Page 28 of Maverick

“Do you know someone on their team?” he asked the man.

“I wish. If I did, I’d be on that team,” he said, standing straight. “I’m going to ask for transfer to another assignment. Ding my record, fight it, I don’t give a shit. But I’m not going to fuck with these guys. I value my life.”

He opened the door and turned to leave.

“You leave this mission your career is over,” said the man behind the desk. He chuckled, shaking his head.

“What you mean to say is if we don’t finish this mission, your career is over. You need us to find them, to find her and the others because you can’t. I’d like to know why. Yeah, she’s brilliant and hot as fuck. So are a million other girls. And all those kids on the list. Why them? Why do you want a bunch of children? Everything about this fucking sucks, and I don’t like it. I may not be a genius, but I’m not an idiot.

“I’ll stand in front of a bullet for my team. I’ll detonate a bomb. I’ll go into enemy territory. But I won’t fight an entire team of the best spec ops men on the planet and a whole damn slew of women who are brilliant and capable in their own right.”

“Again, you know a lot about them,” he frowned.

“Again, you underestimate the spec ops community. We listen. We know. We hear,” he said. Turning to the other two men, he shook his head. “If you want to die for this bastard, be my guest. I’m not going to do it.”

He left, and the other two men swayed from one foot to the other. Number two looked at him and shook his head.

“I’m out.” Number one followed.

“He’s right. Whatever you’ve got going on, you’ll lose with them. I won’t die chasing after smart kids.”

In utter shock, he stared at the backs of the men as they wove through the desks toward the elevator. He couldn’t order them to return. He’d gotten them on this project under false pretense. When their commander called he’d have to explain why he lied about the assignment.

“I can do it myself,” he muttered. Looking down at the information in front of him, he bit his bottom lip and shook his head.

“I am truly fucked.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Fitch and Forrest walked into Luke’s office, frowning. He stared at the two younger men, then leaned back in his chair.

“What now?”

“We got a call from a Ranger, someone we knew but didn’t serve with. He said he had information that could be helpful to us about a lost girl,” said Fitch.

“Did you call him back?”

“We were waiting to do it in front of you,” said Forrest. Luke nodded.

“Call him.”

He redialed the number, waiting for someone to answer.

“Hold.” They could hear shuffling and then a door closing. “Hey, Robicheaux, what’s up, asshole.”

“You tell me, Hugo. You called us. Fitch is here with me,” said Forrest.

“I had an interesting assignment recently. Deputy Director of the CIA asked my commander to assign me and two other Rangers to him for a covert mission. The mission was to kidnap and retrieve a young woman, Katelyn Smith. We were given her address. We were told to scope the place, ensure she was alone, and take her. Except when we tried to do that, four of the biggest asshole SEALs I know stopped us.”

“Interesting story,” said Forrest.

“It is. And it gets more interesting. I didn’t want to fuck with those guys, and neither did my teammates. We confronted the deputy director and told him to fuck off. Luckily, my commander is supporting us in this. The problem is, he’s not done. He wants that girl and a bunch of other kids. Apparently, they’re all really smart, and he has a plan for them.

“Now, I’m not a genius. I’m just a regular Ranger who was dumb enough to follow orders. Once. I won’t follow them again. He’s going to use whatever means necessary to find that woman and those kids. Since he knows she’s connected to G.R.I.P., he may come to some other conclusions.”

“Why are you calling us?” asked Forrest. The man laughed at them.

“Don’t be obtuse, Robicheaux. See, I know big words too. He’s a fucking spook of the highest variety, and I suspect he’s got some red friends. There were three plane tickets sitting on his desk. Return tickets from Moscow just two weeks ago. Now, I might be slow, but the last I checked, American military, especially CIA members, were not welcome in Russia.”

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