LITMIR.BIZ

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Any animal, he would be a jellyfish, because, hey, no pressure there. Any musical instrument? An electric guitar, because it was so soulful. Supermarket product? A TV dinner, because they were bad for you but, oh, so good. Mode of transportation? A bullet train. Because, well, for obvious reasons.

      Of course, she thought when he uttered that last. What guy wouldn’t be a bullet train for obvious reasons? Still, it did make her wonder. About a lot of things. Things that had nothing to do with transportation. Well, not conventional transportation, anyway. A guy who was a bullet train could doubtless transport a woman to a lot of places. Hence the wondering about a lot of things. Until the wondering became visualizing and started threatening to make Lila lose track of what her and Joel’s actual goal was, which was…

      Well, hell. She’d known a little while ago. Before Joel became so charming and approachable and bullet-trainy and made her start wondering about and visualizing things she had no business wondering about and visualizing when she should instead be focused on…

      An assignment, she finally recalled. An assignment to capture a man who was a threat to national—even international—security. A man who had eluded OPUS—who had eluded her—for years. A man whose presence roaming free in the world was a smack in the face to Lila’s skill and determination as an agent. A man she was tired of chasing.

      It was time to catch Adrian Padgett, she told herself, refocusing her attention on the man it really needed to be on. Past time. She would catch him this time. And she would see him tossed into the most fail-safe prison in the country, if she had to slam the door shut and lock it behind him herself. Then maybe she could get on with other more pleasant pursuits. Like, oh…she didn’t know. Her life, maybe.

      For some reason, her gaze fell on Joel as that last thought formed in her head. Even though she told herself he was not going to be one of her pursuits, never mind have anything to do with her life. He wasn’t her type, he wasn’t her goal, he wasn’t her match. Hell, he wasn’t even her partner, not really. Providing Oliver survived his upcoming wedding to Avery Nesbitt, he and Lila would return to being a team. She hoped.

      Joel Faraday would just be a blip on the time line of Lila’s life. One man of many, and by no means the most important. That man was hiding somewhere in Cincinnati. And she was this close to bringing him down. For good.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      LOUNGING WITH A SNIFTER of an exceedingly good Armagnac in the living area of his exceedingly luxurious suite at the Four Seasons Cincinnati, Adrian Padgett was exceedingly bored. But then, that was hardly anything new, was it? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been intrigued/fascinated/captivated/even remotely preoccupied by anything intriguing/fascinating/captivating/even remotely worthy of preoccupation. Life could be so boring when one was corrupt. Where was the challenge in anything? Where was the mischief? Where was the sneaky underhandedness? When a man was amoral to begin with, there were no lines to cross, no rules to break, no crosses to double. If one had no allegiances to begin with, one couldn’t exactly betray them, could one?

      Truly, dammit, where was the fun? Taking the entire planet hostage wasn’t turning out to be nearly as diverting as Adrian had thought it would be.

      Of course, he thought as he contemplated his companions, it would have helped if he’d been able to amass some proper henchmen instead of the ragtag group of college students he’d collected over the past few months. The three young men draped over the furniture in his suite weren’t exactly Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan when it came to villainy. More like Boris and Natasha. Only, without the elegant wardrobe and charming accents.

      Oh, sure, they said they wanted to take over the world with Adrian. And if they’d put forth half the effort to take over this world as they had taking over the worlds in their godforsaken video games, Adrian would be master of time, space and dimension by now. But that was just it. Unless something was a graphic on a game screen, they didn’t view it as a challenge. And it wasn’t as if Adrian hadn’t given them plenty of incentive. He’d promised them that once they had the world in their possession, the boys could have Daytona Beach, all incarnations of MTV, the Playboy mansion, Nintendo and Jessica Alba to divvy up however they wanted.

      He blew out an exasperated breath. Where were tomorrow’s despots supposed to come from, if not from today’s universities? Where were the future Slobodan Milosevics and Saddam Husseins? It was criminal how college campuses weren’t producing tyrants anymore. Well, except for the Young Republicans. But even they were more interested these days in making sound business investments than they were in global domination. At this rate, by the time today’s youth grew to maturity, the world wasn’t going to be worth taking over. Which was all the more reason why Adrian had to do it now.

      Unfortunately, the timetable wasn’t up to him, since it wasn’t he who knew the secret code that would finally put the world in his grasp. No, that was up to Moe, Larry and Curly over there. The ones currently focused on the bigscreen television, playing a game that seemed to involve a hedgehog who was dressed in large red sneakers and big white gloves, having evidently eschewed any other clothing.

      Typical cartoon character, Adrian thought. All accessories. No pants.

      “I wanna be Sonic now,” Chuck Miller said suddenly, tossing down the game controls he’d held in both hands and seizing—without asking permission—the controls from his companion to the left.

      Neither of his playmates took offense, however, since they were all old pals. In fact, Adrian knew the trio’s friendship went all the way back to their freshman year in college, three whole years ago. Donny Grawemeyer, who was seated on Chuck’s left, only swatted Chuck’s hat and sent it flying, and Hobie Jurgens, on the right, only laughed and called him Buttwad.

      It warmed the cockles of Adrian’s heart to see the boys getting along so well. And such charming, articulate creatures they were, too.

      The three young men went to great pains to make clear their nonconformity from the campus cattle who did their academic grazing en masse, but each was dressed in some kind of iconic costume of his generation that indicated a desperation on his part to belong somewhere. Chuck was the typical suburban faux gangsta in his ropey gold chains and oversize pants and T-shirts—today’s color scheme was blue on brown. Donny was the self-proclaimed metalhead, his wavy red hair streaming past his shoulders over a black System of a Down T-shirt—whoever the hell they were—and blue jeans. And Hobie, with his cropped blond locks and baggy Jams and red Billabong T-shirt—whatever the hell that was—was the surfer dude. This despite the fact that the only surf one might find on the Ohio River occurred when a passing coal barge increased its speed to more than one knot.

      Adrian supposed that, to the three students, he was something of an icon, too—albeit from their parents’ generation. To them, he was The Suit. A suit who went by the name of Nick Darian, since there was no way on God’s green earth he would ever give any of them his real name.

      Now that his work day had ended, however—though his work day these days didn’t much involve any work—he had shed his espresso-colored jacket and tie and unfastened the buttons of his mustard-colored dress shirt at his throat and cuffs, rolling the latter back to his elbows. Adrian clung to his Fortune 500 wardrobe selections, even though his job these days consisted of little more than watching his back and trying to figure out where to strike next with his band of half-assed men. And also making sure that his half-assed men didn’t stray from the path of world domination any further than obtaining the next level in Fire Emblem. Whatever the hell that was.

      Adrian identified with none of the boys. He admired none of them. He respected none of them. He liked none of them. He did, in fact, resent all of them, since they were all essential to a plan he couldn’t execute without them. Because they knew things about computers and code and other such things that Adrian simply could not grasp himself. Unfortunately, the little bastards couldn’t focus their brains on anything besides gaming for longer than fifteen minutes at a stretch.

      When they did focus, though…Good God, they were magic. There was potential for them as a group that Adrian had

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