I, Spy? (22 page)

“Where is he? Where is the little—”

“He’s in there.” Luke caught my arm before I could rush in. “He’s out cold.”

I stopped in my tracks like a cartoon character. “He’s what?”

“Passed out on the floor. In a puddle of vomit.” Luke shook his head happily. “It seems there is a God. How much did he have to drink?”

I stared at him. “That was meant for me,” I managed.

“What was?”

“The vomiting and the passing out. Tom saw him put something in my drink.”

“Tom?”

I grabbed his arm and pulled him back to my table. Tom was sitting there, looking bored.

“The things I do for you, Soph,” he said.

“This is the first thing you’ve ever done for me,” I said. “Payback for all those times I’ve picked you up from the pub and kicked your girlfriend out at her brothel. Tom, tell Luke what you saw.”

“Saw?”

“What Sven did.”

Tom looked Luke up and down. Apparently he approved of him more than Sven, because he said, “I saw him put something in her drink. When she was talking to you. So I switched the drinks. Then I had to go back on stage so I couldn’t tell Soph…”

“So he drank whatever was meant for her?”

Tom nodded. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Tom, you’re a lifesaver.”

“What did it do?”

“He threw up and passed out.”

“Why not just give you vodka? I remember—”

“No reminiscences,” I said firmly. “Come and give us a hand.”

“What?” said Luke and Tom at the same time.

“To get Sven out of here. Don’t you want to talk to him?” I asked Luke.

“I’d like to beat the crap out of him. Talking comes later.”

“I second that,” Tom said. “Where is he?”

Sweet little Tom. He’s about four inches shorter than me and as skinny as a supermodel. He couldn’t win a fight against Tammy.

I followed them over to the gents and waited outside. Then Tom trudged to the door, looking moody, and said, “He says you’re stronger than me.”

I bit back a laugh. He was right.

The gents was just like the ladies, only the ladies didn’t have urinals. Still, it felt like alien territory. I was glad there was no one else in there.

Sven was indeed slumped on the floor and there was, indeed, a puddle of vomit all around him. And you know, maybe it was the scent of urine or the vomit in his hair or the fact that the fucker had tried to drug me, but suddenly he wasn’t so cute any more.

I picked up Sven’s feet and looked at Luke. “Just out of interest,” I said, “are we going to carry him all the way through the bar?”

“Out this way,” Tom said from the entrance, pointing to a side door. “The van’s out here.”

We shoved Sven in the back of the bandwagon and stood there looking at him.

“Now what?” I said.

“I have to get back,” Tom said. “We’re getting paid for two whole sets and Chalker’ll kneecap me if he don’t get his money.”

I hugged Tom. “Thanks for your help.”

He kissed my cheek. “Any time.”

“We’ll take him to the office,” Luke said firmly as Tom disappeared inside and the door shut out the sound. “Sophie, go and get your car.”

I did as I was told, and we hefted Sven into the back.

Luke looked at my wrist, where the handcuff bracelet still shone. “He didn’t notice that, either. Have you got yours?”

“Is this appropriate?”

He grinned. “For Sleeping Ugly here. In case he wakes up. Cuff him to the seat belt and keep the doors locked. I’ll follow you.”

“How come I get him stinking up my car?”

“I have nicer upholstery.” Luke chucked me under the chin. “I’ll see you there.”

I made a face and got into the car, revving far harder than was necessary, and sped out of the car park and off towards the airport. Sven was completely silent and still in the back. I wondered if he was dead. I wondered if I cared.

An hour or so ago, I fancied him completely. I couldn’t believe he’d asked me out. This golden god, wanting me? Little old (well, okay, but big young doesn’t have quite the same ring) me?

And then what? He drugged my drink. Was he a dealer? Was he going to rape me? Did I have anything in the car I could use to hurt him?

Luke pulled up behind me as I got out of the car and stood looking at Sven.

“Still think he’s cute?”

“No. I’m going for ‘vile’ now.”

“Right there with you.”

I unclipped the cuffs from the seat belt, refastened Sven’s wrists behind his back, and we carried him up the ramp to the office. Luke swiped his red pass, keyed in a code, and we were inside.

“Okay,” he said as I blew bits of hair out of my face. “Remember how when you came in the first time and you were all disappointed it wasn’t more James Bond?”

“I never said that!”

“Hell, I did when I first saw it. Anyway. We do have something here that’s kind of cool.” He dropped Sven’s head on the floor with a satisfying thud, lifted a big file from the bookshelf by Alexa’s desk, and fiddled with something on the wall.

