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“He knows you know about the tunnel,” Ziv pointed out.
“Trust me, he wouldn’t think I had the balls to steal from him,” I admitted. “Besides, if I was running this op solo instead of working with you guys, I’d be coming at it from an entirely different direction.” The end of the passage finally came into view.
“What kind of direction?” Ziv asked.
I turned and bounced my eyebrows at him. So much for not joking during an op. “The sexy seduction direction.”
Ziv huffed out a laugh. “You’d fuck the crown out of him.”
“Best way to get something out of a man’s bedroom is to have a reason to be in the man’s bedroom. Wouldn’t you agree?”
I reached for the lamp attached to my safety helmet and turned it up to a brighter setting so I could record the details of the hatch with the GoPro camera strapped to my chest.
Ziv rattled off everything he saw so we’d have a verbal record in case the video didn’t come out well. I wasn’t surprised to see the type of alarm connectors Elek’s security team had used on the hatch, but I was surprised to see them on this side of the doorway.
“Something’s not right,” I murmured, looking closer.
He must have known what I was thinking because he picked right up on it. “Maybe there’s a set inside so he can alarm it for entry and exit.”
“I would expect to see a camera here,” I said softly.
“But we have the jammer turned on. So even if there was one, it wouldn’t be able to record with us this close.”
“There still should be one.”
I felt around the edges of the hatch and the alarm connectors. The whole thing just looked so… basic. Like if Jimbo went to Walmart and asked them for a do-it-yourself secret-hatch security kit.
Ziv went to work mounting the jammer above the door. I was still shocked at how tiny it was. Working for the US government sure had its privileges, I guessed. The ones I could get my hands on were big enough to be spotted easily. This one was tiny in addition to Mouse doing an incredible job of making it look like what we’d imagined the inside of the tunnel looked like. It was covered in putty that made it look like dirty rock. While not perfect by any means, you’d definitely have to be looking for it to notice it.
As soon as we were done, I took one last quick look around before following Ziv back down the rock-strewn passageway to the end. Once we stripped off helmets and masks and stowed them away in the packs we’d left just inside the tunnel, we waited for the all-clear from Linney.
“Lazy Daze hold. Another craft is maneuvering out of a nearby slip.”
The sound of the patrol car got louder before drifting off again.
“Lazy Daze, you are clear to dock. Reminder to proceed with zero wake.”
I glanced at Ziv. “You going to be ready to run like the wind?”
The “zero wake” warning put us on notice to haul ass as soon as Mouse arrived in the van. It meant they had reason to believe someone might be watching or the patrol might come back around sooner than usual.
“Challenge accepted,” Ziv shot back with a grin. “Why do you think Russians have more Olympic medals than Americans?”
The van pulled to a stop, and the side door nearest us flew open. Ziv shoved a palm to my chest and beat me there, turning to laugh in my face when I threw myself onto the metal floor of the van and slammed the sliding door closed behind myself.
“Because you cheat!” I panted at him with a grin. The adrenaline rush felt amazing after our long travel days and then the computer work earlier.
“Tochno,” he said in a heavy Russian accent, leaning back against the wall of the van with a laugh and twinkling eyes. The hacker was enjoying the rush as much as I was. “Exactly. And don’t you ever forget it.”
I knew one appropriate Russian word, so I used it.
“Mudak,” I said with a wink.
Asshole.
“Takes one to know one, my friend.”
I considered the mission a success. Not only had we planted the jammer without getting caught or dead, but I’d also broken through Ziv’s icy shell a little bit. There was something that happened to people when they did an op together. Even though our little semi-safe jaunt into the tunnel wasn’t very risky, it was still a shared experience.
And I had to admit it felt nice to have someone at my side. It had been a long time since I’d trusted anyone to bring them into my work. I’d been so incredibly burned by Elek’s betrayal, working heists solo had become a badge of honor.
Which was all well and good if you didn’t want to divide your spoils, but it was shitty and lonely when you experienced this high and had absolutely no one to share it with.
