Making the Rules

by Doranna Durgin

  Yeah. So damned cute, with her efficient little killer war club nearby and her empty hands already efficient enough.

  She reached into her backpack and pulled out a tiny bottle of water from the puddle-jumper ride between Elmira and Buffalo, and then she produced a small packet of sandwich cookies and put them in his unsuspecting hand. "Here," she said. "Have your snack and sleep while you can." They both knew his back would offer up too much grief to allow rest later in the flight.

  Rio stared at the cookies. "Damn," he said. "You really know how to get to a guy."

  She took them back, tore them open for him, and plunked them in his hand, tucking the water bottle in the pocket of the seat-back before him. "You ever learn anything else from Caro?"

  A whirlwind of preparation had made their visit perfunctory; Caro had been left with the house keys, the cat food, and the intent of driving five hours southwest to visit Sandy and Karlene—albeit not until after a teary, pouty phone exchange with those same to prepare them for the change of plans.

  "You think you can bribe me into betraying a confidence?" Rio said, around a satisfying bite of cookie goodness.

  "I think you'll tell me anything right now, Mister See-My-Pupils," Kimmer said. She might have been smirking, but a quick second look revealed only that previous affection. "But note my restraint—I ask only about Caro."

  Rio chased the cookie with a swig of lukewarm water. "She's hurting," he said, brushing a hand along Kimmer’s. Thinking, mine, and thank goodness. "That traitorous excuse for a fiancé really messed with her head. I think she's mourning the family thing as much as the relationship, so...not a good starting place. She said something about grabbing a test tube and mugging some unsuspecting guy for his—" Belatedly, he realized the flight attendant was passing, and dropped his voice to mutter, "You get the picture."

  "Sure," Kimmer said. "Guys suck. Lucky for women, these days there are alternatives if you want family." At Rio's alarmed expression, she laughed. "Don't worry. I'll protect you if I see anyone lurking with a test tube." She stole a cookie, nibbling at its edges. "Get some sleep," she repeated, and reached for her pack again. "I'll see what else Owen dug up about our temporary mistress-to-be."

  "Not enough," Rio said darkly, the words slipping right out of his uncensored mouth. Conflict chased over her face—concern and worry and determination all at once. His mouth kept talking, looking to assuage it all. "You know as well as I do that we shouldn't have taken this assignment—not without more control over the scenario. Out of the country, working for someone who wants to pull all the strings...stupid cover is only going to get in our way...wait. I'm not making this better."

  "You could have said something," she told him gently, understanding the effects of the pain meds on his mouth, accepting them. But he still saw the conflict there, lurking on her face—and he understood it. Can we do this? Together? Are we good?

  "Aurgh," he said. "I know. I know. I just—"

  "Yeah," she said. "Me too." I want this to work. Her voice lowered. "So get some sleep."

