“I think so, yes.”
“They’ll send you anywhere. You’ve got no seniority, you’ll take what you’re given. You’ll get sent to every shit hole on the list. No choice where you go. You can make requests, only your chance of being approved . . .”
“Mom says she’ll take care of Riff. I’ll miss him, though. But I really want to travel. I need it, Chris. And if I get some bad trips at the start, I’ll just have to put up with them, I guess.”
“You’ll miss Riff. And me?” I said. “You’ll miss me?”
“Chris . . .”
“I didn’t want to say it earlier. Spoil things. But, you think—the two of us . . . ?”
She put her head down.
I said, “I’m due in London next week. I can make requests, but I can’t guarantee.”
“What are you telling me?”
“Just . . . it’s going to be tough.”
“Like last time.”
“Last time . . . was different.”
“Last time, when you walked off, full of promises, and I didn’t see you for two years.”
“I made a mistake.”
“You were a dick.”
“I was a dick.”
I heard her breathe.
Then she said, “You want to know where I’ve been going every morning?”
“Should I be worried . . . ?”
She led me from the room, down to the gaming floor.
There were still drinkers at the bar. She nodded to the barman and he nodded back. They knew each other. I was jealous, instantly. But she didn’t linger there.
Set back, on a podium, there was a grand piano. She went up to it, pulled out the stool, lifted the lid.
I don’t know what she played. It was a strange piece; long, abstract chords, neither major nor minor, then a fierce, rhythmic section. It was not exactly classical, nor jazz, nor anything that I could easily define. It went on maybe four, five minutes. Then she took her hands away, and shut her eyes.
“That’s what I’ve been doing,” she said. “It just came to me one morning, and I remembered seeing a piano down here. No one playing it, this time of day.”
“And this is . . . one of those pieces you were hearing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“It’s . . . unusual.”
“You don’t have to like it. The point is, it was there. And I finally got it from here,” she touched her brow, “to here.” She put her hands just lightly on the keys.
“That’s great.”
“It’s like you said. The gods mess with our heads. But they only mess with what’s already there. And that’s all ours, and no one else’s.”
She pushed the stool back, got to her feet. On the podium, she towered over me, the chandeliers back-lighting her hair, a jet-black halo.
“You asked if we were going to stay together.”
“Yeah.”
She came down the steps. I put my hand out to her, and she took it.
She said, “I think it’s kind of the same thing. If it’s in us, then we’ll do it. And if it’s not . . .”
“Let’s just forget if not.”
Acknowledgments
It’s Oscar time again. I’d like to thank everyone at Harper Voyager for their hard work and enthusiasm, and give a nod to the Art Department for their amazing cover mock-ups. I wish we could have used them all.
Writers need editors, and a very special “thank you” goes to Chloe Moffett for dedication above and beyond the call of duty, and to Nancy Fischer for exquisite copyediting. Final decisions were mine, however, so any errors herein are my responsibility.
Most importantly, I want to thank my wife, Charity Blackburn, for her continued love and support, and for helping scout the book’s locations with me. Research, especially for the Vegas scenes, was arduous in the extreme (so much so that we plan to do it all again as soon as possible).
Finally, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to everyone who’s read and enjoyed the Field Ops books. Without readers, writers are irrelevant. So thank you all.
An Excerpt from Devil in the Wires
If you enjoyed Steal the Lightning
keep reading for an excerpt from
another enthralling Field Ops novel:
Devil in the Wires
By Tim Lees
Available now wherever ebooks are sold!
Chapter 1
Interested?
“But it’s a war zone,” I told him.
“Not technically. Not anymore.”
“Oh, good.” I folded up the map and passed it back. “So if I’m killed there, what? I’m not technically dead or something? That how it works?”
“No, Chris. If you’re killed there—God forbid, but if you are—then you were never technically there at all. You follow me?” Dayling smiled, the gracious host. “Do try the bamia, by the way. It’s delicious here.”
“I’ve lost my appetite.”
A dozen lidded bowls lay on the tabletop between us. A ceiling fan whisked tepid air over our heads. In the adjoining room, the only other customers— both westerners—had just been served the pleasures of the sheesha, and a sweet drift of tobacco smoke began to mingle with the smell of sweat, and spice, and char-grilled lamb.
“Please, Chris. Just hear me out, will you? For old times’ sake?”
He raised his brows. His forehead wrinkled like a puppy’s.