Tate strolled toward the right side of the car like the seasoned traveler he was.
Mal cleared her throat and nodded toward the left side of the vehicle. “Dr. Stevens doesn’t get out much. He’s your typical American. Left side and then fumble around and realize your mistake. You’re really going to have to go to the Agency’s drama school when you get back.”
Tate put on the scowl again as he walked to the left side of the car with his key jangling in his hand and she went to the right side like a dutiful passenger.
He did a dramatic head thunk that would have been adorable, funny, even charming if he hadn’t been making fun of her and exaggerating.
She held out her hand. “Toss me the key and I’ll drive, Dr. Stevens.”
He gave her a deadpan look meant to kill and then grinned. “Over my dead body. And I mean that literally. Switch sides with me.”
Her turn to roll her eyes, but she complied, too.
They settled into the car and Tate backed out of the parking spot.
“The A40 will get us to the A4015 and into the heart of town. Our hotel is a classic Regency-era hotel. Thirty-three rooms.
“King George and the cast of Harry Potter have all been rumored to stay there. Such a small, intimate place. And it has a carpark, too.
“In such an intimate setting, we should be able to keep a close eye on your target.” Mal had been so busy dreaming of the wonderful Regency hotel and its four-poster beds, the promenade and the nearby parks, the shopping, and taking the waters at the spa, she hadn’t paid any attention to where Tate was going until she realized that if he intended to pick up the A40, he should have turned the other direction. Since Tate had the innate sense of direction of a homing pigeon, his wrong turn could only be intentional.
She turned to face him. “Wait a minute! Where do you think you’re going?”
“I thought a nice drive through the Cotswolds might perk us up before we check into the hotel.”
“Seriously, Tate—”
He turned down a suburban street with immaculately kept homes. GCHQ sat on the very edge of civilization, just blocks away from rolling Cotswold countryside. In less than two seconds, they’d be seeing the Cotswolds, all right. Up close and personal.
“We have a tail.”
She knew better than to whip around and see whether he was right or just pulling her leg. But she still fought the urge. Instead, she pulled down her visor and looked in the small, cheap mirror. Sure enough, as Tate took a turn down a meandering street, a car followed them.
“Probably just a communications specialist cutting out early and heading home,” Mal said.
“He picked us up as we pulled out of the parking lot.” Tate was still driving as sedately and calmly as his voice. But his foot was hovering over the accelerator and she recognized his “I’m going into extreme driving mode any minute” look.
“No! No, no, no, no.” She shook her head. “Absolutely not. You’ll blow your cover. Dr. Stevens is an oblivious American driver. He wouldn’t notice a tank if it was about to ram him, let alone spot a discreet tail.”
“If I don’t, Dr. Tate Stevens and his lovely grad student Mallie will be dead. Such a tragic loss of young life. Our tail has a passenger with a gun. A rifle with a sniper’s scope. Take a look for yourself.” He shook his head, amused. “And here I thought the Brits outlawed guns.”
Just as Mal looked into the bad, blurry optics of the cheap car’s visor mirror to check out Tate’s story, he hit the accelerator.
Fortunately for Mal’s neck, the little car had all the guts of a gnat. It hesitated and thought about maybe moving as Tate cursed and banged the steering wheel.
“If we’re assassinated, it will all be your fault for booking us this damned wimpy cover car.” He put the pedal to the metal as finally the little sardine can surged forward.
Tate took a sudden left without signaling, heading toward the open fields of Fiddler’s Green in the near distance.
Mal reached into her purse and pulled out her trusty pink pistol R & D had designed especially for her. “Don’t make me have to use this.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Tate’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, shit!”
The road he’d chosen just happened to be a dead-end cul-de-sac. The green was just beyond. But the way was barred by a quaint two-story redbrick home with white garage doors and a lovely bay window. Oh, and a sturdy redbrick fence. The little tin can they were in wouldn’t withstand a crash test against any of that brick at more than two miles per hour.
