Loose And Easy

“You know that’s the best way,” Hawkins said, seconding the plan. “We can’t use CIA intel to catch a rogue CIA agent. We need boots on the ground. Two people, not a team, not at this stage.”

Grant considered the compromise and knew he’d just been handed a solution to his biggest problem with the tasking. He wasn’t likely to lose his whole team, if the whole team wasn’t involved. He didn’t have to figure out how to control Creed and Kid, if Creed and Kid didn’t know about Conroy Farrel.

On the other hand, he couldn’t think of a better way to get the guy killed than to put his fate in the jungle boy’s and Kid’s hands-and yes, he knew that might have been exactly why this thing had landed on his desk. Plenty of folks in Washington didn’t think he kept a tight enough rein on his SDF operators. Some of those folks might be counting on them to run wild, do the deed, and then take the fall for good.

“I’ll expect a report in eight weeks,” he said, coming to his decision. He didn’t have to worry too damn much about controlling Dylan Hart and Christian Hawkins. He’d never seen either one of them not in control of themselves.

“We need twelve, minimum, for an initial evaluation,” Dylan said. “Especially if we’re going in cold. We’ll need time to set up a network.”

“Prade?” Grant asked, and Hawkins nodded.

“Is co

“Then you’ve got twelve weeks,” Grant said. “And I’ve got the whole team waiting out there for something.”

“Did you get us Ramos?” Dylan asked.

In answer, Grant slid the second folder across the desk. “He’s all yours.” And he was another one who was nothing but trouble, another independent thinker. SDF was full of them, and Grant wouldn’t have had it any other way, but by any standards, according to some information he’d gotten, Joh

Something was up, something big. Joh

Sitting on top of the snack table, Skeeter stopped with a Sugarbomb doughnut halfway to her mouth. Standing next to her, Creed shoved the last bite of his in his mouth, and Kid set his back on the tray, uneaten.

Smith and Qui

Joh

Something was up.

He couldn’t read Dylan very well, but the guy looked a little gray. Hawkins he could usually read a little better, but Superman wasn’t giving anything away, other than the seriousness of his expression.

General Grant, Joh

“I heard you had a busy night last night,” General Grant said to him, and Joh

Hell, if he got arrested while Grant was in town, he could damn well forget about being part of SDF, and there was a damn good chance he was going to get arrested. He had a call in to Lieutenant Loretta. He’d saved a couple of women from being kidnapped to Mexico, but he’d killed a guy while doing it, and the lieutenant was going to want a full accounting, if not his ass in her jail, before this was finished.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“I heard you and Dax Killian can both be placed at the scene of a cocaine sting set up by the Denver Police Department this morning.”

Oh, shit.

“Yes, sir.”

The old man looked him over again. Everybody else was looking at him, too, Skeeter looking like she wanted to bust the tar out of him for being an idiot.

“If you have any other civilian sins on your head, Ramos, you better confess it all to Lieutenant Loretta, and if you can manage to keep your name out of the paper, you’ll report here to Dylan, Wednesday morning.”

That sounded like good news.

He angled a glance over at Hawkins, who gave him a nod, and although Joh

He shifted his attention back to Grant.

“Yes, sir,” he said. This was what he wanted, a chance to be part of all this, and that’s what he’d be, one part. The team was the thing, the whole of it. The parts could come and go, but the work of the team was what mattered. It stretched out in the years of missions behind them, and it stretched forward in the years of missions ahead of them, and for a while, if he could keep his name out of the paper, he was going to get to be a part of it.

He would never tell a soul, but in his heart, he was just so goddamned proud of himself, he could bust.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“Hey, baby.”

“Hey.”

“This is your idea of fun, right?”

“Not quite,” Esme admitted, feeling the mud and the rain soak into her pants where she and Joh

“You don’t like playing Army Ranger?” He sounded surprised.

She shook her head. “I like playing with Army Rangers. I don’t like playing at being an Army Ranger.”

A gust of wind sent another showering of rain into their shelter, soaking her where she was already double soaked.

“Hoo-yah,” he said.

And she punched him, hard, right on the arm.

“Does this mean you don’t want to cook up our MREs and eat di

“Roger that, Ranger boy.”

“You look cute in camo,” he said, and she hit him again.

“I look cute in Vera Wang. You look cute in camo.”

“The hot tub looks nice and warm from here,” he said.

Yes, it did. Qui

“If we go back to the house, we could play doctor again,” he suggested. “Or we can stay out here and weather the storm in real Ranger fashion.”

“If I freeze to death, you’re going to have to play by yourself.” It was a warning, nothing less.

“Last one in the hot tub gets to take the other one’s clothes off.”

More rain blew into the shelter, and she started to shiver.

“You always cheat, when that’s the bet,” she said, not really minding the cold too much, not when the mountains smelled so good, so green, and the hot tub was only a hundred feet away, and not when she was in love.

Five months of flying back and forth between Seattle and Denver; trying to maintain a long-distance relationship was taking its toll. When he was gone, he was really gone, incommunicado, and he was never anyplace he could tell her about, off on some mission he couldn’t tell her about, add the distance part of the long-distance relationship, and she wasn’t sure how much longer they could keep it going. And yet, the more she was with him, the more she wanted to be with him. She wasn’t even close to getting enough of Joh