The car windows began to steam, Kylie feeling the man's hands fumbling inexpertly at her bra, half of her brain begging him to figure it out while the other half focused on his belt. She felt the strap on her back release and had a split second of regret, wondering if she should stop the train of hormones raging in the cloistered confines. Get back to just talking, like she'd promised herself would happen.
She thought of what her Scottish roommate had told her just before she'd left, after she'd emphatically stated yet again that she wasn't seeing anyone. An impish grin on her face, the roommate had said, "I know what you Americans call this. When I did my student exchange to Virginia, it was all about 'what happens on an exchange stays on the exchange.'"
And now she was in the backseat of a car, not with a British aristocrat, but an American soldier. Someone she’d been trying hard not to like, but had been failing. Her mother would lose her mind if she knew she was seeing someone in the military, which is why she’d been so secretive—even in a foreign country.
But maybe that was part of the attraction.
He parted her shirt and leaned forward, using his mouth, causing an involuntary gasp. She forgot about his belt and arched her back, wrapping her hands in his hair with her eyes closed.
She heard metal hammer the window behind her and felt an explosion of glass rain down. Her date jerked upright, shouting something unintelligible, and then it was a tangle of confusion, men all over her, dragging her out of the car.
She heard, “What the fuck is this? He was supposed to be alone.”
Irish.
Her date began to fight like a wild thing until he was cuffed in the head with the barrel of a pistol. He shouted and rolled onto the ground, holding his skull. He was hoisted to his knees and shown the gun.
He said, “What do you want? Money? The car? Take it.”
Since I’d been expecting to hear about a mission-impossible tasking, the words made no sense. I stood up so fast the chair I was in fell over.
She said, “It’s a letter saying they no longer need our services.”
I took it and saw professional letterhead, wondering what intelligence egghead had created it. I read Dear sir, While we hold your services in the utmost regard, we won’t be requiring your assistance in the foreseeable future. . . .
The rest was a bunch of legalese BS about settling accounts and turning in any outstanding equipment. It was signed Kurt Hale, President.
What the hell?
Jennifer said, “They can’t fire us. We aren’t even in the government.”
I said nothing, only staring at the official piece of paper that would destroy my life. I knew I’d gone a little overboard on our last mission, but it had turned out pretty damn good. In fact, better than good. If I hadn’t gone off the reservation, tens of thousands of people would have died. Knuckles had warned me of the repercussions, but I never thought it would come to pass. I mean, surely results mattered. Didn’t they?
She said, “Pike?”
Brought out of my reverie, I said, “I don’t know, but Knuckles will.”
I knew he was in North Carolina running our unit’s Assessment and Selection, so he would be away from the flagpole and able to talk. Although it sort of pissed me off that he hadn’t called to warn me in the first place. He was still on active duty and tied into the goings-on of the unit we called the Taskforce.
An unorthodox command so far off the books it didn’t even have an official name, it routinely flouted the law to protect civilian lives—and did so successfully. There were many, many souls walking the streets unwitting of how close they had come to seeing the afterlife. Firing me for exceeding the limits of operational risk was like handing out speeding tickets at Daytona. At least that was my opinion.