All the same, Lucky ran his hand under the seat and caressed his .38.
After a few moments, his target emerged from the hangar, stepping straight into a floodlight’s glow. “Six feet, about two-hundred pounds,” Lucky murmured to his tie tack. “Forty-ish. Dark blue golf shirt, khaki pants. Bulged out backpack.”
The guy got into the back seat, set the bag aside, and closed the door. “Did you take care of that matter we spoke of last time?”
What matter? Killing Lucky, maybe? “Yes.” Lucky added a “sir”.
“Good.”
He sat idling. What now?
After a few moments of nerve-wracking quiet, the man said, “Take me to the warehouse. And be quick about it. I need to be in Toronto by morning.”
Lovely when suspects spilled information. Soon the SNB would have a complete list of all passengers bound for Toronto within the next sixteen hours. Lucky drove the car out of the gate, toward a warehouse off I-95, one of the routes he’d memorized.
The man spent the entire ride on his cell phone. Lucky strained to hear the words. With any luck, the mic caught everything.
Somewhere at the end of this whole ordeal, maybe he could get on with his life. He pulled into the warehouse gate Jimmy said normally stayed locked.
Unlocked and opened. They were expected. A lone streetlight barely chased back shadows. Shadows. Good to hide in.
Lucky stopped the car.
His passenger slipped a packet over the front seat, the size of a deck of playing cards.
Gloves. The man wore plastic gloves. And Lucky didn’t have any. No way would he touch the wrapper when a touch might kill him, even though he’d brought along naloxone, the magic elixir, in case—in handy little inhalers. No needle required.
The man chuckled. “I’ve forgotten how fastidious you are.” He placed the pack on the console. “A gift.”
Lucky made no move to touch the package.
“Come with me.”
Wait! What? “You want me to…”
“Yes. Come with me. And leave your gun under the seat.”
Oh fuck.
Chapter Twenty-four
Lucky stayed two steps behind the man who suddenly made his world scarier. In over a decade with the SNB, he’d never been burnt while undercover.
He’d keep his perfect record, thank you very much. The fact he walked behind gave some comfort. No one in their right mind turned their back on an enemy.
The ankle holster offered some comfort—not much—but better than nothing.
He followed the man up a set of steps to a loading dock and into a darkened building. Darkness, his one true friend in this situation. Outside, other agents better be regrouping, rethinking original plans and figuring out how to cover a man inside.
Their footsteps echoed in a cavernous room, empty except for a few metal racks, illuminated only by emergency exit lighting marking doors, and a light up ahead. Lucky mentally marked exits. If worst case scenario became reality, he’d learned to duck and run.
Only, his gimpy assed-leg didn’t allow for much running, nor did his partial recovery from surgery. He donned Bristol’s sneer, pulled himself up his full five-feet-six inch-height, and squared his shoulders. He’d make use of something he’d learned in training—from Bo.
For the next few hours, Lucky Lucklighter, Simon Harrison, and any of Lucky’s other personas didn’t exist. Bristol Lucklighter. That’s who he’d be. The high-living, low morals, money hungry sonofabitch who profited from loved ones’ deaths and wouldn’t help his own father.
Nope. Not the way to get into Bristol’s head. Not loved ones’ deaths if you didn’t have anyone you loved more than yourself.
Money. Power. Possessions. And being more than a tobacco farmer’s second son. In his own head, Bristol had overcome his past, deserved to look down on lesser beings like his family. He’d made something of himself.
