“Ready?” Tasha asked

“When you are.”

She nodded then opened the door to their Land Cruiser. They were dressed as ‘the Russians,’ Tasha wearing her black wig and Dan his sandy blond. They strode to the door. Dad took a quick look around, smashed the door glass with his pistol, then reached inside with a gloved hand and snapped open the lock.

“You sure about this?” he asked. “What happened to covert?”

“We need to push this. We’re running out of time,” Tasha said as she stepped past the broken glass crunching under her feet. She quickly opened the cabinet where the file she wanted was located. She deftly arranged the papers in a different order then put the file back.

“That’s it. Let’s go before we really get caught.”

They hurried back to their Land Cruiser, took up a position where they could see the entrance, and then waited. Once they were comfortable, Tasha pulled out her phone and poked at the number pad.

“Hello, police?” she asked, her accent a passible approximation of the locals. “I’d like to report a robbery. Yes. I saw a man and woman leaving Sombosi Shipping and Hauling, on Gelwuni road. The window was broken.” She paused a moment as she bobbed her head side to side. “Yes. The man was about 1.8 meters with blondish hair. Very big, muscular you know, like a rugby player. The woman was shorter but tall for a woman, maybe 1.6 meters. She had black hair. Very pretty.” She smiled at Dan teasingly. “No. I don’t want any trouble. No. No, thank you.” She stabbed her finger on the button to end the call. “They wanted my name.”

He grunted and said nothing. It wasn’t long before two police cars arrived. Four officers milled about for a time, then another car, a white BMW 3 series arrived. They watched in silence for a while as the BMW driver looked about, examined the door, talked on his cell, and waved his hands in agitation.

“Must be the owner,” Dan observed.

“Probably.”

“Jesus, does it rain every day here?” he asked as he studied the thickening clouds.

“It has so far.”

Finally, the police left, but the owner stayed. They watched for a long time, talking little.

“This is the worst part of this job. The waiting,” Tasha growled.

“Yeah. How did you find out about this place anyway? All you said was that you had the address.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t. An analyst at home base figured it out. They tracked it back through the shipper in Egypt. Egypt is, mostly, friendly with the United States, so they probably had some local cooperation.”

He shook his head. “I’ll never get my head around all this stuff.”

She smiled. “It’s not as hard as it sounds. This was the kind of stuff I did after I left fieldwork. You take all the information you’ve got and try to connect the dots. Grand Orkut Imports didn’t handle pickup, but someone did. That someone had to know when the container was arriving and the number. The shipper had to provide that information to someone, so one, two, three.”

He shook his head. “It sounds so simple when you explain it that way.”

She grinned. “Not simple. Sometimes you don’t have the information you need to make the connections. Then you go with educated guesses. If you have two or three different sources all pointing in the same direction, even if you can’t connect the last dot, you can be reasonably sure which of the dots is the right one.”

He snorted. The more he learned about Tasha, the more amazing she became. She clearly cared about people or the loss of Derrick and Rich wouldn’t have hit her so hard, not to mention smart and sexy. She was the complete package.

They settled into another long comfortable silence.

“Want a blowjob? You know, to pass the time.”

Her question caught him completely off-guard and he barked out a laugh. “Are you offering?”

She grinned at him and patted his leg. “Maybe later. I was just wondering.”

He chuckled again, adding funny to his list of things he found appealing about her. “I would, but I wouldn’t want to blow my cover.”

She snickered but didn’t look at him. “Babe, I’m going to blow more than your cover later tonight. Assuming this asshole ever shows up.”

It began to rain, so they had to roll the windows up in the Toyota. As hot as it was before, it became unbearable with the windows up, and Dan kept starting the car to use the air-conditioning to cool the interior.

“How long are we going to wait?” Dan asked after another hour had passed. He was about ready to try to talk Tasha into crawling into the back of the SUV and spend the time fucking their brains out so they’d have something to do to pass the time while they waited.

She shook her head. “We’ve got a while yet.”

