Between them they fumbled the outside door open. A rush of cool air came in, hitting Katrina in the face. But before she went out, she looked back one last time.
The chief hadn’t moved. He was still standing in the hall, watching them. Katrina felt a chill go up her spine, and she hurried through the door and out onto the loading dock.
* * *
—
Chief Bledsoe watched the two wallflowers lug their trash out until the door closed on them. Then, still frowning, he turned away and headed back to rejoin the team. It bothered the shit out of him—he knew that fucknuts. Had seen that face. But where? When?
Never mind. It would come to him. It always did. And then he would decide what to do about it. Until then, why fuck with the good mood? Because he was feeling very pleased with himself. Not because he had just knocked off a piece of ass, either. It was a professional thing, too. His team had done a primo job installing the security equipment, even though some of it had never been deployed in the field before. That meant problems they couldn’t anticipate, requiring solutions nobody had thought of yet. And they’d fucking well found them. So the men were happy that they were scoring with tech that nobody had seen before. And the chief had done his job, organizing the whole thing, dogging it all into place and keeping everybody clean and sober while they worked.
And yeah, best of all—once his duty was fulfilled, he had found a way to get laid on site, something he regarded as almost as important.
The piece of ass—Anabel? Abigail? something with an A—whatever her name was, she’d been surprisingly enthusiastic. He’d found that the plain ones usually were. He’d have to remember to ask somebody about her name. Wouldn’t do to fuck that up. She might cut him off. Although, judging by her enthusiasm, he was pretty sure he could call her Fred and she’d keep fucking him.
The chief was thinking about that, and smirking, as he strolled down the hall—when a cold soft voice behind him said, “Freeze.”
Chief Bledsoe froze.
“Wipe that fucking simper off your face,” the voice said. “And button your fucking fly, you cock-breath motherfucker.”
A huge smile spread over Chief Bledsoe’s face. “Sir,” he said. “Permission to tell cocksucker officer to go fuck himself, sir?”
“Granted,” the voice said, and Bledsoe spun around.
Standing there with a grin matching his own was Lieutenant Szabo, an officer he’d served under on the Teams.
“You dog-fucking bag of shit. Sir,” Bledsoe said, grabbing the man in a bear hug.
“Jesus fuck, Chief, you’re even uglier than I remembered. Like a warthog fucked a donkey.”
“And you, sir. Without the beard you had in the sandbox, I thought I was looking at a monkey’s ass.”
“Guess you’d know, considering how many monkeys you fucked,” Szabo said.
For a moment, the two just grinned at each other. “Shit, it’s good to see you, sir,” Bledsoe said.
“Likewise,” Szabo said, and the two walked together toward the exhibit hall.
“So what the fuck are you doing here?” the chief asked. He nodded at Szabo’s uniform. “And in that pretty shirt and all.”
“I’m leading the team from Black Hat,” Szabo said.
“Hoo-yah,” Bledsoe said.
“And get this: We’re supposed to ‘coordinate and implement’ with the Raghead Guards.” He snorted.
“Lucky you,” Bledsoe said.
“They get here same time as these jewels,” Szabo said.
“When’s that?”
“I can’t tell you. You don’t need to know,” Szabo said. “It’s the morning of the big opening shindig.”
“Huh,” the chief said. “We’re scheduled to run final tests about then. And then we’re outta here.”
“Too bad, I could use you guys,” Szabo said. He shook his head. “This place looks like a fortress, but it’s got so many entry points we’re going to need all the eyes we can get.”