They had just finished dressing when a tap on their door told them Moose and Neil were ready to go. Noah slipped his holstered Glock onto the back of his belt and covered it with the light gray jacket he often wore, as Sarah picked up her purse. He opened the door and they stepped out together, then the four of them rode down the elevator and walked out to the car.
As soon as they got into the car, Neil laid his computer on the seat and then reached up to tap Noah on the shoulder. “Sorry about that, Boss,” he said. “Guess I freaked out a bit.”
“No sweat,” Noah said. “Let’s forget about it, okay?”
“Okay,” Neil said, sounding relieved. “Listen, I got Marina Andropov’s phone number from the NSA database and got it set up with a ‘trap and tap’ program. My computer is set up to record and trace any call that goes to that number for the next twenty-four hours, automatically. I figured I’d give it that long, just in case he was either early or late.”
“Good job. Now we just hope Bridger was telling the truth. For right now, let’s just all keep an eye out for tails.” He reached into a pocket and took out his phone, then dialed Molly’s number. She answered on the second ring.
“How’s it going out there, Mr. Spock?” she asked. “Can I stop worrying yet?”
“Not just yet,” Noah said, “but we may have picked up a lead that will help us get to that point. Unfortunately, we won’t know until tomorrow sometime, so you stay close to your shadows.”
“That’s easy,” Molly said. “They won’t let me out of their sight. One of my supervisors came running into my office a couple hours ago to ask a question, and Ms. Sanchez had him flat on his back with a gun pointed at his head so fast I never got the chance to tell her he was okay. The poor guy is in his 60s, I think he almost had a heart attack.”
“Good, that means she’s doing her job. Have them take you straight home after work, no stops and no social calls. They’ll switch out for the second shift about then, and between your bodyguards and the security around your place, you should be okay tonight.”
“Yeah, Lassiter took it upon himself to notify Blackstone of a possible threat on me, and they called a while ago to tell me they’re stepping up their patrols tonight. I’ll have two of yours inside the house, four of theirs outside and three cars circling the block all night long.”
“Like I said, they’re doing their jobs. I’ll be in touch later, but you can call me if you need to.”
“I suspect I’ll be fine,” Molly said. “Hey, by the way, I’m just curious—are the guys on the night shift any better looking than Lassiter? And maybe single?”
“Probably not, on both counts. Keep it together, Molly, you can’t afford any distractions tonight.”
“I know, I know, but you can’t blame a girl for hoping, right? Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”
As Noah put the phone back into his pocket, Sarah looked over at him. “As far as I can tell, no one is tailing us. Anybody got a preference on where we go to eat? There’s a smorgasbord up here on the left.”
“Smorgasbord!” Neil yelled from the back seat. “All-you-can-eat! That’s perfect, let’s go there.”
“I second that motion,” Moose said. “It’s been way too long since breakfast.”
Sarah surprised herself by laughing at them, but moved into the left lane so that she could make the turn into the parking lot. “It blows my mind how we can be so focused and violent, and then be joking and laughing just a couple of hours later. I wonder if it’s a personality trait that they looked for when they were recruiting us.”
“Yeah,” Neil said, “they look for the genetic markers of sociopathic insanity. If you’re crazy enough, they offer you a job.”
Noah suddenly snapped his fingers. “Then, that explains how I got here, right?”
Sarah stopped the car in a parking space and stared at him. Moose and Neil both leaned forward into the space between the bucket seats, their own eyes locked on his face.
It was Sarah who finally broke the silence. “Babe,” she said, “we all understand that you don’t really have much of a grasp on humor, so when you try to make a joke, all it does is come off as really disturbing.”
Noah looked from one to the other, blankly. “Does it really? I used to do it all the time, Molly said it would help me seem normal.”
“I can see that,” Neil said, “but let me ask you a question. Did Molly ever laugh at your jokes? If nobody else was around, I mean?”
Noah’s eyebrows came down just a bit. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think she did.”
Neil was nodding his head. “That’s because she knew you the way we do. We’re fully aware that you don’t have, as she put it, certain parts of the normal human programming. We’re used to you just being yourself around us, so when you try to act ‘normal,’ all it does is send a chill down our spines. Please don’t do that anymore, not when you’re just with us.”