Mac heard the chirp of her comm and checked the note from Rob. She’d been more concerned about Alicia’s performance than he had, but they’d also talked briefly about the future.
Their future, in the context of another Can’t Shoot Straight Gang, where she filled the role of a beautiful woman chameleon who could be thirty as easily as sixty. While she was nowhere near as deadly as Roxy, Mac didn’t think that Rob needed that from her. She could still shoot as good as any of the Service’s regular field agents.
And those standards weren’t low.
Alicia had made a concerted effort over the last year at eating healthier, exercising more, and stomping past those old physical fitness requirements that she’d just edged across previously. The woman would never be slinky and beautiful, but she was getting more conventionally attractive every day.
They could be a dedicated team. If that was what Mac wanted.
She slipped the van into gear and considered how much Rob had gotten inside her own mind. He had to know that Miguel would continue to let her do this, but that his replacement would most likely forbid it.
Maybe that was why Handsome had gotten serious about making them into a team? They couldn’t just replace her at that point. Not easily, anyway.
Mac shook her head. Too much time in Carlota’s mindspace. She knew that. Had dreamed where the two of them had to face down an entire mob of other agents, all young and beautiful, male and female.
Fear of being left behind.
She drove the van inward and concentrated on the fact that they would not be allowed to win.
Whoever that metaphorical they happened to be.
Could they rescue Carlota? She didn’t know. At some point, the siren call of using high explosives and flammables to destroy it all would get into any woman’s head. Hopefully, Carlota could be redeemed.
At this point, Mac was certain that Helen was Carlota. If not, then they were about to blow their own covers.
Rob had contingency plans. None of them were pleasant, but this was an industry that went where normal people hesitated. Rob would take someone down, if Helen turned out to be more like Mac as another chimeric hunter looking for the elusive Carlota.
And, God have mercy on her soul, Mac would help. In cold blood, even.
The van hit the ramp down and she paid close attention to how they would get out later. A car chase was the worst possible outcome here, probably. The van wasn’t the sort of vehicle she or Rob would have chosen for such a thing.
Mac got lucky and found a spot on the first level below ground. It went down another three, if you needed it. She even had a spot wide enough that she could press a bit close on the driver’s side and have extra space in back for the side door to slide open for access.
She parked, secured everything, and grabbed the suitcase that Handsome Rob had retrieved from the ship. It was heavy, which was why it had rollers on one side. Rob wanted access to the same sorts of firepower that Alicia had brought. Metaphorical in her case. Literal in his.
It was late in the afternoon. Folks would mostly be checked in unless they were traveling some great distance. At the same time, a little too early for dinner, so the parking garage was practically empty. She rode up the elevator by herself to six, then remembered that the numbers were weird here.
Up one more, she found the door and knocked.
Rob opened a crack, then pulled it the rest of the way and gestured her in.
Inside, Alicia had taken over the bed to open a couple of notebooks and two clamshell computers. Rob moved her case to the desk by the window and Mac found herself trailing him.
She watched him pull out a class four pulse pistol and check the charge pack. A holster joined it, then he drew out the class three he carried for her.
Like Rob, she could shoot most weapons. This one just fit her hand better.
Mac silently stripped off her jacket and put the holster under her arm even as Rob was doing the same thing.
She knew shit was serious when he pulled out a pair of stun grenades and slipped them into his pocket when he put his jacket back on. He’d saved her ass before by bringing those sorts of things into a bar once. And using them.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be necessary. They could have a simple conversation and determine who Helen really was.
“I’ve got her,” Alicia announced breathlessly.
Mac and Rob both turned back to stare at the woman.
“She’s on ten,” Alicia said. “Ten-oh-two. Different name. Only person that suits the search pattern.”
“Does security have a picture of her on file, if she’s been here that long?” Mac asked.
Alicia started in surprise, then began typing.
Anyone who was going to be someplace long enough would get filed, just so security didn’t end up with false positives if they kept seeing the same person hanging around. That caused their paranoia to beep.
“Oh, wow,” Alicia said.
Mac moved around Rob so she could look at the screen. She felt Rob’s breath on her ear.
Helen. Who might also be Carlota Rojas. A woman in over her head and uncertain how she might get out.
Mac didn’t think the woman she’d taken to bed had given up at life. And she’d spent hours being intimate.
But that wasn’t the same thing as knowing how to survive.
Mac wasn’t sure how she could have gotten herself out of such a mess.
Would she have even gotten into it? Was that Miguel’s worst nightmare, that she might go rogue?
At least Mac understood now just what a hunt of that magnitude would look like.
And how little chance she stood of surviving it.
“That’s her,” Mac confirmed, even as Alicia and Rob nodded. “Now what?”
“Now, we go pay her a visit,” Rob said grimly. “And find out who she’s working for.”
Mac nodded.
Helen was another agent like them.
Now, the truth would come out.