Bad Attitude (B.A.D. Agency #1)(17)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

“Yeah. It’s the ‘put the mirror on your door and sleep in the right direction’ bullshit.”

Randy’s face was stone cold and blank. “The Chinese say that you should never, ever buy a used desk unless you know the history of it. They claim that if it belonged to a bad businessman, his karma will befall you.” He indicated his desk with a tilt of his head. “This one here belonged to President Kennedy. So what do you think that means?”

Steele shrugged. “I don’t know, but if I were you, I wouldn’t ride through Dallas in a convertible in November. Bad feng shui.”

Wallace laughed at that. He reached to a wooden box on his desk and opened it. “You smoke?”

“Only when I’m on fire.”

His face returned to stone. “I don’t appreciate your humor, Mr. Steele.”

“It’s an acquired taste.”

Wallace pulled out a Cuban cigar, then reached for a clipper. He didn’t speak as he prepped, then lit, the cigar. He blew out the match, then tossed it in the ashtray. “Dillon tells me that he owes you.”

Steele nodded grimly.

Wallace tapped the cigar on the ashtray while he narrowed his eyes on him. “I’m going to be honest with you, Steele. I don’t like working with people I don’t know. And I don’t know anything about you. For all I know, you’re some limp-wristed pansy with a few swift moves.”

Steele was completely unamused by the man’s words. “Hmmm, let’s see…I cried when Ole Yeller died, but I was young back then. I have a scar on my knee from when Willie Durante knocked my off my bike when I was seven. I beat the shit out of him later, then took his bike and sold it at a pawnshop. Oh, and my favorite color is pink…it’s really soothing.”

Wallace scowled. “What kind of bullshit is that?”

Steele gave him a bored stare. “Look, there’s nothing I’m ever going to tell you about me that’s the truth. The more you know about me, the shorter your life span is going to be. All you need to know is that I don’t miss. In fact, you don’t even need to know exactly how good I really am, because if you ever find out, you’re going to be dead.”

One corner of his mouth turned up. “There you’re wrong.”

“How you figure?”

Wallace reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small digital camera. Steele frowned as he took a picture of him, then set the camera aside and checked his watch.

“Haven’t you ever wondered how someone such as myself ‘interviews’ an independent contractor?”

Steele toyed with the arm of his chair. “The thought did cross my mind.”

“Well, it’s simple, really. That photograph I just took of you will be e-mailed to one of my contractors in twenty minutes and counting. My contractor will then have twenty-four hours to complete training.”

“What training is this?”

He smiled snidely. “It’s the game of life, Mr. Steele. Survival of the fittest and all that. Whoever makes it back to this office tomorrow at three-thirty will get a bonus and will have a job. Whoever doesn’t…well, that contractor won’t need a job, since he’ll be permanently dead. May the best contractor win.”

Steele sat there in complete shock. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“Do I look like I’m ‘shitting’ you, Mr. Steele?”

No, he looked serious as all get-out. “I don’t even have a weapon.”

Wallace shrugged. “Resourcefulness is ninety percent of the trade.” He checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes and counting.”

Steele glanced over his shoulder at Bruce. He could easily take both men out and stop this here and now. But then the Uhbukistanis would only hire someone else, and Syd would kill him for screwing this up.

Damn. Here was one scenario BAD hadn’t seen coming.

He stood up slowly and eyed Wallace with malice. “Your bonus better be worth it. If it’s not, I’m going to add your head to the collection onmy wall.”

The bastard actually laughed at him. “Run, Bambi, run.”

“Fuck you.” His blood boiling, Steele made his way out of the room with Bruce trailing three steps behind him.

So much for all the stories Syd and Andre had prepped him on. Wallace didn’t care if he’d really escaped from jail or not. Most likely, that was because he thought Steele would be dead in the next few hours.

Part of him wanted to drive straight back to Nashville and choke Joe for this. The other part just hoped he lived long enough to make it off M Street.

“Y’all have a good day now,” the receptionist called after him.

What? Was the woman high? He raised his hand up in mock friendliness.

“You, too,” he said in a high-pitched voice. No doubt she had no idea what had just happened. Or maybe she did. For all he knew, she was the one assigned to check him out.

You’re paranoid.

Duh to that. He didn’t like the thought of a hired killer knowing what he looked like while he was completely in the dark. What’s more, he wouldn’t be able to go near Andre or anyone else, since he’d
be under surveillance.

“This is getting better and better.”

Just think, two days ago his worst fear was Frank in the next cell getting frisky. Now it was getting a bullet in his skull.

With a nonchalance he didn’t feel, he headed to the lot where he’d left Syd and got into the car.

She looked up at him expectantly. “Well?”

He curled his lip at her. “You people suck.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

She looked appalled by his rancor. “Why would say that?”

“Because by this time tomorrow I will most likely be dead…and all thanks to you.”

She pressed her earpiece into her ear. “Andre? What is he talking about?”

Before Steele could answer, the hair on the back of his neck rose. It was something that seldom happened, and he wasn’t sure what was setting off his instincts.

Before he could look around, he heard an odd snap. It was followed by an unmistakable sting.

“Get us out of here!” he snarled.

“What? What’s—”

“I’m shot, Syd! And if you don’t get us out of here, we’re both going to be dead.”

Nine

Syd punched the gas as more glass shattered around them, spraying her and cutting her cheek and arm. “What did you do, Steele?”

He hissed in pain. “Nothing.”

She found that hard to believe. “Nothing? Then why are we being shot at?”

“’Cause the sonofabitch can’t tell time.”

Andre gave her very sketchy details of why they were under fire. Syd went careening through traffic and traffic lights at a breakneck speed as Andre directed her through the D.C. streets to where there were fewer civilians.

