Cut and Run 3 - Fish and Chips

Porter had used to make notes, trying to glean anything of use from them.
    So far he’d been unsuccessful.
    He had proposed a search of Armen’s suite, but Zane had vetoed the idea. Ty was still of the opinion that they would find the information they were after in Armen’s stateroom, but he couldn’t make the search alone. Zane wasn’t in the mood to hear him out, and probably for good reason, considering the very real possibility that Armen was trying to kill one or both of them. And Ty would find no help from their support team. He and Zane had tried yet again to hunt down one of the FBI team members, to no avail. Some support team. When Ty ran into any of those yahoos, he was going to give them an earful. Earful of pencil tip, preferably.
    He couldn’t make heads or tails of the gibberish written in the books, and trying was starting to give him a headache. Finally, he tossed the book onto the table and leaned his elbows on his knees, rubbing his temples with his fingertips. When that didn’t help, he took one hand and searched for the pressure point between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing hard. Warm hands settled on his shoulders and began to knead at the base of his skull, working at the stiff, sore muscles in his neck. Ty groaned softly, continuing to squeeze at the pressure point until that and the fingers at his neck began to force the headache back.
    “Thanks,” he murmured.
    “You’re stressing,” Zane said. “More than usual. Not that it’s unwarranted.”
    Ty sighed heavily. He put his hand near his head, searching for an analogy that Zane could identify with. “I’m just… getting too much input,” he tried in a frustrated voice.
    “Too many details, not enough context,” Zane said.
    “Yes,” Ty said in relief. He leaned more into Zane’s hands. “Normally I’d be profiling the criminal, but we don’t even have a real crime. We can’t look too close at the rock wall or scuba incidents or we blow our cover. And without any concrete information, anything we can glean from all this is just… educated guesses.”
    “Not even all that educated, for all we’re in the dark and cut off from resources.” Zane continued to massage the knots in Ty’s neck, and his fingers were warm, catching on Ty’s skin. Ty craned his neck to look up at him, resting the top of his head against Zane’s belly.
    Zane stopped the rubbing and looked down to meet Ty’s eyes. “Too hard?” He gently pressed his fingers against one of the recalcitrant knots.
    “I’m not as sore as I was,” Ty murmured. “It just feels good. Are you still opposed to searching Armen’s suite?”
    Zane kept up the petting, the fingers applying more pressure. “I think the chance of finding something useful is less than the chance of getting hurt,” he murmured. It wasn’t really an answer to the question. But it wasn’t the flat “no” he’d given Ty earlier.
    Ty raised one eyebrow in the mischievous smirk that Zane was probably all too familiar with. It probably looked odd upside down. “That’s a solid maybe.”
    “There are a hell of a lot of questions we don’t have answers for to try a search like that. We don’t even know if we can get into the room without the key card. Do you plan to pick Armen’s pocket?”
    “I’m actually quite good at that,” Ty told him frankly. He moved, sliding away from Zane’s hands regretfully. He stood and turned to face Zane, and he winced as he said, “I kind of had a different idea.”
    Zane’s brow furrowed. “What?”
    “Well….” Ty glanced to the balcony and clucked his tongue. “Let me show you.” He waved for Zane to follow him. He stepped out onto the balcony and pointed at the thick partition that divided the balconies from their neighbors. “Armen’s suite is right next to ours, right?”
    “That’s the suite we see him going in and out of, anyway,” Zane allowed as he moved to look at the balconies.
    “And the one he told us he was in. So I figure maybe I can just… swing over onto his balcony.”
    Zane glanced over the edge of the railing and looked away with a roll of his eyes and a grimace. The ocean was quite a distance below. The fall would likely be… painful.
    “Okay,” Zane hedged. “Getting in isn’t much of a challenge. But getting Armen out might be. As far as I can tell, he goes to dinner and poker games, and that’s it.”
    Ty shrugged. “So go to a poker game. Make sure I have at least thirty minutes to get in