Chapter 6 #2
“I’ll arrange delivery before dawn. I have a kit. It’s a bit dusty, but it should work.” He assessed the size of the room. Two- by-four studs, wood paneling, some hydraulics, and presto.
“What the hell are you two talking about?”
Acer smiled. “We build the room out to look like something it’s not. We’ll have some storage behind the walls for my equipment and my favorite feature, a secret door.”
“I don’t think there’s enough space for a secret room for your work space behind the walls, Acerman,” Dane said.
“I know. And we’ll have to hope they don’t take too much notice of the setup. It won’t be polished.” He looked up at the ceiling. “We’ll need to put in a drop ceiling or they’ll trace the plumbing and electricity to its source behind the walls.”
Shana stood shaking her head. Dane said nothing. Finally, she took her fists off her hips and faced him.
“You were in clandestine operations, like the CIA?” It was an accusation.
“Far more clandestine than the CIA,” Acer scoffed. “The less you know, the better.”
“What did you think special ops was about?” Dane stared back at her, resisting his urge to throw his hands on his hips or to throw his arms around her and hug her in.
“I… don’t know.” She waved a hand. More military I guess.”
He nodded. “Plenty of that too. We did whatever we needed to do. From the basic aim and shoot to elaborate set ups.”
He watched the rise and fall of her breasts as she took a deep breath.
“How are you going to get your kit from the basement?”
He smiled. “It’s not in the basement. It’s in storage. I’ll have Ronnie make a special delivery. It should fit in the van he uses to deliver food for the Shark’s Table.”
“Have him stay and help me build it out. Have Tom help too.”
Dane nodded.
“This is going to cost a pretty penny,” Shana said.
“Would you rather stay and help with the build-out yourself?”
“Not on your life. I’ll be back at the shack with you, keeping an eye on our friends.”
“Speaking of whom, we need to get out of here.”
He slipped his arm around her and they walked to the corner of the small basement room to an alcove where there was a stairway leading to an exterior bulkhead.
He turned to Acer. “Make sure you hide this.”
Acer saluted them. “Make sure you send me down some food.”
Dane let Shana go through the bulkhead first. It opened up to a fenced-in area with a dumpster. The fence was closed all the way around and padlocked. That must make it tough for the garbage men Dane thought, apropos of nothing.
He lifted Shana up and she launched herself over like a gymnast doing a vault move. He was going to need to use the dumpster to get himself up and over, but he managed to do it without making a mess of himself. They would go around the front door and go inside and eat dinner now.
He landed on his feet and watched his girl straightening her elegant black dress. Without a word, he brushed some grime from the fence off her backside, letting his hand linger.
“Even the fence conspires to allow you a feel on a night when we need to be all business.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m focused exactly where I need to be.” He looked around the parking lot. A couple of young women laughed as they closed their car doors and headed to the restaurant.
“Front or back door?”
“Let’s go around front. We’ll follow the girls in. Less conspicuous.”
He put an arm around her waist and pulled her into his side, the way he always did, the way he always would for the rest of his life, and they walked.
She laughed, head up and gazing at the stars as if this were a glorious night for a date and they were any normal romantic couple.
His shoulder blades tightened because it wasn’t a romantic date, as much as he wanted it to be a night without danger.
They would have their nights. Sometime. But this wasn’t one of them.
They walked in the front door and found the place packed.
Dane shouldn’t have been surprised to see almost as many tourists as regulars.
He definitely wasn’t surprised to see federal agents still mixed in with the crowd, presumably regular Secret Service men and women doing their jobs.
They were the plainclothes versions, the kind not trying to hide who they were, the kind purposely advertising their presence, shouting that they were on island to protect the President and that anyone who wanted to do him harm had fair warning.
They were the deterrents, the expected official police presence.
Dane and Shana were seated at their table after only a two-minute wait at the bar—only enough time to get their drinks because they were given preferential treatment.
