Page 30 of Nanny for the Mercenaries

“I’ve got to take a piss,” I said on the radio.

“No problem,” Archer replied. His tone changed as he switched channels. “This is Mathos Two. We need extra coverage in sector nine while one of our boots on the ground takes five.”

“Copy, Mathos. Shifting a neighboring unit to add some redundancy.”

The Grand Hotel Oslo was one block ahead, and across the street was a McDonald’s. I decided the hotel would have nicer bathrooms and headed inside. It was an old building, with a grand staircase that curved up to a second-floor balcony. Dozens of men and women were lingering around in formal attire; it looked like a wedding or something. I decided that a sign labeled “BADEROM” was Norwegian for “bathroom,” and after following a hallway, my guess proved correct.

“Nailed it,” I muttered to myself as I went inside. I did actually have to take a leak, but I wanted to get the text out of the way first. That ended up being a lot harder than I expected, though. I typed—and deleted—at least a dozen messages before finally settling on something simple.

Me: Hey, are we okay? Is it weird now?

Kettlebells: What do you mean? Why wouldn’t we be okay?

I gawked at the text. What did she mean, what do I mean? There was no way she was confused about what I was referring to! Or did she want me to come right out and repeat what happened this morning?

My brain immediately assumed the worst scenario:she wants a documented admission of what happened. She was going to sue us or something. Well, fuck. I’d messed things up this time, even though nothingactuallyhappened and it was all just a misunderstanding.

Before I could continue with my anxiety death-spiral, I heard a sound in one of the bathroom stalls. Not just any sound: a click. Everything else fell away from my concern, because I knew that sound intimately.

It was the sound of someone loading a magazine into a gun.

Slowly, I crouched down. European bathroom stalls didn’t have those stupid gaps in the door like American ones, so I couldn’t see anything. I stood up without making a sound. Was it someone at the wedding? Or maybe another security guy for the peace conference? No, it couldn’t be that. Another security agent wouldn’t be loading his sidearm in the fucking bathroom.

I washed my hands in the sink, then left the bathroom. Out in the hall, a bunch of bridesmaids were giggling while looking at a video on someone’s phone. It would have been better if they weren’t there, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it without raising suspicions.

I leaned against the wall and pretended to look at my phone while straining to listen for noises in the bathroom. Two minutes passed. Then a third. The guy was taking a while. Should I radio it in as a suspicious person? I began questioning what I had heard. I was certain of it in the moment, but now I wondered…

The door opened and a man in a chef uniform walked out of the bathroom. He turned right and walked away from me, back toward the lobby. There was a peace conference badge on his hip. Underneath his smock was a bulge that had to be the gun.

I started following him. “Excuse me, sir?” I flashed my own security credentials. “I’d like to ask you—”

The moment he saw my face, he bolted. I was ready for that, and closed the distance within seconds. He was reaching into his smock as I tackled him from behind, which sent the bridesmaids screaming out into the lobby.

When his hand came out of his smock, a gun was in it. A 25mm Tokarev, some unimportant part of my brain noted while my active instincts grabbed his wrist and twisted until I heard somethingsnap. He cried out and dropped the gun, which I kicked away before kneeling on his back. From the moment he ran, the whole thing probably took four seconds.

“Transnistria tilhører Russland!” he shouted. It sounded like Norwegian spoken with a thick Russian accent. “Død for NATO!”

I zip-tied his wrists together, ignoring all the shouts and stares from the wedding party. “Command, this is Mathos One. I need assistance in the Grand Oslo Hotel. I got someone.”

12

Trish

“Trish?” Lisa said on the phone. She sounded groggy. “What time is it?”

“Crap! I forgot about the time change,” I replied. “Sorry. It’s already the afternoon here. I can call back later if you want…”

I heard my best friend groan. “No, ugh. It’s fine. I’m up now. Is everything okay?”

I paused to glance over at Kaylee. She was playing with a coloring book on the ground, her crayons arrayed around her like debris. “Something happened. With Jordy.”

“Who?”

“Brownie,” I replied. “His real name is Jordy.”

“Brownies?” Kaylee suddenly piped up excitedly. “Are we making brownies?”

Damnit. “Maybe later. I don’t know if we have all the ingredients.”

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