  "Love it when you talk to me that way." Rio closed his eyes. The blackness of his lids swirled slightly with his own swoopy head; his back registered as a dull ache, the first threat of you're gonna be sorry. He gave it a mental manly sneer of disdain and promptly fell asleep.

  ~~~

  From Barcelona to Bilbao, and the plane disgorged them into a bustling airport that nonetheless had its pockets of isolation; Kimmer found them one. There, in a gate just emptied of passengers, Rio stretched his long frame across a string of connected seats and let her massage his lower back with experienced hands while he tried to throw off the drugs. "Could have been worse," he said, sounding disgruntled all the same.

  Of course he did. For day to day life, he'd recovered well enough, kept himself strong enough, so he rarely had to think about his old injury. In day to day life, he made a dozen small accommodations at any given time, hardly even realizing it—accommodations the travel didn't allow him. Stuck on three airplanes on an overseas and then a cross-country flight was as hard on him as any goonboy encounter.

  Speaking of which, she was careful to avoid his healing gunshot crease. It saved our lives, she reminded herself silently, working on the knot of muscle just above the old thick, ugly scar. I'd do it again if I had to.

  That didn't seem to make the sight of it any easier. She cleared her throat. "Better?"

  "Getting there," he said, sounding almost sentient. "Talk to me. What did Owen give us in his packet of goodies?”

  She snorted. "Mostly pending. Still waiting for employee background reports, have a security contact in Monaco, about a day away," she said. "Can't openly grill anyone, gotta slink around the villa...I don't know. Maybe you were right."

  But Rio shrugged off the pessimism. "We'll make do," he said. "And then Hunter will owe us. Not a bad position to be in."

  Kimmer grinned. "You think like a spook."

  "Once a spook," Rio said easily.

  She shrugged. "Well, we're working on the fly. We'll get there, establish cover with our slightly scandalous relationship, and get some tech set up as soon as we can."

  "Señora Amaia Padilla y de la Fuente viusa de Florez," Rio said, the name rolling off his tongue with surprising fluency. "A woman of influence and breeding."

  "Be easier just to call her the Widow Florez," Kimmer grumbled.

  "When in Spain," Rio told her, sounding more like himself each passing moment.

  "And she's expecting us this afternoon. Jet lag or not." Kimmer patted his back with finality and moved away, giving him room to sit up. He swung his legs around and brushed himself off, straightening his lightweight shirt and reaching for the jacket he'd used as a pillow. Lots of straps and buckles and pockets, that jacket. Kimmer secretly coveted it. But for now she just took it and shook it out so he could don it more easily and then picked up both her pack and his, ready to head for their baggage; they'd already been through customs in Barcelona. "C'mon, a little walking will get your blood moving. No moving walkways for you."

  He gave her a cross look simply because he was supposed to, but it was a measure of the lingering meds in his system that he didn't notice she had both packs until they were well on their way to the baggage.

  Picking out their bags took only moments; most of the passengers from their flight were long gone, making it easy for Kimmer to redistribute certain weapons without notice—a knife or two, and ahh, yes. The war club, right into her backpack. Along with her beloved little digital camera, which had been packed for safety. Have camera, will travel. Once, it had been how she connected with the world—through the eyepiece. Now she had Rio, but...

  She still carried the camera.

  By then Rio was indeed moving more easily, and he loaded himself up with more than his share as Kimmer prowled ahead to find the rental car location.

  They ended up outside, waiting for the mini-bus to the rental kiosks on the outskirts of the airport, watching cars swerve to the curb, disgorge and acquire passengers, and dart back into the stream of traffic. "Same old, same old," Kimmer said, resting her backpack on her toes and draping her elbow over the extended handle to her rolling suitcase. She was their translator here, competent if not natively fluent in Spanish, and she kept an ear to the conversations around them, dipping in and out to re-immerse herself in the rapid, emphatic flow of language.

  Perhaps that was why she didn't immediately follow when a man behind them said in English, "Get in the car." He didn't even give her a chance to turn around, to question him—to point out that there was no car to get into.

  Beside her, Rio had already stiffened in that peculiar way that could only mean there was a weapon shoved at some part of his body, and then Kimmer took a strong shove toward the curb. "Get in the car, gilipoyas!"

  At the moment, a car swooped in toward the curb, a tidy little BMW with the back door already sweeping open.

  "Driver's mine," Rio said, so casually as to draw no response from th
eir Welcome Wagon rep; he gave under the man's push, sprawling into the backseat of the car with his legs still trailing.

  "Idiot is mine," Kimmer responded under her breath. She dipped a hand into the backpack as she stumbled forward, her hand closing around the familiar worn wood of the little war club, its leather loop snugging into place around her wrist. And dammit, he pushed her again, right on the ass.

