The corporal who was in charge of the soldiers who surrounded us had his orders from the jerky major pretty quickly, and we never saw the inside of a holding cell.
The Audi actually made it through the ordeal with just a few scratches. It didn’t even need new tires. I was impressed.
Aaron, on the other hand, looked a little shaken. While I had grown used to Smoke’s antics, he was new to the wide world of idiocy. I walked over to him, leaning with his back against the car, arms folded, staring down at his shoes.
“Are you okay, Ay-ay?” I asked quietly.
His head jerked up. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. I just… Well. I’m just not used to this. At all. When I was on the streets, it was more subtle, more thought out, more planned. This was fast and terrifying and just not what I needed after making a run out of Russia.”
“You sure you’re okay?” I put one hand on either side of him on the roof of the car. “Be honest with me.”
“I would like to be done with this,” he whispered. “Touring is one thing. Playing Jason Bourne is a whole other. Maybe you can handle this, but this is not…”
“I hate this, actually,” I answered. “Smoke does this shit all the time. Whenever he shows up, we get into trouble. Last time, it was Uriah and Austin. Now it’s us. I’ll be glad if he drops out of this for something more low level. I love the guy, but Jesus Christ, his adventures are exhausting.”
“Please, tell me we’re getting on that plane?”
“We are,” Smoke said, walking around the car. “We have just an hour drive to get there, and the major will be waiting. But um…”
“Um?” I growled at him.
“We have to make a stop in Tel Aviv,” he said. “We’re extracting an asset.”
“Extracting—”
He held up his hand. “He’ll already be out and we’re just picking him up. I swear.”
I whirled on him. “We have a concert tomorrow night. I will personally choke you out if we are not in Milan for lights up. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do. I’m sorry. We need to get him out, fast. Otherwise I would just get us straight to Milan. He’s an asset not an agent and he’s just terrified. He’s got good information.”
“Fine,” I growled. “Not like I really have a choice here.”
“I can get you on a plane to Milan—”
“Please, just get us in the air. I’m not leaving the plane when we get to Tel Aviv,” Aaron said.
Smoke motioned to the car while he was nodding. “I swear it’s in and out. We won’t be wheels down for more than an hour.”
I nodded and we climbed in. Aaron looked exhausted and I knew I wasn’t faring much better. I wanted time alone with him, and I wanted to sleep next to him for twelve hours straight. Even our interlude the night before was only a hold over for now. I wanted to explore more of this with him.
I just hoped Smoke was right and we’d be in and out fast.
The major was waiting at the airport. Smoke pulled in next to the Mercedes with blacked out windows and both Aaron and I groaned.
“Could he be anymore stereotypical?”
Smoke snorted. “Just wait.”
Apparently, there was a standardformer Soviet Bloc uniform, and the major was happily sporting it. Olive drab, with red piping and lapels, there were gold chords draped on one arm as well as gold epaulets on his shoulders. As he stood out of the car, he pulled out the high hat with a red band, gold cord trim, and gold star right in the middle.
“Holy crap,” Aaron said. “Really?”
“Yup. Just about any other official would show up in jeans and T-shirt. This guy is a real ass. I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t…uh, kind a duck down and don’t let him see you really well? You’re famous and I don’t want him to get any ideas. This is probably the last time I’ll ever have to deal with this asshole, and it’d be great if he didn’t have a good look at my American passengers.”
I angled myself away from the window and a moment later, Aaron handed up a hoodie. I slipped it on as fast as I could, over the jacket, and pulled up the hood. Aaron had his on as well and had sunk back into the seat.
Smoke had left the window down, which I thought was strange until I realized he was trusting us to watch his back. We were supposed to eavesdrop and make sure nothing funny went down. What we would do, I didn’t know, but he trusted we’d figure it out.
