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Emma could quite literally see Raul vacillating, something she imagined didn’t happen often. That handsome head was weighing the pros and cons, bouncing around in his brain. Colin clearly wasn’t someone who would be helpful in a fight, if it was a fight that awaited them. But hewasan emergency physician, if immediate medical aid was necessary. Walk through Door Number One and you’d have deadweight in an emergency, and Emma was already deadweight. Walk through Door Number Two, and you could conceivably have a wounded Toby dying in their arms for want of immediate medical care.
Colin stood there, arms across his chest, clearly not going to take no for an answer. Raul did the right thing.
“All right.” Raul sighed. “I’ll go get my vehicle which has some equipment we might need. Emma will come with me. You have the GPS coordinates, but it would be best if you follow me. We’ll stage off site.”
Emma didn’t really know what that meant but if there was one thing she’d learned in the money market, it was to follow the experts because they always had inside information. Being wrong about the financial experts could make you lose money but being wrong about Raul could make you lose your life.
She batted that thought away immediately. There was something about Raul that made her trust him, instinctively. Unlike most experts, he didn’t glide through life smugly, convinced he knew best. Though he’d worked in the most elite team of soldiers in the world and was undoubtedly competent in a number of fields, there was no celebration of self, no posturing. Just quiet efficiency.
She was in good hands.
All of a sudden, an image of those hands on her, stroking her breasts, holding her hips, flashed through her and she could feel herself going stoplight red.
Thank God no one noticed. Raul was making the rounds of the apartment on a last-minute check and Colin was quivering in place, staring at his watch, impatient to get going.
Five minutes later, Emma was alone in the two-story atrium, looking out over busy Post Street. She was sitting on a raffia leather-covered bench, with her laptop out, calculating the best route to the address where Toby’s car was. Maybe Toby, too. She copied the route on to her cell, which pinged just as Raul pulled up. While walking out of the building, Colin pulled up behind Raul. Colin’s car was electric, sleek, sky blue, completely silent.
Fumes were coming out of the exhaust pipe in Raul’s Escalade, and she felt like he was driving the twentieth century and Colin and Toby thetwenty-first. On the other hand, for some reason, she couldn’t see inside Raul’s SUV at all, the windows weren’t tinted rap-star black, either. Very cool. Particularly since Colin’s windows were all completely transparent and his scowling face and anxiously drumming fingers on the steering wheel were clear as day.
“Cool windows,” she said when she was seated in the vehicle and they took off. “Couldn’t see inside at all. Usually that happens when they are tinted illegally dark and you’re a rock star or drug dealer.”
Raul shot her a glance. His hands were easy on the steering wheel, movements smooth and efficient. He was a good driver, even in a city that wasn’t his. If Emma could avoid driving at all, she did. She’d moved so much that having a car was a handicap, and in most of the cities she’d lived in the public transportation was so good driving was silly. Or where public transportation was bad, taxis were cheap.
“It’s a special film that lets in light but doesn’t allow anyone to see inside. We all use it to coat the windows of our homes, too. Or at least those who own their homes. But the SUV’s tricks don’t stop there. It’s a James Bond car, got lots of special features.”
A billion movies and thrillers shot through her mind. She turned in her seat excitedly. “Oh man, don’t tell me, let me guess.”
“Okay.” Somehow Raul had perfected the art of paying close attention to a conversation while also paying close attention to driving. Something she herself had never managed. Once in Boston with a colleague who’d done a study of the Mumbai Sensex, she’d driven her car in a ditch. Luckily a very shallow one, but still. Her colleague was still angry at her.
“Let me think. Can it fly?”
He gave an easy smile. “No.”
“Does it have like a power assisted engine so you can supercharge it and go at 200 mph?”
“Yep. But just 150 mph.”
“Oh.” She blinked. She’d been semi joking. “Ahem, does it have headlights that fold back into the chassis and machine gun barrels come out?”
“Not quite, but close. More yes than no.”
Wow. Okay. “Does it have its own ventilation system like the president’s, so that if you drive through poisoned air, the air doesn’t penetrate?”
“Nope. That kind of system adds considerably to the weight of the vehicle. It would be counterproductive. But it is armored and has bullet resistant windows.”
“Huh. My imagination is running out of gas. What else does it have?”
“Well, Black Inc is pretty well equipped. There’s a small arsenal in the trunk, it has a sat phone just in case we go to a place that doesn’t have wifi coverage. Spike strips. Run flat tires. It’s good to go.”
“It certainly is.” Emma couldn’t remember ever being in such a comfortable vehicle. Incredibly smooth and incredibly quiet. It looked like a standard SUV but felt like some expensive European car made for royalty. She looked around, out of those specially tinted windows. They were starting to climb. She glanced at the GPS map on the monitor. “I think we’re nearly there.”
“Uh huh.” Raul pulled smoothly to the curb and saw in his rearview mirror that Colin had pulled in too. “It’s around that curve and about half a mile up the road.”
Emma simply looked at him, confident that he knew what he was doing.
Colin rapped at the window, looking tense and worried. Raul buzzed his window down. “I know the house is just up the road. But we can’t walk in blind,” he said before Colin could open his mouth.
In a moment, Raul opened the back of the vehicle where there were four big plastic cases and one smaller one. He opened the smaller one, pulled out two strange looking metallic things about as large as his fist. Underneath was a ruggedized laptop which he pulled out as well.