“The British need better signage.” Tate grabbed the handbrake.
Oh, no. Mal knew this maneuver all too well and it made her carsick nearly every time. And this wasn’t a big, American cul-de-sac with a wonderfully wide circle of paved road where children could play. No, this was really more a dead-end-in-a-driveway affair.
Mal grabbed the edge of her seat. “There’s no room!”
“Ye of little faith.” Tate spun the wheel around and executed a perfect bootlegger turn. Not a small feat, especially considering he’d done it backward the British way so that he ended up in the left lane. He hit the accelerator and grinned as they sped past their pursuer.
She let out the breath she’d been holding. “Thank goodness for small cars.”
Tate shook his head.
“This is so off script,” Mal said as she opened her purse to slide the pistol back in.
“Not so fast,” Tate said.
Mal glanced in the rearview mirror. Behind them the tail had also executed a turn and was back after them.
“I guess you were right about him being a tail,” she said blandly. “Take us out of the burbs and I’ll shoot his tire out.”
Tate laughed. “Right. At this moment I wish I had Jack Pierce riding shotgun.”
Jack was the Agency’s top assassin and best shot. He could hit the head of a pin at a thousand yards, or some such remarkable thing. Mal had had the pleasure of dressing him for a mission or two. Jack looked good in anything, but like most assassins, didn’t give a rip about his appearance. Very sad. No doubt Jack would make short work of those tires.
Tate took a hard, screeching right. As the car behind them gained on them, he pulled out his own weapon.
Mal gave him a hard stare. “Don’t even think about it. You are not shooting and driving.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“They haven’t fired at us yet. Just lose them—”
Just then a bee buzzed past Mal’s head. Well, something that buzzed like a bee. The bullet whizzed by and out the front window, creating a small hole and several large cracks emanating from it.
“Get down!”
When Mal hesitated, Tate grabbed her head and shoved her out of the line of fire as he began weaving, doing a bit of evasive-action driving. It was a good thing Mal had taken a Dramamine that morning. But by her calculations, it would be wearing off soon.
Tate took the next right nearly on two wheels. If the little car had had any guts, it would have been a perfect two-wheel corner.
Mal peered between the seats behind her at the car in hot pursuit of them. The bad dudes definitely had more horsepower. And Tate would never let her forget it.
Any good spy knows that anything can be used as a weapon. As Tate headed for the green, Mal looked around for something she could use to disable their tail while either she or Tate got off a shot. Not seeing anything readily suitable, she dug into her purse. Nothing there, either. Fortunately, her backpack was in the backseat.
She tipped her seat back and grabbed the bag.
“What are you doing?” Tate said as another bullet whizzed past.
“Looking for something to slow them down.” She looked over her shoulder at the new hole. “Great! How are we going to explain two bullet holes?”
Tate had reached Fiddler’s Green Lane. He took another hard right that threw her against the door. “The same way we’ll explain one. Didn’t R and D give you any gizmos?”
> “I’m looking. Lip gloss, hand sanitizer, hair brush, cookies—”
“Cookies?” Tate accelerated.
From the way the engine whined, Mal was pretty sure he was pushing the car into redline. “I stole them from the larder on the plane in case we got hungry.” She dug back in the bag. “Mints, hair ties, bobby pins—”
Tate took a hard left and suddenly they were off the main road and onto one of those famous Cotswold roads that can really only be compared to a cow path. One lane. One narrow lane, bordered by a hedgerow and a stone fence just beyond. It wasn’t paved and it was full of potholes.
The car bounced ominously. Mal nearly lost her stomach as she prayed they didn’t meet anyone coming the other way. There was no place to pull off and let another car pass. At least from what she could tell as bushes reached out and scraped the car.
Their pursuer pulled directly behind them, ramming them and sending Mal’s plastic pack of mints flying and rattling out of her hand.
