All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas (21 page)

“You think,
Holy shit,
” Jules spoke for her, because he knew exactly how that felt. “
How'd I end up here?
But it's a good
holy shit.
It's the polar opposite of waking up in a ditch, or in jail. I mean, I'm just guessing, since I've never done either of those things. Well, there may have been a ditch once, back when I was in college.”

“You? Never.” She poked him again.

“No fair, I'm ticklish,” he said, grabbing her feet.

“Remember how nervous I was when Sam and I got married?” she asked.

Jules nodded. He did remember, and he answered her next question before she asked it. “No, I'm not nervous at all.”

“You're such a liar.”

“I am,” he agreed. “I'm extremely nervous. This is a huge fucking deal.” He looked over at little Hope and winced, but he was in luck, she was still asleep. “Kind of like having a baby,” he pointed out. “I mean, look at you, Lys. Yikes. You're already huge—that thing's only going to get bigger, and
then
? It's going to want to come out. Have you thought about that? I mean, good grief—have you taken a long look at Sam? He was no mere seven-pound baby. You're going to be giving birth to a…a
Texan.
”

Alyssa was laughing. “I'm aware of how tall Roger is, yes, thank you.”

“Do you really still call him Roger?” Jules interrupted himself to ask. Sam was just a cowboy-style nickname. Starrett's given name was, indeed, Roger. “Like, when you're…you know.”

“Sometimes,” she said, laughing, because now he was trying to tickle
her
with his feet. “Yeah. It's his name. You got a problem with me calling my husband by his given name?”

“How'd we both get so lucky?” Jules asked.

“It ain't luck,” Sam's voice drawled, extra heavy with the High Plains Drifter, and they both looked up to see him holding out a vest and harness to Alyssa. “It's pure, unadulterated skill. Come on, Sweet Thing, we got us some more Yankee ass to kick.”

Alyssa looked at Jules. “He knows this is the only time he can call me that, when he's pretending to be Macho Texas Guy. He claims it helps psych out our opponents.”

“And yet,” Jules pointed out, “you call him Roger whenever your little heart desires.”

She grinned. “Yes, I do.” She held out her hand so that Sam could pull her to her feet. She spoke in a shock-TV-announcer voice. “Who has the
Balls
to challenge the champions?”

“I do.” Jules turned to see Will's niece, Maggie, playing right along. She held her laser weapon at ready and tried to scowl menacingly. Her freckles and impish nose ruined the effect.

“Mighty Mouse here needs a partner.” Sam turned to Jones. “You. Couch Potato. You've done nothing but sit around and watch all day. It's your turn.”

Jones shook his head. “No, thanks.”

“What are you, heartless?” Sam pulled Maggie closer. “Look at that sad little face.”

Maggie went from scowl to poor little waif quite effortlessly.

“Jules'll play,” Jones said quietly.

“Jules is about to become very busy comforting the Boy Wonder,” Sam said, “as soon as he crawls off the gaming floor where Mouse and I teamed up to crush him and his pitiful excuse for a bodyguard.”

“Dolphina's not his bodyguard,” Maggie said, giggling as she corrected Sam's obviously intentional gaffe. “She's his personal assistant.”

“Ah. That explains the ease with which we crushed them, then,” Sam teased her back.

“Now I want to go against the great Sam and Alyssa.” Maggie turned to Jones. “Sam said I don't stand a chance with anyone but you.”

Jones looked at the girl, then over at Sam, and then back at his wife.

“Oh, go on,” Molly said. “You know you want to.”

As Jules watched, Jones looked around the room, his gaze stopping only briefly on Will Schroeder, who was still wearing Dolphina's warning labels.
I am a Boston Globe Reporter.

Jones looked at Maggie again, and then at Sam, and then once more over at Jules.

And then he smiled.

Uh-oh.

“All right,” Jones said, pushing himself to his feet. “Come on, kid. Although I've got to warn you—it's been years since I've done anything like this.”

As Maggie led Jones down to the gaming floor to put on the vest, harness and tether, Jules moved closer to the railing, to get a closer look at the action that would be unfolding below.

