Taking the heel of his cane, he—
Shattered the driver’s window.
Reaching in, he popped the locks and opened the door. No alarm—but XOps never put alarms in their cars. The primary directive, aside from getting your target dead, was no attention—ever. That just made for shit to clean up.
Naturally, there had been no keys on the operative, but that was also protocol. XOps left nothing behind, no bodies, no weapons—no cars, either. The key would be attached to the undercarriage so that the recon folks could sweep in and reclaim the Taurus—but he didn’t have the time to go prostrate and screw around in the tall grasses.
Matthias pivoted around. “Can I have one of your daggers?”
When one was presented to him hilt-first, he lowered himself behind the wheel of the sedan and put the tip into a juncture in the plastic casing that covered the steering column. With the heel of his hand, he slammed the blade home and twisted until the section snapped free, exposing the guts.
As far as the average member of the public was concerned, the automotive industry had progressed past the point of manual manipulation, new cars run by their electrical systems and their inner brains—which meant the days of breaking and entering and hot-wiring were over.
Good news for regular drivers. Not so helpful when you were trying to build in flexibility during assassinations. And that was why XOps unmarkeds were all modified for just this kind of infiltration. If you couldn’t find the key, if you didn’t have time to retrieve it, if a hundred thousand other unknowables were in your way? Get in and get gone.
Cross the wires. Hit the gas. On the road.
When they got back to the garage, Matthias drove into the open slot the truck had vacated and dragged himself out. Using the sedan’s hood, sides, and trunk, he steadied himself as he felt around the base of the car—
Aha.
The magnetic box he brought out from down under was four inches long, two inches wide, and thin as a finger.
It was coded, however, with a tiny keypad. He’d forgotten that part—
From a corner of his brain, a four-digit series of numbers trembled on a ledge, just about to fall into his consciousness.
Adrian strode in. “What’s—”
Matthias held up his palm. “One sec…”
Closing his eyes, he changed tactics. Fighting and forcing his memory hadn’t worked; maybe taking a passive approach would.
And hopefully the result wouldn’t be another time-out like the one he’d sported right before they’d been attacked.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe—
The universal code popped into his head, jumping free of the choke hold that had strangled it into inaccessibility—and along with the numeric sequence came friends…lots and lots of friends.
All at once he was flooded by passwords, and alphanumeric combinations, and even color sequences.
Something grabbed his arm. Jim’s roommate.
Good timing, as his legs started to go out, a dizzy twirl in his skull turning his body into a goddamn ballerina, even as he didn’t move.
Overwhelmed, he could only watch what played across the backs of his eyelids, the seemingly endless catalog revealing itself with all the grace of a bull charging through a crowd.
He retained the information, however.
Especially as other things started to come in for a landing. Things like accounts, and Web sites…and personnel files.
37
“Monty, where are you…you loose-lipped son of a bitch…?”
Glancing at her watch, Mels ducked back into the boathouse at the river’s edge, double-checking that her source hadn’t come in from the opposite end. Nope. Just her and the empty slips and the pissed-off barn swallows and the stacks of rowboats and life preservers.
When Monty had called and wanted to see her, she’d refused to play that follow-the-leader-through-the-park game again, and his lateness made her wonder if maybe he was in a sulk at his spy-guy parade getting rained on—
“Shit!”
All around, swallows burst back into the boathouse, forcing her into a duck and cover as they bitched in circles for a minute and then reescaped out into the open air.
“Monty, where are you?” she said to all the no-one-else around her.
Going over to one of the boat slips, she looked down into the water. Man, there was something inherently creepy about not being able to see the bottom. Made you wonder what was really down there—
A creak brought her head up. “Monty?”
Off in the distance, a child squealed in happiness. A car horn went off.
“Is someone there?”
All of a sudden, the sunlight dimmed as if God had decided to conserve energy, or maybe someone had thrown a tarp over Caldwell.
In the darkness, the interior of the boathouse closed in on her.
Yeah, okay. Time to go.
Mels shoved her hand into her purse as she headed for the exit, a spike of paranoia making her search out her Mace—
Someone got to the doorway first, blocking the way out.
“Monty?”
“Sorry I’m late.”
She relaxed at the sound of the familiar voice. “I was just about to give up on you.”
“I would never let you down.”
Mels frowned as the man took a step forward. Then another. “What’s that cologne you’re wearing?”
“Do you like it?”
God, no. It smelled like he needed to take a shower. “So you said you’ve got something for me?”
“Oh, yes. I really do.”
As he approached her, he somehow managed to keep his body between her and the exit, and then he was right in front of her, hands in his pockets, head down like he was looking at his feet.
That child, the one probably playing on the swing set in the park, laughed again, the sound filtering in and making her feel the isolation like a draft.
I gotta get out of here, she thought in a rush.
“Listen, Monty, I’ve got to—”
And that was when the man looked up, black eyes glittering with threat. It wasn’t Monty. She didn’t know who the hell it was—
Mels attacked first, cocking her hand back on her wrist and taking the hard heel of her palm and jamming it right up into the guy’s jaw. As his head flew back, she threw a vicious blow to the gut, which curled him forward again, bringing his face right in to range. Locking onto both sides of his head, she brought up her thigh and slammed her knee into his nose; then shoved him out of the way.
With a burst of speed, she gunned for the door—
The man was there. Right in front of her.