The Spy Who Loves Me (19 page)

Around them the trickle of water from the walls seemed to increase in both volume and velocity. A trick of the eye, surely. Finn sincerely doubted that Drake wanted them to have the benefit of a fast death.

He tugged uselessly at the cuff, then looked over at Amber, who was visually scouring the walls. “See anything interesting?” he said.

She scowled. “I don't suppose you've got anything on you to pick the lock?”

“Fresh out of bobby pins,” he said. “You?”

“Not a damn thing.” She sighed. “Too bad I don't have my pen.”

“Need to draft a codicil to your will?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, it doesn't double as a garrote,” she mimicked, “but it would come in handy.”

“I didn't—” He cut off the protest, remembering the pen he'd picked up after the limo had almost rammed them.
“This
pen?” he asked, pulling the Montblanc from the back pocket of his jeans.

Her eyes widened and she brushed a kiss across his lips. “Phineus Teague,” she said, “I think I love you.”

As he watched, she uncapped the pen, bent the nib slightly, and then inserted the tip into the lock. “Lock pick,” she said. “Standard issue.”

“Who exactly do you work for?” he said.

“Unit 7.” The lock sprang free and she looked up at him, her face triumphant. “Mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing,” he admitted.

“We're the CIA's illegitimate stepchild,” she said. “I know you've heard of the CIA.”

He ignored the comment. “And this agency operates giant space lasers?”

She shrugged. “Not my area,” she said. “I first heard about Prometheus when I started watching Diana.”

Reality clicked into place like cogs in a gear. “And you saw me watching her,” he said.

“Absolutely.” His cuff snapped open, and she went to work on her own. “You want to tell me why?”

He didn't even bother to answer.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “I know you're not an agent.”

He blinked. “You know I'm not…?” He trailed off, the elusive “why” settling in the pit of his stomach. He knew why she'd come on so hot and heavy. She'd assumed he was an operative and was trying to get information.

“So what's up?” she continued. “Fancy yourself James Bond?”

At that, Finn cringed. But he wasn't about to explain Agent Python. Not now. He released a long breath. “I was bored. She was hot. And she kept her curtains open. So I watched.”

Amber just stared at him. “You have got to be kidding me. That's it?”

“Do I look like I'm kidding? I've had it up to here with the lies and the bullshit. Like you said, it's time to just lay everything out on the table.”

For a moment, he thought she wasn't going to answer. Then she made a face like she'd tasted something sour and shook her head. “Great. This is just great,” she said. “Not only am I in charge of our escape, but now I get to babysit, too.”

Finn's temper flared.
“Babysit?
Look, sweetheart, you may have gone through Spying 101, but I've been holding my own here. And I'm not the one who confused a civilian with a CIA operative.”

She just stared at him. “Finished?”

But he wasn't. “This has all been part of a mission. Me. Your little seduction routine. Everything.”

“I hardly think that matters now,” she said. “Maybe we could table this discussion until after we escape.”

Shit.
She was right, of course. “Got anything in mind?”

She turned in a circle, her eyes scouring the floors, the wall. And then she tilted her head back, and he saw just the hint of a smile creep across her mouth. “Yeah,” she said, “as a matter of fact, I do.”

A
l's eyes shifted left to right, and then he slid a piece of paper across his desk toward Brandon.

Brandon picked it up, half-amused, half-irritated.
The men's room. Five minutes.
He looked at Al, wondering if the twerp was joking. But Al just made a shooing motion, insisting that Brandon walk away.

Brandon did, leaving the note on Al's desk. That was one guy who'd let working in espionage go to his head.

At exactly the five-minute mark, Brandon pushed through the door to the men's room. No Albert.

Brandon ran a hand through his hair, fighting irritation. If the little shit was going to play spy games, the least he could do would be stick to his own schedule. Frowning, Brandon glanced at his watch again and turned toward the door. Thirty more seconds, and he was heading out to find the man, Al's cloak and dagger routine be damned.

“Pssst.”

Brandon closed his eyes. Please, let that not be Al summoning him to the handicapped stall.

“Over here,” came the stage whisper.

Stifling the urge to drag Al out by the scruff of his neck, Brandon went over, then joined Al in the stall. “Is this really necessary?”

“I've got news,” Al whispered. “Big news.”

“Yeah?” Brandon said, doubting Al could have found anything that big. “I'm sure it's fascinating. But here's what I need you to find out. Bernie Waterman. I think he may be—”

“Your Poindexter,” Al said.

“Shit.” The curse rolled off Brandon's tongue, and he poked his head out of the stall, checking to make sure they really were alone.