“Shit,” he muttered, drawing the word out.

She caressed his crotch slowly with a smile. “Change your mind on the blowjob?”

“What if I said yes?”

She grinned. “I don’t know. Why don’t you find out?”

“Yes.”

She looked at him and licked her lips slowly. “You want to feel your big, hard cock between my lips?” she purred, her voice dripping sex.

He felt a rush of excitement. “Yes.”

“Well, too bad. We’re working,” she said, her voice back to normal. “You need to focus. Jeez. You’d think I hadn’t taught you anything.” She waited a moment then smiled at him. “I’ll make it up to you later tonight.”

“You’re a real bitch sometimes, you know that?” he asked, but his tone and smile gave him away.

“I thought we’d already established that.”

They sat for a time, brief moments of conversation laced with long periods of companionable silence.

“About last night and this morning,” Dan said.

Her head whipped around to look at him. “What about it?” she asked, her voice perfectly normal, but he could see a mixture of fear, apprehension, and hope.

He licked his lips. He didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. Sitting in the truck with her gave him time to think, and he was starting to make himself crazy. She’d hit on him pretty hard and made her interest clear after their run in from the bone yard. His rejection has pissed her off, then she softened toward him a little later. Now, after last night, he wasn’t sure where he stood with her.

“It was more than just fucking, right? You felt something too, didn’t you?”

The tension drained out of her and she smiled. “Yeah. Did you?”

He smiled, relieved he hadn’t read her wrong last night or this morning. “Yeah.”

“Why did you ask?”

“I don’t know. Stupid, I guess.”

“Don’t get all gushy on me, Dan,” she said with a teasing grin.

“No, not gushy. It’s just, our relationship is starting out complicated. I wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“I think so.”

“Yeah. Me too,” he replied, then shook his head. “Sitting here is giving me too much time to think.”

“Uh-oh. Thinking. That’s dangerous.”

He snickered. “Yeah.”

“Do what I do to pass the time.”

“What’s that?”

She looked at him and offered him a seductive smile. “I’ve been daydreaming about all the stuff we’re going to do to each other when we get back to the hotel.”

He flushed hot. “I won’t be worth a shit if I do that,” he murmured as he drew his hand slowly up the inside of her leg.

She sat perfectly still, allowing his hand to creep closer to her womanhood. He’d almost reached it when she slapped his hand playfully. “Focus!”

He chuckled but removed his hand.

The sexual teasing was fun and passed the time, but it also made him horny, which in turn made it difficult to focus on the task at hand. If silver Mercedes guy would only show up.

They sat for another hour, then rotated through bathroom breaks at the restaurant during a lull in the rain. He went first as Tasha kept watch, then she went. When she returned, she carried a paper bag with grease stains forming at the bottom and two drinks.

“Lunch,” she said as she climbed into the truck.

“Closer to dinner,” he said as he took the bag and peeked inside.

“Yeah. So much for my great plans.”

He pulled out one of the sliced fried plantains, popped it into his mouth, then held the bag so she could retrieve one.

“You can’t win every time.”

“Why not?” she asked with a grin. “I knew it! I knew if I bought food someone would show up.”

He looked up as the white BMW returned. A moment later, the silver Mercedes oozed to a stop. Two men got out of their respective cars and entered the Sombosi office. They continued to watch, eating the plantains. They’d almost finished the bag when the two men stepped out. Dan wiped his hands on the last of their napkins, finished his drink, and started the Land Cruiser.

“Don’t get too close. We don’t want to spook him,” Tasha warned as Dan pulled out and followed the big Merc down the road.

They meandered through Talish, seeming to turn at random.

“They’re going to make us,” Tasha fretted.

Dan nodded. There wasn’t enough traffic to hide them if they stayed close, but if he dropped too far back, he could lose them at a light or by a sudden increase in traffic. The driver of the car seemed oblivious that he was being followed, and he eventually turned into a business that appeared to supply industrial generators and other like equipment.

