Page 6 of Good Enough

“Quit your whining.” Waters winced. “This will make for a nice, easy transition back into fieldwork. Physical without being under pressure.”

There was crinkling in the background as God spoke. Waters shook his head. One of those damn caramel apple suckers. Those things were shit, but God had a two-bag-a-day habit. Cherry ordered them by the thousands.

“You think I can’t take the pressure?”

“No, I said this would be a transition without it.”

“Forget it. Send Nemo,” Waters grumbled at the disembodied voice. But for some reason, it burned him to think it, let alone say it, and he absentmindedly rubbed his chest.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. He’s still in Cuba with Steel collecting that baseball player and won’t be back before this job starts. Even if he were here, he would be available for full field duty in the case of an emergency. You are not.”

“You’re seriously going to assign me to babysit her and her celebrity minions?”

God’s slightly altered speech came out again as he worked around the sticky candy. “Look at it this way. You get to be outside of this damn office, running roughshod over a half-dozen A-listers who probably don’t know their left from their right. Work ‘em hard, make ‘em cry like little girls, and enjoy it, for fuck’s sake. Even better, get laid by the sassy director.” Waters rolled his eyes at the suggestion. “Hey. You’re like Betty White without a Snickers when you aren’t getting any.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Are you kidding? You’ve been as celibate as a monk ever since we brought you back from Egypt two years ago and just as cranky, despite all the pretty nurses offering you some extra physical therapy.” Waters shrugged, but he remained quiet. God changed tactics. “Besides, watching you eye-fuck Kai Serrano is the best entertainment I’ve had in months.”

Waters sighed in exasperation. “I was not eye-fucking her.” God barked out a single-syllable laugh. “I wasn’t. You’re just making shit up to try and get in my head.”

“And it’s working, isn’t it?”

Waters just shook his head as if to say whatever you think, then clicked the zoom button on the remote and watched Kai on the public parking lot security camera footage as she sat in her car checking her phone. He perched his ass on the edge of the conference room table, one booted foot crossed over the other, his arms crossed in front of his chest, one thumb and forefinger pulling on his bottom lip.

Okay, I was totally eye-fucking her. But so what? He’s right that it’s been a while. Is it the boots? Because I gotta admit, I really dig the boots.

What intrigued him about Kai Serrano was a weird set of juxtapositions that he could not resolve. Approachable, but prickly. Confident, but defensive. Take charge, but willing to concede. She was a puzzle, and he couldn’t resist solving puzzles.

He frowned and tilted his head to the side. Without warning, the corner pieces of a brain jigsaw puzzle laid in place. He straightened his arms and gripped the edge of the conference table. “While convenient, this has nothing to do with a movie consult.’’

God snorted. “And the man wins a prize. My shit meter was just outside the danger zone before she even walked in the door.”

There was crunching as he pulverized the sucker in his mouth and immediate crinkling as he unwrapped the next sucker while speaking. Immediately unwrapping more of the disgustingly plastic suckers was Waters’ clue that his boss was unhappy. And nothing made God more unhappy than not knowing exactly what the hell someone was plotting.

How sad is it that I know his state of mind from his candy-eating habits?

“Did Ka-Bar call in the marker to you or to Steel?”

“Midas forwarded me a video clip Ka-Bar emailed to Steel around thirty-six hours ago, requesting that we take on the job she asked me for. Said to charge her for the work, but he wanted to make sure she had the best.” He snorted. “He’s asking us to ‘be the best’ consulting service on a movie in exchange for a marker he earned? Not fucking likely. And the request comes in as a recording, with no opportunity to ask questions? Why couldn’t he call and talk to someone directly? Hell, no, he clearly didn’t have time to wait for the office to open, so something else is going on here. Now my shit meter is reading beyond the danger zone.”

A sucker stick pinged into the garbage can on the other end of the connection. “What do you know about Ka-Bar?” God asked.

“He was Steel’s friend while in Team 5, so he’d be the better one to ask. My knowledge is by reputation only.”

“Well, I can’t ask Steel now, can I? So tell me what you do know.”

Waters sighed.

Now we’ve reached ‘Jerky with a chance of scattered irritation’ status.

“The scuttlebutt goes that some shit went down in South America, and suddenly both Steel and Ka-Bar were exfil targets with Ka-Bar shot so full of holes he could have been a sponge.”

“They shouldn’t have been anywhere near South America. That’s Team 4.”

“Exactly. But there they were, claiming they were on leave and got caught in the crossfire of some cartel shootout. However, there were no records of liberty requests for either man. Ka-Bar recovered, was reprimanded, and then was reassigned to Team 8. Steel vanished off the face of the fucking planet until I found his ass crawling out of a sewer drain from a Black Site in Nicaragua. Now Ka-Bar shows up calling in a marker from Steel. I’d bet you my left testicle that the South America incident is why Steel owes Ka-Bar.”

“Somehow or other, Ka-Bar wants our eyes on this woman because he can’t do it himself.”

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