Chapter 6
It was six p.m. and the sky was still bright when Dane emerged freshly shaved from the bathroom—the only one in the small house—to find Andrews and Goodley still hard at work, sitting at the dining table in front of their laptops tapping away.
Sassy was in the guest room, but Dane had reminded her that when he and Shana left, her assignment was to stick with the two agents and not let them out of her sight while they were in the house.
Andrews took his attention from his keyboard and stood.
Dane noticed that the process of straightening was not fluid or quick.
The agent couldn’t be ten years older than him.
Dane didn’t appreciate the insight that getting up from a chair as if he were the squeaky Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz might be in his near future.
“Let’s talk first. I know you don’t like this, or us.” Andrews spread his arm to encompass Goodley. The younger man grunted and scowled at the screen, but didn’t take his attention away from it.
“So?”
“We’re relying on you.”
Andrews let that sit without explanation.
Dane read his mind, or tried to. He could outwait the man, but they were scheduled to meet Acer.
Shana sauntered from the hall and met him, looping her arm through his.
She smelled like an impossible combination of angel and devil, or it could have been his wishful thinking.
The effect would have been dizzying if he hadn’t had his guard up.
Dane noticed that Andrews’s guard hadn’t been up if the sudden dilation of his pupils was any indication. She was dressed to kill—someone—way past the dress code for the Lucky Parrot. Her slinky black dress with the missing back and short hemline was one of his favorites.
“Get to the point, Andrews. And quit eying my wife—”
“You’re married?”
Dane heard Andrews’s disbelief and felt rather than saw the singe from Shana’s shock. His blood heated but he kept his cool. He’d never been such an idiot before.
“Not yet.” Shana moved in closer. “You’re jumping the gun, darling.” She sounded part cat, part woman the way she purred, like she was channeling some siren from a sixties cold war spy movie. He’d have to start monitoring what she watched on late-night TV.
More importantly, he needed to monitor himself and get back to that detached professional persona that kept him alive all these years.
“Get to the point,” Dane repeated without taking his eyes off Andrews.
He remained undistracted on the outside, managing to prevent himself from staring at his almost-wife.
Later he’d analyze why he’d needed to prematurely claim Shana as his wife.
Or more likely she’d analyze the hell out of the episode for him.
For now, he could tell she enjoyed it, could feel the vibration of energy sizzling off her.
“The point is,” Andrews said, his lips hardly moving as if he were a ventriloquist—an angry ventriloquist. “That if you want to go out, you need to be in touch at all times and say nothing to anyone. That includes Captain Lynch, the Gables, and any other friends you might have.”
“Might have? We have plenty of friends,” Dane said. Purposely missing the point, he refused to react to the crack about the Gables. Dane had known they’d been followed.
“Don’t be a wiseass. We’ll be watching you. Because as I’ve said, we don’t trust you. Maybe you should keep that in mind.” Andrews went back to his laptop at the dining table.
Dane knew when he’d said “watching” he’d also meant “listening,” but couldn’t say it because strictly speaking it would be against the law in Massachusetts to listen to someone covertly without their permission.
They’d managed to evade the listening devices out on the Gables’ yacht, but that was no long-term solution to the private communications problem they were developing.
Dane hoped Acer had the problem under control in the basement of the Lucky Parrot.
His assignment had been to construct a surveillance-proof space, an NSA-spy-free zone where they could meet and talk, using it as a base of their own counter-surveillance operations.
Acer had been game. When wasn’t he? If his old special ops team member thought Dane was paranoid out of his mind, he didn’t show any sign. So far Shana was going along.
“Let’s go, darling.” He took Shana’s hand and led her out the door after calling Sassy up from downstairs.
Dane didn’t bother trying to evade the car he noticed following them starting three blocks from their house, presumably Secret Service.
He turned the radio up and opened the window then, before he had a chance to pull her to him, Shana leaned in and put her face close to his.
He took a deep breath of her scent and let the intoxication of her cloak him.
“We’ll head to the basement first before we eat.”
“You don’t think they’ll notice?”