Then the bookshelf parted in two, sliding away over the wall, cascading files and bits of paper onto the floor, to reveal a small elevator.

I gaped. Luke grinned. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“How is it possible you didn’t tell me about this?”

He shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m asking now. Where does it go?”

“Downstairs. The bunker.”

We dropped Sven on the riveted steel floor and Luke swiped his card, keyed in his code and spoke his name into the microphone above the control panel.

There was a bleep, then we started moving.

“When we have a little more time, we’ll set up your voice recognition,” Luke said. “Lexy cannibalised an early voice recog phone to make this.”

Clever Lexy.

The doors opened, and I looked out on the reason why SO17 had to hire someone as inexperienced as me.

There was money in here. Lots and lots of money.

“Jesus H,” I said, stepping over Sven into the bunker.

“I know,” Luke said.

“This is why SO17’s broke?”

“Well, it has something to do with it. Alexa ordered it. Her own spec. We needed a lab…”

And a lab it was. The walls were steel and there were no windows, but a few vents that Luke assured me led to tanks with weeks of oxygen in them. There were racks and cupboards and microscopes and metal tables and the sort of scary stuff you usually only see in Frankenstein films.

“And then we have this,” Luke said, picking Sven up by a foot and dragging him over to a cage on the far wall. “Maria and Macbeth have been down here working on this. Making it everything-proof.”

I tapped the bars. They were set in inch-thick security glass. There was a small serving hatch with secure hinges and locks all over it, and a larger one, through which we shoved Sven. Luke swiped his card to open it, and again to close it. Both times he had to get voice authorisation.

We stood back and looked at Sven.

“I think he should be chained up,” I said, and Luke grinned.

“Chains we can do.” He opened a steel cupboard and pulled out some manacles. “Would you like to do the honours?”

“This is weird,” I said as we chained Sven up to the wall.

“Not big on bondage?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Never thought you’d have to chain up a co-worker, huh? Especially not one you fancy.”

“Believe me, I’ve gone off him.”

“Date rape’ll do that.”

“Do you think that’s what it was for?”

Luke produced a bottle of the drugged lager from his backpack. “I’ll get Lexy to analyse it tomorrow. But it was probably Rohypnol or something. Good job I was there.”

We stepped out of the cage and Luke locked it up.

“Good job you were there? What did you do? It was Tom who switched the drinks.”

“Could Tom have got Sven off you if you’d drunk the bad beer?”

“All beer is bad.” I scowled and earned a smile from Luke.

“Yeah. Now, d’you want to stay here and prod him with one of these,” he fetched something that looked like a cattle prod, “or do you want to go home and get some sleep?”

Sleep seemed like a very enticing prospect. “Where home?” I said. “If I go back to yours, you’ll probably drug me to keep me there.”

Luke gave me an indefinable look that brought me out in goose-pimples.

“You can’t go to your place,” he said quietly.

“It was fine when I got there. And I have new locks on the door. Lots of them. And I had bolts put on the windows.”

“’Cos they’ll stop another arson attack. Look. You can’t go home alone.”

“If you think you’re staying—”

He laughed and took a step closer. “Would that be so bad?”

“It would be…” He was very close and it was getting harder to breathe. He still smelled really good. “It would be unprofessional.”

Luke sighed. “Fine. Go home. Get blown up. See if I care.”

Dammit. Wrong reaction. Plus there really was a possibility that someone might try to blow me up.

“I could go to my parents’,” I suggested, and Luke nodded.

“Good plan. I’ll stay at your place.”

“Why?” Oh shit, the revolver.

“So I can look through your underwear drawer.” He grinned, and amended, “So I can protect the place.” He paused. “Do you have a fire extinguisher?”

I shook my head. “I don’t even have a fire alarm. It kept going off at random and frightening Tammy.”

“Jesus.”

We stepped into the little lift. “How long do you reckon he’ll be out?” I asked, glancing back at Sven before the lift doors swooshed shut. He was slumped very unattractively in the corner of the cell with vomit in his hair.

“Could be hours. He’ll probably still be asleep tomorrow. If he isn’t, we can always hit him over the head with something heavy.”

I smiled. Luke could be okay when he wasn’t yelling at me.

He locked up the office, having left a Post-it on Alexa’s desk that we had a visitor who was to remain undisturbed, and we walked to our cars.

