I, Spy? (Sophie Green Mysteries, No. 1) (Sophie Green Mystery)

getting out of an aged Peugeot 205. From the passenger seat emerged a giant of a man, the sort of super-scary black man they post outside clubs to frighten off teenagers.
    And they were coming inside.
    “Hey,” the woman greeted Luke and Alexa, then switched her attention to me. “Oh, Luke,” she said.
    That’s all she said.
    I looked her over nervously. She was beautiful in a way I’d never be—perfectly straight, glossy dark hair, no little frizzy bits like I get because I brush it too meanly and blow-dry it when I shouldn’t. She had huge, mesmerising dark eyes, perfectly but sparsely made up, and gorgeous clear skin. Her figure was svelte, tightly wrapped in neat jeans and a little black T-shirt.
    Ugh.
    “I’m Maria,” she said.
    Of course she was.
    “And what the hell have you brought us, Maria?” Alexa laughed, coming out from behind the desk. To my surprise, she was wheeling herself. Luke’s highly secret government agency had a disabled agent?
    Very equal-opportunity of them, but also kinda limiting. I was beginning to see how desperate they were.
    Everyone was looking over the huge black man. He didn’t look amused.
    “What am I, cattle?” he said, and his voice rumbled.
    “Sorry, sweetie.” Maria placed a casual hand on his arm, and I saw Luke’s eyebrows rise. “Everyone, this is Macbeth.”
    I stared. Alexa, safe in her wheelchair, started to laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Great name.”
    “He can quote it, too,” Maria said, unfazed. “I found him nicking car stereos in Brixton.”
    “I figure, anyone who leaves a car unattended in Brixton deserves to have their car stereo nicked,” Macbeth said.
    Good point.
    “He also single-handedly broke up a six-man brawl outside a nightclub before I’d even got my gun out,” Maria said. She gave Luke a so-there look, then glanced back at me. “So, what did you bring?”
    Luke nodded at me. “This is Sophie.”
    I gave a little smile.
    Macbeth was looking at me like I was meat. Maria was looking at me like I was a Barbie doll. “What can she do?”
    I blinked at her. “Well, if you wind my arm back my hair grows,” I said, and she burst out laughing.
    “Okay, I see. She’s the airport girl?”
    Luke nodded.
    “Very nice. So, Lex, where’s One?”
    “Gone up the road for breakfast. He said to go through, he won’t be long.”
    Luke opened the door behind Alexa’s desk and Maria, Macbeth and I followed him through. This was another ordinary-looking room, with a desk and a table and several chairs. There were filing cabinets and potted plants and a decrepit projector in the corner.
    “Don’t look very secret to me,” Macbeth said.
    “It’s not supposed to,” Maria said. “If anyone asks, we’re the administrative force for an in-flight service company. Take a seat.”
    “So, this One,” I tried to make conversation, “he’s in charge here?”
    Luke nodded. “Time was, we all had numbers according to our seniority. Now, I guess Maria’s Two, I’m Three and Lexy’s Four. We just call him One out of habit. His real name is Albert.”
    I considered it. One sounded much more Bond than Albert.
    “So we’d be Five and Six?” Macbeth gestured to me.
    “No, you’d be Sophie and Macbeth.” Luke drummed his fingers on the table. “I need to sort out those contracts with Lexy.” He stood up, and then so did Maria.
    “I’ll come with you. Let the newbies get to know each other.”
    I managed a very faint smile. Being shut in a room with a human riot shield was not my idea of fun.
    “So,” Macbeth said. “What’d you do?”
    “Do? Well, I sort of work at the airport, I do check-in…” I trailed off, because he was shaking his head.
    “No, I mean, what did you do to get snagged for this?”
    “I followed a guy down the baggage belt and damaged company property.”
    He grinned, a flash of white. “Nice one.” He paused. “So, you reckon this thing’s for real?”
    I shrugged. I’d been wondering the same thing. “God knows. Luke has a warrant card, but then it could be a fake. I don’t know.”
    “She—” he jerked his head at the closed door, “—has the sort of hardware you can’t buy in shops, you know what I mean? That’s black market stuff.”
    “You mean guns and stuff?” I thought about bluffing it out but ended up confessing, “I don’t really know anything about guns.”
    Macbeth shook his head. “So why’d they hire you?”
    I shrugged again. “I have no idea.”
    “You