Page 4 of Baby Take Me Home
In our ears, technical team lead Jason Jensen told us, “We’re working on getting extra resources in place for the revised extraction plan. But you need to go now or you won’t catch up with her. Security camera feeds inside the building will be disabled in three, two, one. Go.”
“Got it,” Kessler said.
“No. You and Li were at the party where she was kidnapped. She might recognize you from that, or worse, realize you were her rescuers.” I held out my hand and Kessler dropped the bug, a tiny, clear, nearly undetectable disk, into my hand.
I headed for the side exit. Derek and Chase, were tall enough to create a screen for me while I slipped out of the ballroom. In the hallway, I announced, “Three taps on my comms means you need to cut the alarm, Jensen. Going into stealth mode now.”
My team’s voices were still in my ear as I silently followed the twisting path to the senior staff offices, but the halls were silent, almost eerily so. When I turned a corner and spotted Ms. Armand ahead of me, I slipped into the shadow of a doorway, and then followed a few feet behind her. When she crossed the threshold into the office reception area, I tapped my comms. Jensen, monitoring the building’s security system, started another countdown, this time indicating when the laser sensors she had tripped would click on and create a barrier between the offices and the hall.
I stepped across the threshold just as he reached “one.” I stopped in the reception area by four offices and watched Ms. Armand. As long as she didn’t attempt to step back across the threshold, which would interrupt the beams and set off alarms that would have the embassy’s armed guards running in our direction, I could allow her some latitude. If I learned what she was after, I could determine how much she knew about Kovac and how worried I should be.
I didn’t mind the show one bit. I’d only seen her in person once, and that had been from a distance. Since then, we’d kept loose track of her in case she stepped into the Carbanados crosshairs again. In the occasional surveillance photos I’d seen of her, I’d noticed the spray of freckles across her nose and the barely tamed curls in her hair. Tonight, she looked beautiful as always, but her make-up hid the freckles and the tight updo smoothed out her unruly locks. As far as I was concerned, that was a damn shame.
She slid out of her ridiculous black plastic coat--no doubt her attempt at a disguise—making the show even more enjoyable. She was sexy as hell in her low-cut, backless gown. The silky material looked like it could slide right off her shoulders and straight to the floor with the slightest flick of my fingers.
I ignored my hard-on and hoped our team doctor, who was monitoring each operative’s vital signs through our high-tech wristwatches, would keep the spike in my heart rate and blood pressure to herself.
“Everything okay, TJ?” Samantha Bond, the doctor in question who was also my second in command, asked in my comms.
I tapped once under my ear for yes, and Samantha went silent. Not only was she our resident medical expert, she was my good friend, a field surgeon I’d met way back when, during my army days. Like everyone on the Alpha Team, she was like family. And like most close families, they would give me no end of shit if they suspected my lascivious thoughts about the reporter. Those thoughts had progressed from the fantasy of the one-step gown removal to an image of her lying naked on top of the desk she was currently trying and failing to breach.
When it was clear the locked desk was Ms. Armand’s only objective and I was unlikely to learn more from her behavior, I leaned against the door jam and smiled, finally ready to reveal my presence. She would scream, as startled civilians normally do, but no one was close enough to hear her. As long as she didn’t bolt for the exit now protected by infrared beams, we wouldn’t be discovered. However, if she did bolt, I would block her path and she would run right into me. I would easily be able to contain her and would have the chance to hold her in my arms for a minute.
“Not every pick works in every lock,” I said quietly, more than half hoping she would run straight at me.
She jumped and sucked in her breath, but she didn’t screamorrun. She stood quickly and tucked her tools behind her back. “Mr.… What was it again?”
“TJ, Ms. Armand, but a woman in your profession doesn’t forget names.” I grinned and closed in on her slowly, enjoying the way she blushed, which brought out the blue of her eyes and the reddish highlights in her dark brown hair.
“Are you following me?”
I tsked and shook my head. “If you had any idea what you’re doing right now, you wouldn’t need to ask. You would have clocked me tracking you while we were still in the hallway.”
More color rose in her cheeks. I’d forgotten how freckles and blushing were so closely tied together. And how the combination was so damn charming. The rediscovery wasn’t doing a lot for maintaining my professional demeanor, but it sure as hell was fun to watch.
“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here, or do I have to guess?” I asked.
“I’m sure you’re not with embassy security, so I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“You’re right, I’m not a security guard. I’m just a patriotic American trying to prevent the international incident that will result if you get caught trying to break into the locked desk of—” I leaned back to check the name on the door even though I knew damn well whose office it was—“Izak Kovac.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” She lied so easily, she almost could have been in my line of work. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m doing a human interest story on Kovac’s husband, Luka. He’s an interior designer, and he mentioned that he decorated his husband’s embassy office.”
I nodded and kept up my unfazed expression while at least three of my team members muttered into their comms, “Fuck me.”
We’d suspected she might be after Izak, who had some low-level corruption tendencies but nothing that was of concern to HEAT. Her involvement with Luka was a different story.
“An interior designer,” I said flatly. “So, you’re here to admire the décor.”
“Well, to see it, at least. It’s a little…” She wrinkled her nose. “A little too minimalistic for my taste.”
I took a few steps toward her and stopped beside the desk. I attached the clear disk to the underside of the desk lip, then slid my hands into my pants pockets. “And what décor were you hoping to observe inside Mr. Kovac’s desk?”
Kate Alder, the other half of the tech team, spoke on the comms. “The bug has started transmitting.”
Ms. Armand had gone silent.
“Maybe it’s time we stop tempting fate and get the hell out of here.” I held out my hand.