The Protectors (26 page)

CHAPTER 46

T
he next morning came like all of them did when I shared a bed with Lyla: too goddamn soon. Still, it was tough to be very upset. About anything. The CIA, Iran, the cabin, even Tucker—for a few glorious moments, they all disappeared and the entire universe was no bigger than a single bed with one woman, one man.

But even as the sun rose and the real world snuck back into the room to invade our thoughts, things felt . . . different. Lyla and I were connected now, in a deeper way than before. Our honesty—the mutual realization that we had no more secrets, no more roadblocks—created a stronger bond. Made me feel ready to take on the world.

When we went downstairs to do just that, Diego met us with a gibe: “Looks like Mommy and Daddy have worked out their issues.” He was obviously relieved not to have to play peacekeeper, though, and after a quick family breakfast, we got down to work.

Hard work. Hours of the kind of painstaking labor that means nothing when things go right, and everything when plans go to shit. And let’s face it, attacking the CIA had the ripe smell of a baby’s diaper from the get-go.

By ten o’clock that night, we’d been through the plan six times, exhausting the potential problems. Every “what if,” “how many,” and “how long” had been beaten to death. Diego was the first to yawn, but Lyla was the first to call “enough.”

“We can revisit this tomorrow,” she said. “I would like to get a full night’s sleep.”

“Particularly if this is our last one,” Diego said. He flicked a paper football off the table through imaginary goalposts. He’d been playing with the damn thing for an hour.

“Gallows humor doesn’t suit you,” Lyla said, a frown broadcasting her displeasure.

She ascended the stairs to one of the guest bedrooms with me in tow. As soon as I closed the door behind me, I took a deep breath and prepared for the pre-battle battle. When I turned to face her, Lyla fired the first shot.

“I couldn’t help but notice your intricate plan doesn’t involve me much.”

“Of course it does. You supplied all of the intelligence, you helped plan the assault, and it’s completely up to you to arrange safe transport out of here once Diego and I finish.” The argument was so weak, it barely made it out of my mouth before Lyla kicked it over.

“Shall I prepare and pack sandwiches as well?”

She stood firm in front of the bed, hands on her hips. I walked over and put my hands just above hers.

“Don’t be like that. You know as well as I do, your power set is not made for something like this. Aphrodite’s influence isn’t exactly a slam dunk in the middle of explosions and gunfire.”

“And Knockout’s is?”

“Please, be nice.” I moved my hands to her face and kissed her. When she didn’t pull away, the battle was over. “You know the drill: Diego is Mr. Outside, I’m Mr. Inside. He clears me a path to the door. Once I’m inside the building, I can neutralize entire rooms of people before they see me.”

Lyla understood, but she wasn’t happy about it. “Is that the only reason you don’t want me there?”

“You know damn well it’s not. The biggest reason is because if I see you get shot or blown up . . . it’s over for me. I’ll lose it. One of two things will happen: I’ll either beg the Agency for a bullet in the head, or I’ll help Diego kill every last person in the building. Both of those options scare the shit out of me.”

“The only man on earth who can make death, suicide, and mass
slaughter sound romantic,” she said before kissing me again. Harder than before. When we separated, she said, “I won’t put you in that position. I trust you and Diego to do what needs to be done.”

I squeezed my way into a hug and whispered in her ear. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. Then we work on the future. We didn’t spend the three-day trip to America brainstorming about Aphrodite’s grand plan for nothing.”

“I look forward to it,” she whispered back.

Later, after slipping into bed, Lyla closed her eyes almost immediately. Before long, soft snoring rolled through the bedroom. She slept, curled in the hollow of my body, the lilac scent of her hair teasing my nose. Took at least five minutes for me to realize something amazing.

I hadn’t put her to sleep.

All week I’d given her consciousness a hard reset in order to get her down each night—the price of her hypercerebral evolution. Not tonight, though, and here she was, snoring like plain ol’ regular folk. No idea what caused the turnaround, but I certainly wasn’t hurting for theories:

Maybe my repeated drops had “unclogged” whatever obstacle had formed.

Maybe our plan of action had given her a focus she’d lacked.

Or the biggest maybe, the one I desperately wanted to be true—our relationship had busted through all the crap and granted her a peace she’d needed. The kind of serenity that allowed Lyla to finally rest easy.

If so, maybe it meant there’d be peace for me, too. And provided we survived the next twenty-four hours . . . a future.

Of course, the cynical bastard couldn’t let me have that one, not even for a minute. His voice was louder than Lyla’s gentle rumble next to me.

You only get everything you want right before it gets taken away.

