouldn’t be standing around here.”

Oh, great.A bureaucrat.A woman in an ill-fitting suit strode in my direction, hands on her hips.Why was it always the pencil pushers who had time to stick their noses in where they didn’t belong?Clearly, they didn’t have enough real work to do.

If I needed to, I’d heave her into the back of that fake ambulance in one hot second, but for now, I just shrugged.

“They told me to come here and wait for the next ambulance.Some guy puked everywhere.”A lazy genius had left a spray bottle of sanitiser hooked over the handle of the cart, and I held it out to her.“You wanna clean it?”

She took a step back.“Actually, you stay there.”

“You sure?”I checked my watch.Five minutes, forty-seven seconds.“I’m due for a break.”

“No, no… Uh, I have a meeting.”

Annnnnd she was gone.I wheeled the Mule to the ambulance, Alex grabbed the front of the cart, and once we were inside, Ana slammed the rear door.

Six minutes.

That was okay.

“One of us should stay with Ottie.”Who would be best for the job?“Ana.”

Hallie raised a hand.“I could do that?”

“If there are more of these men, you’ll be able to handle them,da?”

“Uh, I’ll find Ana’s regular clothes for her.”

Hallie turned to rummage in the laundry cart, and I caught Ana’s eye.She smiled back at me.Was she having fun?I was having fun today.Although I still needed coffee.

And I also needed to get to the Craft Cabin.

That meant we had approximately one hour to extract the required information from these assholes, and two out of the three were un-fucking-conscious.Alex had trussed up his prisoner with a selection of bandages and stuffed gauze pads into his mouth.Perhaps he’d know something, but Moscow was the team leader.This would be an interesting logistical challenge.What was I meant to do, leave the ambulance in the store’s parking lot and poke at them between customers?

“Time to go,” Ana muttered.“See you later?”

“Maybe.”

Every time I prepared to say goodbye, something else went wrong, so I turned away instead.

“Give me your car key?”she asked.

Alex handed it over, and I could hardly argue.Ana using my vehicle made sense operationally, but it meant the farewell was out of my hands; Iwouldsee her later.

“Get back to Ottie.”

We were on our way before Ana made it to the building, and I blew out a breath.After yesterday’s fuck-up, and this morning’s, I’d begun to doubt both my abilities and my instincts, but the takedown in the hospital had been textbook.Even Lieutenant General Zacharov couldn’t have found much to criticise.As Alex put distance between us and the scene of the crime, I hauled the Mule out of the laundry cart and laid him on the floor beside the driver.It was standing room only in the back now.Wherever they’d found this ambulance, it was the real deal, and I selected a vial of ketamine from the range of goodies.The driver got a dose because he really didn’t need to hear what we were discussing, and I kept the rest to replenish my own supplies.

“Should I sit in the front?”Hallie asked.

“Unless you want to deal with these gentlemen when they start to wake up.”

“I’ll sit in the front.”

“Where are we going?”Alex asked.“Is there a plan?”

“Head south.”

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