Mal screamed.
Tate cursed. “What have you found?”
“Not a rocket launcher, if that’s what you’re hoping for. R and D doesn’t usually give me gizmos. Gadgets are your department.” Remembering her change of underwear, Mal unzipped the front pouch of the backpack.
“Wait! These should do it.” She pulled out a pair of pink thong panties and a matching pink bra with a seductive little white bow between the cups.
Tate shot her a sideways look. “I never thought I’d see the day when I wished you wore big old granny panties.” He grinned. “But I’ve never regretted liking big-busted women.”
“Shut up,” she said. “I’m glad I decided on these and not either the lace or see-through sets.” She grabbed her gun again. “Do you have a plan?”
With the hedgerow hemming them in, it was nearly impossible to see too far ahead.
“Get out your phone,” Tate said. “Call up the CIA map app Cox designed for them. Get this cow trail on it and show it to me so I know what we’re up against.”
Mal hoped Tate knew what he was doing. Otherwise they were trapped like rats in a maze. As Mal grabbed her phone, the car behind them suddenly backed off. Mal breathed a small sigh of relief as she called up Tate’s app.
“Oh, shit!” Tate said. “Hurry up! He does have a rocket launcher.”
Cox Software made fabulous, intuitive apps that loaded quickly. In seconds Mal had the app up and the phone pointed so Tate could glance at it as he drove. Good thing, too, because by her calculations they only had seconds, if that.
“Prepare the lingerie for launch and have your gun ready to shoot the bastards.” Tate glanced at the phone and then in the rearview mirror.
“You must be confusing me with someone who has three hands,” Mal said as she took aim.
He laughed. “Since when haven’t you been able to hold a phone and shoot at the same time?”
“When I’m also not holding a bra and panties.” She took the safety off her gun and put it in her lap, ready to grab as soon as she jettisoned her unmentionables.
“On my signal, send the bra flying out the window. Follow it with the panties. Do a little striptease twirl and fling with them, like you really are stripping.
“Personally, I think sending your blouse and sweater out first would add authenticity to the act. We can hope that the thought of you getting naked will really distract them.”
“In your dreams, Tate.”
“What? It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before.”
She took a deep breath. “I can’t believe you’re pimping out the mother of your child.”
“I prefer to think of you as the ex-wife, and I will pimp out anyone for the sake of living another day.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Aim for the shooter. While he’s distracted, I’ll take out the driver.”
“I’m in a better position to shoot.” She glanced at her gun. “You keep your eyes on the road.”
“Still don’t trust my driving?”
“Still value my life.” Mal glanced behind her again and pressed the button to lower the window as she maneuvered around, still buckled, into lingerie-tossing position.
The bad dude in the passenger seat had the rocket launcher aimed directly at them.
Next to her, Tate’s jaw was set. “Hold the phone, Mal, so I can see it.”
“Hold the phone. Do a striptease. Twirl the panties. You don’t ask much.” She’d inadvertently let her hand with the phone drop slightly. She lifted it to Tate’s eyes, hoping she was ambidextrous enough to pull this off. Good thing years of piano lessons had given her the muscle memory to do different things with different hands.
“On three,” Tate said.
She took a deep breath.
“One.” He glanced in the rearview mirror.
She positioned the bra, calculating the trajectory that would get it on the passenger window and blind the guy with the rocket launcher.
“Two.” Tate glanced at the phone.
Mal took a deep breath and held the bra out the window, twirling her wrist and flipping the bra like a stripper at the pole.
“Three!”
Mal let her pretty, brand-new bra fly. There was a millisecond or so while the bra flew through the air with the greatest of ease where she thought she saw the driver’s eyes go wide, like he was getting excited or maybe he was just confused. Stripping while being shot at isn’t normal behavior. The bra flapped like a big, round-winged bird and smacked the car straight in the shooter’s line of sight.
