“I know you are, but what am I?” Sloan smiled.
“That reminds me. We’ve got to get you an I.D. 10T form to fill out before we go wheels up again.” Razorback’s phone vibrated and he peered at the screen.
Sloan cocked his head. “An ID what?”
“Just some mission paperwork Jax wants some of the guys to do for the Atlanta office. Write it down. I.D. 10T.” He answered his phone. “Hey, Mac. What’s up?”
“Bill Whitton passed away.”
“Fuck.” Razorback braced his forehead in his hand. Whitton had been Mac’s first commanding officer in the SEALs shortly after dinosaurs roamed the earth. All the Desjardins woman had to do was say Whitton’s name, and Mac had promised to send in the cavalry—in this case, Razorback and Sloan. It spoke volumes about Mac’s close-knit bond with the other man. “I’m sorry.”
Mac cleared his throat. “Which means we only have our conversation with Miss Desjardins to go on, and she’s full of shit.” Desjardins’ account of the intruder who attacked her before disappearing into the night didn’t seem quite right to any of them.
Sloan pulled out a pen and wrote on the back of his hand. ID10T. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” he grumbled, licking his thumb and attempting to rub the ink away.
“I don’t like sending you two in blind. Watch your backs. Moto’s searching for more information on this woman, but for now, see what you can find out. Explore your surroundings. I don’t trust her, so make her trust you. You’re going to have to use some charm on this one, Razorback.”
“No problem.”
“It is a problem, which is why I’m pointing it out. Don’t be an asshole. You can’t blow your way into that place with an M320 and expect her to bare her soul.”
He sighed. “I’ve got it.”
“Be nice. Or shut up and let Sloan do the talking.”
Razorback glanced at Sloan, who’d nearly rubbed the word IDIOT off the back of his hand. “I said, I’ve got it. How’d you make out at Rikers?” he asked, trying to change the subject. Mac had been looking for his estranged wife for more than a year, and had been visiting an inmate at Rikers Island Penitentiary to follow up on a potential lead.
“The FBI won’t listen to shit. Convicted felons do not make reliable witnesses. And the damn warden is making my life difficult.”
“So tell him you’re with HERO Force.”
“Yeah. I just might. Or I might take matters into my own hands.” Mac sighed. “Stay safe. I expect a sitrep at zero seven hundred hours.” He hung up.
“You should definitely let me do the talking,” said Sloan, licking the back of his hand.
“How the fuck did you hear that?”
“Your phone is loud. The driver even heard it over this god-awful music. What’s going on at Rikers?”
“He’s interviewing a serial killer about his wife.”
“Is she dead?”
“I hope not.” The driver slowed, carefully maneuvering around a felled palm tree lying across the road. Razorback frowned. “I can be nice.”
Sloan laughed. “And birds can go deep sea diving if you give them little swim fins.”
Fuck this shit.
He could be nice when he wanted to. Hell, he just didn’t want to very often. He was nice to patients, on the rare occasion he had one who wasn’t a member of HERO Force. He’d been nice to Arroyo’s girlfriend, the woman Luke had started dating when they met on a recent mission.
Razorback was a surgeon by training, choosing to serve the US Navy rather than a civilian hospital. He’d become a SEAL to test himself, push himself to his own personal limits. That was how his life had been then, selecting a challenge, rising to meet it, striking it down. Another win for the man who could do anything.
Those days were over.
“I saw an old buddy from BUD/S training at the airport,” said Sloan. “He’s working for SVX.”
“Right from the frying pan into the fire.”
