Mark patted his thigh. “They’ll get over it. That was training, and this is the real world.”
“I never thought my first assignment would be so close to home,” Walker confessed.
“They can take you anywhere. One of my first missions was to my hometown. I was petrified the whole time I’d run into my high school principal or neighbors.”
“And did you?” Walker grinned at the thought.
“No, thankfully, but a lot of the townsfolk reported seeing someone who looked like the Peterson kid to my mum. She denied it of course and told them they needed their eyes tested.”
Walker chuckled. “What did you have to do in your hometown?”
“A drug lord needed extracting.”
“The drug lord was living in a little town?”
“He’d retired and wanted to live near his mom. But then he had the misfortune to be recognized by some lowlifes getting gas, and a hit was put out on him. He was useful, and the Feds wanted him kept alive.”
“So why didn’t they retrieve him?”
“They felt we could do it more discreetly.”
“Uh-huh. Because a bunch of guys dressed all in black is way more discreet than Feds in trenchcoats.”
Mark shrugged. “We got the guy, and he got to retire somewhere else.”
“What about his mum?”
“She went with him. She wasn’t happy about it, but once they knew who he was, they’d find her easy.”
“It must have been hard for her, upping sticks at her age.”
“She was pushing ninety, so yeah, it was hard for her. She was my Sunday school teacher.”
Walker’s jaw dropped open. “No way!”
“I’m not kidding. Mrs. Stone was old when she taught me. I was shocked as hell to discover her kid was not the respectable businessman she always talked about, but was a notorious leader of a cartel, selling drugs and guns and women.”
“No shit!”
“No shit!” Mark echoed.
“I don’t think my Sunday school teacher will ever have the same problem.”
“You never know. It’s not like we know anything about our teachers.”
“Yeah,” Walker said. “I pretty much know everything there is to know about my Sunday school teacher.”
“Your mom?” Mark looked at him sympathetically.
“Yeah. I hated it at the time, because I could never get away with anything, but I have to admit she was a great teacher. She was a public school teacher before she married my dad, but he wouldn’t let her continue working.”
“Your dad’s kind of old-fashioned, huh?”
“You could say that.”
Walker looked in the rearview mirror. Since they’d gotten on the road, he’d been checking for vehicles following them. Rees and his partner were tailing at a discreet distance, but there was a beat-up old Chevy which had also followed them since the diner. He didn’t want to worry Mark unnecessarily but any vehicle which had been behind them for this long worried him.
“Are we being tailed?” Mark asked quietly.
“Maybe.”
Tension ratcheted in Walker’s body. Picking up a tail this soon was not what he needed. He looked in the mirror again. The Chevy was still there, but Rees was right behind him. “Rees is on it.”
“I’d be surprised if we got to the safe house without some incident.”
“I thought we’d get out of the county before we hit hostiles.”
The Chevy had slowed down considerably, and other cars had overtaken it. There were now several cars between it and their own vehicle. He could barely see Rees in the mirror which worried him.
Walker tapped his earpiece. “Rees, the Chevy?”
“Negative to the threat. It’s being driven by a granny who can barely see over the wheel.”
Walker grinned at the frustration in Rees’s voice. “She’s going very slowly.”
“You’re telling me,” Rees grumbled.
“Any other vehicle we should be worried about?”
“Negative. One of them is ours and we’ve checked out the other three.”
Walker frowned. “Why wasn’t I told there are two vehicles from the agency?”
“Because he’s not from the agency,” Rees said, sounding exasperated. “He’s got no business being on this mission. But he’s promised to stay back in the event of any trouble.”
Walker swore under his breath. “Fucking Raines.”
“You got it.”
Mark looked at him curiously. “What about Si?”
“Your best friend is poking his nose in where it’s not wanted.” Walker didn’t try to hide his disgust.
“He’s following us?”
“Yes, he is.”
Walker was annoyed with himself that he hadn’t picked it up, but Si could have doubled back and joined them at a later stage. “I’m gonna fucking kill him. If he tries to interfere….” He didn’t say exactly what he was going to do to Raines but he hoped the implication was clear.
“You’ll have to stand in line,” Mark said angrily. “What the hell does he think he’s playing at?”
“He gets the chance to have some action and look after his best friend at the same time.” Walker sighed, running a hand over his scalp. “I don’t blame him. If I was in his position, I’d probably do the same thing. But can you imagine if he gets injured or killed on my watch? I’ll be crucified, and that would be the best thing to happen in my day.”
He flicked a quick glance at Mark and saw the pinched look on his face. Yeah, Mark knew exactly what would happen to Walker if anything happened to Si. He tapped his earpiece again.
“Does Mitch know about this?”
“He does. He’s not happy,” Rees said with grim satisfaction. “I don’t think you have to worry about Raines. He’s gonna have his butt handed to him by the time Mitch gets ahold of him, and Raines’s husband is steaming. Jesus fucking Christ, Granny, what the hell does she think she’s doing?”
Concerned at screeching in his ear and the sound of someone leaning on the horn, Walker looked in the mirror, but Rees was out of sight. “What’s happening?” he demanded.
“Idiot fucking woman just pulled across the road in front of a fucking semi. She nearly got all four of us killed.”
Rees was still cursing, and it took Walker a minute to realize he meant Rees and his partner, the truck driver, and the granny. He flicked a glance at Mark and realized he was waiting to be brought up to speed.
“Si’s in trouble. His husband is furious. Mitch is going to have his hide. And Rees nearly got killed by a granny.”
Mark’s lips twitched. “I wondered what all the screeching was about. Okay, the granny is no longer a problem, we have two vehicles guarding our backs, one authorized and one definitely not authorized, and at the moment we are not aware of any hostiles following us.”
“I think that just about sums it up,” Walker agreed.
Mark huffed out a breath and relaxed in the passenger seat. Walker could already feel the tension rolling from him. He couldn’t relax just yet. There were too many unknowns between here and Denver. He wasn’t usually the driver. He was the bodyguard. The fact he had to do both worried him. He also was reassured and annoyed by having Si on his six. He was an additional complication that he’d been unaware of, and Rees and Mitch were going to get reamed out for not telling him about this straightaway. His team may have a bad reputation and he may be the rookie, but that didn’t mean to say they had to be kept in the dark.