Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

"Does your friend remember what I was wearing, too?"

"I can call and ask him. He is a trained intelligence officer, you know."

"So are you."

"So I am."

"And you have drawn conclusions."

"I have." Poole nodded slowly. "I have indeed."

"Do you wish to share those conclusions, Minder Two?"

"It is my conclusion, Minder One, that you and the former Minder One got blasted and then shagged like giggling teenagers when their parents are away on holiday, that is my conclusion."

Chace grinned. "Do you have any evidence to support this conclusion?"

"Aside from that cum-drunk grin you've got on your face, no, I do not."

"Cum-drunk?"

Poole shrugged apologetically. "Regiment talk."

"Lovely, that."

"But descriptive."

"Evocative, at the least."

"You have not refuted my conclusion, oh Head of Section."

"No, I haven't, have I?"

"Nor have you confirmed it. You have yet to answer conclusively one way or the other."

"That is correct, you are quite correct, Nicky. Do you want an answer, is that what you're hoping for here?"

Poole smiled, pleased with himself. "Yes, very much."

"Right, then," Chace said, and she flipped him two fingers and showed him her best fuck-off smile. "Mind your own."

Poole laughed, dropping his hands back to his desk, returning to his work.

"I always do, don't I? It's in my job description," he said. • Lankford returned fourteen minutes after he'd left, and both Chace and Poole looked up from their work as he entered, curious as to what had happened in Crocker's office. The look on Lankford's face was pinched.

"You on your bike?" Chace asked him.

Lankford shook his head, took off his coat, hung it on the rack.

"What then?"

"He wanted to talk about my prospects." While he said it, Lankford dropped a folded square of paper onto her desk. "Wanted to know how it was working out down here, if I was ready to make a go of it full-time."

Chace looked at the paper, then to Lankford, quizzical. Over at the Minder Two desk, Poole's chair was scraping back on the floor as he got up to join them.

"What'd you say?" Chace asked, taking the paper. There was nothing special about it whatsoever: copier paper, white, plain, folded in a square.

"Well, that I was enjoying the work very much," Lankford said. "That I recognized I had a long way to go until I was at your level, or Nicky's, but that I felt certain I would rise to it, and do so quickly."

"I agree," Chace said, opening the sheet. "You're coming along nicely."

"Thank you."

Chace looked at the note, handwritten by Crocker, blue ink on white paper. Leave. Do not return home. Lose Box. 0210 Imperial Age, VIP, clean. Minders will support.

Chace found it suddenly hard to breathe, had to force herself to inhale. She turned the note in her hand, showing it to Poole but looking at Lankford. He was watching her, his expression blatantly defying the banality of his words, drawn with tension.

For a moment, she honestly couldn't think of anything to say, her mind still spinning from the note, trying to fathom it, straining to understand. Trouble, obviously big trouble, and she was at the heart of it, but she was damned if she could see the why of it, or even the how. She had known it wasn't a spot-check by Box, she had known it wasn't simply a security viewing. But this… This was beyond anything she had imagined, if for no other reason than that she had not, in her wildest dreams, thought it would lead to something like this.

Box wanted her, Crocker's message made that clear. Why, she didn't know, but if Crocker was telling her anything at all, he was telling her that Kinney was going to try to put the arm on her and she'd better get moving, and fast.

The clock on the wall told her it was fourteen-thirty-three. Just under twelve hours until she was to be in the VIP room at the Imperial Age, then. Provided she could keep her liberty for the duration.

Poole had finished reading the note, and now he was looking at her, too, much the way Lankford was.

"Is there anything else you think I should be working on?" Lankford asked her. "To improve my performance?"

She still couldn't trust her voice with a response and so she shook her head, drawing the note back from Poole and crumpling it tight in her hand, then dropping it into her jacket pocket. Then she rose from her chair.

"No, Chris," she told him. "I think you've definitely demonstrated that you're ready to be Minder Three."

Poole took the cue off her, went to the stand, grabbed his coat.

"I'm off for a pint," Chace told them, and left the Pit. • She had a moment of apprehension, showing her pass to the warden on the door on her way out, but he didn't stop her, just gave her a nod of recognition and waved her through. She stepped out into the courtyard of the building, into the slight mist that was doing a weak imitation of rain, following the walk to the door by the gate. The gate was opening, and Chace recognized C's black Bentley as it glided into the yard. She looked away from the car, kept her stride steady.

There were more guards on the gate and they showed no signs of wishing to detain her, just checked her pass again, logged her out. Chace took the opportunity to glance back toward the entrance, saw C's driver opening the rear door, saw Barclay climbing out of the car, far enough away that she couldn't read his expression. She turned away before he could return the look, stepped through the door beside the gate, tucking her pass back into her inside pocket.

Wondering if she hadn't just left Vauxhall Cross for the last time.

Saudi Arabia-Tabuk Province, the Wadi-as-Sirhan 16 September 1731 Local (GMT+3.00) Sinan watched as Matteen moved to the entrance of the tent, closed the flap, then slipped and turned the four wooden toggles through their frogs, trying to ensure against interruptions. Finished, he returned to the small table, propped his rifle against it, and sat on the rickety stool. On the table was a blue and black knapsack, a knockoff of a popular Western design, with several pockets and flaps and zippers. Matteen opened the pack and began loading it with boxes of ammunition, to weigh it down.

Sinan didn't sit and, after confirming that Matteen was getting the weights correct, turned his attention to Nia. They were in one of the smaller tents, and there wasn't a lot of room, and among the smell of the canvas and the heat and the dust, Sinan was sure he could smell her, too, and he cursed his imagination, willed himself to focus on the task at hand.

"We are your brothers in this," he said to Nia gently. "And you are our sister."

She nodded, hesitant, but the gesture was clear enough, even under her cloak and veil.

"You are shahid, and our purpose is to see you attain Paradise."

Another nod, and Sinan was suddenly uncertain if he was trying to reassure Nia or himself. Behind him, he heard the sound of the zipper running over its teeth as Matteen closed the knapsack.

"Show us," Sinan told Nia.

The woman hesitated again, then turned away from him, toward the wall of the tent. She reached up, unfastening her veil from her cowl, removing the abaya. Sinan looked away at first, when her bare arm revealed itself, and saw that Matteen was watching Nia's movements with a decided disinterest. He envied his fellow the ability, wondered how he could manage it.

Sinan couldn't.

But he couldn't not look, either, and when he forced his eyes back to Nia, she was pulling the abaya away from her body, and he saw her bare legs. They were smooth, their curve gentle, her thighs slim but strong, and when she shifted her weight, he saw the muscles move, disappearing up beneath the shorts that were too short, the kind of shorts the Zionist girls wore. Her skin reminded him of her eyes, the eyes he'd caught himself thinking about too many times. Warmth seemed to emanate from her and, for the first time, Sinan wanted to touch her, to feel it for himself.