She sighed. “What do you want, Gabe?”
“You’ve been requested for an assignment. Specifically. And both the US Marshals and police are more than happy to coordinate with you.” Gabe snorted. “I need you to get to the office in the next hour to meet the client and coordinate with his assigned protection.”
“If he has a marshal and police...” She didn’t want to finish the question she had at the tip of her tongue. Full respect to the city’s finest but there were instances where augmenting a police detail with private military contractors were advantageous. It was unusual, but not unheard of. Well, this would be a first for her working with a US marshal but she could imagine instances where it’d happen.
“This is by request of the client and he’s paying for this with his personal funds. You won’t be on the government’s or city’s payroll.”
Wasn’t that interesting?
She’d had a good long bath last night and a decent night’s sleep. Curiosity was winning this morning. “I’ll be there at the top of the hour.”
Chapter Two
Kyle Yeun was no stranger to corporate environments, and yet, admittedly, he’d never overseen projects of a military nature, whether they were government or privately resourced. So when he arrived at the offices of the Safeguard Division in downtown Seattle, he’d been expecting something...more outdated. A renovated warehouse, perhaps, or a stuffy windowless set of offices all in psychologically approved standard shades of beige. The city had been around awhile, after all.
Instead, the Safeguard Division was located in a relatively new corporate center. They had taken over an entire floor of a six-story building, maintaining an extremely wide-open office space. Not a conventional cubicle to be seen. Instead, there were clusters of comfortable chairs and table spaces to encourage collaboration. Privacy pods lined the interior wall to accommodate sensitive discussion, but the walls were all glass for complete transparency. Presumably, they were maximizing the natural light coming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows offering breathtaking views of Elliot Bay, Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains depending on which side of the building one was standing.
Each of those pods and some of the larger conference rooms seemed equipped with up-to-date videoconferencing equipment. Scattered across the floor, a few employees were working on laptops. There were even standing workstations and treadmill desks scattered here and there. For mercenaries, they presented a high-tech and, yes, sophisticated atmosphere. One conducive to creative thinking and group collaboration. Perhaps most surprising to him, it was welcoming for all that it was mostly empty.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a corporate office environment with similar ambience, at least not with his most recent employer.
“Where is everyone?” He spoke out loud to no one in particular. The deputy US marshal and two plainclothes police officers sitting with him glanced in his direction but didn’t immediately offer commentary.
Someone, however, did. “Safeguard Division is relatively new, Mr. Yeun. Most of our permanent resources are out in the field. It is also Sunday.”
An impressively built man stepped around the corner, the one blind corner anywhere near where they were seated.
Kyle stood smoothly as his combined US Marshal and police escort scrambled to their feet. All of them were trying to appear unfazed but none of them had heard the man approach. Maybe it was the open layout of the premises. Kyle had expected to realize someone was approaching—see or hear something—but this man had caught them all unaware.
Having used similar tactics to put colleagues off balance in high-powered boardroom meetings, Kyle had to respect a well-executed play.
Tall, dark, the epitome of quietly dangerous, the man was dressed in a simple black collared polo and black slacks. He held out a hand. “I’m Gabriel Diaz, current lead here.”
Kyle took the offered hand and shook it. The man’s grip was firm and sure without the accompanying effort to squeeze too much. Gabriel Diaz was not a man with something to prove.
“Thank you for seeing me outside of normal business hours.” If such things existed for people who conducted their sort of activities. An offshoot of a private contract organization specializing in personal security, these people were still mercenaries regardless of how impressively they presented themselves.
Kyle, on the other hand, was the proof against his former employer and he needed allies like these Safeguard people.
Diaz lifted a shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Our line of work rarely keeps the Monday through Friday, nine to five, hours. Why don’t we take one of the pods over here? There are white noise generators to keep our conversation private.”
Kyle proceeded in the indicated direction without waiting for his escort.