Annie couldn’t place the accent, but it definitely wasn’t French like Jean Paul’s and Julien’s. She would guess some part of Scandinavia. Swedish maybe?
“He has?” Annie looked at Julien, who wasn’t quite as good at hiding his emotions as the other two. He definitely looked anxious about something.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I came to find you. I was worried. It was getting late.” She turned to the other woman, who had lit another cigarette. “How do you all know each other?”
The woman shrugged. “Here and there. It’s a small world with what we do.” She started to get up. “I should go.”
Julien and Jean Paul started to object.
“Don’t go on my account,” Annie said. “I’m not staying.”
She looked hopefully at Julien, but he either hadn’t gotten the hint or had chosen to ignore it. Instead he looked relieved that she wasn’t going to ruin his night. “Don’t wait up for me. Some of the guys are going to sing later, and they asked me to play.”
Julien played guitar. Not well, but enough to strum along.
“I can walk you back if you’d like,” Jean Paul offered.
Good God, no!Every instinct revolted at the thought.
Annie shook her head—hopefully with less vehemence than she felt. “That’s all right. I’ll be fine. It’s only a few blocks.”
Before anyone could argue, she gave a short wave. “See you later.” And took off back through the crowded parking lot of partiers.
She had a few offers to stay along the way—“Hey, beautiful, what’s the hurry?”—but after extracting her arm from a couple of playful grabs, she was back out on the waterfront street inhaling fresh, un-cannabis-laced air.
Angry, and more than a little hurt by Julien’s dismissiveness, she wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings. Too late, she realized someone was behind her.
Five
Dan Warren, aka Senior Chief Dean Baylor, needed a drink. Which was exactly why he wasn’t going to get one. Having a drunk for a mother had taught him a few things at least.
It was what had kept him from the bottle these past two months after the goat fuck in Russia. Men dying was part of the gig. They all knew that. Dean had had men die on him before. But not like this. Not so many. It wasn’t the kind of thing you got over. Process? Accept? Maybe. But get over? Never.
The fact that any of them had walked out of there at all was something of a miracle. They should all be dead. And whoever was responsible for this was going to wish they were. Dean was going to make damned sure of it.
But not from here. Not doing this. And the frustration of having his hands tied was getting to him.
As he walked along the waterfront, leaving the boat tied up on the dock behind him, he knew he’d better find another outlet for his foul mood or he was going to explode.
At 0130 hours his choices were pretty limited. He thought about returning to the dock and going for a swim but didn’t want to take the chance that someone would see him, and wonder what the hell he was doing swimming in the ocean in the middle of the night.
Maybe a run? A long hike?
Sex?
He nearly groaned. God, that sounded perfect.
But knowing it wasn’t in the cards, he cursed. Great. Now his body was teeming with even more frustration, which wasn’t what he needed after another long, fruitless night patrolling the shipping lanes around Scotland looking for...
He had no fucking idea.
A needle in the proverbial haystack?
Keyser Söze?
It felt like a little of both. Even if the Russian sub seen in these waters a few months ago was here now, finding it would take something along the lines of a miracle.
