Scout, except that he was getting damn tired of keeping to the high ground.
Okay, the middle to the low ground, if a person included the blonde he’d shacked up with in Key Largo for a few weeks last winter. She’d been a great girl, a Key-easy cocktail waitress, short, round, sweet, and unlikely to kick his ass—the exact opposite of everything that was Scout.
Scout kicked him. She kicked him hard, especially in the small, unguarded part of his heart that he hadn’t even known he’d had until he’d seen her.
It was ridiculous, the height of stupidity, and had been for four years, ever since Con had found her. He didn’t need it. Scout was trouble. He and Con made a good team. For a price, they provided the best personal security on the planet. For a price, they guaranteed delivery of anything anywhere, from cargo, to cash, to ransom, to the unknown. For a helluva price, they did hostage rescue and facilitated negotiations between a hundred varieties of despots and governments, most of which were barely discernible from each other on any given day of the week. Today’s warlord was often tomorrow’s prime minister in the places where his and Con’s reputations ensured the highest remuneration for their services. They lived well. Jack had cash stashed in banks from the Caymans to Switzerland, and he wasn’t about to screw it all up wanting what he couldn’t, or shouldn’t, have—namely Scout.
Good. He was glad he had that all straightened out in his head—again.
Besides, Con had told him she had a boyfriend now, some Dutch asshole she’d met in London named Karl. He just hoped old Karl had enough brains to stay out of Jack’s reach, or Scout would be looking for a new boy.
Yeah, right. So glad he had everything all straightened out in his head. Con had made a damn point of telling him how great the guy was, how good he was for Scout, some kind of college professor idiot.
How in the hell Scout could take up with a professor was beyond Jack. Hell. The only degree Jack had was his Ranger tab.
He closed the last compartment on his backpack and slipped the straps over his shoulders, then bandoliered a length of climbing rope with a grappling hook across his chest. He’d rigged a zip line from the Bruso-Campbell to 738 Steele Street last night, running it behind the old freight elevator. With him accessing the building in daylight, he was counting on Con to provide the appropriate distraction with a few flash bangs or whatever the hell it took to get the job done. Once they got Scout out, he didn’t care if the building crumbled to the ground, not that the explosive devices he and Con had rigged were likely to do that much damage—but they sure as hell would get everyone’s attention.
Leaning over the roof, he used a carabiner to clip a handgrip onto the pulley on the zip line, and then he checked his watch again and settled in to wait—twelve minutes.
Karl, a damned Dutch professor.
What was up with that? She’d never had a boyfriend before.
He’d ask her. That’s what he’d do, ask her about her jerk boyfriend, clear the air between them, and then he really needed to move on.
Great. He had a plan. He was moving on.
He checked his watch.
Eleven minutes.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Fill me in,” Dylan said, coming out of the Steele Street elevator with Skeeter.
His second in command, Christian Hawkins, glanced up from where he was listening on the phone, signaled him to hold on just a second, then went back to the call. Skeeter headed straight to the security camera console and checked the monitors. A wall of windows in the office overlooked the seventh-floor garage.
Hawkins keyed a sequence into his computer and glanced up again after hanging up the phone.
“That was Jane Linden,” he said, his face grim. “She swears she just saw J.T. down on Wazee, heading south.”
“South?” Dylan asked calmly, controlling a sudden rush of excitement. The Quick Mart was south. “Have we heard from Zach?”
Hawkins nodded. “He checked in just before Jane called.”
“And?” Dylan asked.
“There was a distraction at the Quick Mart, a small amount of smoke and a rank smell coming out of the parking garage across from the store.”
“Diversion?” he asked.
Hawkins shrugged. “No sound, no visual noise, and the smoke and smell dissipated in seconds—pretty damn subtle for a diversion. Could have been anything, a blown engine, a diesel belching out junk.”
“Or it could have been