He surreptitiously checked the outbound passenger shuttle schedules. Fuck! Two hour mechanical launch delay. This totally sucks. Okay, not a real problem. It was still well within the effective span of his diversion, it was just that the other launch time was so sweet.
His change of clothes and ID was in a locker with the money and minimal luggage, all ready to go. He had another couple of hours to kill, that’s all.
“Hey, Sunday, wanna play me a battle or two of Warlord?” He wiggled his PDA.
Cally sat on the closed seat in the lone stall of the office women’s room. The only problem with this diuretic was it tended to lose potency and acquire an aftertaste if you mixed the water-soluble combination too far ahead of time. She was pretty sure she could make an opportunity to get into that last, guarded room tonight. Which meant she’d need this within a couple of hours. One eyedropper full in his beer would guarantee sending him running out.
She stowed the bottle in her purse, pulling out a data cube for her PDA. No telling what cracking programs she’d need. Best to have them all on tap. Still, she checked the seal on the small, wide-mouthed jar of vinegar, just in case.
Back in the office, she puttered around her office waiting for Pryce to get back with dinner. She had asked him to get beer and hot wings. Everybody drank beer with wings.
Tonight they had no preset time limit. Beed’s wife had apparently finally insisted on at least one quiet evening together at home. It was a damned shame to waste it by drugging Pryce, but she couldn’t let her hormones get in the way of her job. Besides, when she found the identity of the leak, and sooner or later she would, it would be all over without a goodbye, anyway.
But maybe she wouldn’t find it tonight. It could be wherever Beed went on those long inspection walks of his. Maybe even over at the detention center. It was certainly secure enough.
Persuading Beed to take her along would be easy enough. All she’d have to do was provide him with even a thin excuse. The horny bastard would jump at the offer of more time to get his hand in the cookie jar.
She smiled sadly as she heard the outer office door. It really was too bad she had to do this, but it was the best way she knew to cover her search time while leaving him totally unharmed. Well, other than his dignity. She pulled her game face firmly on, grinning wickedly at him as he came in her open door.
“Mmmm. Something smells good.” She inhaled appreciatively. “Dinner smells pretty good, too.”
“Cute.” He gave her a sidelong glance as he took the beer bottles and to-go boxes out of the bag. “Did you want to get to the food at all? I mean, if you’re not hungry…” He trailed off with a slow, predatory grin.
“Um, actually I am hungry. For food, I mean. First.” She let her eyelids droop a bit, letting how much she wanted him show on her face. There was a tight pain in her chest. Sometimes she hated her job.
“Okay.” He opened the beer bottles and went to get his desk chair. She didn’t need the ruse she’d planned, after all.
It only took a second to reach into her desk drawer and put a dropper-full of the drug into his beer.
Chapter Fifteen
Where the hell are they? Morrison was becoming more and more certain, as he avoided checking his watch for the tenth time, that they had been played. He had been in place for one hour, two and a half pints, one shot of whiskey, and two sober pills. He’d taken the first before coming in the door, and the second just now. They’d break down the alcohol in his stomach before it got to his bloodstream. Well, most of it. Ten percent did get through, but his liver could handle that.
The Wexford Pub was a little hole in the wall that served lamb stew, soda bread, and greasy fish and chips, accompanied by beer or booze as cheap as it came or as good as you could afford. From the smell, what most patrons afforded most nights was cheaper than shit.
He carefully avoided looking at the three men and two women scattered around the pub who were his, and pretended an interest in the soccer game on the ancient television mounted on one wall. Boring sport — no good fights at all. And he couldn’t even hear it over the piped music, which, as far as he could tell, was mostly ancient recordings of folk songs. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t chosen the cheesiest and most stereotypical of the surviving renditions. If they played “Toora Loora Loora” once more he didn’t know what he’d do.
He could come up with a dozen reasons, all of them bad, why the targets hadn’t shown. Unfortunately, hard as it was to do, their go to hell plan specified waiting in place two hours past the rendezvous in case of a no show, on the theory that they had nothing better and might still get lucky.
He resisted the urge, again, to glance at his people or his watch.
Morrison hated waiting. It made the back of his neck itch.
Where the hell are they? Bobby shook the cramp out of his right hand before moving it back and snugging the rifle butt up to his shoulder again.
He devoutly hoped the other three shooters Johnny had come up with were doing the same. They’d better be. Still, they’d seemed competent enough.
It was looking more and more probable that something had spooked the targets.
Still, as long as the Fleet Strike pukes waited, they had to. His instructions were very specific. He was not to let Fleet Strike take any of the targets alive, regardless. The targets were not to escape alive, regardless. If they could somehow get one alive themselves, that was a bonus. He had a medical team standing by, but he didn’t think that bonus was going to be possible.
Damn, but this waiting was a bitch. Especially with no way to know how long the Fleet Strike pukes would wait before giving up and going home, themselves.
“Where in the hell are they?” Kevin Collins, head of Team Jason, stubbed out a cigarette in the ashtray of the taxi, looking back at his “fare” half-accusingly, as if he thought the other agent could somehow pull the overdue team out of her pocket.
“Hell if I know, and it’s not my fault!” There was a sheepish tone to her voice, though.
“Ah, hell, Martin, I know it’s not. I still think you shouldn’t be on this mission.”
“Well, you were overruled. When the word comes down I want to be on the spot getting Levon and the others out.” She pulled out a compact and touched up her lipstick nervously.
“And if it doesn’t come down?” His voice was flat.
“Then I follow orders even though it sucks. Levon would do just the same. We both know the risks and the stakes.” She wiped away a small smudge with the tip of a finger.
“You’re too close.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll deal.” She snapped the compact shut, putting it and the lipstick back in her purse.
“You’d better.” He lit another cigarette and made another turn on the circuitous route winding them around the perimeter of the objective.