—

Adrenaline and anxiety are poor bedfellows. Combine them with the cynical bastard, and you’re pretty much assured of a futile battle for peaceful slumber. I gave up the fight at 11:30 and padded out to
the kitchen to grab a glass of milk. Before I could open the fridge, the throaty croaks of bullfrogs and the clicking of crickets drew my attention. The sliding glass door that led to the sundeck was open. I poked my head out and saw Diego lounging on a patio recliner, staring at an overcast sky.

He noticed me and said, “Can’t sleep?”

“Nope. You, too?”

He nodded. “I did what I could to remedy the situation, though.” He raised a bottle of Sam Adams from his lap.

“Nice. Are there any more of those?”

“No. This was the last one. Almost finished, too.”

I watched with envy as Diego drained the last swig from the brown bottle. “Damn. I could really go for a beer.”

We were both silent for a minute. Eventually Diego perked up. “You know, I was poking around on Google Maps earlier. There’s a neighborhood bar up the road a couple of miles.”

I thought about it, then shook my head. “I don’t feel like walking for a half hour. I’m guessing you can’t blip over there and carry back a six-pack, huh?”

He laughed. “No.”

“Plus, why risk being seen? It’d be stupid.”

“
Sí.
You’re right.”

More silence.

“Still, a good night’s sleep is important. For the mission’s sake,” I offered. “And beer is a sedative.”

Diego twisted in his chair and propped his body up on one elbow. “You know, we may be endangering the entire mission by
not
drinking. Think about it.”

I flipped toward him. Without intending, I’d mirrored his pose exactly. “There’s a Porsche 911 in the garage.”

Diego grinned like a nine-year-old with a BB gun. “I’ll drive.”

CHAPTER 47

M
y fear of being recognized at the Mason Neck Drinking Horn was somewhat . . . overstated. Best thing about a bar at midnight on a Sunday: there aren’t a lot of customers. Second-best thing: the patrons who
are
there, are really devoted to their craft.

Two bleary-eyed old men at separate tables drank alone—the only two customers in the place. They desperately cast lurid gazes and slurred words at the only waitress, a young woman who paced the place with barely contained exasperation. She navigated between the tables, picking up empties with ruthless efficiency, ignoring any verbal bait thrown her way. Diego and I avoided the drunks and walked to a small booth in the back corner, next to a row of dartboards that had seen better days.

The waitress—Sally, based on the name tag perched above her mountain of cleavage—came to our table almost immediately. Her smile didn’t seem fake, probably born out of gratitude that she’d be able to talk to customers who weren’t slobbering at her appearance or pawing at her as she walked by the booth. Obviously, she’d never met Blaster.

“What can I get you guys?”

“Sam Adams,” I told her. Her brow scrunched, almost like she didn’t understand what I’d said. I was about to ask her if they stocked Sam Adams, but she quickly turned to Diego. He stifled a laugh, but managed to signal “two.” Sally went back to the bar to get our drinks and I whispered across the table, “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing . . . tell you later.” He clipped his words because Sally only made it halfway to the bar before turning back. It was a reaction I’d seen a few times. A few thousand, actually. When she returned, she had the familiar look.

“Hey, you two look an awful lot like . . . y’know . . . those
guys.
”

Even five years removed, I had enough practice to handle a waitress.

“Yeah, we get that a lot. We’re impersonators,” I said. “Do a couple of gigs a month.”

“Wow, I mean, you’re really good.” She turned to Diego. “You even have the long hair. Is that a wig?”

“An extension. No way am I growin’ my hair out like that. It’d take
years.
”

His accent was gone. Completely.

She marveled at the physical resemblance. “No kidding, right? If you could speak Spanish, you’d be perfect.”

Diego took the opportunity to have a long look at her name tag. Well, the region surrounding the name tag, at least. “Sally, like you, I don’t need Spanish to be perfect.” He winked to punctuate the flirtation.

Sally’s waitress-defense shield fired up instantly. Diego had gone from interesting oddity to lecherous ass in a single sentence. It was his gift, really. She shook her head in disgust and walked back to the bar to fetch drinks, one of which I was fairly certain would contain spit-flavored beer.

When she was safely out of earshot, I thumped the table with the palm of my hand and stabbed a finger at him. “I
knew
it! I knew the accent was bullshit!”

His sheepish grin answered better than his words. “Be quiet. My accent is real, took me almost ten years to cover it up.” He was back to the old Diego now, rolling his
r
’s and clipping his
a
’s.

He continued to defend himself until the drinks came, this time delivered by the bartender. She was older than Sally, with the permanent frown lines that come from too many years of dealing with too many Diegos. Like the waitress, though, she was exceptionally gifted in the breast department—enough to make my eyes wander. She plunked our beers down and stared, an obvious favor for Sally, who’d had enough
objectification for one day.

