Page 33 of Gryphon

He had a lifetime’s training in the art of the con. Not a lot of prestigious diplomas or medals handed out for that particular education. He’d managed to avoid the law the whole way through, which ought to count for a gold star or something. He supposed it had, he’d passed his security check to work with the FBI and now Miranda’s classified military projects.

Steps to Denver: one last weeping witness, move there, and never, ever, for any reason on the planet have a need for a security clearance again.

That sounded just fine.

The only thing he’d ever been good at in this world had no place in his present life. How had he landed in a place where he was playing for the good guys instead of himself?

Then it slapped him hard in the gut.

He almost laughed, but was afraid he’d be sick if he did. He wasn’t running the con, they were. He was the dupe, getting all bent out of shape to run their game for them. If it was his game, where were all the cool side benefits and sweet women?

No! He wasn’t going to think about women right now.

Mike couldn’t get out of here fast enough.

“Down the hall, Interview Room Three,” the receptionist waved him through after checking his ID, away from her desk and down the long hall.

Miranda. He owed Miranda this one last-ever interview because she’d never done wrong by him. After that, he’d be gone faster than the Road Runner racing past Wile E. Coyote.

When he didn’t move, the receptionist eyed him in with a cool professionalism, probably considering whether to smack the button to call out the security team to take him down.

Mike nodded his appreciation; if she’d thrown herself at him, he didn’t know how far he’d race over the horizon without stopping. With the way his luck was running, he’d end up in…Wisconsin. No skiing in Wisconsin; their biggest ski area didn’t top seven hundred feet. Twice Fjällberget—twice puny was still puny. He missed Snowmass’ forty-four-hundred-foot vertical drop.

Four years. He hadn’t so much as put on skis in four years. How the hell had that happened?

Okay, fine. One more weeper, but then he was done.

He staggered down the hall, veering about like a drunk. He could feel the receptionist smirking at his back.

Maybe he’d restart his advertising firm. That had started out being legit. Being paid to sell people what they didn’t need had to be the perfect con—a hundred percent legal and very profitable.

At least until the FBI came along and insisted on screwing it up because he’d inadvertently signed on a money laundering front. For two years he’d raked in money from both sides, the clients and the FBI’s finder’s fees. He’d had the hot car, hotter women, and his own plane for flying them up for weekend to the Aspen ski slopes or mountain summer pastures with all kinds of splendid views.

Gave it up for what? Not much. He’d never imagined his life turning out this spectacularly lame.

Go interview a bunch of passengers. Get those pilots to tell you what they were really doing. And spend untold hours with thousands of eyewitnesses whose statements contradicted and had nothing to do with what Miranda unraveled from the plane and the flight recorders.

Death like last night’s 737 smeared over the snow and now some weeping woman? Not a lifestyle he’d ever signed up for. Well, he had, but it wasn’t on purpose. It had been like the universe dropped him on a narrow raceway over shark-infested waters, then loosed a lion behind him. One choice, one single glimmer of a way out, and he’d grabbed on.

Landing on Miranda Chase’s NTSB air-crash investigation team definitely counted as an improvement over winding up dead—missed getting gunned down by the Denver mafia by the hair on your chinny chin chin, didn’t you, Mike? And the FBI’s heavy clean-up squad, too, while they were tying up loose ends. With Sister Mary Pat gone, it wasn’t as if there was anyone alive to miss him.

Come on Room Three. Show up so I can get out of here. Who made these halls so long? All the charm of an insane asylum.

Working on plane crashes ranked as the weirdest place he’d ever been in his life. His previous record of stability since running away from the orphanage had been his two years operating his own advertising agency in Denver.

Four years with Miranda’s team now, three of those with retired SASR Sergeant Holly Harper in his bed. Perhaps the problem was his DNA lacked the genes or chromosomes or whatever for staying legit.

He glanced back up the hall, which he’d moved only a few doors along despite his walking forever along it, at the heavy door Miranda had exited through, leading outside. Would she climb on the plane and fly away, taking Holly with her? He wouldn’t put it past either of them.

No. There was a crash, a new one. Miranda would never leave without solving it first.

And the job did offer a few plusses—he’d never been with a warrior before. Soldiers and fliers had abounded in Denver bars—not a lot of sailors in the Mile-High City—but never a true warrior like Holly. And she was…

Well, she was coming through that door at any moment. And no matter how much Jeremy wanted him to, he wasn’t ready for whatever came next in his conversation with her. He headed down the hall painted a white as nondescript as any US military base. Fluorescents had given way to LEDs, but they managed to remain coldly institutional.

Yep, resurrecting his ad agency sounded fine. Keep the old Advanced Ads name? Sure. There were probably still rumors around Denver about the agency’s colorful demise—mafia gun battles and FBI cleanup squads. Good old PT Barnum knew what he was talking about: No such thing as bad publicity. Especially not in the ad business.

Whereas weeping women? Definitely some skills he’d rather not be known for.

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