“So,” Luke said.

“So.” He looked good in the moonlight. Was he going to kiss me?

Did I want him to?

Oh, hell. When did my life turn into something so complex?

“So your car turned out to be useful for something after all.” He gestured to Ted’s back seat. “The vinyl, I mean.”

God, I wish he hadn’t said that.

“He’s a very versatile car,” I managed.

“Sure is.” Luke tossed his keys up in the air and caught them backhanded. “Well, you officially have the day off tomorrow, despite your flu.”

“Oh, yeah. But unofficially…?”

“Unofficially, you have to come back here pretty early to think of something to do with our Nordic friend.”

“Not my friend,” I said with feeling.

“Glad you realised that.”

Luke went back to his place to pick up a fire extinguisher and his other overnight essentials, and I called my mother to say I’d be staying with her because they were starting building work again over the car park.

I really hoped that one wouldn’t come true. And if it did, I really hoped I wouldn’t be there when it did.

I got home and shoved some things into a bag. I wrapped the revolver up in my pyjamas and shoved it under my comfort copy of
Gone with the Wind
, heart beating fast, hoping Luke wouldn’t turn up before I’d left.

But of course he did, standing there looking sexy while I rushed around trying to make the kitchen look as if a bomb hadn’t exploded nearby. The fact that one nearly had wasn’t much comfort to me.

“I’m going to follow you up to your parents’,” Luke announced as I picked up my bag and keys. “Make sure you don’t go anywhere you shouldn’t on the way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“No sneaking off to Smith’s Guns and trying to break in. Joe is strongly against people trying to break into his shop.”

“Would I?” I tried to flutter my eyelashes but I was too tired.

Luke just grinned.

“Can you do something for me?” I asked, and he looked interested.

I held out my hand.

“Can you get rid of this damn bracelet?”

Luke looked vaguely disappointed, but he unlocked the cuff and I flexed my wrist gratefully, got in my car and drove off, Luke in my rear-view.

The ground was dry and he managed to follow me up the muddy drive to my parents’ front door. There were lights on in all the downstairs rooms and I could see the TV through the window and Norma Jean was barking hysterically because there was someone outside.

Ah, home.

Then my mother opened the door, wearing a striped apron, a wineglass in her hand, and reached out to me.

“Love! What happened to you?”

I touched the bruise on my temple. “Oh, I just, I just walked into the bathroom door. It’s nothing. Looks worse than it is.”

The hell. It smarted constantly.

“Oh, love.” She put down the wineglass and put her arms around me, and I nearly cried, because nothing in the world could make you feel as loved and protected as a hug from your mother.

Luke stood there in the darkness, holding my bag. “Where’s your stuff?” Mum asked, and he held the bag up.

My mother gave me a look of great interest. “And who’s this?”

“He’s just a friend, Mum. Works at the airport.” I tried to think of a reason why he might have followed me here but failed, and glanced back at Luke for help.

“Luke Sharpe.” He held out a hand, and my mother shook it in delight. “Sophie’s been a bit down, so I said I’d see her up here safely.”

My mother looked very amused. “Well. Isn’t that kind of him, Sophie?”

I nodded tiredly. “Thanks, Luke. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He nodded and, after a second’s hesitation, kissed my cheek. He smelled really good. “Eight o’clock. Sleep tight.”

After that? Fat chance.

My mother wanted to know all about Luke, but I said I was tired and ran off to bed, feeling mean. She was interested, and who wouldn’t be? Here was I, treating her house like a hotel, turning up whenever I felt like it, dumping Tammy on her for nearly a week, and refusing to tell her anything.

I am never having kids. We’re horrible.

Tammy ignored me when I came in, running away and being all catty and aloof, but half an hour after I switched out my bedroom light and lay there awake in the moonlight, the door opened. She slunk onto the bed, nosed under the duvet, and curled up in a tiny ball on my chest, purring loudly.

“Have you forgiven me, Tammy Girl?”

She licked my fingers and tucked her nose under her paw. Aww. Little baby Tammy. Sod kids, I’ll have cats instead. Tammy’s like a baby anyway—whiny, demanding, noisy and sometimes smelly, but ultimately adorable and loved unconditionally.

I must have finally fallen asleep, because I was woken up by Tammy’s Pavlovian response to my dad’s alarm clock, which is to leap out of bed, scarring me as she flies, and rush downstairs to be ready and waiting with her cute starved kitten look when he comes down to make tea.

