Chapter 42: The Rescue
They were late.
Simon and Casey came through the lobby entrance to find that the situation had already developed without them.
Chuck was in the lounge area — which was not where Simon had left him, because Chuck never stayed where Simon left him — standing in front of the group holding Sarah, with a tall blonde woman beside him who moved with the specific body language of someone who had assessed the room and was ready to act on that assessment.
"Who is she?" Simon said quietly, at Casey's shoulder.
"Carina," Casey said. "DEA. She's been running parallel to our operation." A pause. "She and Morgan—"
"I don't need that context right now," Simon said.
"Agreed."
Simon counted the room. Three visible hostiles around Sarah. A fourth near the exit. The primary — the man who'd been directing the operation — was standing between the couches with his hand inside his jacket and the specific posture of someone waiting for a transaction to complete.
"Four of us," Simon said.
"Three," Casey said. "Bartowski doesn't fight."
"Three and a half," Simon said. "He thinks well under pressure."
"Three," Casey repeated. "Here's the breakdown — Carina takes right. I take left. You take the primary. The moment Sarah gets clear, she handles the fourth at the exit." He looked at Simon. "Can you create the opening?"
Simon was already checking his jacket pocket. The hotel minibar had supplied a small bottle of whiskey when he'd checked the room on the eleventh floor. He pulled it out.
"Give me ninety seconds," he said.
He poured a small amount on his shirt collar, took a minimal sip for verisimilitude — the smell mattered more than the effect — and adjusted his posture into the slightly-too-deliberate walk of someone who had been upstairs having a more successful evening than was strictly wise.
He pushed off from the wall and moved toward the lounge.
"'Scuse me — sorry, coming through—"
Simon wove between two guests with the practiced imprecision of someone navigating a lobby that was moving faster than he was, and arrived at the edge of the primary group with the specific energy of a man who had ended up somewhere without fully understanding how.
Sarah clocked him in the first second. Her eyes did one fast sweep of the lobby behind him, found Casey, found Carina.
She turned to Carina.
What passed between them was brief, in a language Simon didn't fully recognize — a regional dialect or a professional shorthand, something that wasn't English and wasn't any of the languages he carried from the Intersect. It lasted four seconds.
Carina gave a minimal nod.
They moved at the same moment.
Sarah went left — fast, controlled, using the element of surprise to get clear of the man beside her before he could tighten his grip.
Carina went right — into the second hostile with the efficient violence of someone who had done this and didn't need to think about it.
Simon went straight.
He closed the distance to the primary in two steps, drove his shoulder into the man's center, and took him off his feet onto the carpet. The man was larger than Simon, which mattered less than the fact that Simon was already moving when the man started to react. They went down together.
Three exchanges. A knee. A controlled pin. The man's weapon was on the carpet six feet away before he'd finished processing what had happened.
Simon stood up.
Casey had the fourth man in the lobby doorway contained. Carina had her man face-down. Sarah was already moving toward the exit with the purposeful efficiency of someone who had completed the objective and was now interested in leaving.
The entire thing had taken under twenty seconds.
"Chuck," Simon said.
Chuck was standing by the couch looking at the room with the expression of a man who had watched something very fast happen and was still catching up to the sequence of events.
"With me," Simon said. "Now."
He grabbed Chuck's arm and moved toward the hotel entrance.
"Wait—" Chuck resisted for exactly one second, then dropped to his knees and scooped something off the carpet — a diamond, roughly the size of a large marble, which had apparently dislodged from someone's possession during the preceding twenty seconds. He stood back up with it.
"Got it," Chuck said. "Okay. Yes. Let's go."
Outside, Simon pointed Chuck toward the coffee shop on the adjacent block.
"Wait there," Simon said. "Don't move. I'll be back in five minutes."
"Simon—"
"You have the diamond. You're the most important person here right now. Go sit in the coffee shop and order something and don't be interesting."
Chuck went.
Simon went back inside.
The cleanup took four minutes — Casey directing, Carina assisting, Sarah providing the calls to whoever handled these situations when they happened in hotel lobbies. Simon helped move two of the hostiles to a service corridor where they'd be out of sight until the appropriate people arrived.
When it was done, they stood in the corridor and let the adrenaline find its level.
