“Is there a reason we have to do this naked?” I grumbled.
Tara shrugged. “The other options are hacking into the hotel computer system and programming our own cards ….”
Ooooh, that sounded like fun.
“Which we would have had to do from Chloe’s lab, where our keycard programming equipment is—”
Drat.
“And finding a way into one of the other rooms, going out the window, and crawling on a fourth-story ledge over to Jacob’s room.”
I glanced at the towel and then back at Tara. “Let’s do that one.”
She rolled her eyes. “Our intel says the maid for this floor is a guy,” she said. “I guarantee you he has keys to all of the rooms.”
Theand I guarantee you he won’t be able to deny two towel-clad cheerleaders their heart’s desirewent unspoken. I may have been new at this, but I wasn’t stupid. I saw where the whole towel thing was going.
“Are we sure Kann isn’t in his room?” I asked, making one last effort at avoiding the inevitable.
Tara smiled. “He’s in the hotel bar. We passed him on the way in, and he’d just ordered a fresh drink.”
Sometimes, the observation skills of cheerleaders amazedme. These very skills also tended to force me to do things that I really didn’t want to do, like strip in the stairwell of a local hotel, but there are some forms of logic that you just can’t argue with.
“For the record,” I said, resigning myself to my fate and wrapping the towel around my body, “when I said I’d rather walk around naked than wear this stupid uniform, I was being facetious.”
CHAPTER 8
Code Word: Come Hither
Getting into the room was a snap. Julius, the male housekeeper, took one look at our towels and lost any and all verbal ability he might have once had. Ever seen one of those cartoons where the guy’s eyes literally pop out of his sockets, and he goes, “Owwwwoooooga, owwwooooooga”? That was Julius, except for the fact that the poor guy couldn’t even manage a sound. Luckily, despite the fact that his mouth didn’t seem to be working, his all-access keycard proved itself fully functional. He opened the door to Kann’s room, and gestured incomprehensibly with one hand.
“Thanks,” Tara and I chorused in unison. I can only conclude that as the door closed behind us, poor Julius in all likelihood fainted dead away on the floor.
Pushing thoughts of unconscious housekeeping staff out of my head, I glanced around the room. It was a pretty sweet setup: foyer, bedroom with king-sized bed, bathroom withenormous Jacuzzi, and a fully stocked bar. Apparently, having parents who ran their own mafialike operation really paid off.
Beside me, Tara surveyed the room. I got the distinct feeling that her assessment had less to do with how posh the accommodations were, and more to do with identifying secondary exits and analyzing in-room acoustics.
“The window would suffice in a pinch,” Tara said finally, “but if by any chance Kann does happen to catch us here, our best bet is probably to pretend we saw him at the bar and decided to seduce him.”
“WHAT?”
“We won’t actually seduce him,” she assured me. I was less than comforted. The wordscome hitherweren’t even in my vocabulary, and I had no interest whatsoever in playing the seduction card to get out of a mess, even if there was nothing physical involved. Ew.
Instead of elaborating on the nonseduction and comforting me further, Tara began a careful sweep of the room, looking for any security devices or wires that might already be in place. “This room’s clean,” she said, and in a movement so casual I barely even noticed it, she pulled a listening device out of her bra and placed it underneath the desk.
About that time, I realized that Tara wasn’t actually wearing a bra, and I spent a good forty-five seconds wondering how she’d managed to keep the bugs in place on her chest. Since I wasn’t quite up to her level, I’d opted for actually holding on to the tracking chip. It may not have been stealth, but it was secure.
Tara moved quickly and efficiently, violating several lawsof boob physics as she bugged the bathroom and moved toward the telephone. After fiddling with the receiver for a moment, she frowned.
“What?” I said.
She didn’t reply. Instead, she pulled a bobby pin out of her ponytail, and with a few highly precise movements, she removed a small, round chip from the phone.
“The phone’s already wired?” I mouthed.
Tara nodded and began resweeping the rest of the room, making doubly sure that she hadn’t missed any other listening devices the first time. Finally, she spoke. “We aren’t the only ones keeping track of Jacob Kann.”
“One of the other TCIs?” I guessed. It wasn’t that much of a stretch to think that one minor-league bad guy might be bugging another. Were I a bad guy, I would have wanted to keep an eye on the competition, too. The real question was, competition for what?
