She understood and nodded. “I love you.”
“Good. Now hold that thought until I get back.”
Scott said good-bye to Kate and left. He was the last one in the car. Baylor was driving the big black Navigator that he’d arrived in. Scott assumed it was armored and had been lent by Marino.
Donovan, who’d taken shotgun, turned and looked over the backseat as he slid in behind Scott. “Feel better, LC? You were looking a little edgy there for a while.”
Scott usually tried to minimize the swearing, but that rule tended to fall by the wayside with Donovan. “Fuck you, Dynomite.”
The big blond operator who looked like he rode in ona surfboard just grinned. Apparently they all guessed what he’d been up to, and they were all snickering.
“Good to know you’re human, Ace,” Baylor said with a snide grin. “We were worried.”
Scott had given him hell when Baylor had put the book aside a few times when he had met his soon-to-be wife, Annie. He supposed he had a little bit of crow to eat.
Scott turned to Colt, who was seated next to him, and noticed he was also looking relaxed and smiling.Smiling!His eyes narrowed. “Anything I should know about, Smitty?”
It was the first time Scott had called him by his call sign in about three years. “Smitty” came from Smith, which came from Smith & Wesson. Colt had once told him that as an infant he’d been abandoned at a police station by his birth mother. The officer who’d found him had taken to calling him Colt because he’d kept reaching for his gun. It had stuck. The director of the orphanage had come up with Wesson to go with it. Whether it was true or not, Scott didn’t know. It was hard to tell with Colt.
Colt noticed the use and his smile only deepened. “You’ll be the first to know, little brother.”
Which Scott guessed pretty much said it all. “She forgave you already?”
Colt nodded. “Looks like. And before you think about giving me a lecture, I don’t need it. I’m not going to fuck it up again, and I’ll hand you the gun to shoot me if I ever hurt her again.”
Scott wasn’t convinced. He smiled as he thought of a way to see just whether things had changed. “Did she tell you who she’s working with?”
To Scott’s surprise, Colt’s mouth fell in a hard white line. “Dan Gordon.”
Colt knew about that and he hadn’t flown off the handle? Maybe he had changed. Scott had to admit that if theformer Delta operator turned CIA agent was working with Natalie, he wouldn’t be looking so calm about it.
Donovan let out a slow whistle. “Gordog? I’ve heard about him. No one is off-limits with that guy. Supposedly he had to leave Delta because he banged his CO’s wife.”
Thus the nickname. Gordon dog. Gordog.
Scott took a little perverse pleasure as Colt’s expression darkened with Donovan throwing oil on the fire that had to be simmering. But to Colt’s credit, he didn’t lose his temper. “Kate is a professional. She can handle herself.”
“It’s not her I’d worry about,” Donovan said under his breath.
Colt was clearly not going to let it get to him, but Scott would wager big money that Colt and Dan Gordon would be having a little heart-to-heart the first chance Colt got.
Scott didn’t blame him. He’d do the same thing.
They didn’t talk much on the ride to the general’s. The four of them had been on plenty of ops together before Colt had left the team, and they usually would have continued giving each other shit to pass the time and keep the mood light, but this one was different, and they all knew it.
There was nothing light about it.
For three months, the surviving members of Team Nine had been waiting to find out who was responsible for the deaths of their platoon brothers, and it was beginning to look like they might get their answer.
Although it was not the answer that any of them wanted.
When they arrived at the Murray estate, Scott and Colt were immediately led into the general’s office by his butler. Apparently Kate’s call had done the job, and the general was expecting them.
Baylor and Donovan were on overwatch and had stayed with the car to ensure that Colt and Scott weren’tsurprised if the general attempted to mobilize his security. But other than a man at the gate, and the guy they’d seen roaming the grounds, there didn’t seem to be a surprise army lying in wait.
Both Scott and Colt had been assessing the situation every step of the way to the office, and nothing appeared out of the ordinary. But if the general was responsible for killing Travis and sending the hit team after Natalie, they knew they had to be prepared for anything.
Scott had met General Murray once or twice at meetings in the Pentagon, but the four-star general had aged in the past few months. He looked more like seventy than late fifties.
