Page 40 of Gryphon

And after how pissed he’d been at her about Tad Jobson, he was talking as if trying to help the guy. What was up with that? She’d wanted to slash Mike a new smile, from ear-to-ear by way of his throat over Klara—who’d they spent about twenty minutes around, a thousand klicks away in Iceland. How must he feel about the way Jobson came panting after her?

“How did you figure it, when it was your time?”

Holly smiled to herself, waiting to hear which version Mike gave. As far as she knew, she was the only one he’d told any degree of the truth and she wasn’t sure about the accuracy of that. Mike might tell you five wholly different pasts and convince you each one was absolutely real in turn.

“Sweet Jesus, Tad, open your eyes. If you can’t see the people on this team, you don’t deserve to be here.”

“Including you?”

Holly heard the humor in Tad’s response.

There was a long pause, so long it started to hurt. Whatever Mike whispered to Tad, she missed it.

“Aw shit, bro,” Tad’s reply didn’t bode well.

She had to break this up.

Holly walked around the nose of the plane as if she was just arriving. “Hey. You guys up for a beer run?” Then she nearly choked when she saw Mike’s bag pulled most of the way out of the cargo hatch. Not as if he’d been digging through it, more as if he was readying to walk off with it.

“It’s…” Tad looked at his watch. “What the hell time zone are we in anyway?”

Mike nudged his bag into the cargo bay and pulled down the door as if he was trying to hide something.

“It’s after sunrise,” Holly waved at the sun, “isn’t that all that matters?”

Tad laughed. He’d been on as many night missions as she had. Morning was often the end of the day and time for a cold one before sacking out.

“I’ll pass.” Mike nodded to Tad, circled wide around her and kept walking. Not toward the admin building but out along the line of hangars.

Tad was watching her.

“What?”

“Some things are clear as the sky on a summer’s day; you don’t look stupid to this boy, Holly. Why the hell are you still standing here?”

Holly rested her hand on the closed cargo hatch. She felt Mike’s bag still there, safely behind the door. It did nothing to stop the shivers running through her. She should have grabbed her parka before coming outside to look for Mike.

“You’re right. It’s cold.” She walked around the nose and headed for the admin building.

“Mother Mary and Joseph!” Tad said it like he meant it.

He strode up beside her. Yanking off his parka, he tossed it in her face, then grabbed her shoulders and turned her ninety degrees to face in the direction Mike had gone. He slapped her butt—hard. Hard enough to sting and send her stumbling forward.

“Stop trying to prove that the stories about airhead blondes are true.” Then he headed toward the admin building. “Nice butt by the way.” His laugh was the last thing she heard before he headed inside leaving her out here. In the wind.

32

The sleeper agent’s report on Phase Two made Pavle want to kill the man, and then himself.

The agent wasn’t quite gleeful about betraying one of his own pilots to death, but certainly convinced that he deserved all the praise in the world. In fact, that had been the service chief’s request but there was no way he was passing it on.

If a mechanic had sabotaged one of their own force’s planes, he’d be dragged out into a dirt lot and Ka-pow! No trial. One and done—straight to the head.

His plan was working; according to the chief he’d been born on a happy star.

What’s more, last night Elene had asked for the ring she’d tossed in his face ten months ago. Since her return, she’d been far more contrite and attentive.

Something had happened to her during that week gone. Something that had made her impossibly sad. She’d looked as if she hadn’t slept more than minutes since she’d left him.

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