Mr. Nice Spy by Jordan McCollum Read Free Book Online Page B

“What are we doing this time?”
    We need to get in the embassy. We need access to the people who have access to the ambassador. We need to keep this very, very quiet.
    This mission’s a lot riskier than rabbit hunting. This could turn into a freaking rabbit hole.
    “Okay,” I say, mostly thinking aloud. “We can still do this. But . . .” I glance around. “Not here.”
    Talia sets her jaw, and I instinctively brace for the argument. Conditioning from the situation with Shanna, I guess, because Talia doesn’t snap at me. “Have to eat sometime.”
    I take the hint to go back to my desk, not risking a look at César and Justin. We’re trying so hard to keep this away from the bureaucracy, not even Will knows what we’re doing. We don’t have much longer before he checks in with us — and maybe not much longer before we have to prove this guy is worth following. Landing rights? Not really a matter of international concern. An embassy employee hocking the ambassador’s private communication and setting his agenda to suit another country? Big deal.
    We need to end this.
     

     
    Hong Den Good Food might be the cheapest Chinese place this side of Shanghai, but I’m not complaining. The décor is definitely the cheesiest: dragons, gongs, glaring red and gold, the whole shebang. Enough greasy smoke hangs in the air to style your hair, and the food isn’t good enough to compensate.
    Talia’s mostly playing with her battered-and-fried sweet and sour chicken balls, while I’m halfway done with my General Tso’s. If that’s what this dish is supposed to be, anyway. I think it might actually be slathered in barbecue sauce. Tang of vinegar. Sweet ketchup. Close enough.
    “All right,” I say.
    “Right.” Talia sets down her plastic fork and pushes aside her tray. Finally she meets my gaze, and her eyes are all business.
    I can do business. “We need to get in the embassy.”
    “And I doubt an American passport alone gets us past the hardline.”
    I nod. Getting your hardware past the security checkpoint where you have to surrender outside communication devices, etc., practically takes an act of Congress — and God. “Do we need more help?”
    “Who are we supposed to ask? Will? Chief of Station?” Dixon, our man in Ottawa — head of CIA operations in Canada — is exactly who we don’t want to talk to. Talia sighs. “They can’t let this slide. They’ll go straight to Congress.”
    Both of us joined the Agency after the advent of Congressional oversight, and the phrase “killed in committee” seems a little too appropriate.
    I scarf down another bite of my lunch. Definitely barbeque sauce. “Dixon’s still our best bet to get in.” He works somewhere in the embassy, under “official cover,” pretending to be a high-up, dead-end manager. His precious little photo is even in their directory, all because it’s good for his cover.
    Do I need to mention I don’t like the guy? And that the feeling’s kind of mutual? Talia is no big Dixon fan either, but on this short of notice, the two of us can’t sneak into our own embassy alone.
    “Fine.” Talia stabs a chicken ball, but uses it to point at me. “Let’s say we get help from Dixon. Maybe he puts in a good word with the head of security. Then what do we do? Chill in the hallways until a dude with an Emirati girlfriend tries to pick me up?”
    “You said you’d recognize him.”
    “I would — I will. But unless you can think of a good way to get every ‘personal assistant’ in the place to parade past, this doesn’t count as a plan.” She finishes with a flourish, stuffing the chicken ball in her mouth, giving me silence to contemplate our course of action.
    Yeah, I got nothing.
    So I stall. “How much do we need to get the guy?”
    Talia shifts the bite in her mouth to her cheek. Cute. “If we can’t convince him to turn himself in, we need something more concrete. All we’ve got is a shadowy picture, my word and a recording of