Covert Affairs: Partnership : A Covert Affairs Romance (Book One)

by Valerie Vaughn

  ‘Well, ask a stupid question,’ Syler thought. “I didn’t dismiss you, Dufault.”

  Arthur rounded on him so quickly that Syler physically recoiled. “I’m really not good company tonight, Deputy Perrin.” Syler swallowed, immediately inclined to agree and wash his hands of the matter. Dufault was a grown man and a seasoned agent. He’d be fine. Probably.

  Still, Syler wasn’t heartless and he was Dufault’s handler besides. That didn’t stop just because the absolute nightmare that was their last assignment was technically over. The man was practically snarling at him, but being bad company himself didn’t mean the other man wouldn’t benefit from someone staying with him. ‘No,’ Syler promised, ‘you’re absolutely not leaving my sight tonight.’

  “The caliber of your company is irrelevant. My technician called out tonight and I need help in the ballistics lab. Come along.” He blindly grabbed for the HK416 and headed for the door. Arthur didn’t move. “Unless you have somewhere better to be?” He arched a dark brow back at the blond, well aware that anything the other man could interpret as pity would be met with extreme derision and abject refusal.

  “I’m really not—”

  “That’s a no then. Come along.” Miraculously, Dufault did. Syler hummed, ready to carry what little conversation there would be tonight—

  “Buck up. You like making things explode.”

  ---

  Arthur followed the shorter man silently, brooding. It’d been years since a case had gotten to him like this and while he knew there was nothing more he could’ve done, he couldn’t shake the bone deep anger that had settled into him, all restless energy with no outlet. He also knew nothing good came from agents left alone to stew through the crash of a bad assignment, but the energy required to bury it all in liquor or sex, ideally both, was well beyond him right now.

  Fuck, that poor girl. He’d been the one left to ID the body. She’d fought back, for all the good it had done her.

  “Dufault.” He glanced up, automatically accepting the proffered hearing and eye protection. His handler swiped them into the ballistics testing range, switching the door code to read ‘occupied’ as he did, before moving to the testing line. This was one of the longer ranges, double reinforced walls, protective glass shielding separating the testing line and the range, containing only a single wide lane to account for potential explosions.

  Syler settled into the range master’s chair to the left of the firing lane, flicking the switch to bring the long range targets up near the back wall, and passed him the assault rifle. “HK416 with some added kick. Standard EOTech optic sight, enhanced noise and flash suppressor, and modified magazine chamber for custom ammunition.”

  Arthur noted the widened magazine opening. “What does it fire?”

  “Standard 5.56s.”

  “And?”

  “Oh, just time-delayed explosive rounds capable of penetrating armored vehicles.” Arthur grinned, slow and predatory. Syler flicked his eyes towards the starting line shelf. “Shall we?”

  Arthur settled the sniper rifle onto the support shelf, temper eager for an outlet, smoothly dropping into a kneel and sighting in the weapon. He chambered a round and steadied his breathing, in, out, hold—

  The round burst out with a dull ping, suppressor cutting the noise beautifully, and penetrated the plated target neatly through the center of its forehead. Arthur breathed out, waiting. One. Two. Three.

  The target exploded outwards, completely disintegrated, the sheer heat destroying two more on either side of it, shrapnel flying into the reinforced walls in the wake of the bright burst of light as the round detonated. Arthur’s blood rushed.

  “Initial thoughts?” Syler inquired.

  “Marvelous,” Arthur breathed, eyes resting on his handler.

  ---

  They passed the next two hours like that—Syler inquiring about the feel, the recoil, the accuracy, noting down potential adjustments on his tablet and put him through the paces of testing the new rifle seamlessly. Arthur responded, terse after the first flood of excitement had passed, but slowly mellowing into something that more closely resembled their usual banter as the low, dulcet tones of his handler washed over him in comforting waves. God, but there was a reason he’d picked him.

  “An adjustable time-delay on the rounds would be nice.”