Mal read lips pretty well and had excellent eyesight. She read the driver’s lips. He was cursing like a sailor. Ignoring him, she ignored Tate’s order to also twirl the panties, and went for a pantie snap, aiming them for the driver’s side.
They hit just above the driver’s line of sight. On impact, they looked like they might bounce off or flip over the top of the car. But to her relief, they slid down the window with a shimmy and came to rest directly in front of the driver, where the wind resistance pinned them like a prize from a drunken hookup.
As the driver flipped on his windshield wipers, Mal grabbed her pistol. The panties caught beneath the blade and the bra hooked on for dear life. They flipped back and forth almost comically as the two terrorists shouted and strained to see past them.
“Forget the tires. Aim for his chest, Mal.” Tate was holding his gun.
She didn’t need Tate playing backup. “You don’t think I can do two to the head?”
“There’s a blind corner coming up in seconds.” There was no fear in Tate’s voice.
His confidence was infectious. She took a deep breath and fired at the exact moment that the road curved sharply left. Tate accelerated and took the corner smoothly.
The car behind them slammed into the ancient stone wall at sixty miles per hour or better and burst into flame.
“Nice shot.” Tate grinned as he watched the explosion.
“Shots,” she corrected. “That was two to the head and two to the windshield.”
As flames leaped toward the sky, Tate shook his head. “The dangers of carrying a rocket launcher.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mal motioned to Tate. “Pull over. We have to cover this mess up.”
Tate shook his head, but he was smiling as he pulled as far off the cow path as possible. Which was to say, not at all.
Mal was already reaching for her phone as she jumped out of the car.
Tate followed her out. “Calling for help?”
“Calling 999 to report an accident. There are two sets of tire tracks here. We’re going to have to explain them.”
“And the bullets?” Tate said. “You were using plastic coated?”
Mal took a deep breath and smiled at Tate. “Naturally. R and D has done a great job of making them more accurate than they used to be. There is no metal in them. That fire will completely destroy them and any evidence of the bodies having been shot.”
The operator for 999 picked up. Mal went into full a
cting mode, putting on the emotional distress full force. “Help. Hurry. There’s a car on fire!” Her voice trembled on purpose as she mouthed for Tate to hide their weapons. “Where? I don’t know where I am exactly. My professor and I just arrived from the States. And, and we were on a drive and we got lost and now we’re on this cow trail in the middle of nowhere and there’s a car on fire and hurry! Please!” She broke down weeping, very convincingly.
Tate took the phone from her. “Dr. Stevens here. Yes, yes, we’re here for the science festival. Yes, out for a drive. Yes, I think there is someone in the car, maybe two someones. It exploded just as it came into view as we turned the corner.”
Mal could see Tate was trying to act upset, but being shaken was not his thing. He needed work. Fortunately, he could claim he was the competent professor. Tate knew exactly where they were, but he gave them muddled directions as if he was really flustered and had gotten a bit lost. “Yes, yes, this is an international call for us. Sure. We’ll stay here until help arrives. Uh-huh. Thank you. Bye.”
He hung up, leaned back against the car and beamed at her. “I’d forgotten how much fun hanging with you during a car chase can be. Remember that time in Istanbul?”
Did she! A couple of RIOT terrorists came after them in the market. Tate managed to maneuver them through the market, but the thugs eventually cornered them. Tate could easily have taken them both out, but he gave Mal her shot. “A girl doesn’t forget her first kill,” she said.
Afterward she and Tate had gone back to the hotel where he’d held her in his arms as she’d sobbed over taking a life. He’d been so loving and supportive then. She’d loved that Tate, the one who let go of the tough-guy spy persona and showed his sensitive side. The process of comforting her had led to a memorable night of passionate lovemaking. From the sympathetic look on his face, Tate remembered Istanbul as clearly as she did. That look of sympathy made him handsomer than ever in her eyes, as attractive as he’d been in Istanbul.
Love Another Day Page 7