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“Everything fits.” The woman leaned back on her knees.
“Effie, you always do great work.”
She started to get up slowly and took Eastman’s proffered hand. “I know I do. That’s why you keep me around.” She smiled and turned to Ryker. “I don’t care if Lance comes back with a size seventeen shoe or not, you owe me a drink tonight, handsome.”
Ryker went over and kissed the woman on her cheek. “If I were going to be here, I definitely would. How about on my way back?”
“I’ll hold you to it.” She looked at the rest of the team in their tactical gear. “I’ll hold all of you to it. I want drinks from all of you—that means you all need to come back here safe and sound. Do you hear me?”
There was a chorus of ‘Yes, ma’ams.’
Someone behind Ryker bumped him and as he turned. Jase shoved his tactical uniform at him. “Do something with this, will you, my boy? I’m going to be busy liaising.”
“Are you a thespian now? Cause last I saw, you musical theatre types got kicked out into the hall to work on your lines,” Ryker commented as he held out Jase’s gear.
“All right, I’ll take it back.”
There was a knock on the door, and the Chief Master Sergeant opened it to a tall, thin man who had to be Airman Lance. He was holding a duffel bag. “I’ve got dress shoes going from size ten to seventeen, Sergeant. There are a variety of widths as well.”
Eastman pointed his thumb at Jase. “What do you need?”
“Just an ordinary sixteen medium.”
“I’ve got that,” the airman said. He set down the duffel and started to pull out the shoes. Each of them had been wrapped in tissue paper and was shined to a high polish. “Here you go,” he handed a pair to Jase.
Jase sat down in the front row to try them on.
“Wait a minute, I brought dress socks too, I worried that you might be wearing boot socks.”
Ryker looked over at Kostya who had a half grin on his face. These Air Force folks were killing it!
“Lieutenant, I’ve got an incoming call for you,” Gideon said.
“That’s our invitation to leave. Don’t be leaving your mess out in my hall, we have enough messes coming in for our stuff without taking the Navy’s,” Eastman said only half-jokingly.
He and Kostya shook hands again, then he left with Effie and Airman Lance. Kostya took the phone out of Gideon’s hand then turned away and walked over to the window.
“Ryker, Jase, and Linc, come over here,” Gideon ordered. “I want you to see the bug that you’re going to use at RTP Enerji. I got a line in on their security at their headquarters, and it is stiff. They have Ferromagnetic detection systems.”
“That’s going to make things interesting,” Linc quipped.
Kostya lowered his eyebrows at him, then turned to Gideon. “So will Dermott’s little bit of hardware pass through?”
“I don’t have a wand with me, but I think so. I put in a request to the Wing Commander to see if there was an FMDS here on base while you were on the phone with Commander Clark,” Gideon answered Kostya. “He told me they have handhelds and someone will be bringing one over to us.”
The door opened, and they all expected another Airman to come through the door with the handheld FMDS, but instead, it was Dermott Carlisle. “Excuse me, Lieutenant. I wanted to know when we were leaving.”
Behind him, another man came in holding a wand. “Wing Commander Charles said to bring this to Lieutenant Barona, am I in the right room?”
“You are,” Gideon stood up excitedly. “Thanks, Airman.” He took the wand from the young man and switched it on. He swept it over the small receiver in his hand and there was no reaction.
“Hot damn, it works,” Gideon grinned.
“Mr. Carlisle, to answer your question, we’re leaving now,” Kostya answered.
9
They’d lost an hour and forty-five minutes at Incirlik getting Jase kitted out and it took them five precious hours to get from Incirlik Air Base to the meeting at RTP Enerji. That meant they were down to thirty-eight hours and ten minutes. Gideon had arranged for two SUVs at the airport. Teams Two and Three went directly to the En Iyi Sultan Hotel, while Team One, Jase and Dermott took the second SUV and went directly to the corporate headquarters.