“Make it look like you’re going in to the ladies’ room and slip through the basement door instead.”
“You think Acer’s set up and waiting for us?”
“We’re in a shitload of trouble if he isn’t.”
“I love your optimism.” She kissed him on the side of his mouth while he drove. He knew if the Secret Service men could somehow see inside their car they’d guess at the intimate conversation. He knew the loud radio and open window didn’t fool them. But it didn’t tell them what was going on either.
When they walked in the back door of the Lucky Parrot, Dane hid his surprise.
He counted no fewer than three tables occupied by various feds.
No one he knew. He and Shana both managed to slip down through the door off the back hallway that led to the basement stairs.
Shana went to flick on the light switch and Dane slapped his hand over hers, stopping her.
“No light. One of the feds out there may have noticed us and may try following. I don’t want to leave a trail.” He whispered this next to her ear as he nudged her forward with his body, holding her so she wouldn’t fall as he felt along the wall with his other hand.
She was smart enough not to speak and nimble enough to climb down the stairs in the dark without incident.
By the time they got to the bottom, his eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness and they encountered a small open space showing two doors.
He touched the knob of the one on the right, but rapped lightly in Morse code, spelling out his name.
This was his all-purpose communication with Acer and all his ex-special-ops team members to announce his arrival lest he got knocked on the head or worse when he opened the door.
As he entered he shoved Shana through ahead of him.
Just in time to avoid being seen by whoever had opened the door to the stairwell above.
He nodded at Acer and signaled for them all to remain silent.
Locking the door behind him, he flicked the lights off.
And waited. Damn if these feds weren’t determined to keep him in their sights.
They were better than he’d given them credit for.
Or maybe it was that he couldn’t afford the luxury of time and planning to better evade them.
That was all about to change once his friend Acer was up and running this basement web-hacking and general spy support shop. In the meantime, they all listened to the deceptively light footsteps of someone on the stairs. Dane kept his breathing even when the doorknob rattled.
At the same time as the knob rattled, another set of steps could be heard stomping down the stairs, sure and fast this time and without concern for noise. Then Dane listened just on the other side of the door to the voices outside, loud and clear.
“Hey, what are you doing down here? This is off limits to customers.” The unmistakable voice of the Lucky Parrot owner, Tom Jones.
“I was looking for the men’s room. I saw someone else come down here—” The voice was unrecognizable, lower, barely audible, but unintimidated.
“Let’s get back u-stairs, bud. Anyone else belongs down here and you don’t.
” There was a pause for a couple of beats.
He felt Shana’s breath fan his neck, felt her press against him, the tickle of her hair against his cheek.
Dane hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until his shoulders unclenched a notch with her closeness.
Then they heard two sets of footsteps going back up the stairs and when the door closed at the top with a loud thud, courtesy of Tom, Dane took a deep breath and slipped an arm around Shana.
“Glad that showdown was avoided,” Shana said.
“For now,” he said.
“I’ll need to take precautions then,” Acer said. “I don’t want to be a sitting duck here if they decide to come back when Tom isn’t around. Or if they get a warrant.”
“Or if they just come back at night. We’re not sure how closely these guys are playing by the rules.
” Dane already knew in his own mind that they weren’t, at least not the two Secret Service agents they were dealing with.
Andrews and Goodley were already crossing lines by barging into his house and insisting they have access to Dane’s equipment.
Dane hoped to hell that didn’t include the arsenal of weapons he had stashed in the basement. But why would the Secret Service need his other equipment?
No reason unless they’re outside the lines and need a fall guy.
“So what’s Acer supposed to do?” Shana didn’t look alarmed exactly, but Dane would definitely describe the slight downturn of her mouth and the tension around her eyes—not quite a squint—as dismayed.
“Same as I always do,” Acer said. “I go into Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass mode.”
She paused and didn’t bother asking for the explanation, unless he counted the way she put her hands on her hips and stared at Acer like a school principal. Dane didn’t bother saying a word. He knew Acer would spell it out for her.
“I’ll need some supplies.” Acer eyed him.