“We don’t take kindly to people spying on us. You spied, Mr. Mateo. You aren’t going anywhere until we say so. You aren’t going to the bathroom either.”

Sam leaped to her feet and motioned to the others to follow her into the house, leaving the tattoo artist with Mateo. She headed straight for the front door and outside. “Bugs,” she said.

“You have bugs?” Zoe squealed.

“Surveillance bugs,” Slick said, disgust ringing in her voice. She looked at Sam, her eyes full of questions.

“I say we take Donovan out, too. We can do it. He sure as hell isn’t expecting anything like this. We got Mateo. How hard could it be to take him down, that little pumpkin of a man? There’s five of us and one of him. Let’s show him what we’re made of.”

“Sugar and spice and everything nice.” The cartoonist giggled.

“Try guts, steel nerves, and superior intelligence. Toss in female intuition, womanly wiles, Mateo’s gun, his Blackberry, and I’d say that makes us the CIC. Translated that means we’re the cats in charge. Doncha love it?” Sam said, an evil look in her eyes.

“Email coming in,” Kayla said, excitement ringing in her voice. Her voice was disappointed when she said, “It just says, two o’clock.”

Slick looked at Sam. “Don’t respond. Turn it off now. The meeting place must be the pretzel stand in Crystal City. Olivia, do you think your friend Barry is capable of babysitting our guest?”

“For money, he’ll do anything. I’ll go talk to him.”

Olivia was back within minutes. “Barry said he’ll stay with him and he’ll pretend to give him a tattoo. For six hundred bucks.” The women could barely hear her whispered voice, but her gleeful look told them all they needed to know.

At precisely seven minutes past two o’clock, the women formed a baby brigade, with strollers the mall provided and dolls purchased from K-B toys. Sam held a plastic diaper bag. The gun inside she jabbed into his ribs. “Gotcha covered, Donovan,” she hissed. “Now walk out nicely and nothing will happen. You screw up, and the same thing that happened to Mateo is going to happen to you, but you’ll get the tattoo on that plump cheek of yours. You following me here?” The round little man nodded. “In case you’re wondering why we’re doing this, it’s because we had a business deal. You stacked the deck, Mr. Donovan. You spied on us. You’re still spying on us. We don’t like that, do we, girls?” Four heads wagged a negative.