From where he stood, he could see Jones talking to Maggie. She was laughing as she nodded enthusiastically.

“This should be good.” Robin joined him at the railing, leaning on it with his elbows, making his shoulders the perfect height for Jules to slip his arm around. He was radiating body heat from his recent round of play. His hair was rumpled, and his face was damp with sweat, and his smile was wide—he wasn't just radiating heat, he was radiating sheer happiness.

But as he met Jules's gaze, something shifted in his eyes, turning his joy into something hotter, yet truth be told, no less joyful. “Yeah, and you better stop looking at me like that,” Robin murmured. “We've got guests coming over for dinner—and a Christmas tree to trim. I'm not getting you naked until midnight, babe—and that's at the earliest.”

Jules smiled happily back at him, because, yikes, he loved the anticipation, and Robin knew it. For Jules, the entire evening would be foreplay. Every time their eyes met, even from across the room…Every time their hands touched…By the time they finally did fall into bed, the heat between them would be nuclear. “It'll probably be more like three a.m.”

“You're so mean,” Robin said, laughing. He was far less patient than Jules, and far more into immediate gratification. Spontaneous combustion.

When they went home, they would have to shower quickly, and get changed for dinner. Well. Provided they timed it right…Jules sneaked a quick look at his watch. Yeah, if they got out of here in the next, say, fifteen minutes…the showering part could well end up being a little less quick because, knowing Robin, he'd use the opportunity to grab some immediate gratification.

Meanwhile, Jules could stand here and anticipate
that,
too.

“That is one hell of a smile,” Robin mused, but even before he finished saying the words, he'd figured it out. “Ooh, you're going to let me jump you in the shower, aren't you?”

“Pretending I didn't just hear that,” Will announced as he joined them at the railing, to Jules's right. “Dolphina said to tell you she's going back to the house. She wanted to be there in case the pizza delivery guy came early.”

“Thanks,” Jules said.

“Why are you blushing?” Robin asked him. “You think Will doesn't know just from
looking
at me that I'm all over you, every chance I get?” He gazed pointedly at the reporter. “Kind of the way we can tell, just from looking at him that he's got a major thing for our Dolphina?”

“Although a big clue,” Jules agreed, “was the way they kept sneaking away, all day, looking for each other.”

“To suck face,” Robin added. “Imagine my surprise when I dash to the men's, and there in the shadowy corner by the pay phones is my personal assistant in a lip lock with the evil
Boston Globe
reporter.”

“That was my fault,” Will said quickly. “It was me. It wasn't…She was trying to…I'm completely to blame.”

Jules looked at Robin, who looked back at him, amusement dancing in his eyes. They both looked back at Will, who wasn't just embarrassed, but also worried now that he'd gotten Dolphina into some kind of trouble.

“You got any problem with Dolphina being happy, babe?” Robin asked Jules.

“Nope,” Jules said. “But I've got a problem with her being
un-
happy.” He put a little FBI into his tone as he asked Will, “Are your intentions honorable?”

“Very much so,” the reporter answered.

But then all conversation ceased as, from the gaming area, the buzzer sounded, signaling the start of the round.

As Jules watched, the two teams—Sam and Alyssa, and young Maggie and Jones—leaped into action.

And Maggie literally leaped. In what was clearly a planned move, Jones dropped to his knees and the girl scrambled onto him, so that he was carrying her piggy-back style.

It was brilliant, because her position there on Jones's back kept her front target—in the very center of her vest—protected from the other team's laser blasts.

Jones moved easily despite the extra weight, heading swiftly for one of the faux rock formations, firing at Sam and Alyssa as he went.

He seemed to know exactly where they were going to be, narrowly missing them both with every shot he took. It was possible that he was rusty. But probably not.

“If he goes over into that corner, he's going to get trapped,” Robin said.

Jules shook his head. “He's not looking to win, he's looking to break the second place survival record,” he pointed out. “Yeah, he and Maggie'll be trapped there, but they'll also be able to hold Sam and Alyssa off.” The reigning champions wouldn't be able to attack Jones and Maggie without being targets themselves.

