CHAPTER NINETEEN - DANNY
It was a proper plan. I will give the Watson crew that much. But there were two things wrong with it from the start.
One—we had no clue where Alec actually is. It was weeks ago that Christine was here spying, so there’s no evidence that he’s still here, or still alive, or any of that crucial intel most people gather before they attempt a crazy break-out-your-friend scheme.
But now we know.
Because I got a text.
What a crazy turn of events.
Three hours ago, when we put this whole thing together, it was all faith. Turns out Theo is sort of the interim hacker for the crew at the moment because when they go out and do a job someone has to stay with the tiny person.
That tiny-person sitter can’t be Eliza—she’s a critical part of the crew’s success rate. If she’s not the sexy distraction then she’s the lead sneak because even though the whole family can fling themselves on and off buildings like howler monkeys on crack, Eliza is the nimblest and can fit in spaces her over-muscled brothers can’t.
So Theo is the tiny-person-sitter-slash-crew-hacker for the time being.
Theo was setting himself up in the home base with Eliza, pulling up the security system for the estate, and Christine stood in a corner watching. Rage written all over her face as Eliza demonstrated just how familiar she was with Alec’s English home.
I thought for sure Christine was going to kill her before we left the house, but she checked herself, and just stood silent in the corner.
And two—the plan was to have two phases, and both of them were based mostly on improvisation. Which is not how this crew normally works.
Normally they plan for months, not hours.
It was intended to go like this:
Part One—Brenden and Charlie cause a distraction at the front gate, as delivery men. Which is so cliché and will never work for more than half a minute at most. Which is becoming really obvious, as at this moment we are in front of said gate. Brenden and Charlie are in the front seats of a refrigerated meat truck—the only delivery truck the crew could procure on such short notice—Charlie in the driver’s side holding a clipboard, Brenden in the passenger side. They are doing their stupid brother routine. AKA arguing like dumb, muscled blokes with only half a brain between them.
It’s funny. The insults are perfectly timed, there’s a little physical comedy like slapping each other on the side of the head, and of course, it’s all done in that thick Cockney accent, complete with rhyming slang, that’s both hard to take serious and deadly serious at the same time.
“Oi, mate! Eyes on the frog and toad, boy! You almost clipped the bloke!” says Brenden.
“Who you fink you’re talking to? I’ll put my foot up your bottle and glass!” responds Charlie, taking a swipe at Brenden.
“Don’t get nasty with me, me old son. I’ll bop you right on that fireman’s hose o’ yours,” Brenden shoots back, slapping back at Charlie.
“Oh, will you now?”
“Adam and Eve, mate. Adam and Eve.”
And now they’re in an honest-to-goodness, goddamn slap fight.
I have to be honest, I get a kick out this shit. I really do. Even if I have no fucking idea what the hell they’re saying.
“Hey! It’s fine, man,” says the guard they’re talking to, in his thick Afrikaans accent, which—at least—confirms that we’re in the right place. “Calm down and say again. What do you have in the truck?” He says the last part very slowly and with a fair amount of suspicion.
I’m hunkered down in the back seat—which isn’t an actual back seat, just a small space for shoving leaflets and trash, apparently. And I wouldn’t actually call it hunkered down. Wedged is the word that fits. There is no way I can help these two dummies should things go wrong and I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little bit claustrophobic at the moment because the mercenary at the gate is waving an AK around like an idiot.
And then the text comes in.
I have my phone on silent, but I’m holding it in my hand because Christine and I have a call going so she can hear what’s happening and the three of them—she, Eliza, and Russell—can get over the fence on the west side of the property, run across the lawn, and then scale up the side of the house and get on the roof.
All this has to happen before the asshole with the gun at the gate decides to spray us with bullets.
And—to make things even more complicated—we have to get him in communication with however many other mercenaries there are on the property in order to make the distraction big enough to give the three of them time to do all that.
We’re about twenty seconds into all this when my phone notifies me of an incoming text from my root number—the phone number that Alec, Christine, and I set up years ago just in case things get so fucked up, we have no other way to communicate.
Only two people have that number. And one of them is on the open phone line, so it’s not her.
Jesus Christ.
And just as that happens, I hear Christine whisper into my earbud, “We’re going up now. Are we good?”
But the twins are deep in their current distraction routine—
“It’s right here on the manifest, mate! Thirteen hundred pounds of prime rib to be delivered today. Just give us your Hancock and we’s off!”
—and there’s no way to relay this new piece of information to them, or Christine, without giving myself away and getting our heads blown off.
The merc at the gate pulls up the walkie clipped to his shirt and says, “Does anyone know anything about a truck of prime rib that was to be delivered today?” He puts his hand to his own earpiece and listens. “I don’t know, man, two giant fokken chops who say they’re here for us.”
“What’d that geezer call us?” shouts Brenden.
“Oy! Watch who you’s calling a ‘chop,’ my china,” says Charlie, pointing his finger in the guy’s face and half-mocking his accent with that last phrase. (Which is one that at least I know.)
And that’s when the asshole at the gate gets fed up and grabs Charlie by the coat collar and tries to drag him out of the truck via the open window.