“What do you think?” Dan asked as he drove past then parked the SUV where they could see the entrance.

“Don’t know.”

“If Kangka’s little experiment is off the grid, he’d need power to run all the lab stuff. Maybe this is how he gets it.”

She nodded. “Possible. We need to check it out.”

He nodded. “Tonight?”

“Yeah. After they close.”

The man in the silver Mercedes returned after only a moment. They followed, but when it became clear he was returning to the same compound they’d followed him to before, they turned away.

“Now what?” Dan asked.

Tasha glanced at the clock in the dash of the Toyota. “Back to the hotel. We need to change. By the time we’ve done that, the place should be closed.”

They returned to their room. As they stripped, Dan’s cock began to stiffen as he watched Tasha slither into her tight, black pants and shirt, what she’d call her B&E uniform. He forced his mind back to the job at hand.

Dressed for skullduggery, they again left the hotel, exiting through a service entrance so they wouldn’t have to cross the lobby. Patrons of the Orkut Grand wore suits and expensive casual clothes, not black jeans and t-shirts, and dressed as they were, they’d attract unwanted attention.

When they reached their destination, it was raining in earnest. That was good for them as it would help mask their movements. They were in an industrial part of Talish and the streets were empty, but they clung to the shadows as much as possible.

They reached the fence protecting the business and circled the property carefully, looking for an existing gap they could squeeze through but found nothing. Tasha wiped the water from her face as she considered.

“Any ideas?” she whispered, her voice barely audible above the hissing rain.

He thought for a moment. “Going over is a problem because of the barbed wired. You don’t want to cut the fence…” He paused as he ran possibilities over his mind. “Yeah. I got something. Wait here,” he said as he began to back away.

“What? Where are you going?”

“To get the jack and tire iron from the car. I’ll be right back.”

He gave her a quick kiss and backed away. He probably shouldn’t have done it, but she looked so damned sexy crouched there, her face covered with rain, he couldn’t resist. He trotted to the Land Cruiser, removed the jack and tire iron, then returned the same way he came.

He found Tasha right where he’d left her. “This way.”

He led her back to the only place they’d found that offered even a chance of getting in, but the natural depression under the fence was too narrow for even Tasha. He’d strained at the fence, and though he could pull the mesh some, he hadn’t been able to move it enough for her to squeeze under.

Dan attacked the ground with sharp end of the tool, breaking up the hard soil and pulling it aside with his hands to widen and enlarge the opening. It wasn’t the best tool for the job, but it was all he had. Grunting and sweating, he toiled until he thought hole was big enough. He placed the jack under the fence and cranked, watching as the device raised the bottom of the fence, making the passage large enough for them to squirm under. Tasha went first, then Dan. It was a tight squeeze for him, but he finally managed to work his way under.

“You’re a mess,” Tasha whispered.

“Pot, meet kettle,” Dan murmured in return.

She grinned and they began working their way toward the office building, using the hulking generators for cover.

They reached the office without incident and spent a moment squeegeeing water off themselves to minimize the drips they were going to leave. Tasha shook her hands, water droplets flying, before she pulled her pick kit from her back pocket. In seconds she had the door open and they slipped inside. Not every building in Talish was air-conditioned, despite the tropical heat, but this one was. That would help dry any water they left behind.

They began a systematic search of the records. They’d rifled through about half the records when Dan shivered. He was beginning to get chilled. He turned his light on Tasha to see how she was coping and smiled.

“Cold?” he asked, putting the beam of his light on her breasts to illuminate the nipples clearly visible through her shirt.

“Freezing my ass off,” she murmured, never slowing in her search. “If you’d stop staring at my tits and help me, we can get out of here and you can warm me up.”

He laughed and went back to his task. Thirty minutes later, Tasha shut the last drawer. “Shit! Nothing,” she growled as she looked around the office. “What am I missing?”

“Maybe there’s nothing here to find.”

The company had rented more than a dozen generators in the last month. They’d written down the names, addresses, and type of each one, and they would have to check them all.

