Page 88 of Deadly Strain

“What do you need?” Sharp asked.

“I need to do my work uninterrupted. Can you ensure that?”

“I’ll coordinate with A-Team Commander Faulkner.”

“You’d be doing me a favor if you kept him on the other side of the room...cave from me.”

“Is there a problem?” The last thing this mission needed was people arguing with each other.

“Several. We’ve disagreed on nearly every decision since we left Bahrain. I can’t work with people who won’t listen to reason.”

“Whose reason?”

“Mine,” Max said like the answer should be obvious.

“Have you worked with Faulkner before?”

“No.”

“Faulkner is damn good at his job. Probably as good as you are at yours. You need to give a little, Max,” Sharp said to him. “Sometimes it’s about staying alive long enough to find the cure.”

Max didn’t hide his expression of distaste for that idea. “You Special Forces soldiers always think you have the answer.”

“That’s because we do.”

Max grumbled something under his breath, then turned and began unpacking his equipment.

Faulkner waved at Sharp from across the room, and he made his way over.

“Good to see you, Falcon,” Sharp said with a salute. “I wish I had better news to report.”

“Cutter’s dead?”

“Yeah. Marshall is more than one brick short of an outhouse. We were fired upon from the base.”

“Well, you did steal a helicopter.”

“We were following Max’s orders,” Sharp explained. “And Marshall was, in no way, making rational decisions. He’d thrown Grace into some kind of gulag without allowing her to get all the medical care she needed, which is probably the reason she’s got an infection now.”

“Grace, is it?” Faulkner studied Sharp with eyes that missed nothing.

“She’s earned her place on our team,” Sharp told him. “Ask the rest of them. She’s even got Smoke speaking in complete sentences.”

Faulkner grunted and a smile came and went on his face. Getting him to smile was a tough job. “Why don’t you start from the beginning and tell me the whole story?”

“Yeah, that would be the moment we stepped onto FOB Bostick about two weeks ago. No, it’s pushing two and a half weeks now.” He shook his head. “Marshall took one look at Grace, confirmed her name, then devolved into a dictator on the spot.”

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