“Listen, Van, we’ll make it to Tahoe, and maybe things will go back to the way they were before, since Darius is gone now. We’ll lay low and plan our next attack, the right kind of attack.”
Matthew came into the hallway, heard Ian, and nodded. “Yes, we need to leave, but we’re not going back to Tahoe, we’re heading south. It’s time to take this to the next level.”
Ian eyed him. “You mean you still want to do Yorktown?”
“Oh, yes.”
Ian shook his head. “I don’t know, Matthew, I don’t know. Tonight was—bad.”
“I promise you and Vanessa, no major bombing like tonight at Bayway.” Matthew pumped his fist in the air. “Life’s an adventure, Ian, our adventure. Don’t turn coward on me now.”
The power plant at Yorktown? Vanessa hadn’t known. Neither Ian nor Matthew had told her. Did Andy know?
Matthew was still pumped, thrilled with himself. “Andy is breaking down his computers, then you can help him get everything into the van. You know what he did, right, Ian?”
“I know all I need to know—he crippled the buggers. Hey, even if you explained it all to me, I wouldn’t understand it.” He grinned, clapped Mathew on the back and left him and Vanessa alone in the dim hallway.
12
PAWN TAKES C4
Vanessa turned away from him, said over her shoulder, “I’m going to shower and pack. Five minutes.”
“We need to talk.”
“Later, Matthew. We have plenty of time to talk on the road south. To Yorktown.”
She left him, already writing her text message in her head as she went into the bedroom to get clothes and her special phone she’d stashed in a tampon box, the safest place in the universe when surrounded by men. She was scared, excited, knew at last things were coming together. Yorktown? Was that where Darius had gone? But why split apart from the group?
She took the tiny phone out of the box, grabbed a towel and clothes, and went into the small bathroom. She turned on the shower, leaned into the noise, turned on the phone. She saw there was a response to her last text, the one she’d sent with Darius’s photo.
Need more information. Nothing in databases. Ghost.
She couldn’t believe it—no records at all? She knew Darius was a criminal. Surely he’d been arrested at some point, fingerprinted and photographed. He’d even once told her about a prison in Turkey—had they contacted Interpol? Of course they had.
She texted back.
911, coin bombs already perfected, Bayway test run. Darius did not return with us. Don’t know where he is. Heading south.
She hit send and waited. And waited. The signal was bad in the bathroom. Even though the phone was secure and encrypted, it still needed a decent LTE connection to go through. She couldn’t have a satellite phone on her, too suspicious if she was caught with it. This baby was a very small smartphone, beefed up by her people, all improvements under the hood. Since one of Matthew’s rules was no phones, she was very careful with it.
The text still hadn’t gone through.
“Come on, come on, come on.”
She’d started to strip down when there was a knock on the bathroom door. She was so hyped up she nearly dropped the phone. She called out, “I’m getting into the shower now. Three minutes and I’ll be out, ready to leave.”
Matthew’s voice, soft and sexy, his coaxing voice: “I want to come in, Vanessa. I think it’s time you and I finally had that talk.”
Her heart froze. What talk? He was thinking about sex now? She quickly grabbed the big bar of soap from the shower, wet it, and started working the phone into it, pressing hard. Was it still showing? She kept squeezing it into the soap, praying for time. It was inside, finally, fully covered.
The doorknob jiggled. Her heart thundered in her chest.
“Come on, Vanessa, open up. I know you’re mad at me, but I want to make it up to you. Now’s our chance, let’s—”
She had to stop this. “Now, Matthew?” She played with the bar of soap—yes, it looked harmless. She quickly set it back into the shower. “You think now’s a good time because your best friend Darius isn’t here to tell you not to talk to me?”
The door crashed inward. Matthew stood there, breathing hard, his eyes dark and hot. Then, fast as a blink, he smiled. “Hey, what’s with locking me out? You’re the one who wanted me to share, to tell you all I’m planning.”