  She couldn't help but slap head-first into the side of the car, just barely nimble enough to soften the blow by throwing her pack out in front of her. She slid down the side of the car into the gutter, losing one of her clog sneakers; her toes scraped along the rough cement of the curb, then found purchase.

  The man reached for her, a barrel-chested man with dark curly hair and heavily shadowed jowls and big rough hands that had the wrong idea. Kimmer braced herself; the car bobbed and rocked against her with the battle waging in its interior. Hands splayed against asphalt, club handle rolling beneath her grip and shoulders against the car, she kicked out with both feet—two wicked fast hammer blows to his knees, and then she kipped out to land awkwardly, unevenly, but upright enough to twist over on one knee.

  Surprised cries from their fellow travelers greeted her acrobatics, and then again when she instantly followed momentum to bring the war club against the very base of the man's spine as he staggered forward.

  Bone cracked, unmistakable; he howled and went face first into the window—just as the driver smashed into the same window from the inside, blood flowing down his face and smearing down the glass.

  Kimmer snagged her assailant's collar and hauled--he tipped backward over the curb with a cry, leaving room for the door to open; Rio reached up from inside and flipped the latch.

  The driver ejected with help, looking as glad to escape as he was reluctant to hit the pavement.

  The sounds of shouting, whistle-blowing, and general demand-making grew from a background noise to something more imminent. Behind the car, the rental service mini-bus tootled up and honked an indignant horn, oblivious to the rest of it...and blocking them from view.

  Kimmer tossed their luggage in through the open back door and kicked it closed, scooted into the front seat, and slid over the stick shift and into the driver's seat. An instant to glance at the little shift map on top of the stick and she jammed it into first, pulling out into the traffic stream with sufficient authority to leave a series of squealing brakes behind her. "Well, we were waiting to rent a car. Now we have one."

  "That we do," Rio said, tossing the bloodied metal body of a pen beside her as he leaned forward to twine his arms over the passenger side head rest. "What'd you do to that guy?"

  "Broke his ass," Kimmer said with some satisfaction. It'd be months before he could easily sit again. "The club earns its keep."

  Rio pondered it a moment, as they swung out of the airport and onto Avenida Txorierri—the main road which would head them toward Bilboa if they'd wanted to go that far. But the Señora was conveniently located in the rich lands between Loiu and Bilboa, and Kimmer kept her eyes open for Bidea Izarza, the side road that would take them into the rugged old estate lands of the craggy green countryside. Settling his chin on the head rest, Rio said, "That club earned its keep a long time ago. Just don't begrudge me the guns."

  "Never fear," Kimmer said. "I plan to load up, too—especially after that reception. See if you can get Owen, why don't you? If our cover's blown already—"

  "What? Don't you have your super-rugged cell phone in that pack of yours?" Rio's voice was all innocence, even as he leaned over the seat to rifle the glove box. Not that he'd ever tease her about her propensity to lose phones and batteries to bizarre circumstances. The goat. Gah. Would she ever live down the goat? "I left the phone out to make room for the club," she said, deadpan. "Find anything in that glove box?"

  "Some names to follow through on, maybe. And lookie, lookie. Photos of you and me. With our cover names on the back. Kimberly and Richard Haight. Doesn't look like we were blown after all. Just...wanted."

  "Jeeze, I haven't even done anything in this country yet. And have I mentioned how much I hate that cover name?" Kimberly. Her mother's name had been Kimberly, before she'd died so young. Kimberly, nicknamed Kimmer...the name she'd given the daughter she'd tried so hard to raise tough enough to survive.

  "I know," Rio said, pausing in his search to look over at her. "I'm sorry."

  "Client choice," Kimmer snarled, but left it alone—and a moment later, spotted their turn and flipped on the blinker. "Nice car," she said, as if that plaintive moment hadn't happened. "Smooth."

  Rio braced himself and stuffed the papers back into the glove box as they turned, then plunked back in the seat among the luggage as they headed down a winding road. Still well-traveled and maintained, but the ambience almost immediately changed to that of dignified old Spain. "Y'know," he said, "if this little attempt isn't about us..."

  Kimmer nodded. "Then it's about our new employer."

  "Unless it's just the way things can be around here. Owen had his reasons for sending us, after all."

  They pondered the situation in silence a few long moments, long enough to reach Bidea Goietxa. Kimmer turned east, into the craggy green hills, and said, "That's the last of the signed streets. Now we follow our noses." Well, and Owen's detailed instructions.

  "We need to ditch this car," Rio murmured, shifting luggage around in the back so he could sit more conventionally. "I'm pretty sure the local cops nabbed our reception committee. The car's probably compromised."

  No arguing that. "After we see if our venerable employer has any idea why we've already attracted attention."

  "Señora Amaia Padilla y de la Fuente viusa de Florez," Rio recited, imbuing the words with tones of great significance and dignity. "Somehow I'm not sure we're the ones who'll be doing the questioning."

