“What?” he asked, not understanding why he was suddenly so angry.
“That’s the thumb drive I was ordered to take out of Donald Tesla’s apartment in Prague,” Ashton explained. “The thumb drive that, I’m assuming, has some really important information on it.”
“And combined with the fact we’re supposed to deliver it to him,” Zachariah motioned to the paper that was still in front of Ashton, “we’re supposed to assume…what?”
Ashton shook his head and slouched back in his chair, eyeing his tea glass. “Right now, I’m thinking I need something harder than tea,” he said, grabbing the alcohol menu that was still in the middle of the table and flipping its leather cover open. As he stared into the menu, he added, almost to himself but loud enough for Zachariah to hear, “Nathan Chambers. Son of a bitch.”
Nathan Chambers was a name that all the agents in the government’s employ knew. Like Tesla, Chambers was an arms dealer, one of the most notorious—and probably the most prolific and successful of them all. He’d sold weapons to practically every drug lord and dictator and government entity in the world, often crossing lines to sell to both sides of a battlefield. The man was shameless about how he made his money, and Zachariah and Ashton were expected to meet with him without even attempting to take him into custody or take him down.
Something felt hinky about this, but Zachariah couldn’t put his finger on what made it feel like that.
“What do you think is on the thumb drive?” he asked, studying it carefully, as if he could read its data without a computer.
“I have no idea, but I’ll tell you one thing,” Ashton said. He flagged their waiter down and, after ordering a rum and Coke, added, “I’m not doing any sort of deal with an arms dealer until I know exactly what we’re handing over to him.”
“Agreed,” Zachariah said. “I have a laptop in my suitcase. We can check out what’s on it after we get out of here. But Ashton, what happens if there’s something on that drive that we don’t like? We’re not exactly paid to agree or disagree with the Agency, only to do what they tell us to do.”
Ashton took a sip from his drink and shrugged. “We’ll climb that cliff when we get to it,” he said. “I just know I’m not willing to hand over something that could get innocent people killed. I got into this business to prevent that from happening, and I’m sure not going to be the cause of it.”
* * *
Ashton was practically vibrating with impatience by the time he and Zachariah finished their dinners and drinks and retreated back to their hotel room. As Zachariah dug his laptop out of his suitcase and set it up on the room’s desk, he paced the room, his impatience pushing his legs into movement. Zachariah appeared to be ignoring him as he leaned over the desk to plug the computer’s charging cable into the wall; even that view wasn’t enough to break Ashton’s mind away from its worries over what he’d find on the thumb drive—what he’d be watching Zachariah hand over to a man almost as evil as the devil himself.
“Got it,” Zachariah grunted from his leaned-over position, and a moment later, he flopped into the rolling desk chair and flipped the computer’s screen open, booting it up. Ashton continued his pacing, practically wringing his hands together as he waited on the computer to get up and running. Realizing that he was twisting his fingers together, he forced his hands apart with a disgusted grimace.
“You always pace like this before a big reveal?” Zachariah asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” he replied.
“Then please, sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”
Ashton stopped and turned to face the younger man. Zachariah had his back to his computer and was watching him with a worried expression on his face equal to the one on his own, except Ashton had a feeling it wasn’t for the same reasons. He sighed and sat down on the end of the bed closest to the desk and rubbed his hands over his face. “I could really use another drink,” he said, thinking longingly of the three rum and Cokes he’d drunk over the course of dinner.
Zachariah reached over his computer to grab the room service menu and chucked it at him. “Here, order some, then,” he said. “You certainly won’t hear me complain.” He picked up the battered thumb drive from the desk beside his computer and pulled the cap off the end, exposing the USB plug. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked. “Once I plug this in, there’s no going back.”
“Do it,” he ordered. “As the senior field agent, I’ll take responsibility if we’re questioned about it.”
Zachariah nodded and turned back to his computer, plugging the thumb drive into one of its USB ports. A moment passed as the drive connected to the computer, and then a window popped up that displayed everything on it. Ashton leaned closer to see the computer’s screen better, practically hanging over Zachariah’s shoulder.
There was, surprisingly, very little on the drive, just a single file, a spreadsheet by the looks of it. “Click it,” Ashton ordered, and Zachariah navigated to the file and opened it.
“What the hell is this?” They both leaned closer to the screen simultaneously, their eyes scanning the spreadsheet’s cells. Ashton sucked in a breath as he realized what he was looking at.
“It’s Tesla’s clientele list,” he told Zachariah.
“How do you figure that?” Zachariah asked.
Ashton pointed at a line on the spreadsheet. “That guy, I killed him last year,” he said. “And this one, too.” He pointed to another line. “They were definitely buying from Tesla.”
“So what does this mean? That the Agency is selling Tesla’s clientele list to Nathan Chambers?”
“Looks that way,” Ashton said. Even as he spoke, he could feel his anger beginning to boil up inside him, though he managed to suppress it; there was no need to lash out at Zachariah like it was his fault. “We need to figure out what to do, because I’m not allowing the sale of this information to a man worse than the one we took it off of to begin with.”