"Good work," Sarah said to Simon. The same tone she always used — direct, without embellishment.
"Carina," Simon said, looking at the DEA agent. "That language you used with Sarah — what was that?"
Carina smiled. She was in her late twenties, sharp-eyed, with the kind of ease in her own body that came from spending years in fieldwork. "Trade secret."
"Fair enough," Simon said.
"You're interesting," Carina said, studying him. "You move like someone who's had formal training, but you don't fight like an agency product."
"Martial arts school in Burbank," Simon said. "Three years."
"Mm." She seemed to find this partially satisfying. "And the instincts?"
"Practice."
She looked at him for another moment. "Your team is unusual. The one who looks like an agent—" She nodded at Casey. "Is a full field officer. The one who doesn't look like anything—" She nodded in the direction Chuck had gone. "Is apparently the most important person in the operation. And you—" She tilted her head. "Are something I haven't quite categorized yet."
"Contractor," Simon said.
"Interesting category," she said.
She moved closer — the specific kind of movement that was social pressure rather than accident.
Simon took a step back.
"I have a girlfriend," he said.
"I know," Carina said pleasantly. "I'm leaving tomorrow. I just think it's useful for you to know that the door is open."
"I appreciate the notification," Simon said. "And I'm going to go find Chuck."
She laughed — not offended, just entertained. "You're careful."
"I've seen what happens to Casey when people aren't careful," Simon said. He looked at Casey. "Speaking of which—"
"Don't," Casey said.
"The picture is deleted."
"I know it is," Casey said. "I deleted it myself."
"You went through my phone."
"I will always go through your phone." Casey looked at him with the flat certainty of a man stating policy. "And if there's a backup anywhere—"
"There isn't," Simon said.
"I know," Casey said. "Because if there were, you'd have exercised extremely poor judgment, and so far your judgment has been acceptable." He paused. "Your payment will be transferred by end of week."
Simon shook hands with Carina — who held his hand a fraction longer than necessary, because she was going to be exactly who she was regardless of audience — nodded at Sarah, and walked back through the lobby toward the hotel exit.
Chuck was in the coffee shop with an untouched Americano and the diamond sitting on the table in front of him, which was either very confident or very naïve, and with Chuck it was usually some blend of both.
He looked up when Simon came in.
"Everyone okay?" he said.
"Everyone's fine." Simon sat across from him. "You found the diamond."
"It was on the floor." Chuck looked at it. "Do you ever think about how strange your life is?"
"Regularly," Simon said.
"Good." Chuck picked up his coffee. "So does mine."
Simon sat with him for a few minutes, drinking the coffee Chuck had apparently ordered for him without being asked, while the hotel settled back into its ordinary rhythms outside the window.
Mia's grocery was where Meg was waiting.
She looked up when he came through the door, ran the standard check — face, posture, hands — and visibly settled.
"All good?" she said.
"All done," Simon said. He sat at the counter. "Can I get a tuna melt and a Coke? I haven't eaten since breakfast."
"Coming up," Mia said, already moving.
Meg leaned her elbow on the counter and looked at him. "You're not going to tell me what happened."
"Not tonight," he said. "But nobody got seriously hurt. And the thing that needed resolving got resolved."
She accepted this with the patient practicality she'd been developing alongside her Wing Chun footwork. "Fine."
Mia set the sandwich down and added a second Coke without being asked.
"Brian called," Mia said. "Your parts came in."
Simon's expression brightened for the first time since his phone had rung during third period. "Already?"
"He said some of it came in faster than expected." Mia leaned on the counter. "New car?"
"New project," Simon said.
"You're going to build another one," Meg said. Not a question.
"Starting this weekend." He took a bite of the sandwich. "You should come by the garage. It helps to understand what you're watching when you come to the invitational."
"Is that your way of asking me to help?"
"It's my way of saying you'll find it interesting," Simon said. "Whether you help is up to you."
Meg considered this. "I'll come Saturday."
"Good."
He finished the sandwich and the Coke, left money on the counter, and held the door for Meg on the way out.
The evening was warm, the street was quiet, and the parts for the Mustang were waiting in Dom's garage.
Everything else, for tonight, could wait.
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