I looked at the clock. Six-thirty. I’d said I’d meet Luke at the office in an hour and a half, but if I was clever…

I crept out of bed and got dressed quickly, slipped out of the house and into Ted. I’d like to have sidled quietly out of the drive, but there’s a reason no one chooses a diesel as a getaway car. I could see my dad peering out of the living room window at me as I rumbled away.

Luke’s house was closer than mine and the roofer’s yard was empty as I parked on the road outside. Like I said, noisy car. I crept up to the front door, heart beating fast, and quickly keyed in the code on the keypad.

A long second while the machine thought about it, then a green light flashed and I turned the handle.

Nothing. Oh yeah, the key!

Once inside I knew I had twenty seconds to disable the alarm, but I also knew the code for that, and I did it without a sound. I disabled two alarms and broke into the most highly secure residence since Posh’n’Becks set up home, and
there was no one here to see me
.

Dammit.

I retrieved the right key and crept over to the hidden gun cabinet, not sure why I was being so quiet but also not willing to make any noise. Twenty seconds and the revolver would be hidden again and Luke would never have known I’d taken it.

Well, he’d never have known if I hadn’t somehow set off an alarm when I opened the cupboard. Suddenly there was a cold metal gun pressed against the back of my head and Luke’s voice was saying, “Stand up. Slowly.”

I dropped the revolver and did as I was told, holding my hands in the air. Why the hell was he here?

“Now turn around. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

I did and looked up guiltily at him. Luke stared back in shock.

“Sophie?”

“Um. Yeah.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question. Will you put that bloody gun away?”

“Not until you tell me what you’re doing breaking into my apartment.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in
my
apartment?”

He raised his hands, and I relaxed as the gun swung away. “I came back to pick some stuff up. Jesus, Sophie, I thought someone had broken in.”

“Well,” I said, a little smugly, “they had. Me.”

“How?”

“Magic.”

“
How
?”

The gun was back. I made a face. “I disabled the locks.”

He narrowed his eyes and I sighed. “Macbeth,” I said. “How do you think I got out of here yesterday?” I pushed the gun away and stepped past him.

“Macbeth is here too?”

“No. He showed me how to do it. I learnt your codes, Luke,” I said, going into the kitchen and switching on the kettle. I needed coffee to calm me down.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, flicking a safety catch on the gun and tucking it under his belt. “You are a bloody menace.”

I gave him a smile. “I’m using my initiative. You’re supposed to be impressed.”

“What were you doing breaking into my gun cabinet?”

“I was curious. Didn’t know you had guns in there.” Thank God he hadn’t realised I’d nicked one. Shouldn’t he have been more vigilant? Why hadn’t he set the alarm when I was locked in?

“So what if I’d done that when I was locked in here?” I asked, searching for a teaspoon. “Would I have had to live with the alarm all day? I’d have gone mad.”

“You already are,” Luke muttered. “I switched off all the alarms when you were here. I knew you’d try and make a break for it. Didn’t want to have the alarm wailing all day long. The guys downstairs complain about it.”

“Nice to know you considered my hearing.”

He glared at me. “Did I say you were welcome to coffee?”

“Yes.” I paused. “Maybe not today. Anyway, you’re always taking stuff from my place.”

“I’m allowed.”

“Yeah, and why’s that?” I started looking for food and located some digestive biscuits in the shiny chrome bread bin.

“I just am.” He looked irritable. “Look, today we have to go and think of something to do with Sven.”

“Shouldn’t we hand him over to the police?”

Luke rolled his eyes and sighed. “Sophie, what are we?”

I tried to swallow the biscuit but didn’t manage. “Special agents,” I said through a mouthful of crumbly digestive.

“Better than police.”

“You mean we’re above the law?”

“No, just above the police. They help us. We don’t answer to them.”

Cool.

“So can we do what we want to Sven?”

Luke cracked a smile and leaned back against the kitchen unit, his arms folded. “What did you want to do to him?”

I thought of starting by waking him up with a nice gentle bikini wax, but then it occurred to me that I didn’t really want to get into his pants that much any more. “Something painful,” I said.

“We have to be careful,” Luke said. “He’s a foreign national. Ultimately we have to return him to the Norwegian authorities and if he’s in bad shape, they might not be very happy with us.”

“Don’t we have, like, privileges about that or something?” I asked through another biscuit.

“Privileges about beating up foreigners? Sophie, you ever hear of the Geneva Convention?”