  ~~~

  They found the family estate of the Widow Florez with only a little backtracking through the winding roads—plenty of time for Rio to grab the glove box papers for a more thorough examination, and to stow them in his backpack. Hunter might find them useful when it came to figuring out if the attack had been on Kimberly and Richard or Kimmer and Rio.

  Neither of them spoke of returning to the airport to discuss the situation with authorities. As Hunter operatives, they wanted nothing to do with that sort of cover-breaking attention—and that meant as tourists, they were far too frightened.

  Although if the little ambush did indeed turn out to be the average kidnapping-of-distant-relatives-of-an-influential-local-family, it only reinforced their cover, and gave them plenty of reason for a wary attitude during their visit.

  Kimmer slowed the car as they approached the main house, having passed a plethora of sheep shacks and outbuildings and entered an area of mature landscaping. Oaks of various species spread large and proud across the green lawn; trimmed bushes clustered around the various retaining walls and vines climbed every vertical surface—most of which were whitewashed stucco. The house itself rose above it all, perched in the side of the hill that climbed higher yet behind it. Giant red blossoms rode a number of trellises at the corners of the house; brick-red wooden shutters, looking fully functional, set off the windows.

  "Noble and established family estate," Kimmer muttered as a man with hedge shears waved them on to park at the edge of the crushed limestone driveway circle. "Doesn't look too damned secure, though."

  "Not for an enticing and valuable antiquity." Rio leaned forward to eye the low windows and stepped roof layers, judging just how easily either he or Kimmer could enter at any level. Too easily.

  He climbed out, pulling their luggage after him, and straightened for a stretch to ease the vulnerable spot in his back. The moderate summer breeze welcomed him with a caress and just a hint of altitude-gifted coolness.

  "You okay?" Kimmer asked, her gaze still roaming over the villa as she put her hands to the small of her own back, stretching in a way that caught and held his eye. Ohh, Kimmer. She did i
ndeed constantly underestimate the effect of that petite and wiry form on him—just as she constantly surprised him with what she could do with it.

  Of course, she constantly surprised the goonboys, too. She knew how to strike hard and when to run; she knew how to use the unexpected. She'd escaped her wretched family and their wretched idea of childhood with those skills, and they now served her well.

  He didn't think she could give them up if she tried.

  She scrubbed her fingers through her dark brown hair, recently cut to the barest cap of repressed curls, and then, spotting their welcome committee as Rio did, tried to smooth down the damage.

  "Here," he said, and quickly ran his hands along the lines of the wispy-edged cut, taming the short hair back as much as anyone did. His fingers lingered at the fringe along her nape.

  "Later for you, mister," she said, as though she'd finally learned to read his mind. Not that he'd been subtle.

  Just establishing our scandalous nature.

  Right. Nice save, mister spy guy.

  At her nod, he turned and found that their welcoming committee—a lone woman—was almost upon them, having navigated the narrow stone stairs of the multi-layered yard in record time.

  Her imposing manner made him straighten in spite of himself. A mature woman with striking silver grey throughout in her severely styled black hair, her expression did nothing to offset her dark brows and the stern line of her lipsticked mouth; her tailored linen suit revealed nothing of personality other than practical efficiency.

  But she smiled as she drew up to them, and it struck Rio as genuine. "Señor Ricardo; Señorita Kimberly. I am Señora Marina Montalban—you may call me Marina. Let me welcome you to the home of Señora Amaia Padilla. She is so pleased to have arranged your services."