“Trust that he passes us,” Smoke said. “He doesn’t know this car. There’s already a new car being delivered to the safe house. We constantly switch them out. Oh. Aaron open the glovebox!”
I pulled it open and found…the manual. I slipped it out and shrugged. “Standard manual.”
Smoke chuckled. “Not even close. Open it.”
The leather case that held the manual was very nice, and I unzipped it. Flipping it open, he was 100 percent correct—it wasn’t a manual. It was a small control box, with several different options and a small booklet.
“Good Lord, this is James Bond.”
Laughing again, Smoke said, “Don’t touch any of the controls, but in the booklet, see if you can find if the car is equipped with a color change.”
“Color change?” I asked the question, but I was already paging through the small book. I saw the words on the page after just a few flips. “Got it here. It says, Color Change. Hot wax wash will cause paint to change color when dry. Silver to dark blue, gray to red, black to silver.”
“Excellent. When we need gas, we’ll get a wash. I know the plates drop, too.”
I glanced over at Maddox, who seemed to know I was looking at him without actually turning his head to check.
“Don’t say it,” he cautioned me.
“Say what, double-oh-seven?”
He groaned and I heard Smoke laugh from the floorboards in the back.
This was a mini tour never to be forgotten.
* * *
The sleek silverAudi really did fade to dark blue about five minutes after we pulled out of the car wash. I was laughing to myself that this stuff really existed and was used.
Gassed up, we’d also driven around the back of the service station to drop the plates, and pull away. Smoke took over the driving again, kicking us back up to his cruising speed as soon as we were on the highway.
Glancing at the GPS, it looked like we were about an hour from the border of the Ukraine. Or, normally we would have been. With the way Smoke and Maddox had driven, I wouldn’t be surprised if we rolled up on the border in ten minutes.
The closer we got, the more Smoke checked his mirrors. He tapped a few buttons on the screen and the car dialed someone.
“Allo sluchaju,” came the greeting.
“Major.”
“Agent Gillam. A pleasure to hear from you.”
“I have the gift that you weren’t able to find at the party,” he said. “I’m on my way back.”
“And the person who wanted to rip the wrapping off?”
“Hot on my tail, sadly.”
“You need an express entrance, da?”
“Da.”
“I will turn the lights green. You have a transponder?”
“Always.”
“Excellent. Where am I meeting you?”
“Lviv airport. I need to get the hell out of Cheung’s sight until he chills out,” Smoke said. “I have two passengers.”