“Anything else?” It was a challenge, not a question.

“No, I think we’re set,” I said. Again, I got the weird crinkled brow in response, like I was speaking a different language.

“Well, good for you,” she grumbled and walked back to the bar.

Diego smiled into his mug, waiting for the foam to die down. When it did, he took a long gulp and leaned back.

“You ever worry Lyla will use her powers on you?” he said. So simple, like asking about the weather.

“One swig of beer and you’re diving into the deep end?”

“Well, you two are a couple now. If I was dating her, it would scare me to death.”

“Other than embarrassing me a couple of times on an airplane . . . not really.” No way was I admitting to the years I’d been convinced she’d embraced me. Diego (beer or no beer) wasn’t the kind of guy you shared your innermost thoughts with.

I took a sip from my own mug and smiled. “Mmmm. That’s the stuff. We better enjoy this round, because I don’t think Dolly Parton and her sister over there are fans.”

“Not worried in the slightest, are you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Again with this? No, I’m not concerned that . . .” I cut off when I recognized Diego’s shit-eating grin. He knew something I didn’t.

My eyes narrowed. “What the hell is so funny?”

He motioned to the two workers, now commiserating by the bar. “Notice anything different about them?”

“I don’t know . . . they both have big chests?”

“Roger. Anything else?”

“They think we were hitting on them?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure they don’t think ‘we’ were hitting on them,” Diego said. “The first words out of your mouth to each woman were ‘I’m gay.’ ”

“What?”

Pent-up laughter exploded from his chest. Diego took a good sixty seconds to compose himself. He had to use his napkin to wipe away the
tears. “Mr. I’m-not-afraid-of-being-embraced . . . spontaneously tells every large-chested woman he meets that he’s gay. Priceless.”

My face grew hot with embarrassment. I had zero memory of saying anything other than “Sam Adams” and “We’re set.”

“Dammit,” I said under my breath. “Knew I was gonna pay for Salma Hayek.”

—

Diego and I talked for an hour, which exceeded our previous record by about fifty-five minutes. We nursed our beers and caught up on the last few years of each other’s lives. To be honest, most of the hour was less about catching up than it was about hitting rewind, reliving our time with the UN, laughing about the fun parts and strategically avoiding the bad ones.

For years, Lyla had stuck up for Diego, played peacemaker and tried to get me to talk to him. Neither of us had been interested in her diplomacy back then, but now I regretted the standoff. Once you got beyond Diego’s prima donna front, he was a lot like me: funny, cynical, and lonely with a capital
L
. The only thing it took for me to see his real personality was a couple of beers. Well, beers, plus getting thrown to the wolves by the CIA and attempting an assault that might end in our tragic deaths.

We got our second round at 1 a.m. Diego swirled an orange slice into a Blue Moon, while I stuck to Sam.

“I went to Jupiter last year,” he said.

I laughed at his abrupt non sequitur. “Any particular reason?”

“I watched
2001: A Space Odyssey,
then the sequel. Talked about life on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. Figured I’d go see for myself.”

“And?”

“Didn’t see any.” He looked mildly disappointed. “To be honest, I couldn’t find Europa. I barely found Jupiter. It’s not like there are any maps.”

“How long did it take?”

He shrugged. “Getting there took a half hour. Then I wandered around for two hours trying to find the right moon. You know there
are sixty-seven of them? I looked it up on Wikipedia when I got back.”

I whistled. “You travel through
space,
man. Do you have any idea how jealous I am?”

He cradled the Blue Moon between both hands, staring at the golden, foam-encircled surface. “Don’t be. Took four days to find my way back.”

“Four
days
?”

“Jupiter is the biggest thing in the solar system other than the sun. You can see it from your backyard without binoculars. I just pointed in that direction and went. Turning around and coming back, though . . .”

His voice trailed away and he slowly rotated the glass with his palms. The motion was hypnotic, like Lyla’s eyes. “Space is big, my friend.
Grande
.” The Spanish rolled out of his mouth in a whisper. “And the earth . . . us . . . we’re so small. Easy to miss.”

“God, that would be a lonely four days. I can’t imagine.”

“No, you can’t. Don’t ever be jealous of me. I would have traded five minutes of that hell for five years in your cabin.” Diego finally took a drink and broke the spell. “Still, it wasn’t all bad,” he said, trying to inject a bit of levity. “Gave me time to think. After I panicked, of course.”

“What did you think about? Other than
I’m never leaving the planet again,
of course.”

“Us. The Protectors. Our powers. How they work together.”

Now I was the one with scrunchy eyebrows.

