Free The Widow's Strike by Brad Taylor Page B

“Wait here a second.”
    Before I could leave, Jennifer reentered, eyes clear and voice firm.
    “Okay. I’ll do it. Who’s my backup?”
    Decoy, looking a little ashamed, said, “I’m your backup. I got your back.”
    He always pretended to be a chauvinistic man-whore, hooking up with anyone willing in any town he entered, but in Prague I’d seen what he was really like underneath the bravado. No way was Jennifer going to be in any danger with him on the prowl.
    Now, watching her drive away with that sadistic pig, I hoped she didn’t lose it on her own. Hoped she could keep it together long enough to play the part.

14
    J ennifer, her purse clutched tightly in her lap, said, “You said maybe we could come to an accommodation about my employee. Maybe we could get some coffee, discuss how exactly I can help you.”
    Continuing north on Highway 107, Piggy put his hand on her thigh. “Yes, that’s just what I want to do. But why pay for coffee? I have free coffee, tea, beer, whatever you want at my house. It’s only a short drive.”
    She brushed his hand away, saying nervously, “Where is your house? Where are we going?”
    She ignored his answer, because she knew the entire route already. Instead, she focused on the Symbol handheld computer he’d thrown into the backseat. One more string in the domino chain, as Pike had told her.
    Originally, her mission had simply been to keep him occupied, but after the team’s repeated attempts at cracking the Wi-Fi network in the prison, they’d given her another mission.
    The hackers had failed, which meant they needed to access Piggy’s actual PDA. The encryption in the prison was simply too strong, even with the fifty-pound tech help from Taskforce geeks in DC, leaving them unable to open Knuckles’s special cell door. They’d decided on a shortcut, which had been thrown into her rucksack to carry after she’d agreed to become the diversion.
    Piggy placed his hand on her thigh again and said, “You can help your friend out very much. Food, medicine, maybe even release. It depends on how much you care for him. How long are you planning on staying in Chiang Mai?”
    She gave a tepid smile and left the hand on her thigh, feeling sick to her stomach, knowing what he was asking. Knowing he was intimating that there’d be more than one “meeting.” She gave him the truth.
    “Hopefully, I’m flying back to Bangkok today.”
    This brought a scowl, making him look like a petulant child. “Then we should make the most of this, shouldn’t we?”
    She didn’t answer, seeing the intersection for the road leading to the Mae Ping River a hundred meters ahead. And the pickup truck idling next to it. She felt time begin to slow.
    Piggy said something else, turning the wheel and exiting the highway. Looking out the window, Jennifer saw Brett sitting impassively in the cab of a beat-up Nissan truck, the front end aimed toward them. Waiting.
    Just as her door passed, she saw the pickup jump, and she braced for impact, shouting for effect. The vehicle hit them solidly in the right rear quarter panel, causing Piggy’s car to skip lightly. The impact was hard, but not as bad as she expected. They came to a stop after a few feet, the Toyota skewed sideways, with Piggy yelling in Thai.
    He cursed and shut off the car. As soon as he exited, she grabbed the Symbol PDA and ripped a clone device out of her purse. Nothing more than a thumb drive with a cable attached, it had the necessary software to duplicate his PDA in a couple of minutes. She plugged it into the mini-USB port and watched the Symbol screen go blank. Now all she could do was wait until it came back on. Supposedly in two minutes.
    She glanced to the rear and saw Brett waving his hands in the air, with Piggy pointing a finger in his face. She went back to the PDA and did a double take, returning to the window. Sitting on the dingy outside patio of a homemade roadside café was Decoy, a small grin on his face, his eyes