“But you won’t take the chance—is that it?”
The general sat there, stone-faced.
Colt leaned forward. “That is bullshit, and you know it. You can’t let them get away with this. I would think you more than anyone would want to stick it to the Russians.” Colt got his first real reaction. The old man flinched, and Colt pressed on. He’d always been good at finding weak spots. Cracks. Ways to hurt. “If I find proof that the Russians took them out, then maybe the president will finally listen to you and your hawk friends about the need to do something about it.”
“She’ll never make the first move,” the general said, but there was a gleam in his eye anyway. He paused, clearly deliberating. After a moment, he looked back at Colt. “Tell me what you need.”
Twenty-two
Dean was still fuming when he went outside to the “car park” to return the call he’d missed from the LC.
He didn’t know what he was so angry about. He should be glad that Annie understood that nothing more could come of their morning, too-hot-to-think-about lapse into the steamy and pornographic. He wasn’t exactly in a position to get involved with anyone. He couldn’t even tell her his real name, for fuck’s sake.
So why was he pissed that she saw it the same way?
“Your body is incredible.... You aren’t exactly my type.”
So it had been purely physical for her—so what? How many times had he had sex with someone for the same reason? That was what it had been about for him, too, hadn’t it?
Of course it had. There wasn’t any other option, and he never wasted time worrying about things he couldn’t change. He dealt in hard truths all the time. Accept and move on.
He punched in the numbers on the keypad and waited. It didn’t take long. The LC answered on the second ring.
Taylor waited for Dean to speak first. It was part of the code they’d worked out to ensure that nothing had been compromised.
“Johnson’s plumbing?”
The dick euphemism had lost its humor quickly, but a code was a code.
“This better be fucking good, Tex,” the LC said. “And not be another one of your damned calls about how this is all a waste of time—”
“It isn’t.” Although anticipating Taylor’s reaction, Dean wished it were. “I’ve run into some trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
The brown-haired, green-eyed, drop-dead-gorgeous, “just made me see stars” kind.
Already hearing the suspicion in the LC’s voice and knowing he was about to get an ass-chewing, Dean knew he had to just bite the bullet. It wasn’t like him to prevaricate anyway. But he and the LC had never really gotten along—even before the mess with Colt Wesson and his wife. Had the LC really messed around with Kate? It didn’t seem to fit with Taylor’s by-the-book, aboveboard personality, but who the hell knew?
Dean and the LC were like two bulls in the same china shop, and they often went head-to-head on things. The difference was that Dean was usually confident that he was in the right. But he’d fucked up, and he knew it. He’d compromised their cover, and for someone who prided himself on being a professional—always—that was hard to take.
“The involved-in-an-ecoterrorist-plot-and-murder-charge kind of trouble,” Dean said.
Dead silence followed for a good thirty seconds. It was a little bit like waiting for a punch in the face.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Tell me you are fucking kidding me.”
“I wish I were.” Dean explained about the charter to the drillship, about finding the explosives, and how the terrorists had pulled a gun on him when he was trying to leave.
“So you killed them?”
“No. They were alive when I left the ship. I suspect the leader was able to free himself and killed the others to cover up the crime and blame it on us before the coast guard arrived.”
Us.Shit. He’d slipped, and it was too much to hope that the LC wouldn’t pick up on it.
“Don’t tell me you are still with the girl?”
Dean could practically hear the LC’s blood boiling over the phone.