“I told you it was big,” Al said.

“You're sure?”

Al nodded. “He was reclassified.”

Brandon frowned. “By ZAEL?”

Al shook his head vigorously. “No. The order came down from within the Unit. They probably did it so someone on the outside wouldn't know how important he was.”

“Or the inside,” Brandon said. He clapped Al on the shoulder. “Good job.”

“It helps?”

“Oh yeah,” Brandon said, running the scenario through his head. The Unit had reclassified Bernie to keep his peculiar knowledge secret. And yet the secret immediately made it to Drake. That meant only one thing to Brandon—there was a mole in Unit 7. But Brandon had no idea who.

Which meant that at the moment, Brandon was sharing a toilet stall with the only person in the world he could trust.

 

“You're six three, right?” Amber asked.

“And a half,” Finn said.

“Bend down,” she said.

Finn complied without question, and Amber said a silent thank you. She didn't want to play one-up with him. And she sure as hell wasn't going to discuss her decisions in committee.

And, of course, at the moment, not talking was fine with Amber. They'd have
the
conversation eventually. Considering the hurt look in Finn's eyes, he'd realized her motives had been so very similar to Diana's; soon enough, he'd want to talk. But she didn't look forward to it. Because as much as she wanted to tell him she'd just been doing her duty and to get over it, that wasn't the truth. There had been something else there. Something indefinable between them.

Something she had no intention of analyzing too closely or ever letting happen again.

He was squatting on the floor, the water already hitting him midcalf, and she climbed onto his back. “Can you stand?”

“I think so.” He balanced himself with the wall until he was upright, and then she did the same, holding herself steady as she climbed up his back. “Not that this isn't loads of fun,” he said, “but do you mind telling me what you're doing?”

She was standing on his shoulders now, one hand against the wall to steady herself, the other reaching up to the metal grate covering the air vent. No luck.

She was at least a foot shy of her goal.

“Damn,” she said, scooting down Finn's back and dismounting with a splash into the water.

“Damn?” he repeated. “Damn isn't good.”

“No,” she agreed, “it's not.”

“Tell me,” he said. His face was stern, and she could tell he was uninterested in platitudes.

“The grate,” she said, tilting her head up. “If we could get up there, get it open, and get into the air passage, we might stand a chance. My guess is there are sensors in the roof and the water stops at the top without going into the duct.”

“Is that all?” Finn asked. “Why didn't you say it was just a little matter of removing a welded metal grid and squeezing into a vertical metal shunt that probably leads straight into Drake's private office.”

“You have a better idea?”

“Not a single one.” He tilted his head back to look at the grate. “How were you figuring to get the grate off? Your magic pen?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” she said.

“Why the hell not,” Finn said, the edge of sarcasm in his voice coming through loud and clear.

She ignored it. The water was up to her knees now, and Amber slipped the pen out of the tight bodice of the dress where she'd stored it.

She unscrewed it and pulled out the ink cartridges. Standard issue in the Unit, the first cartridge contained ink. The second was molded C-4. The stuff was intense, and she didn't want her and Finn to get caught in the blast, so she pulled a tiny bit off, rolling it between her fingers like she was making a tiny plastic ball.

“C-4?” Finn said. He raised an eyebrow. “I guess the pen really is mightier than the sword.”

Amber rolled her eyes. “Don't worry. It won't explode until I tell it to.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. “Cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine, commonly called RDX for ‘research development explosive.' It's mixed with binders—disebacate, for example—to make it malleable. And until it's triggered by an energy source—a detonator—it's essentially harmless.”

“A man who knows about things that go boom. I'm impressed.” She kept her voice impassive, but in truth, she really
was
impressed.

“I also know we're going to get blown to smithereens if you do what I think you're going to do.”

“You got a better idea?”

He sighed. “We're going to die anyway. Might as well go out with a bang.”

“Not a whimper,” she said.

He grinned. “Right. So what exactly do you have in mind?”

“Surviving,” she said. “And this is how.” She unscrewed the starred tip of the pen, ready to remove the lapel clip and extract the detonator cleverly hidden underneath. Except it wasn't there.
Shit.

“What?”

“There's nothing here,” she said. The water was above her knees now, and this was really not a good development.

“No detonator?”

“Damn it all to hell,” she said. “It must have been knocked out in the parking lot. Damn, damn,
damn.”

“Well, hell,” Finn said, his voice little more than a whisper. Clearly she didn't need to explain to him the gravity of the situation.

