“So, you’re set on doing the raid?”
“Did you seriously think I wouldn’t be?”
She smiled. “No. I know you. I’ll take the men with me in an hour or so. That will give you time to grab your team. Have the children brought over to your apartment. Your father will enjoy watching the boys and Jamie enjoys bossing them around.”
“Really? I’ve never seen her do that.”
“She does,” Naomi confirmed. “She’s definitely her mother’s daughter.”
Mom laughed. “True enough.”
“I feel the love.”
“Speaking of which, if any of them don’t sound enthusiastic about going, leave them and have them cover for you here. They need to be at least as determined to go as Naomi is or you don’t want them along.”
“What about the Princesses?” We were going into battle. There was no way Rahmi and Rhee wouldn’t be enthusiastic beyond belief.
“They’re doing a ritual to honor Gladys,” Naomi said. “And Rhee told me the higher ranking the warrior the longer it takes, so for Gladys it’s going to take hours.”
Unless of course they were doing a religious ritual for a fallen female warrior, and then, maybe not. “Ah. Then I don’t know if we want to interrupt them.”
“No, we don’t,” Mom said. “And it would be wise to have them watching Mahin, just in case. I’ll use my ‘warrior status’ and leave them instructions for when they’re done, but I agree with Naomi—this is not the time to interrupt them, chances for glorious victory or the honor of noble defeat or not.” Mom’s sarcasm knob went well past eleven.
“Works for me. How are you going to explain why Malcolm isn’t with you and the other men?”
“Simple. I’m going to tell your still jealous but hiding it so much better husband that I was furious that Malcolm had let you go to Cuba without him, and he’s assigned to literally sleep outside your door.”
“Mom, that’s mean. Jeff’s upset enough.”
“True. But I already told Malcolm he was to stay in the Embassy for at least the next week, so I’ll share that with Jeff. If you’re here, so is Malcolm. I know he’s clear about that.”
“I don’t have my Glock any more.”
Mom sighed. “I’ll make sure I leave one for you in your room.”
“You rock, Mom, thanks.”
Mom stood up, so presumably this meeting was over. Naomi was already standing so I joined the club. Mom gave me one of her breath-stopping bear hugs. “Be careful, kitten,” she said quietly. “For every successful capture of Osama Bin Laden there’s an Iran Hostage Crisis. And many times, which place in history you end up in is determined by the blink of an eye, a split second decision, or whether or not a small piece of equipment does or doesn’t work.”
Hugged her back. “I’ll do my best, Mom, I promise.”
She kissed my head. “I know you will, Kitty. That’s why I’m letting you go. And I’m your backup plan. If you can’t get out, you find a way to let me know. And I’ll get you out.”
“You got it, Mom.”
“Great. Now, you two go lie to your husbands. Naomi, it’ll be a little more challenging for you, but, trust me, men are easy to fool. Just focus them on food, sports, or sex, and you’ll be fine.”
Naomi and I exchanged a glance. “I know which one I’m voting for,” she said.
“And with my mom’s permission and everything. Boo-yah reinstated.”
CHAPTER 78
WE DECIDED THAT NAOMI would tell her sister what was going on, and then Abigail would play Post Office and tell the other girls what was going on. We included Amy in this, since we needed the blueprints and, if we were going tonight, she could go along if she was properly thrilled and enthusiastic up to Mom’s standards.
Mom would advise Buchanan, who would be assigned to alert Adriana. In this way, the two of us with the husbands most likely to catch on would be essentially clear and free and out of it, and Naomi wouldn’t have to try to lie to Chuckie about what was going on, because she could truthfully say she just wanted to talk to her sister to ensure they had couple time.
Finding Jeff wasn’t difficult—he was lurking down the hall from the conference room. “What did your mother need to say to you?” Showing that he wasn’t an idiot, either, he sounded worried and suspicious.
“Girl stuff.” Nudged up against him. “Along the lines of us maybe doing something to take our minds off of all the bad stuff that’s been happening.”
Jeff brightened up. “I have the best mother-in-law in the world.”
“True enough. I think Mom’s planning on doing prisoner interrogation soon, and that means taking you with her.”
Jeff’s eyes drooped a little and he got the “jungle cat about to eat me” look on his face. “Then we’d better take care of our much more important business right away.”
Excellent. The finding and the convincing were handled and I could at least look forward to some happy times in the very near future. However, where to go to do the deed was a problem. Dad and Jamie were upstairs, meaning that if we went upstairs, sex was going to be the last thing we were having.
Sure, I was the Chief of Mission, but us “taking a guest room” in either the Embassy or the Zoo was going to raise some questions, and I just didn’t feel like essentially broadcasting that we were going to go have sex to the entire complex. Same with sneaking into any rooms in the complex—if we did, the odds went up to 100% that someone would walk in on us.
The basement and tunnels were out. Not only were there cameras in the tunnels, doing it in the basement wasn’t sexy so much as nerve-wracking, because a part of me didn’t trust that something horrible wasn’t going to come up from the tunnels and attack.
Leaving the Embassy complex was out for a variety of reasons. And on and on.
As I saw it, this left us only two options. “So, do we go for the location that keeps on giving and lock down one of the elevators, or do we sneak down to the garage and do it in the back of one of the limos?”
Jeff considered. “I don’t want to have to use hyperspeed.” He grinned. “I’m not against it, but I don’t want to be limited.”
“Oooh, I like where your head’s at. Garage it is.”
Jeff took my hand and we zipped to the stairs leading down to the underground garage. For a race of people who couldn’t handle human machinery like cars and planes because their reflexes were actually too good, the A-Cs sure had a lot of nice cars and planes. It was one of the many perks of being a part of American Centaurion, and none of the humans ever complained.
My Lexus IS 300 was here now. I rarely if ever got to drive it, but I wanted it at hand in case I had the time. I loved that car. However, its backseat was not made for sexy times, at least not with a guy as big as Jeff.
We picked a limo without a baby seat in it, Jeff got in the back, and I plugged in my iPod. Put on Jewel’s 0304 album. It was actually her more rocking album, at least for Jewel, meaning not rocking to anyone but Jewel fans. But I liked it, and it was great background music for doing the deed since at least half the songs on it were about being in and making love.
“Mmmm, I’m glad you put on the skirt when you changed,” Jeff purred, as I joined him in the backseat and “Run 2 U” came on. He was already lying back and had his jacket and tie off. He pulled me over so I was straddling him then shoved the skirt up slowly, running his fingers over my thighs as he did so.
This caused me to grind against him, just to get comfortable and all. It was very comfortable, especially since I could tell he was definitely ready to go.