“Then why did silver Merc man come here, especially after we set him up?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know.”

She looked around the office again. “Shit. They are either doing this off the books or we looked right at it and didn’t recognize it.”

They spent another hour prowling through desks, but still came up empty.

“Let’s go,” Tasha said. “Nothing else to do here.” She flapped the small notebook that held the information they’d collected. “Tomorrow we’ll verify all these generators are where they say they are.”

“And if not?”

She smiled. “Then Boris and Natasha may have to pay a visit.”

He grinned as they stepped into the rain. “What about the tour?”

“It doesn’t leave until ten. We can do what we have to before we leave.”

He nodded quickly as they hurried back to the fence. The hole he’d dug was partially full of muddy water, but they had no choice and slithered under again. Dan removed the jack and pushed the mound of dirt back into the hole, stomping it down with his foot to disguise what they’d done. The fence was slightly deformed from the jack, but there was nothing he could do about that.

He finished and they worked their way back to the vehicle, Dan carrying the jack and the tire iron. He was looking forward to getting out of his wet clothes, a shower, something to eat, then holding Tasha in his arms the rest of the evening. After all the teasing in the car he was going to fuck her good, but he was looking forward to the post-coitus snuggle almost as much. Holding her last night, and again this morning, had filled him with a sense of peace he hadn’t felt in almost a year. He couldn’t describe it, but it somehow felt…right.

He was stowing the jack when the police car arrived. “You there, what are you doing?” a man’s voice asked.

Dan squinted in the headlights and flashing blue light on the car’s roof. “Is there a problem, officer?”

“I asked you what you were doing.”

“We had a flat. I just finished changing the tire.”

The officer stepped around to the front of the car but kept his distance. “Is that how you got so muddy?”

Dan licked his lips and decided to go for the big lie. “I had to crawl under the car. Whatever punctured the tire hit something underneath. I was checking to make sure it was okay.”

“Was she under there too?”

“Is there a problem? We had to stop to change a flat, that’s all.”

The Orkut police didn’t carry firearms, but the man drew his baton. “Don’t move.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed. “I have them,” the officer said before pocketing his phone again. “You’re going to have to go to the station.”

“Why?” Tasha asked, using her Laura Connolly accent.

“Questioning.”

Dan looked at Tasha. This entire situation felt wrong, and from the look on her face, she knew it too. He started moving toward the car. “Okay, but this is all a big misunderstanding,” he began.

The officer was so focused on him as the threat, he never saw Tasha coming. As the officer turned away, she stepped up behind him, twisted his baton out of his hand with a quick snap of her wrist, and flipped it around to catch it by the handle. Before he could react, she brought the heavy metal baton around in a whistling arc to impact the side of his knee.

The officer screamed in pain as his knee collapsed and he tumbled to the ground. He tried to scramble away, but Dan’s booted foot was waiting for him. His face exploded in a shower of blood, then he was still. Dan knelt and rolled the man over, pressing his finger to his neck. The pulse was strong and steady. The man would have a hell of a headache and it would days before he’d be able to walk without pain, but he’d live. Tasha wiped the baton then tossed it on the ground beside the officer.

“I hope we didn’t just fuck up,” he said as they piled into the Toyota.

“That was no cop, or if he was, he was dirty. We damn sure wouldn’t have gone to the station,” she said as the Land Cruiser surged away.

“You think the cops are looking for us?”

“Not as much as Kangka. I’d bet that guy staked out the car and was waiting for us to come back. You can bet your ass when he doesn’t show up in a little while, the rest of the police force will be looking for us.” She pulled her dark wig off. “Boris and Natasha are burned.”

As he drove, Dan pulled his wig off as well. “Now what?”

“Nothing’s changed. Tomorrow we check all these generators to make sure they’re where they’re supposed to be. If one is missing, we pay a little visit to the owner of the place on Monday.”

“And if they’re all where they’re supposed to be?”

She smiled but it didn’t touch her eyes. “After this, we pay a visit anyway.”