“But they'll get Jones and Maggie with the twenty-second rule,” Robin said. That rule was designed to prevent teams from hunkering down, out of range of their opponents. After twenty seconds with no major movement from at least one team member, the computer would shut down that team's weapons. The rule kept the game from stagnating.

“Just watch,” Jules said, as on the gaming floor Jones—and Maggie, too—held Sam and Alyssa off for as long as possible before leaping behind the protective cover of the rock formation that would, indeed, trap them.

After twenty-something seconds—Jones stretched it as long as he could—sure enough, he alone came out from behind the cover. It was a sacrificial act which reactivated Maggie's weapon, even as it got him “killed.”

And then it was Maggie's turn to keep firing, keeping Sam and Alyssa at bay for an additional twenty seconds, which—yes!—gave them best survival time
ever
among all the second placers that Sam and Alyssa had slaughtered.

Maggie was beside herself. Jones was laughing—a sound Jules didn't hear often enough. Sam and Alyssa, too, were loudly appreciative of both the skill and knowledge that had gone into Jones's plan.

But it was Will who caught Jules's attention, as he frowned at the computer screen that allowed participants and viewers to replay a simulation of the battle, to analyze and improve upon technique.

“Damn,” he said.

Jules went to look.

“He was nine and a half centimeters from ending the game in three seconds.” Will replayed the segment, pointing to the screen which showed that Jones had gotten off two nearly dead-accurate shots, one at Sam and one at Alyssa, right after the buzzer. Each had been, indeed, nine and a half centimeters from the targets on their vests.

Will used the computer keyboard to request a more detailed analysis. Out of all the times Jones had fired his weapon, there were eight different instances where he'd come nine and a half centimeters from “killing” either Sam or Alyssa.

Okay, not exactly nine and a half centimeters every
single
time. Twice he'd missed by nine point four seven centimeters, once he'd missed by nine point five three centimeters.

One clearly wild shot was nine point three eight centimeters from Sam's target.

“You have interesting friends,” Will commented to Jules. “A roomful of counterterror experts, and an insurance adjuster from Iowa can kick everyone's ass.”

Jules reached over and pushed
escape,
clearing the information from the computer screen. “It's just a game.”

“If it were just a game,” Will pointed out, “why go to such effort not to win?”

“Not everyone's been as lucky as you, Will,” Jules told him. “Not everyone gets to go to an Ivy League school and live in a world that's black and white. Good and evil. Wrong and right. Some people are pushed into a place where there are only shades of gray. Most of them don't ever make it back out into the light. And those who do…They tend to have different priorities. Winning a game is outrageously unimportant to Jones.”

“FYI, I'm going to approach him, see if he'll talk to me,” Will said.

Jules shook his head. “No, you're not.”

It wasn't a response Will was used to getting and it clearly made the reporter's hackles rise. “That wasn't a request. It was an announcement of my intentions. I was being courteous—”

“Look.” Jules tried diplomacy. “We're having a party tonight. He's got a flight out in the morning. Whatever questions you think you have for him…Just let it go.”

Will nodded. “Questions like, what was it like to work for the most notorious Southeast Asian drug lord of the twentieth century? And what exactly did he do to get the United States to erase all charges against him—to earn his new name?”

Shit.

“How does he feel about being red-flagged by the Secret Service?” Will continued. “Probably not surprised since the U.S. had no qualms about letting him get tortured for over two years in a jungle prison, simply because acknowledging his presence there would have been politically uncomfortable for them. Oh, and I'd love to find out if it makes him nervous to know that, despite the new name, his true identity is still known among high ranking members of an administration who've outed covert operatives for political gain.”

Jules sighed. So much for his pre-dinner shower.

“I suspect Mr. Jones will be interested in making time to talk to me,” Will continued. “Or should I call him…Mr. Morant?”

“Dear Lord.” Jones's wife, Molly, had been leading her sleepy daughter toward the ladies' room, but now she stopped, having clearly overheard Will.