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“Just part of the job,” he says, stopping fully at each traffic light, trying to see if anyone out there is tailing them.
So far, so good, but it doesn’t mean that there’s not a drone out there as well, flittering through this city’s streets.
“Liam.”
“Still here, still driving. Let’s talk more later, okay?”
“Once you got me out of my cell, you had a confrontation withsomeone … I’m pretty sure it was Chang Wanquan. I recognized the bastard’s voice. And you rotated me. Why?”
“To block him from shooting me.”
Lin says, “What?”
“You were captured for a reason, Benjamin. Meaning you were worth something. Me using you as a barrier made that guy hesitate for a couple of seconds. All I needed.”
Another traffic light, another stop.
“Good call,” Benjamin says.
“Thanks.”
“Wait,” Lin says. “You shot Chang Wanquan?”
“Well, I was thinking of giving him a kiss to surprise him into stepping back, but I couldn’t get my face mask off with just one hand. Why are you complaining after what you did back there at the gate?”
The light changes.
He resumes their quick drive.
About seven minutes later Lin says, “Hold on, you’re going the wrong way! You’re supposed to be heading north on the M1, not south.”
Liam drives with his eyes flickering from the side mirror, to the rearview mirror, and then the other side mirror. So far so good, but for how long?
“Just a bit of tradecraft, that’s all.”
Lin says, “You do what we planned.”
“Sorry, I don’t remember the ‘we’ part, Lin. You were just giving orders. This isn’t your op. It’s mine. Hold on.”
He takes an exit off the M1, slows down, and in another minute, Liam is slowly driving through the crowded parking lot of the Kelvin Village Shopping Centre. He goes up one row and then another, until he spots a black Jeep Cherokee with a neon-orange flyer stuck in a windshield wiper.
Liam pulls into a near space, switches off the engine.
Lin says, “What is this?”
“Change of vehicles,” he says, opening the door. “I’m sure you gave this Mercedes a clean sweep earlier, but I didn’t do it, so I don’t trust the results. Hurry along.”
He walks over to the Cherokee, finds the key fob in a small magnetic box under the driver’s-side rear tire, pulls it free. Back at Director Abrams’s residence, before he left, she promised she could help in a few areas, like this transportation. He unlocks the Cherokee, brings his gear to the rear of the vehicle, and helps Lin and Benjamin get into the rear seat.
Lin says, “What the hell is this?”
Liam is happy to see two shoeboxes and clothing in plastic bags. “New shoes and clothing for both of you. Don’t take your time changing. I’ll close the door for privacy. I’m not taking the chance that tracers are in your clothes.”
He shuts the door.
Looks up into the cool June sky.
Nothing airborne up there yet.
