Amanda got into the back of the jeep and Lee shoved the seat back into position before climbing in. "Francine…"
Now it was Francine's turn to try to hide her amusement. "Lee. This isn't the Parliament building."
"What?"
"Well, this WAS the Parliament, but the new Parliament building was built across from the Prime Minister's residence. This building hasn't been used for the last 6 months."
"Then why the hell did Christophe blow up this building?"
"I don't know Lee; maybe he didn't have new city plans either." She grinned.
He glared at her as she pulled away from the curb back into the busy street.
"Billy's going to want to debrief you…" as if on cue, the radio crackled to life.
"Francine, Melrose here. Are Lee and Amanda with you?"
"Yeah, Billy. I just picked them up at the old Parliament building…hey." Lee tore the mic from her hand.
"Billy, damn it, no updated city plans? And what in hell happened at the old parliament building?"
"Calm down Lee. Frank Sullivan from the Nairobi office was supposed to bring you the new city plans. As soon as we figured out that the old plans were wrong, we called him and he said he'd deliver. He'd been undercover with Christophe for the last 2 years."
"Billy, he wasn't undercover. He was working for Christophe. He's the one who blew my cover. He told Christophe who I…who we, were." Unconsciously, Lee touched the wound on the side of his head.
"We didn't know, Lee. He'd been feeding us information on Christophe for almost a year now. We had no reason to doubt him. I'll contact the Nairobi office and send a team out right away."
"Naw, don't bother Billy. He's dead. We came across his body in the desert. He was shot."
"By whom?"
"Don't know. My guess is that Christophe figured he was a working both sides of the fence and had him killed. If Christophe's dead, we may never know."
"Lee, are you both alright?"
Lee shrugged again before thumbing the button, "I have some skin missing from my ribs, and a pretty good egg on my head, but I'll live. Amanda's fine." He shuddered remembering just how close it had come to that not being the case.
"Alright. Tell Francine to bring you to me."
He looked at Francine, "You get that?"
She nodded, "Tell him we'll be there as soon as we can."
"Traffic's miserable Billy. We'll be there as soon as we can. Scarecrow out."
TAG:
Amanda sat down in one of the chairs in the command center. Lee ran his hand over her shoulder as he passed her and sat facing Billy's makeshift desk. Both had showered and changed.
Lee could tell that Billy wasn't telling him something.
"That was good work you two. And all in all, everything turned out for the best. I'm glad you both made it out of there alright."
"Thank you, sir."
"Yeah, thanks, Billy. But, uh, what about that other building? Why would Christophe want to blow up an empty building?"
Billy fought back his laughter and almost lost. Francine snickered and sat on the edge of his desk. "Lee, that building was scheduled for demolition today."
He and Amanda exchanged glances and spoke in unison, "What?"
"Demolition. The troops were there to keep people a safe distance from the building. It was just coincidence that the demolition happened at the same time Christophe was flying over the city."
Running his hands through his hair, he stared at Billy. Then he turned to Amanda. She was covering her mouth. Only she didn't look as stunned as he felt. He thought she was actually going to laugh. He couldn't figure out how this could possibly be funny. They'd almost been killed.
Lee sat forward in his chair and stared at his partner as she shook her head.
Actually, as much as he didn't want to, he could see how Amanda could find this funny. If it was laugh or cry, he'd rather her laugh. And since no one was actually badly hurt, his head and his ribs would heal, he could almost see the humor in the situation. No wonder the guard didn't want him going into the building. No wonder Turoro looked at him as if he had a third eye when he started talking about evacuations and terrorists. The lieutenant must have thought he was insane. Smiling weakly in spite of himself, Lee leaned back in his chair and shook his head.
Off his stunned, bemused look, Billy couldn't control himself any longer and let out a peal of laughter.
Amanda just shook her head and leaned back in the chair. She couldn't believe this. She put her hands on her knees then pushed up out of the chair. "Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going to go lay down."
"Of course, Amanda." Billy composed himself and nodded. "We'll be leaving for the states as soon as the sandstorm passes."
She nodded and got up to go. Lee looked at Billy and Francine then popped out of his chair. He didn't say anything, just glared at the two and followed Amanda out of the room.
Billy and Francine exchanged a knowing look before laughing again.
Lee waited until they were out of the command center before speaking, "Uh, Amanda…"
"Hmm?" She stopped and turned to him. Her dark eyes searched his for something he couldn't, or wouldn't admit.
"Um, I just wanted to tell you, that uh, I think you did really well out there yesterday…"
"Well, thank you, Lee." She genuinely appreciated his complement.
"No, uh, really Amanda. You were terrific. You figured out where we were. You took Christophe's gun, and you realized that we could never get away by pretending to be one of them…" He cleared his throat uncomfortably. He couldn't say what he thought next, 'you took care of me.' "So um, I just wanted to uh, to tell you that."
She smiled at him. There was something there he couldn't read. She reached for the bump on his head, gently brushed his hair back and turned away from him. He watched her walk away and this time didn't follow. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he watched her until she ducked into another building. Touching the bruise on his temple gingerly, he winced then smiled some. Shaking his head, he turned back towards the command center and went back inside.