We vaulted out of bed, and yanked on the clothes we had scattered all over the bedroom. He threw my boxers at me and I chucked his shirt at him. We’d had dinner after the shower, and after dinner we watched a movie with Smoke before he left.
We disappeared into the bedroom and our clothes vanished soon after. I lost track of how many times Aaron had gotten me off, but we did have to take another shower. We’d probably fallen asleep close to eleven.
A few more hours of sleep would have been nice, but it wasn’t critical.
We were dressed, repacked, and running down the stairs in just under seven minutes. Smoke was already in the garage waiting for us.
“Bags in the trunk.” He pointed and leaned down into a case near the door into the house. “Aaron, can you handle a gun?”
“The fuck?” Aaron asked.
“No, then.” He handed up a gun to me.
“Dude. This is a Sig,” I said, grabbing it.
“You’ll need ammunition.” He handed me a bag that had about five boxes of bullets in it.
“Smoke, what the hell have you done this time?”
“Things went a little dodgy last night,” he said, pulling out a massive Desert Eagle Chrome and hefting it. “Mm, nice. I’m claiming this one.”
“Dude, that’s a cannon,” Aaron said.
“Might come in handy.”
“What the hell did you do?”
“Oh, there might be a Chinese National who’s kind of pissed I hacked his drive last night at a party.” His comment was offhand, and I shook my head as Aaron’s jaw dropped open.
A second later, Aaron stepped forward. “Gimme a nine-mil. Got one of those? I can handle that. Not those mini rifles you’re sporting.”
“Ooh, he can handle a weapon too?”
“You have no idea.” I winked and Aaron flushed red. Smoke handed back the compact gun to Aaron who checked it over, and took the box of bullets a moment later.
“You can use that?” I asked.
He stared at the Sig in my hands. “You can use that?”
“Fair enough.” I laughed.
Smoke clapped his hands. “Okay, enough ammosexuality, let’s go. Get in the car.”
Aaron slipped in the back of the Audi, and buckled his seat belt. He glanced at Smoke as he climbed in. “We are still going to Milan, right?”
“We are, but we’re going to be going a slightly different way than planned.” He opened the garage, and looked at both of us. “You have your American papers on you?” We both said we did, and he nodded, pleased. “Good. We’re driving to Lviv.”
“Bless you,” I said.
“Lviv, Ukraine?” Aaron asked. “Isn’t that basically back into the lion’s den here?”
“Ukraine is independent and Russia doesn’t like that,” Smoke said, pulling us out of the garage. “They also don’t like Chinese Nationals with information they’ve stolen from their national security force.”
Aaron lifted an eyebrow at me. “Now are we in a James Bond movie?”
“No,” I answered. “Not until they’re shooting at us.”
“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen,” Smoke put the car in drive, closing the garage, and motoring us out to the main road. He touched a few buttons on the dash. “The drive is supposed to be six hours. Let’s see if I can’t get us there faster.”