  “Yes, but that runs the risk of unanticipated interference deactivating the round or preventing ignition,” Syler commented, pulling up schematics on his tablet. “The rounds are pre-programmed, activated by the combination of the firing pin and the impact of the round itself.”

  “Ah, yes, then we’d only be left with a functioning bullet instead of a bullet that’s also a bomb. Absolutely useless.”

  “I could conceivably enhance the rifle with a detonator on the stock, but it might throw off your grip to activate.” His tablet pinged and he stood, stretching before heading for the door. Arthur set down the lovely gun, content to follow.

  “Have you eaten yet?”

  “We’re about to, so I hope you’re not secretly a vegetarian.”

  “Exclusive preference for meat, in fact.” He waggled his eyebrows, relishing the view as Syler unlocked the door and bent to retrieve a carryout bag in the hallway.

  “And he’s back,” Syler huffed. Arthur chose to believe it was fond. “Burgers it is.”

  “I think I’m in love.”

  “Hush, you.” He sat down on the bench at the entrance before passing Arthur a box. Arthur smiled back guilelessly, dropping down beside him. He flipped the lid open, inhaling deeply, practically able to taste the grease.

  “Fuck me, where is this even from?”

  “My local dive bar. They’re kind enough to deliver.”

  “And the security guards let them through?” Arthur inquired, mouth already full. Syler made a face. He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth and the other man rolled his eyes.

  “No, one of the minions went up and fetched it for me. Speaking of, I feel the need to once again remind you to stop scaring them by lurking around.”

  Arthur laughed. “Not when it gets me a free meal. Are we even allowed to eat in here?”

  “No, but my department, my rules.” He shrugged.

  With that, they settled into a comfortable silence. Arthur allowed the last bits of tension to seep out as he relaxed further against the wall, nudging his shoulder companionably against the thinner man. Syler shot him a questioning glance and Arthur grinned back at him, content. Yes, there really was a reason he’d picked him.

  A thought struck him and he glanced over at Syler. Hazel eyes looked back at him wearily. “Whatever it is, no.”

  “Ah ah ah, that’s not how tonight works. You dragged me in here and now I’m going to teach you how to actually fire that rifle of yours.”

  The engineer’s eyebrow quirked. “Are you now?”

  “I mean, you build me sinfully gorgeous weapons. It’s only fair you learned how to use them from the best. Can’t have another tech calling out stop you from heading to the range.” He hopped up, tugging the slighter man along with him as he snatched up a magazine of non-explosive rounds to start. Baby steps, after all.

  “Dufault—”

  “Nope, no getting out of this. Now, obviously, you know the components,” Arthur loaded the magazine into the chamber, guiding Syler to stand in front of the shelf before stepping up behind him. “But firing is a bit more complicated than just knowing the theory.”

  He slipped his hands over Syler’s, moving them into position over the stock and handle of the rifle, cradling gently. “There now, lean down and sight through your right eye only.” He pulled the stock snugly into the other man’s shoulder, pressing flush against his back to move him into the proper stance. They were almost of a height like this, Arthur perhaps an inch or two taller, and Syler’s long curls brushed against Arthur’s jaw from his position over the other man’s left shoulder. “Sight in your target. Finger on the trigger only when you’re read
y to pull. When you are, breathe in, breath out, hold, and fire, alri—”

  Syler jammed an elbow into his ribs, pushing forward and away, neatly unloading ten rounds into the five targets down range, one to each chest and head, before Arthur could catch his breath. He dropped the magazine, locked back the chamber, and spun to face him, muzzle down, motion born of long practice, face deadpan.

  “Honestly Dufault, who do you think tests your weapons normally? Hint: it’s not the technician taking notes for me.” Arthur blinked, winded. Syler grinned. “If I weren’t so amused right now, I’d be offended.”

  “My god, sweetheart.” Arthur couldn’t help laughing. “I think I’m going to keep you.”

  The gun was marvelous. But Syler Perrin? He was fucking exquisite.

