Bud was chomping at the bit, as was Nick. Neither of them was territorial, either. Both of them just wanted to take that fucker down. They didn’t care who got the credit.
This was a team just raring to go. Even ex-CIA guy was communicating with Felicity via computer.
Everything depended on Isabel. He shot her a glance. The hot sexy woman he’d made love to last night was gone. In her place was a serious woman willing to risk her life to bring a criminal down.
They’d gone over the plan again and again and she knew every step, every facet. She’d had Felicity walk her through the eyes and ears they’d have until she understood everything.
Nick had given her an intro into interrogation techniques and she’d absorbed them quietly. They’d gone through a number of scenarios and in each one, she kept her cool.
Jacko and Metal were the designated shooters. If Blake so much as touched Isabel they would shoot to maim and stop, not kill. That was a collective decision and Isabel had been hotly opposed to it. She had a shoot to kill policy and it had taken a lot of talking to bring her down.
She accepted the reasoning—he needed to be alive so he could be interrogated about the conspiracy, so he could name names, so he could point fingers at the moles that had to exist in the US government for something like this to work. She accepted the reasoning but she didn’t like it.
Isabel looked calm and ready but Joe knew she was out for blood and that scared him. The only thing he could do was be ready to jump in and protect her. That was his designated role. He’d be in the open, just another guy in the bar situated way across the room, to the left. Drinking a beer, back to the room, seemingly absorbed in his tablet just like any other guy watching a game. What he’d be watching was Isabel. There was a camera trained right on her face. They’d worked it out so he had a clear view of everything, down to her eyelashes. It was the only way he could be persuaded to not be sitting next to her.
“Ten mikes,” Nick’s calm voice sounded in his earbud. Ten minutes to the arrival of Blake. The earbud was invisible. On Joe’s screen, Isabel blinked three times. A prearranged signal for everything’s okay. Blink twice and Joe was pulling his Glock from his shoulder holster, turning and shooting the fuck’s brains out from across the room. No, he told himself. As satisfactory as it would be to paint the walls with the inside of Blake’s head, he wouldn’t shoot to kill. Wouldn’t. No, sir.
Nick was with Felicity in Jacko’s friend’s office, monitoring everything. He’d brought along handcuffs, just waiting for Blake to slip up.
Joe watched Isabel’s face on his iPad. Before an op he was as focused as a human could get. Focused but with situational awareness. He realized finally that he was completely out of the game because he found it hard to tear his eyes from her face. It was the face of his future.
He was going to grow old with this woman. He was going to have kids with her, a family, and they’d eat really, really well for all the years of their lives. He’d work for ASI because they were great but they wouldn’t have every part of him the way the navy had. Because his heart belonged to Isabel.
He shook himself. This op was the most important one of his life because his life was sitting quietly on a chair near the window waiting to accuse a monster of mass murder and treason. A man like that would have no problems killing Isabel.
So he had to stop thinking of her and go over lines of fire and escape routes in his head.
“Five mikes.”
So far everything had gone smooth as shit through a goose. Joe had been by her side when she took Blake’s call at ASI. Felicity had routed it so that it looked like her cell was being used in her house.
When Blake had called, Isabel had been brilliant. She sounded flustered, depressed. Bathroom pipes broken, water everywhere. Let’s meet somewhere nice. It’s been a long time since I’ve been anywhere nice. Hotel Monaco? No, it’s really busy. Let’s meet at this nice restaurant I know, Three Windows. In an hour. I’ll finish up here and meet you there.
“Contact,” Nick said quietly in his ear and sure enough, on Joe’s monitor the tall, very elegant figure of Hector Blake appeared in the doorway and walked over to Isabel. The metal detector didn’t register any weaponry.
He was wearing a full length black overcoat and a black fedora, sunglasses. A thick scarf covered the bottom of his face.
Joe shifted uneasily. If he didn’t take that scarf off there would be no facial recognition possible.
He stopped by Isabel’s table, sat down, took her hand. They were talking. Isabel looked so sad, so vulnerable.
Joe’s skin prickled.
And then the lights went out. His tablet went dark.
* * *
“Hello, Isabel,” Hector Blake said as he stood next to her.
During the planning, Isabel had promised herself she would remain cool, not go for his throat. Not stare at him with hatred. And while promising herself that, she hoped she could do it.
She could. She could stay in character.
She gave a small smile, dipping her head. Sad Isabel, seeing an old family friend. “Hello, Uncle Hector. Nice to see you.”
He sat across from her, without taking off his hat or unwinding his scarf. A prickle of alarm ran through her. If he was planning on staying only a few minutes she wouldn’t have time to get him to incriminate himself.
“You’re not staying?” she asked, indicating hat and scarf.
He didn’t answer. He simply reached across for her hand. Oh. So this was how they were going to play it? Dear Uncle Hector, holding her hand while saying all over again how sorry he was she’d lost her family?
He held her hand in his gloved one, palm up, thumb over her inner wrist.
“Your heart is racing,” he said, with a cold smile. “You know, don’t you?”
Oh. So that was how it was going to be.
“Yes.” She gave him the cool smile right back. “I know everything. And you’re not getting away with it.” Her smile broadened. “Guaranteed.”
The lights went out.
Isabel looked around briefly and felt something cold against her wrist. She looked down and saw a white ceramic knife with a very sharp blade pressed against the inside of her wrist. Held by Hector in such a way that with one swipe he could slice right through the artery. She’d bleed out in seconds.
She looked back up into that face, not bothering to hide her hatred anymore. She could barely see him. It was dark in the restaurant, people murmuring, stirring. She blinked twice.
“I am getting away with it. I’m not here at all. I have all sorts of people back in Washington willing to swear in court that I am there. Not that it will ever come to that, of course.”
“People know you are here.”
“Yes?” He looked around. “I don’t see anyone I know. If you have friends who are watching this over a video feed, too bad. Because I just killed everything with a chip in a hundred-yard radius. Nothing is being recorded, nothing will be recorded and you—” He pressed down hard on the sharp knife and she felt him slice through the skin. Blood welled up at the knife’s edge. “You are coming with me.”
“No.” She looked up steadily at him.
“Developed a backbone, have we?” Hector murmured, words muffled by the scarf. “Be the first one in your family. Just so you know, I have a sniper watching through night vision optics and he can see perfectly clearly. The first person who comes up to you gets one right through the head. Maybe a waiter, maybe someone you’ve recruited, maybe even a friend, but someone gets killed. So move.”
Joe was seconds from running over to her.
Heart thudding, Isabel stood.