All the wait staff treated Dane and Shana as if they were part owners.
In truth, Dane felt more like a behind-the-scenes consultant and took pride in the fact that the place had flourished since he’d taken an interest in it after his first mission with Shana.
“We have to go back down. After Acer has a chance to set up and get us something.”
“Tonight?”
“We have twenty to thirty-two hours and counting before the shit hits the fan. I figure that’s how long it’ll take for Andrews’s boss to order us to throw Sassy and Ronnie out on the street. Then—”
“How can they do that? How can they force the issue?”
“At gunpoint.”
“I thought this was a free country.”
“Except when the President’s visiting town and there’s a viable threat against him, then all bets are off. Civil rights get caught up in the national security net.”
“What do you make of our assignment to observe the crowd at the airport when Air Force One lands?”
“It’s a setup of some kind. They don’t need us for observation.”
“Maybe they need us for a distraction?”
“I’d buy that. But for who and how?”
She picked up her drink and took a long sip.
“We need Acer to come through for us with something. Fast.” Dane didn’t look toward the back hall and stairway, but he surreptitiously watched everyone who went that way to go to the restrooms.
“How about if we divide and conquer?” She dangled the glass between two fingers, holding the stem.
She was drinking a martini, slightly dangerous for her.
They’d ordered dinner but it hadn’t arrived.
They could leave now and not come back, but he knew they should stay to keep up the charade. Plus, they needed to eat.
“Have another roll.” He moved the basket in front of her. He didn’t want to separate from her, not even for a half hour.
“I could take a drive down the street to the pie shop and go in, pretend I’m picking up some things for Sassy while you go down stairs. If we both go out the back, you can sneak in through the bulkhead—”
“Stop. No way.”
“They’ll follow me and leave you alone.”
“There’s no guarantee of that. You recognize the pair who followed us to the Gables’ in here?”
“Sure.” She lifted her drink in the direction of a table at three o’clock.
He nodded. “That’s them.” He lifted his own drink to his mouth, but only took a deep drag of the scent of the Glenlivet 18-year Speyside single malt.
He’d talked Tom into stocking it for him.
The Lucky Parrot proprietor had grumbled and called him nasty inventive names, but he stowed a bottle with a Dane-only sticker on it under the unused old-fashioned cash register.
Jones had never done away with the relic for aesthetics though the staff used computerized gadgets these days for taking orders and taking payments.
“Shana, there’s no advantage to us splitting up. I mean—” He stopped then because he didn’t know what he meant. He shook his muddled head.
“I know what you mean.” She shrugged.
He couldn’t believe he’d lost his cool, couldn’t believe he’d uttered a flustered word, had a moment of awkwardness.
That never happened. Not even when he’d been an adolescent.
When everyone around him had been awkward, he’d been cool and collected.
Distant. He’d been distant from his emotions. It had been easy to be cool then.
Now he enjoyed an excruciatingly close relationship with his emotions. They were front and center and interfering on a regular basis with his cool. With his ability to function. Whenever he was with Shana, whenever it was about Shana. It was always about Shana now. Damn.
He closed his eyes for a couple of blinks and collected himself, gave himself a stern warning. This was no time to act like a lovesick adolescent. He tightened every muscle in his body against the intrusion of emotions.
“We need to go downstairs now—before our dinner gets here—and sell it as a private assignation. We can’t wait until after dinner because if we don’t show up at the Jeep directly after leaving they’ll come looking for us.”
She agreed without trepidation or even irritation, “They’ll be waiting since they’re following us.” She looked at him with a loving smile. He steeled against it. Besides, he knew it was part of the act. The slight tilt of her head told him she got it.
“I like the idea of an assignation,” she murmured, holding him with a dreamy look. She stood, clutching her purse with one hand. “I’ll meet you there.” She winked and trailed her other hand seductively along his jaw.
Anyone who was watching would understand why he’d abandon his dinner and follow her from the room.