At first she thought it would be easy to escape their pursuer, but a glance in the rearview mirror showed her a large black Escalade swerving and accelerating.

She could see the gun an instant before they opened fire again.

She cursed under her breath.

This was a lot harder in real life than it appeared in movies, especially in such heavy traffic. One wrong move, and not only they but some innocent bystander could die.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Steele brace himself as she took a corner so fast, the car slid sideways. She cringed as they sideswiped a brown sedan an instant later. Still, she kept going. She had no choice.

Syd cursed as they fired again. She leaned forward to expose her back to Steele. “Take my weapon.”

His hand was warm as he grabbed it and pulled it free, then he turned and hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Too many civilians. I can’t shoot and chance a stray bullet hitting some mom in her minivan full of kids. Unlike Dickhead, I can’t live with the knowledge that I killed someone’s kid.”

Respect for him welled up inside her.

“All right, Andre,” she said loudly over the sound of her car braking to miss a slow-moving work van. She swerved around it, narrowly missing two men who had stepped onto the street. They hopped back to the curb just before she ran them over. “We need some assistance. There’s a 2005 black Escalade bearing down on us. It’s armed and loaded for agents. Steele has already been wounded.”

Steele cursed at her words. “What’s Andre going to do? Clap?”

She glared at Steele as the Escalade came closer.

“I hate rental cars,” she said between clenched teeth. “This is why I love my little four-hundred-horsepower engine.” If she were in her Honda, her pursuers would already be lost.

As it was, she could barely stay ahead of them.

“Well, you’ve got about one-forty in this go-cart, so I hope you can outmaneuver them.”

Another bullet went through the back window.

Syd swerved into oncoming traffic as Steele started a string of colorful expletives that said, yes, he’d been in the Army a long time.

“Calm down,” she snapped as she deftly dodged cars.

Horns blared as oncoming cars swerved out of her way.

“I’ll calm down when I have a clear shot and this bastard in front of me so that I can kill him.”

“Well, why didn’t you say that?” Syd swerved back into her lane and slammed on the brakes. The Escalade went speeding past.

Steele fired two shots that shattered the back window of the Escalade.

She whipped the car left onto another street as the Escalade did a J-turn to head back for them.

“Andre! Mayday. Mayday. We need help!”

No sooner had she spoken than a string of police cars went streaming past her, toward the Escalade.

“Relax, Syd,” Andre said in her ear. “I’ve got our police contact on a secure line. He’s dispatching the police to chase the assassin. They’ll pretend to follow you, then drop off so you two can flee.”

As she made another turn, two police cars fell in behind them.

Steele’s curses picked up in volume. “Ah, hell, this is beautiful.”

“Relax.”

“How? I’m shot, and once they stop us, my ass is headed back to Kansas. Thanks, Syd.”

“They’re not going to arrest you.”

“Yeah, right. Then how do you propose that we explain my absence from jail, huh?”

“We don’t. The police are going to pretend to chase us, and we’re going to outrun them.”

She gunned the engine and headed out of the Georgetown with the police in hot pursuit. As soon as she was clear and the other police cars had the Escalade headed in the opposite direction, the police cars tailing them fell back—just as Andre had predicted.

Satisfied that the Escalade was off them, at least for the time being, she took the first exit and headed for their rendezvous.

“Don’t do it.”

She frowned at Steele. “Don’t do what?”

“Head for Andre. They’ll be watching us.”

“There’s no way they can be watching us.” She glanced at him and felt her heart sink as she saw how badly he was bleeding. He had one hand pressing against his shoulder, but it was doing very little to staunch the blood.

They had to get him help quickly, or he was going to die.

“They’ll be watching us,” he said through clenched teeth. “How many satellites do you think bear down on D.C. every minute of every day? I assure you, they have us on their radar and are tracking our every movement. If they weren’t, the Escalade would still be behind us, police be damned. In fact, Andre needs to cut the communication before they pick up on the wire and use it against us too.”

“You’re so—”

“I was in the Army, Syd. I know what we can do to track a target and that was two years ago. God only knows what they got now.”

“He’s right,” Andre said in her ear. “Swap out transport and meet up at the hole in two hours. All communication is cut in…three…two…one.”

Her earpiece went dead.

Damn.

“Okay,” she said, looking over at Steele as they headed west. “We need to get you a doctor.”

“Since someone told the authorities that I’m an escaped felon, that’s not a wise move, now, is it?”

She ignored his sarcasm. “We can get you—”

“No,” he snapped. “Find us a hotel, and I can field-dress it.”

She rolled her eyes at his stupidity. “What are you going to do? Dig the bullet out yourself?” she asked, echoing his own sarcasm.

“It won’t be the first time.”

Syd did a double take sideways at his words. But more than that was the sincerity she heard in his tone. He wasn’t kidding. The thought of him lying out in the field someplace with a gaping wound he was dressing by himself brought a peculiar pain to her chest. For some reason she didn’t understand, it actually made her hurt for him.

He sat beside her, still holding his shoulder as even more blood covered his hand. A light sheen of perspiration covered his handsome face, which now had a grayish cast.

Unwilling to argue more, since time was critical, she decided to heed his advice. “You still need a doctor.”

“Then you and your friends had better sneak one in, otherwise this mission is totally fubarred.”

“Fubarred?”

“Fucked up beyond all recognition.”

She headed toward what she hoped would be a safe hotel. “We’re not fubarred.”

“Yeah, we are. Our friend back there in the Escalade has twenty-four hours to kill me, so I have a strong feeling we haven’t seen the last of him.” He placed her gun on the seat next to him. It was completely covered by blood. “We also need to get me my own weapon of some sort so that I can give him a dose of his own medicine. Let him bring it on when we’re on equal footing.”