Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [127]
When we’d bolted from the Poppycock Review he’d been wearing not much more than some glitter and a smile. His next set of duds came off Peter Desarme, but I didn’t assume he’d pulled the rest of his wardrobe out of his ass … or from wherever he tucked his—
Never mind. I retrieved my wandering thoughts from the gutter.
We reached the car, and I adjusted all the mirrors and seat so I could drive without feeling Cal’s butt-print beneath me. Even if I was only imagining it.
On the other side of the neighborhood we found office buildings of a bland and utilitarian nature, though here and there were older structures in brick or stone. We parked Cal’s rental two blocks away in a lot between two office buildings that were almost fully dark—save a few pinpoints of light where the last unfortunate souls were chained to their desks, working late. We liked that particular lot because it was almost entirely devoid of light, and running low on other cars, too. These two details were possibly related, or possibly not. There’s no telling in D.C.
Murder capital of the nation. Or so I’ve heard.
And, I supposed, I’d already done my part to contribute to the beastly reputation of the place. One new murder so far, but the night was still young.
I closed up the car, took my go-bag and slung it around my chest, and watched Adrian feel himself up—checking for equipment, supplies, structural stability, whatever. It was worth watching.
Between him and Ian, I was getting more eye candy in a week than I’d enjoyed in years. Different brands of candy to be sure, but you didn’t hear me complaining about it.
I hadn’t been able to scare up much in the line of building schematics when it came to Major Bruner’s office, which was kind of surprising. Government buildings are often their own little forts, but private industry structures—like the one where this guy’s office was located—tended to be a little easier to crack. But all I could find out indicated that it was owned by some California company registered to someone named Jeffery Sykes. I could hardly turn up a damn thing about the offices, conference rooms, storage facilities, or shit—even the vending machines. Nine times out of ten, the vending-machine companies are an easy back door to places like that. Somebody from Coke or Pepsi has to restock the soda machines, and usually a rep from Starbucks or Folgers is keeping tabs on the coffeemakers.
Almost every actively used building everywhere has a thousand and one ways inside.
I wished I had more time to research and familiarize myself with a few of them, but it was like I’d told everyone earlier: They already knew we were coming. We needed to act before they knew we’d arrived.
I filed the name Jeffery Sykes away for future investigation. Anyone who makes a building that airtight is up to something. You mark my words.
Anyway, without a good mental layout of the building, Adrian and I paced around the block once or twice, quietly discussing our next move. It didn’t look complicated, but looks could be deceiving. We agreed that the route of least resistance and most discretion would probably be the roof, and I left him for a few minutes to scout for cameras. I found three, which meant there were probably twice that number.
But the funny thing about cameras is that, half the time, at least a few of them aren’t working. This time, only one of the cameras was totally dead, but hey, I’d take it. Two of the others I adjusted very, very slightly—so slightly that whoever monitored them (if in fact anyone anywhere was doing any monitoring) probably wouldn’t notice the change … but my tweakings created a blind spot at the back north corner.
I retrieved my partner-in-crime and trusted him to scale the corner without a whole lot of whining about it.
He wasn’t quite as swift and effortless about it as I was, but that couldn’t be helped. He was only human, after