“Haven’t you ever thought about it?” he said. “How our abilities seem to cancel each other out?” he asked. “Like Rock-Paper-Scissors: electricity screws you up, but you were the only one who could handle Carsten. Lyla can control us, but if she got out of hand—you or me can handle her from a distance.”

“How about you? You’re a walking, breathing lightning storm. What’s your kryptonite?”

“Look at me—five foot six and a hundred forty pounds on a good day. Carsten could have shattered me. My power was pretty fireworks as far as he was concerned.”

I chose not to remind Diego he didn’t have to worry about that
potential outcome anymore.

“So . . . what? You think we were meant to counter each other, like a checks-and-balances thing?” I asked.

He shook his head and took a long gulp of his beer. “That’s what I used to think. But now, after hearing what you did for Lyla? How you helped her adapt to her new power . . . I think I was wrong.”

“First time I’ve ever heard you say those words.”

“Quit it. What if we were
meant
to be together, but not as insurance against one of us freaking out?”

“Dude, if you get metaphysical on me, I’m gonna need more than two beers.”

“Be serious.” Diego hunched forward and put both elbows on the table, gesturing as he spoke. He was more animated than I’d ever seen him. “I’ve thought a lot about this over the last few days . . . since Iran. Maybe it’s more like a lock and key . . . in order to become what we were meant to be, we need each other’s help. You unlocked Lyla’s full power. She was . . . I don’t know . . . broken, somehow. You fixed her. What if all of us are like that? Dependent on each other to evolve. To survive.”

Interesting idea, but it didn’t hold water beyond Lyla. “I don’t need any help. I’m not broken.”

“Lyla told me about the mind reading. She says you can barely do it because of the pain. Maybe that’s your lock.”

“I’m fine. You’re starting to sound like the scientists, by the way.”

Diego lifted his hands from the table in surrender. Making me feel like a lab rat was the worst sin he could commit in our superexclusive club. We’d all spent too much time having our heads examined already.

“I apologize. That was not my intention.”

“Besides, you didn’t need help. You evolved just fine without any assistance.”

His expression sagged as though he carried a burden that had just doubled in weight. “I have issues of my own.”

I’d never seen Diego so sapped. His reluctance to elaborate was scary, too. “C’mon, man, talk to me.”

He finished his glass in three deep gulps and brought the empty
down hard. “If we survive tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Fair enough.”

I motioned for the check. Diego’s ideas weren’t crazy, but I didn’t want to consider them. All the philosophy was meaningless anyway. I’d asked “why” ever since I was sixteen, but the only answer “why” ever brought was more questions. Along with confusion and anger, and I certainly didn’t need more of either.

Right now, I had to focus on the big goal—an assault that would be the difference between living in peace and living on the run. Nothing else mattered. Besides, if what Diego said was actually true . . .

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

I threw down a twenty for the beers. “If you’re right, and I fixed Lyla, then Carsten was supposed to fix you or me. Which means . . .”

“One of us is fucked,” he finished. “The thought had occurred to me.”

My glass had one more swallow. I saluted Diego with it. “Here’s hoping it’s you,” I said.

He laughed and did the same with his empty.

“You’re all right, Mendoza. Sorry I’ve been such a dick.”

“When?”

“Um, forever.”

Diego laughed. “But we’re oldest, dearest friends . . .” He slid out of the booth. “No need to apologize, honest. Let’s go. I’ll have no problem falling asleep with three beers in me.”

I wished I could say the same.

—

Final preparations took most of the following day. As zero hour approached, Diego pored over the documents again, Lyla made a few last-minute phone calls to her newest minions, and I did some sewing. Yeah, sewing.

Lyla came to the bedroom at 7 p.m. to tell me it was time. Seeing me hard at work, she said, “I don’t know which is more of a surprise—that the troll actually had a needle and thread in this house, or that
you
know how to sew.”

“Don’t hate.” I tied off my last knot and held the shirt up for inspection.

“Where did you get the fabric?”

“The curtains.” I motioned to the bedroom window, now with a large chunk missing from the drapes. I stood and slipped the black shirt over my torso. Didn’t have to look at a mirror, because Lyla gave me all the feedback I needed.

“You look wonderful.” She came close, running her fingertips over the golden
P
reinstalled on my chest.

“Check out the belt,” I said. A couple of minutes under hot water had removed the black marker. The bright
KO
letters now stood out from the background.

“Knockout. Leader of the Protectors. You look like a comic-book hero.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t feel like one. Superman never took out the CIA.”

Lyla smiled. “He didn’t have to. The American government loved him. In case you forgot, we’re not in a comic. And you are certainly not Superman.” To demonstrate, she threw a half-speed punch to my stomach. I wheezed for effect.