A hell of a pickle, and she racked her brain, trying to think of some other way to generate the force necessary to get the C-4 to do its thing. But there just wasn't a way. Even if she had matches, that wouldn't do any good. The stuff burned like wood. She needed a baby explosion to fuel the bigger one, but she had no way to conjure one.

Finn stood there, in as much of a funk as she was. His eyes were closed and he jammed his hands deep into his pockets. “Shit,” he whispered after a second. His eyes flew open.

“What?” she asked.

“Kiss me quick,” he said, a smile tugging at his mouth. “Because I've got some news that's going to blow you away.”

 

Finn was feeling absurdly pleased with himself, and even the fact that he'd been treading water for the last fifteen minutes with one hand high above his head hadn't lessened the glow.

The water had almost completely flooded the chamber, leaving only about two feet of air space above them. At the moment, Finn was holding Callie and Elijah's blasting cap and matches high while he kicked and used his other hand to stay afloat.

When he got out of this jam, he was taking the twins to McDonald's. Heck, he'd even take them to Disneyland. Not only was their blasting cap going to save his and Amber's butts, but they'd made him look pretty damn good to Amber as well.

Beside him, Amber was also working to stay afloat as she held the marble-sized ball of C-4 above her head. She was paddling with her left arm, and every once in a while, her face twisted in pain. As soon as they got out of there—
if
they got out of there—he'd take another look at that shoulder.

“Almost there,” Amber said. “Assuming this works, remind me to give you a big kiss.”

“Don't worry,” he said. “I'll remind you.”

She met his eyes, and he knew she was getting off on this. Despite the possibility that the twin's cap was a dud or, worse, they'd be pulverized in the explosion, Amber was totally in her element. For that matter, so was Finn. He couldn't remember ever feeling so alive. Ironic, really, since he was so close to dying.

“I still can't believe you had a blasting cap on you.”

“Boy Scout training,” he said. “I like to be prepared.”

“Hmm.”

He just grinned. He was, after all, a man of mystery.

She tilted her head back. “Another minute,” she said. “Maybe two.”

“You're sure that's not too much C-4?”

She frowned. “Honestly? No. I don't tend to use it for detail work. But we only get one shot at this. We can't risk
not
blowing the grating open.”

Finn nodded. He had to agree. The grating over the ventilation system was welded tight to the air shaft. As it was, they were going to blow one side and hope they could weaken the surrounding ceiling enough to pull the grate down. Ideally, they needed four marbles of C-4 and four detonators. Then they could take out the corners and make a clean break.

But they had to work with what they had.

His fingers brushed the ceiling.

“Okay,” Amber said. She molded the explosive onto the grating, then held her hand out for the cap. He passed it. It was the fuse kind, much more common a few decades ago than now, but it would do the trick just fine. Assuming, that is, that the thing wasn't a dud. For all Finn knew, that's why grandpa had decided to hang onto it. A harmless souvenir.

He shoved the thought away. No sense manufacturing problems.

“Okay,” she said. “Light it.”

Finn nodded. This was the tricky part. One of his hands was necessarily wet, and he had to rip off a paper match, keep it dry, and light it—all while staying above water. As soon as the fuse was lit, he and Amber would dive down to crouch behind the theater seats.

If they were lucky, the water would absorb the intense shock of the explosion. If they were unlucky, they wouldn't much care.

His hands shook as he tore off the first match.

“Finn!”

He dropped it. “Damn it, Amber, shut up.”

“Do you want me to do it?”

But he didn't. He could do this. And with her bum shoulder, he was afraid she couldn't hold her arm steady enough.

He struck again, and this time the match burst to life…then fizzled out.

“The vent,” she said. “There's a draft.” She eased around in front of him, then grabbed the grate with both hands, pulling herself up, the C-4 right in front of her. “There,” she said. “Some air's getting in, but I should be blocking most of it.”

Only about eight inches left. Finn was working with his head and hands in the air space. And if he missed this time, he'd have one more shot—with his hands above water and his head below.

Not exactly ideal working conditions.

Steady…steady…

Carefully, he ripped off a match. Then, trying to be forceful enough to spark the match and yet not so forceful he splashed water, he ran the head of the match over the striker.

Success.

He nodded to Amber as he cupped his free hand around the tiny flame. As he did, she sank quietly back into the water. He carefully eased up, maneuvering until the flame found the fuse…and it lit.

Their eyes met and, without a word, they dove in unison down, down, down to the bottom. Behind the theater chairs they crouched, holding the metal seats to keep them from floating back up. Finn grasped Amber's hand, noting with satisfaction that, not only did she not pull away, but she held on tight.