[MAX]
The last time I had been in France had been with the twins, except instead of trying to get arrested by Interpol, we had been taking out a terrorist cell. In fact, once I actually stopped to dedicate thought to it, I realized that the only times before this that I had been in France had been because of terrorists. I shrugged the thought off in favor of not getting so distracted that I'd run into Dylan, and managed to slow to a stop when he did.
"Why are we stopping?" I asked. I leaned to one side so that I could see around Dylan's shoulders.
In doing so I answered my own question. Winston was on the street that we were about to emerge onto. We had trekked through back alleys for at least twenty minutes now. I wasn't sure if I was more surprised to see that we were finally getting to major roads, or that Dylan had somehow led us straight to Winston.
Or, the third potential element of surprise: Winston wasn't alone. There was a pretty black woman with him, who looked to be a few years younger than him. She was dressed in a style I was pretty sure was called 'business casual,' with crimson lips and a remarkably affable look on her face. I say 'remarkably' because she looked as much while she talked to Winston, and she seemed entirely unperturbed by the grimace he sported.
"That is your FBI agent, right?" Danny asked as he leaned the other way around Dylan to see what was going on. "Who's the model with him?"
"Not sure," I shrugged. "New partner?"
"What, you mean you don't already know?" Danny asked as he gave me an over-exaggerated look of shock. "Did you hear that, Dyl? Max doesn't know something."
I glared at Danny before Dylan answered.
"Yeah, I heard," Dylan said dismissively. "She's not omniscient, dude. Besides, if you make a big deal of it, you're just going to get her in a bad mood. And we do not need that right now."
"What he said." I side-stepped Dylan and made sure to shoot Danny one final look of warning over my shoulder as I did so. "Besides, we'll find out who Miss Universe is soon enough. We're getting arrested, remember?" I called over my shoulder.
With that I stepped out onto the sidewalk. I took a few steps down the street so that I was right across the road from Winston. I sent a quick text as I did so.
MAX: GET READY TO EXECUTE SHADOW WALK
REZNOR: I'M READY WHENEVER YOU ARE.
I had no sooner shoved my phone back into my pocket than did the pretty woman with Winston point me out. Her thin brows were arched high on her head.
I waved at both of them with a smirk that was, perhaps, a bit cheekier than it ought to have been. I couldn't really help it, though; the look of combined rage and bewilderment on Winston's face had that affect on me.
Never one to walk straight into the barrel of the gun when it came to the Elmer to my Bugs, I winked at Winston right as he began to yell at me to stay where I was. By the time he began to cross the street — entirely uncaring of the cars that were going about their business and were likely to hit him — I had taken off back toward the alley that the Carmichaels and I had just emerged from.
Fortunately, the twins caught onto my plan fast.
No sooner had I sprinted past them than were they hot on my heels.
"I thought we were letting them arrest us!" Danny yelled at me.
I tossed a grin over my shoulder at the twins. "I didn't say I was going to make it easy!"
