Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,88

her the aforementioned bucket. That way you and I could go on this supply mission together.”

“Because you’re so big and mean?” Sam asked.

Robin ignored the snark. It was obviously illness-induced. “I’m big enough. And I’ve played a Navy SEAL,” he reminded Sam.

“In a movie.”

“But being safe on the street is all about the illusion. The attitude,” Robin argued. “If I walk the way you walk, stand the way you stand … No one will come close to us. We won’t be a target, even when you’re ralphing into the ornamental shrubbery.”

“If,” Sam countered. He had his eyes closed again, his knuckles white as he gripped the sink. “If I’m ralphing.

Which I won’t be.”

“When,” Robin said. “Here in my reality-based world, which, by the way, is a world where you usually reside, it’s when.”

“I don’t want to leave Gina here alone,” Sam said.

“So then we’re back to my going downstairs and asking one of the ladies of the night to fetch a bucket for you before I go out and …” Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute. The solution, suddenly, was right there. “Eureka!” It was so obvious. “All we need to do is hire a coupla hookers,” Robin said triumphantly.

Sam didn’t just open his eyes at that. He full-on turned his head.

The WTF look he gave Robin would’ve been funny if … Not if. It was definitely funny.

“To get us food and water,” Robin explained, laughing. “Obviously they’re for hire, right? We just hire them to do what we need instead of the creepy stuff. Of course I’d love it if we could use your credit card instead of mine. Because you know if I use mine, it’ll be all over TMZ before you can say paying for sex. And Jules’s career is …”

He didn’t finish the sentence, because Sam had made it clear in the past, many times over, that he believed Jules’s marriage to Robin had permanently trashed Jules’s once gleaming career with the FBI. Of course, Sam had also acknowledged that some things were more important than a man—or a woman’s—career.

In the distance, the sirens started up again.

“What is that?” Robin asked.

“Try to find an English-speaker,” Sam ordered. “And make sure that whoever you hire is well over age eighteen. No twelve-year-olds, as tempting as it’ll be to try to save them, or at least give them a respite from their ongoing abuse. Because no one’s going to believe us when we say we paid ’em to grocery shop. It’s important.”

“Understood,” Robin said.

“Try to get more than one bucket or pail or even some plastic bags while you’re down there,” Sam continued, “so we can go mobile when it’s time. And make arrangements for a car to pick us up to take us to the airport no later than noon. We are gonna be on that plane, I don’t give a shit what you think. And find out what the fuck those sirens are about. If we’ve got bad weather coming, or some kind of, I don’t know, tsunami or what have you, I want to know about it.”

“Good thinking,” Robin said.

“Be back up here within five minutes,” Sam continued. “Even if only to check in before going back down again. I don’t want you gone for longer than that, at any given time. And, whatever you do, do not leave this building. I’m trusting you, Robin. Man to man. Do this right. Don’t let me down.”

Of all the things Sam might’ve said … “I won’t,” Robin promised.

He checked the babies one last time—all was still quiet—before he went out the door.

CHAPTER SIX

Afghanistan

The meeting was productive.

Alyssa had taken advantage of the advisory team’s being locked in with a squad of soldiers by starting a discussion as to how they would set up security for a high-ranking visitor.

The ideas from officers and enlisted alike were flying fast and furious, and Jules was helping Alyssa take notes the good old-fashioned way, with paper and a pen by lantern light, since their cell phone and iPad batteries were nearly depleted, and the FOB’s generator was reserved for essential things like keeping the coffee hot.

Max was sitting nearby, observing, listening, trying to appear patient when, in fact, Jules knew he was mentally pacing.

The last message that had come in from Sam was that not only had their flight been delayed, but that Gina had come down with some kind of food poisoning or stomach virus.

Jules knew that Max knew that his being over here was hard for Gina. This entire “vacation”