“Bea, I can’t go on a mission,” he’d hissed at her, right as two maintenance workers arrived, carrying drills and stepstools. “I’m an analyst, I don’t have the necessary training or experience or... or... shoes!”
But Bea hadn’t been worried about his deficiencies. “You’re always saying that Anthony misses the details. Well, now you’ll be there to catch them yourself,” she said briskly. “You’re the best person for the job, Elliot. You know the Cicero file better than any analyst I know. I wouldn’t trust a single other person in this building with this assignment.”
Elliot stared at Anthony, who was already pouring himself a glass of Scotch. “Anthony included?”
“Anthony has a very important role when it comes to Cicero. As do you. And now, your role requires that you work together to bring it all to a close.”
Elliot swallowed, watching at the workmen set up their stepstool, ready to drill into the wall. One of them carried a blank memorial plaque.
Enrique.
Which was when Bea had said it would be a quick trip. “You’ll be back before you know you’ve left.”
Elliot winced. Enrique had thought the last mission would be a quick trip, too. It was probably what she told all the people memorialized on her wall. Elliot made a point of checking his life insurance as soon as he’d gotten home.
Then he’d packed, eaten lunch, and headed to the airport to board a flight with the DVM’s top field agent so they could travel to Bulgaria and investigate Archibald O’Leary to prevent him from continuing to fund Cicero’s ridiculous schemes.
Because sure, maybe Cicero planned for the drones to disrupt social media for billions of people. More likely, the drones would probably cause a heavy mist, and maybe turn everyone’s skin green for a week. Or perhaps give them purple polka-dots. Or it would create an alcoholic drink when mixed with lemonade powder, turning millions of small children into very short, very hyper nightmares for a few hours.
Cicero might have been a terrible villain. In twenty years, he’d never devised a sensible, working threat. But he had funding, and that made him unstoppable—even by Anthony Dare. Cicero didn’t scare Elliot.
O’Leary, with his funding and his determination to continue supporting supervillains, did. Because eventually, O’Leary would tire of Cicero’s incompetence, and find a supervillain whose plans did work. If that ever happened, the world was doomed.
Far better to stop them both before that ever happened. Left up to Anthony, Cicero would be caught... but O’Leary would remain free.
I just wish Bea wasn’t so sure I’m the only one who can stop him, thought Elliot grimly as he fixed his grip on his suitcase. It wasn’t particularly windy on the tarmac, but the noise of the plane and the heat rising from the asphalt made Elliot worry that an unforeseen gust of wind would blow him away. Why me? Okay, fine, I’m the DVM’s expert on Cicero, but I’m no field agent! And now I’m on a mission with Anthony Dare?
Every DVM analyst knew about Anthony Dare. The DVM’s top agent, with more successful captures and missions on his CV than most people had socks. The list would have been about six pages long, single-spaced, in a 10-point typeface.
Elliot had met many field agents. They came by to discuss their cases with the analysts, share a laugh, a coffee, a couple of ideas about their targets.
Never Anthony Dare. Oh, his field partners came by often enough—Enrique had been a particular favorite—but the only time Elliot saw Anthony was in the cafeteria. He’d always been surrounded by a crowd of admirers, too, so Elliot had never gotten a good look. Elliot pictured some rugged, massively muscular guy, with a cleft chin and maybe a scar for character on his cheek. He’d have blonde hair that was artfully arranged, a somewhat uneven tan, and piercing blue eyes.
Meeting Anthony in person was a shock.
Tall, sure. Reasonably filled out, undoubtedly stronger than he looked, but not muscular. Brown hair, slightly curly, and deep green eyes. No cleft chin, though Elliot saw a dimple in his cheek when he smiled.
That dimple could have been Elliot’s downfall... if only the smile that created it hadn’t been so obviously fake.
Frankly, that was a good thing, because if Anthony’s smile had been real, Elliot would very likely fallen for him, and fallen hard. Just as well the smile was fake, because now Elliot walked toward a golden-colored private plane on the Dulles Airport tarmac, where Anthony undoubtedly waited for him.
Elliot watched a lot of spy movies. He had a good idea what he would find on that private plane.
It was loud on the tarmac; the engines were going full blast, no doubt because they should have been in the air at least ten minutes ago. But Elliot had spent a good hour (or more, time had no meaning in an airport) wandering around the main terminal trying to check in for his flight. He’d waited in line at the airline marked on his ticket, just like every other time he’d flown somewhere, but when he’d reached the counter, the woman had frowned at his reservation number and frowned at his ID, and frowned at his computer, before calling in a supervisor to frown at him. They’d both been frowning when they called in another supervisor, and just as Elliot was thinking to give up on the entire process and go back to the office, a third supervisor came over and politely escorted Elliot out of the line and through a door marked Employees Only and down a hallway and into an elevator (that 100% did not operate in the normal direction of elevators) and when they finally emerged, Elliot was two steps from a panic attack and standing on the tarmac in front of a golden private plane that was clearly preparing for take-off.
“Come on,” the supervisor shouted at him.
Elliot scurried behind him, his wheeled suitcase bouncing. No one took it when he approached the plane, and he struggled to get it up the metal steps.
The flight attendant appeared just as he reached the top. He gratefully handed over the suitcase. It was quieter inside, at least, even with the door open.
“Hello, Mr. Bichler,” said the flight attendant. She was young and dark-haired and gorgeous; even Elliot, who didn’t swing that way, had to admit it. She had dark eyes that shone with humor, and her uniform was sleek and stylish. The nametag on her jacket read Daria. “We were worried you wouldn’t make it. Can I take your coat?”
Before Elliot could even answer, she was taking it off of him; he struggled for a moment to retrieve his phone and his book before she pulled the coat away and hung it up.
“Sorry I was late. Check-in was... weird.”
Daria looked at him over her shoulder. “Check-in? You didn’t check in, did you?”
“Isn’t that what you do when you fly somewhere?” sulked Elliot, feeling immensely stupid, even as Daria chuckled sympathetically.
“First time?”
He nodded.
“It’s okay,” Daria soothed him. “You’re here now, and I shouldn’t have laughed. Please sit anywhere you like. I’m sorry I won’t have time to bring you a pre-flight drink or snack, but I’ll look in on you as soon as we’re in the air. Would it be safe to assume you’ve had the typical safety briefing about how to buckle your seat belt and so on during previous flights?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Wonderful, I can skip it. We’ll be taking off shortly.”