“But we can’t just ignore the Agency’s orders,” Zachariah argued. “We’ll get in serious trouble if we do that. Disobeying orders is one of the worst things we could possibly do.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” Ashton replied. “I’m well aware of the rules and the punishments that come down if we don’t follow them.” He sighed and sat back down on the end of the bed, propping his chin in his hand and his elbow against his knee. “We’re stuck in between a rock and a hard place,” he muttered.
“I have an idea,” Zachariah spoke up. “It might be a bit unconventional, but it will ensure we accomplish the Agency’s orders without compromising our consciences.”
“What’s the idea?”
“What if we were to follow the Agency’s orders and deliver the drive to Chambers like we’ve been ordered to,” Zachariah started, speaking slowly, his forehead furrowed into a frown, “and then, afterward, we can arrange a little…accident?”
“Accident?” Ashton repeated.
“Yeah, one that will take out Chambers,” he said. “Man like that must have a lot of enemies. It would just be a coincidence that he’d happen to run into one of them after he’d met with us.”
Ashton stared at him, stewing over his suggestion. The more he thought about it, the more attractive it seemed, and he found himself slowly nodding. “Have I mentioned yet that I’m beginning to like the way you think?” he asked, sitting up straighter. “Something like that is totally doable. Hell, I’d do a job on Chambers for free. I’d consider it a public service.”
A grin spread across Zachariah’s face then, and he nodded. “Same here,” he agreed. “Any ideas on how exactly we can get to him afterward, though?”
Ashton sat back on the bed, propping on his hands as he considered the possibilities. “I have a friend named Angelique,” he said. “She’s freelance. Doesn’t work for the Agency. Best yet, she knows how to keep her mouth shut. I’m sure if we kick her some money, she can arrange something for us.”
Zachariah nodded and ejected the thum
b drive, putting the cap back on it and tucking it into his pocket. “We should go scout out the meeting point,” he said. “Maybe we’ll see something we can use to our advantage. And then you can give this Angelique a call and see if she’s willing to give us a hand.”
“You just want to go out and finish getting drunk,” Ashton said, almost teasingly. He was starting to feel a little better now that he had the beginnings of a plan; the tenseness in his shoulders was beginning to drop away, and his face was actually able to lighten into a smile as he spoke.
“Hey, I said we should go out for drinks, and damn it, we’re going out for drinks,” Zachariah said with a stubborn lilt to his voice. “So get your wallet and come on. We’re checking out the bar across the street and getting totally sloshed, if I have anything to say about it.”
Six
The “bar” that Brandon had instructed Zachariah to meet his contact at was more aptly classified as a “club,” Zachariah thought as he stepped through the doors into the building’s darkened interior. The only sources of light in the bar/club were neon lights surrounding the bar, where a bartender flipped and tossed bottles of alcohol like a circus juggler as he mixed drinks for the groups of people clustered at the counter, and a shaded, blue-tinted light over each of the tables that ringed the dance floor, which pulsed with strobe lights. Rock music remixes blasted through the building, thumping over the large speakers scattered all over the room.
“You sure this is the right place?” Ashton asked, raising his voice to be heard over the music. “I thought you said Brandon said it was a bar.”
“It is a bar,” he replied, pointing to the bartender on the other side of the room. The bartender, noticing his gesture, gave him a wide grin and tossed the bottle he was holding high in the air, catching it with a smooth, effortless motion of his arm. “And yes, it’s the one listed in the paperwork.” He led the way to one of the tables, an empty one near a corner that gave a clear view of the bar. He slid into one of the chairs, and Ashton sat to his right, both of them angling themselves to take in the entirety of their surroundings.
Ashton didn’t exactly look comfortable to be there. His blue eyes kept darting all over the room, wide as he took in the sights around them. The expression on his face suggested that he was wholly convinced that someone—maybe even Nathan Chambers himself—was about to jump out of a corner and slaughter them both where they sat. It was painfully obvious that the man was rarely, if ever, pushed out of his comfort zone.
“You look like your head is about to pop off,” Zachariah commented, struggling to make himself heard over the music.
Ashton leaned toward him so he wouldn’t have to shout. “This is a gay bar,” he said, and Zachariah barely suppressed a snort of laughter as he saw the look of sheer panic in the other man’s eyes.
“Yeah, this is Brandon’s idea of a joke,” Zachariah replied. “He’s always doing this kind of shit to me. I just sit back and enjoy it when I’m able to.” He noticed the bartender looking at him again, and as the waiter approached them, he added, with a playful wink, “At least the view isn’t bad!” To the waiter, he said, “Two rum and Cokes, please.” The waiter departed, and he gave Ashton a wide, almost cheeky grin. “Come on, admit it. You’re itching to actually enjoy yourself for once.”
“I think my idea of enjoyment varies vastly from yours,” Ashton said, his words barely audible over the thudding drumbeat of the rock song that had just cued up on the sound system. The drumbeat felt like it was thumping along with Zachariah’s heart, his ribcage rattling like a bell.
“Yeah? And what kind of things do you enjoy?” Zachariah prompted.