  Fifteen

  The night on the gun range marked a shift in their relationship. On Dufault’s part, the flirting toned down to less outrageous levels immediately though he was no less frequent a visitor to operations over the following two weeks. Syler reluctantly came to the conclusion that Dufault was, in fact, sincere in his desires to befriend him and tried to tamp down on his intrinsic need to push the other man out the door as quickly as possible whenever he visited.

  It was nice, in all honesty. He wasn’t the sort of person Syler normally found himself getting along with, but the more he allowed himself to relax, the more he found that he enjoyed the agent’s company. He had the same sort of quick wit he usually saw among other members of the operations branch, for all that he was as physically destructive as an ill-timed explosive. A menace, a shameless flirt, completely incapable of being serious outside of assignments, and constantly leaving Syler food like he was a stray cat that needed fattening up, but still, nice.

  “God I’m bored,” the man in question stated, voice in his ear and two thousand miles away.

  “Stake outs usually are, I’m told,” Syler replied. “Any sign of Sanchez yet?” Dufault had been sent to covertly eliminate the head of a growing drug cartel operation near the Mexican capital. Three days of surveillance had lead to his position holed up in a small room in the office building across the street from the cartel headquarters, waiting for Sanchez to exit the neighboring building for a clean assassination.

  “It must be nearly midnight there,” Dufault continued. “Why on earth are you still in the office?”

  “Besides the obvious answer of you still being in the field on active assignment and throwing a fit whenever I hand you off to someone else? It’s the only time I have to work on my side projects undisturbed.” Indeed, Syler was in one of the development labs now, laptop balanced on a free corner of the workbench, allowing him to oversee the security cameras in Dufault’s nook while staying safely out of range of any sparks his soldering iron might create.

  The sound of shuffling on the other end of the comms drew Syler’s attention. He glanced at the security feed, watching as the man adjusted his position, probably hoping to return circulation to his extremities after hours laid prone behind a sniper rifle. Syler had refused to let him take the modified HK416 with him for this operation.

  “Don’t you have a life?”

  “Not with you people around.”

  A short pause, then: “Someone to go home to?”

  “I’m painfully single, thank you for asking,” Syler replied sarcastically, setting down the soldering iron and reaching for the microchip destined to power the low-profile drone he was developing.

  “I could fix that, if you’d let me,” the other man replied, and Syler bristled, taking back what he’d said about the other man toning down the flirting. Apparently, he’d just been building up a reserve to irritate him with.

  “Dufault, I know you’re bored, but could you find something else to seduce? That nice bookshelf in the corner, maybe? Your rifle? Anything.”

  “Darling, I’m hurt.”

  “Be serious for once.”

  The other man was silent long enough that Syler glanced up at his computer, thinking the connection had somehow gone out. He was impossibly still on the feed. “Alright,” Dufault finally ground out, voice devoid of its usual teasing. “It’s hard to find someone I can be serious about in this line of work. Half my life is lying and the rest is classified, never mind the bi-monthly deployments at a moments notice. Oh, and let’s not forget periodically having to sleep with foreign operatives to gain access to information. Call me old fashioned, but that’s hardly the recipe for a stable relationship.”

  Syler gaped at the unexpected honesty, swallowing tightly, pulse suddenly out of time. “You sound shockingly sincere.”

  “Some might even go so far as to call it romantic,” Arthur replied, tone rife with self-deprecation.

  Both men were quiet for a moment. Syler wasn’t quite sure what to say, troubled by the knowledge that the reason for Dufault’s flirting had evolved to include the possibility he was genuinely interested and not just teasing to fill time. With Syler’s luck, it was equally likely to be either and he hadn’t the faintest idea how to go about asking, if he even wanted an answer at all. He’d never been good at this sort of thing, awkward and fumbling in most relationships, platonic or otherwise, and he’d learned early on not to want things that were so obviously out of reach for people like himself. There was a reason he specialized in robotics and artificial intelligence. Emotions were…difficult. Disappointing.

