Nash pushed himself away. “Oh shit, sorry!”
“Joking. It’s fine. You want to get out of here?”
Pulling on the officer’s pants, he replied, “Oh, hell yeah.”
They rapidly exchanged recent experiences. Eva’s incarceration had been similar to his—angry interviews, cell, meal, a lot of waiting. She’d heard about the social media storm from an inmate who was put in her cell.
“Where did you get the jacket?”
“It’s Sophia’s.”
Nash stopped buttoning up the police shirt. “She’s here?”
That meant she was safe.
Seeing Nash’s reaction, Eva gave him a nudge with her shoulder. “You still love her, don’t you?”
Nash gave what he hoped was a noncommittal shrug.
Eva spoke as Nash put the rest of the uniform on. “She came blustering in under the pretence of being my lawyer and threw a whole mess of jargon at everyone. Either she’s up on New York laws or she’s watched way too much Law and Order.” She chuckled. “She had the place falling over themselves.”
There was no stopping Sophia in full flight. The woman was a force of nature.
Eva continued. “She demanded to speak to her client, claiming I was a representative of the Australian delegation for the United Nations and she was a UN lawyer, and unless she got five minutes with her client there would be hell to pay.”
“And it worked?”
“It not only worked, she managed to get me alone in a room for a few minutes.”
“Baptiste?”
“Dead.”
“Damn.” Nash shook his head. “I saw Pinchot in the crowd. He obviously didn’t get his revenge on Cavendish—the big man paid me a visit.”
“Oh, shit. How did that go?”
“I’ll fill you in later, but first things first, how did you go from the chat with Sophia to roaming the police halls in her jacket?”
She gave a wry smile. “The woman’s good. She got them so knotted up thinking they were creating some kind of international incident, plus the whole shitstorm Harry created on social media, it was a confusing mess. Everyone’s superior kept showing up, and the person in charge changed by the minute. She managed to bundle me into the ladies. I came out with slicked-back hair in a ponytail, her lawyer’s jacket and a visitor’s pass. I walked straight past the bickering cops.” She glanced at the hallway. “We don’t have much time before they realise what’s going on. We need to go.”
Given the gym junkie physique of the unconscious officer, the uniform swam on Nash. He did his best to tuck it in where he could.
Eva led the way out of the cell. “As far as I can tell there’s, like, fifteen locked doors between us and the outside. No way we can bluff our way through all of them.”
“You’re saying we need a distraction?”
“I’m saying we need a giant fucking distraction.”
“Let’s see how much we can fuck shit up then, shall we?”
Eva turned, amused. “I really think I’m having a negative effect on you, Nash.”
They walked with pace, but not enough to arouse suspicion. Seeing a door marked “Break room”, Nash took Eva by the elbow and pointed her towards it. Despite her confusion, she followed.
Thankfully the room was empty. There wasn’t much to it. A well-used dart board, a ping pong table, a coffee station and a fridge. Eva’s confusion didn’t dissipate.
Nash pointed her towards the fridge. “Is there any food in there covered in foil?”
He strode straight to the ping pong table, picked up several balls and grabbed a dart from the board. He then went to the coffee station and ripped open a tin of sugar.
Closing the fridge, she held two containers. “Someone’s sandwich,” she sniffed it and recoiled, “week old tuna by the smell of it and,” she held it at arm’s length, “something I don’t even want to guess at, but it’s gross.”
She took stock of what Nash had gathered and grinned widely. “Oh, hell yeah! That’s what I call fucking shit up.”
The device would be as crude as it would be effective. Nash used the dart to stab a hole in each ping pong ball. Fashioning the foil into a funnel, he poured in the sugar. Once complete, he placed the dart at the centre of the balls, covering the whole thing in foil.
Removing the dart to create a chimney, he said, “I’m going to need a lighter.”
Already ahead of him, Eva handed him a lighter she’d pilfered from the drawers. “Next to some birthday candles.” A wicked smirk crept across her lips. “And a few cans of Axe body spray.”
“Oh, better.”
Placing the foil ball on a tripod of aerosols, Nash lit the candles he’d bundled together with Eva’s hair tie, creating a festive little fire. The flames charred the deodorant cans and the foil above it. Thick black smoke billowed from the funnel in an ever-increasing toxic cloud. Their impromptu smoke bomb working even better than they’d hoped, the two sprinted from the room.
The ensuing few minutes were nothing short of pandemonium. Smoke alarms screeched. The flammable cans exploded, likely resulting in a real fire and sending smoke pouring into the hallway. Overlapping shouts pierced the mounting din as panicked police raced in all directions.
In his ill-fitting police unform, Nash grabbed Eva and pushed her towards the nearest exit. A flummoxed grey-haired officer with her hand on her service revolver saw them approaching and buzzed them through the barred doorway with an officious scowl.
