Bargaining with the Devil_A Death and the Devil Novella by L. J. Hayward

Author:L. J. Hayward [Hayward, L. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: L.J. Hayward
Published: 2018-06-29T18:30:00+00:00

Death of the Party

Harry was doubled over, laughing so hard it had gone silent. One hand was braced on the tabletop while the other waved helplessly. Tears streamed down his reddening face and each time he managed to pull his shit together and stop, all it took was one look at Jack and he was off again.

“Ignore him.” Lewis blocked Jack’s escape route from the small operations room he and Harry were using to monitor Delta Subject.

After the near disaster in Singapore, Jack and Harry had been given their next job by Director Tan of the ETA. Not exactly thrilled to have his agreement with Tan brought into play so soon, Jack nevertheless took the responsibility very seriously. Even if watching Delta Subject—a young Indonesian man in Sydney thanks to his uncle, an unusually generous gangster with links to radical religious groups—wasn’t a challenge. The worst part about the whole deal was making bland reports about non-suspicious movements to Unit Leader Keri Sing in the Singapore branch.

“I am.” Jack was proud of his calm tone. Between Harry and Lewis, he was about an inch from losing his patience. He’d been at work since 3 a.m., woken from a nice sleep by an alert from the tech assigned to Delta Subject overnight. It had turned out to be nothing, just a midnight run for more pot and snacks, but Jack had stuck around anyway, deciding he’d take an early finish over trying to go back to sleep for a couple of hours. It was now very nearly 2 p.m. and Jack was going home. It didn’t matter that Lewis was starfished in the doorway. If he didn’t move in the next two minutes, Jack had no qualms about moving Lewis himself. “And I will ignore the urge to punch you, too, if you get out of my way right now.”

“Come on, Jack,” Lewis pleaded, his grip on the door frame going white. “I really, really need your help on this one. I promise, it’s a simple in-and-out job. Couple of hours, tops. I’ll owe you one.” At Jack’s continuing scowl, he added, “Two. I’ll owe you two. All right, three, but that’s as high as I go.”

Jack rolled his eyes. He’d already made all his objections to Lewis’s request—it wasn’t Jack’s operation, Lewis had his own field team, Jack was too old to pull it off, it was stupid. All of which Lewis had shot down—it was an ITA operation and despite Jack running a job for ETA he was still an ITA asset; none of his field team were appropriate and McIntosh couldn’t spare anyone else at the last minute; age was a state of mind; it wasn’t stupid, it was a vital part of Lewis’s operation. Jack had to grudgingly admit they were all legit, except for the age one, but that didn’t mean he had to do this.

To gauge the level of desperation, Jack smiled grimly at Lewis’s offer. “Three favours, huh? Tempting.” Jack pretended to consider it, sighing like he was going to give in.

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