Page 61 of Tango

From what he could tell, the close protection were going to pull up to the restaurant, open the door, and drive back off to sit in their cars until they were summoned. And that was it.

Nope.

That wasn’t how Ethan did things. And it certainly wasn’t the life he was willing to lead.

At break of day, beating most of the human activity down to the restaurant, Ethan was there assessing the site.

He wandered down the bridge, looking over the edge, reminding himself that most of the things he might consider in his threat matrix had a low probability of occurring. This wasn’t a hot zone. It wasn’t likely there would be a vehicular ambush with AKs or explosives tied to a trestle below.

Then again, he hadn’t considered a veterinary-dart-kidnapping scenario the other day, so Ethan allowed his imagination to range a bit farther than he might on a normal assignment.

He considered traffic accidents, fire; he considered if people would run out of the restaurant and under the bridge with sudden weather flare – there were conditions for a tornado, but he didn’t expect it.

In a terrorist emergency, people might try to find a solid structure – he’d seen bridges work well for that. He’d also seen them fail spectacularly. It all depended on where the bomb fell.

It was remote that a bomb would fall.

Though there had been that unexpected plane that hit the Pentagon, spurring him into his military career.

It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

Since the United States was back on war footing, he couldn’t assume a terrorist attack wouldn’t happen.

And D.C. was prime terror real estate.

Ethan and Tango had moved down to assess where he might stash the Alabaster executives if debris was falling from the sky. While there were a lot of homeless enclaves in the area, he didn’t find any under the bridge.

After determining the place he’d stuff his protectees, he moved down to the water’s edge.

Raging fire was the only reason he could think of for aiming for the river. He pulled his sleeve up and plunged his arm in past his elbow to check the temperature and current. It was better to have the physical sensation rather than a number on the morning’s weather readout.

All the while, Tango pranced around, enjoying her sniff safari, before he chirruped her to come alongside him, and they took off on their morning ten-mile with a stop at the exercise yard to do some upper body before heading home to shower and dress for this morning’s briefing by head of Alabaster Security, Tom Baxter.

***

Ethan sat in the security conference room at Alabaster.

The briefing was in ten minutes, yet he was the only one there.

Tom rounded into the room with a three-ring binder under his arm. “There he is, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” he said, sliding into a seat at the head of the table. “You sleep on it last night? You ready to accept the job offer?”

“I’m still getting a feel for your team,” Ethan said, looking toward the door. He was starting to think that he’d been given an earlier timeline than the others. “Mrs. Harcourt-Swain said there would be overseas travel. Would we be protecting individuals or families with small children?”

“We’re executive suite only, but that includes their families.” He held out a hand. “Amanda Harcourt.”

“I was security for Ms. Tifton’s party.”

“That’s right. So, to your question about the families. The kids are all in their late teens and twenties, now. They don’t like having eyes on them. I have this one kid who was climbing down a drainpipe, so she could go to a ‘Pimps and Hoes’ party in a hooker outfit. She got stuck on the drain, seven stories off the ground, too high up for ladders. She froze there. We ended up having to rappel down from the roof.”

“Froze out of fear or froze because the pipe was cold and she was hypothermic?”

“Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. She was wearing scraps of cloth that she called ‘designer wear,’ and it was in the fifties that night. The pipe was bound to be cold with her wrapping her thighs around it. Her coochie probably had icicles.” He chuckled. “Good thing she had on thick-soled boots, though. She got those on top of a connection ring and squatted there, calling down to a passerby for help. We went out and used a high-powered flashlight to look up the side of the building, and right up her dress. She was wearing scraps of fabric as panties, too. Her whole hooha was hanging out there.” Tom reached over and knocked on the table. “Hey, under circumstances like that, you can look, but under no circumstances can you touch. You touch, you get shit canned.”

Ethan and this guy were never going to get along.

He got that the man was inviting him to guffaw and talk shit about this woman. He wasn’t sure whether it was a test and a trap or if Tom was letting Ethan know that objectifying women—even the young women he was supposed to protect—was allowed.

“That wouldn’t happen, sir. Not by me. Not by anyone near me,” he said flatly. “If that’s the culture you allow here, I want nothing to do with this position. And to be clear, I won’t force my protection on anyone. A child? I get that. A legal adult? That requires their consent.” He held Tom’s gaze. “Did she get down safely?”