Page 71 of Gryphon

He held it up sideways, then together she holstered her sidearm and he safetied and slid the Benelli under the bar. “First two rounds are non-lethals.”

She kept an eye on him as she moved to the door. Not wanting a surprise non-lethal in her back—depending on the round and where it hit, it might kill her anyway and would be guaranteed to hurt like hell if it didn’t—she stomped on her knife where it lay on the floor hard enough to make it bounce upward a few inches. Hooking the toe of her boot under it, she lofted it up to hand height, grabbed it out of the air, and slid it into her sheath. As she’d told the Delta operator at the air base in Hungary, she’d had her fair share of boring watches. Always a chance to practice some pony trick.

Three steps back, she ran her butt into the door’s crash bar.

Tad yanked it open and came in fast and low on her right with a Glock raised in both hands. Bad move. He stopped close enough that a single blast would have taken out the both of them—he’d have known that if he’d had some real ground combat training.

“You okay, Hol?” Mike voice was soft behind her.

She nodded. A couple of bruises from a dive and falling chairs were nothing new. Did he hear the concern in his own voice as he asked? Though she could hear General Kurbanov scoff at her attempt to read anything into that.

“You owe me a new entry light,” the bartender announced over crossed arms with full-cuff tattoos running past his elbows. Arms almost as big as Tad’s. Roaring flames.

“Shine it in someone else’s face next time.” Holly strode up to the bar.

She held out a hand, “Holly.”

“Max.” He didn’t go for a finger-crusher, well, no more than she did. “Val didn’t mention you were ADF.”

Holly merely tilted her head in a, Well, duh. This wasn’t the sort of guy she needed to tell she’d been in the SASR part of the Australian Defence Forces, any more than he had to say he was former GSOF. To prove the point, where a soldier’s patch would land, his sleeveless black t-shirt exposed that the tattooed flames parted to embrace an arm-patch-shaped green-and-white art piece. Sword, wings, crossed arrows, and a trident over a Georgian Cross. That had to be Special Operations Forces; no other type of unit covered all those skills.

It was pretty but she preferred the simplicity of SASR’s sword with wings she wore in a place only Mike had seen.

Val could sure pick them; she couldn’t ask for a better contact—GSOF and a bartender would know and hear plenty.

“We’ve got a problem,” she sat on a barstool. As Mike and Tad went to sit beside her, she spoke up, “Tad, check it out.”

“Check what?”

Holly looked at Max and they both shared a slight smile. Good help was so hard to find. Tad had never been on a patrol. Mike shoved off his stool to go inspect the rest of the place to make sure they were alone. Holly knew that Mike hadn’t known either, yet he understood effortlessly.

“Don’t worry,” Max waved him back to his seat, “already did the sweep. We’re alone. Watched you out there for fifteen minutes.” He turned over a tablet computer that had been lying on the bar and showed the image of the car they’d come in. Then the empty stairway they’d descended to get in.

“Guy in the doorway, too,” Holly reminded him.

He nodded, then pulled out a cell phone and hit a speed dial. “You can head home. Thanks.” And hung up. Moments later the guy who’d been lying in the door crossed into view as he circled the car once before departing. No sign of a stagger.

“Aw, crap!” Mike didn’t look happy. “He fooled me. I was sure he was a drunk.”

Holly smiled at Mike as she looked at him in the mirror over the bar. “Did you notice him lying down?”

Mike thought for a moment before shaking his head.

“A drunk you would have noticed. This guy settled down so smooth you wouldn’t see him unless you were watching for that play.”

Max grunted. “So, you’ve got a problem. Why are you talking to me?”

Holly had kept her other hand as near her sidearm as she dared without giving away what she was doing. She certainly wouldn’t be depending on Tad for cover and, as far as she knew, Mike carried nothing bigger than the mini-Swiss Army knife on his keychain.

With Taz busy being a mom in Washington, DC, and Andi being thrown off the team, Holly hadn’t realized until this moment quite how alone and isolated she’d become. If she lost Mike, then she’d be way out in the wind. Which meant it was time to wing it and see if she faced friend or foe.

“We’re talking to you because we think the problem is here, in Georgia.” Then she prepped herself to move fast without offering any outward sign. “Possible earmarks of Georgian Special Operations Forces.”

55

“How can you tell me all this?” Elene hadn’t shoved him out of bed in disgust, which counted as the only good thing to happen since this mission began.

“I can’t. Shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry.” They lay facing each other in the dark, whispering from less than half a meter apart. And though their knees overlapped and she lightly clasped his hand in hers between them, he didn’t think it would be welcome if he hid his face against her breasts again.

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