  He cleared his throat. “Dufault, I—”

  “Shit,” Arthur hissed, and Syler yanked his attention back to the security cameras. “Sanchez’s car just pulled up. I thought he was supposed to be in the building!”

  “He was,” Syler began flicking through security cameras, settling on the small convoy of cars that had arrived on the scene.

  “Fuck me, this is going to be messy.” Arthur lined up the shot, breathing evening out over the line. Syler rapidly reassessed the exit plan to compensate for the increased security surrounding the kingpin, fingers flying across the keys as he accessed roof top cameras.

  In the span of a few seconds, Sanchez exited the car and was met with a bullet between the eyes. Arthur dropped away from the window, withdrawing the rifle, already dismantling it. Syler rapidly worked to ensure the doors to the building were locked, a bid to buy Dufault time, watching as Sanchez’s security guards frantically tried to locate his agent’s position. They locked onto the office building almost immediately, a bullet shattering the window as Arthur slammed the door shut, sprinting into the hallway.

  “Eastern staircase. Take it to the top of the building. There are too many guards to exit out onto the street.” Arthur grunted. The guards were already at the door to the complex, smashing the entrance open and spilling into the ground floor as Arthur started on the stairs at a dead run. “There are no electronic locks between here and the rooftop. Get up there and I can lock the fire door to keep them off your trail.”

  “It’s always fucking something, isn’t it?” Dufault huffed, rounding on the fourth floor staircase, taking the steps two at a time. The sound of the guards slamming open the first floor door clanged loudly enough for Syler to hear over the comms.

  “Two more floors. Head to the eastern edge. How’s your parkour?”

  Arthur slammed out the fire door, Syler quick to engage the locks behind him, though that would only hold the guards off for a few extra moments.

  “It’ll have to do,” he snapped.

  “Eastern edge, over the alley way onto the adjoining roof top. I’ll guide you to the car. There are guards below ready to shoot you, so try to be quick about it.” Arthur swore again, sizing up the distance without breaking stride, throwing himself over and landing in a roll on the adjoining roof as Sanchez’s guards shot at him both from the alley below and the top of the office building behind. “Keep going straight on.”

  Arthur crouched behind a fire door stairwell, returning fire and taking out two of the guards on the adjoining roof top. A third bridged the jump, two more behind him. Swearing, Dufault turned and sprinted, ju
mping the wider gap to the next building, hitting harder than he would’ve liked with the one story drop in height, rolling into a protected position behind a wall. “Working on it. How far is the car?”

  “Two across, one over to the left. If you could go a bit faster—”

  Arthur swore again as the guard from before pelted gun fire down on his position, springing up to return it, buying enough time to make a run for the ledge. “Oh you go fucking faster, Perrin.”

  “I’m doing just fine. Several more guards on the adjoining roof top are a problem for you, not me.” Rapid typing filled Arthur’s ear. “I’ve kindly started your engine for you.”

  Arthur threw himself across the next gap, landing in a crouch, coming back up in time to return fire. One of the bastards apparently had a machine gun, because of course he did. “We have got to talk about the intel analyst who fucked this one up—” He hauled himself over, heaving, onto the next rooftop, tucking and rolling behind the thankfully tall ledge, gaining distance between himself and Sanchez’s men.

  “Need I remind you,” Syler replied, watching raptly through the security camera nearest Dufault’s vehicle, “that you were the one doing surveillance on Sanchez?”

  “Oh not fucking now,” Arthur huffed, rolling across the last roof top and coming to the ledge. No fire escape. Of course not. He eyed the three story drop, ducking as a rain of bullets nearly took his head off, swearing.

  “Ground guards are advancing on your position. Get to the car.” It was helpfully parked at the entrance to the alley way, thirty feet down, lights on. Another hail of bullets made the decision for him. Arthur threw a hand up on the ledge, hoisting himself up and onto the edge, tucking into a crouch as he did, and jumped off.

  Really, Syler thought, watching the feed intently, it was going so well up until the point a stray bullet clipped Dufault’s left arm, throwing off his angle entirely.