“My job,” Ashton said emphatically, which only made Zachariah burst out laughing. “What?”
“You seriously act like you don’t have anything going for you but your job,” he said.
“That’s because I don’t,” Ashton replied. Zachariah gave him an incredulous look, and as the waiter came back and set their drinks in front of them and a slip of paper on the table next to Zachariah’s drink, he added, “It’s a very, very long story.”
“You’ll have to share it with me sometime,” Zachariah said. He picked up the slip of paper the waiter had delivered and tucked it into his pant pocket without looking at it.
“Maybe,” Ashton said. The word was half spoken into his glass tumbler as he took a swallow from his drink. He still looked nervous as he studiously avoided looking at the dance floor, which was beginning to fill up with slightly drunken men that felt the need to dance. Zachariah watched him carefully for a moment, wondering what was going on in his head. He’d sworn he had begun to figure him out, had begun to feel out what made him tick, but now that the older man was stuck in what he saw as a very uncomfortable situation, he was beginning to rethink the assumptions he’d made about Ashton Miller. This was a man who was clearly uncomfortable in his own skin; that was something he was definitely going to have to fix.
Ashton didn’t seem willing to stay in a place that made him squirm, though, much to Zachariah’s disappointment. He swallowed down his rum and Coke in two swift gulps then set the glass on the table with a clack. “I think I’ve seen enough,” he said. “I’m going back to the hotel.”
“Oh, come on, hang around a little longer,” Zachariah goaded. “Don’t be a stick in the mud.”
“I’m not a stick in the mud,” Ashton grumbled, and though Zachariah couldn’t hear him over the music, he could read his lips well enough.
“If you’re not, then you’re doing a really bad job of proving it,” he said.
Ashton grimaced and stole Zachariah’s drink, swallowing it down too before pushing away from the table. “Then watch me keep doing a really bad job of proving it,” he snapped back, and he turned and started to walk away.
“Aw, hell,” Zachariah drawled, realizing he’d crossed a line he didn’t know was there. He too stood up and made a move to follow Ashton, but the other man pushed through the bar’s growing crowd and disappeared before he could reach him. Sighing, he shook his head and retreated, figuring it’d probably be best to let him go. He could apologize later, when he went back to their hotel room after his own night out.
Zachariah started for the bar, intending to order himself a fresh drink, when he remembered the slip of paper the waiter had given him. He stopped right in the middle of the dance space and fished it out of his pocket, unfolding it and reading it in the thrum of the strobe lights. He raised his eyebrows, and a grin split his face before he could stop it.
It looked like he was going to get his fun night, after all.
With that thought in mind, Zachariah tucked the note back into his pocket and started for the bar with the intention of ordering another drink and maybe getting a moment to chat with the man who’d sent the note.
* * *
Damon was sitting in the driver’s seat of Tobias’s car one block down from Ashton and Zachariah’s hotel room, staring out the windshield at the entrance to the building as he scooped a French fry from the bag beside him. Tobias sat in the passenger seat, working his way through a fried chicken sandwich without a care for what was happening anywhere around the car. The interior of the vehicle was chilly, thanks to the engine being off, and smelled heavily of fast food.
He and his deputy director had been sitting in the car for most of the evening, ever since their two field agents had left the Agency to begin their courier assignment. Damon wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t nervous about this; it had been so long since two agents had officially worked together—especially two agents who barely knew each other—that he was concerned about how all of this was going to turn out.
“You know, my cardiologist is going to be pissed at me next time I go in for a check-up,” Tobias said, rattling Damon free from his concerns and back to the present. He glanced at his partner and watched as the man stuffed a few fries into his mouth. “These assignments end up with me eating entirely too much processed crap to possibly be good for my health.”
<
br /> “You’ll survive,” Damon murmured, redirecting his gaze to the street outside.
“Yeah, until an artery clogs with all the fat from this sandwich.” He waved the remains of his sandwich in the air and dropped the few bites that were left into the fast food bag at his feet.
“I suppose that is a concern,” Damon said absently.
“Something is on your mind,” Tobias commented. “I know that look. Talk.”
“I’m just worried that all this isn’t going to work out,” he confessed. “It’s been so long since this sort of thing was attempted…”
“Hey, we work pretty well, don’t we?” Tobias said, waving a hand between the two of them.
“Yeah, but we do work that’s a little…different from the average agent,” Damon pointed out. “We’re dumping them into this life without a by-your-leave, with zero training. What happens if the target hulks out on them?”
“Did you really just use the phrase ‘hulks out?’” Tobias asked with a laugh.
“Shut up,” he said. “I’m trying to be serious here.”
“You? Serious? Never.”
Damon saw something moving on the street that caught his eye, and he sat up straighter, swiping a hand at Tobias to signal for him to be quiet. A new-model silver BMW was gliding down the street in the direction of the hotel, the driver riding the brakes. It looked to him like the driver was searching for something in particular, like they were looking for a specific address. The car came to a complete stop in the middle of the street right in front of the club that Zachariah and Ashton had gone into just minutes before, idling there for a long moment.
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