Saxon dustedpizza crumbs off his shirt as he walked. He was done waiting, he needed to do something. Maybe Max would let him study the cameras to see if he could see something Max hadn’t. He knocked on the door to the room Max had used to set up their temporary Tactical Operations Center.
“Enter.”
Damn it, that was Noble, not Max. Ugh, maybe he should wait for Max to get back. Noble was probably still pissed from earlier. “You finished eating, Boss?”
“Get your ass in here, Dumbass.” Noble gestured to the chair in front of the table he was sitting at and reached for the phone. “I’m just gonna call Max in here too.”
“It’s your circus.” Internally wincing at the snark that popped out of his mouth, he clamped down on his first instinct to apologize. Snark was his go-to default setting. He could no more change it than he could the flare of hope that sparked to life in his belly. Maybe they had found something or heard something.
“Seriously?” Noble grumbled at him, but eh, what was new, Noble was always bitching at his smartass comments. He watched his boss hit a number on the phone, “Max, you ready?” Noble asked.
“Yup,” Red Squadron’s Coms expert answered, “Be there in a sec.”
Noble scowled at Saxon, “I get you are a snarky shit, but can you wear a serious hat for this? I need to know you can do this job. If not, then tell me and I’ll send Reese instead.”
Nope, no way was he allowing Reese—wait, did that mean Max had found something?
“Sorry, Boss,” Saxon hoped like hell his face showed apology and not ‘too bad, I can’t change who I am’. “It’s kinda my default when I think you are dooming me to a lifetime of washing dishes.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he mentally smacked himself on the back of the head. Jesus, he should not be reminding Noble about washing damn dishes.
“Washing dishes is for when you fuck up,” Noble told him. He paused and eyed Saxon with his eyebrow raised, “Did you fuck up in the last few hours and I don’t know about it yet?”
“Nope, I’ve been very well behaved.” Crap, seriously, could he not keep the freaking snark under wraps? If anyone outside of their team heard him talking to his Commanding Officer like this, they would have thought he was an idiot. Outsiders seemed to miss the point that Red Squadron was a family first before they were a military unit. While he might be unable to stop his snark and real personality from showing here behind closed doors, when they were in the field, he had trained that sucker in his head to shut the hell up and follow protocol.
“My fucking ass,” Max entered the room and shut the door behind him. “Well behaved and you do not belong in the same sentence ever.” He went to where his laptop was set up on a folding table and sat in his chair.
“I am offended by that, Cupid.” Saxon did his best to have his face show an offended expression, but knew he’d failed when Max snorted out a laugh.
Noble nodded to Max, “What did you find?”
“I’m tracking some more of that chatter we spoke about,” Max winked at Noble where he thought Saxon couldn’t see. Bah, did they not know their reflections were clear as a mirror in the window? He still couldn’t figure out why Noble and Max didn’t just hug and shit, like all the rest of their team did with their significant others. But it wasn’t any of his business, and he would never make either of them uncomfortable by bringing it up.
Noble got to his feet and crossed the room to peer over Max’s shoulder. “It’s connected?”
“My gut says it is.” Max pointed to the screen, obviously showing Noble some of the intel he had found.
“If your gut is on the ball, then this is bigger than we thought.”
What the hell were they on about? Saxon squirmed on the chair, he wanted to ask if this was connected to Rick, or to a different mission Noble had in the works. But he didn’t dare, not yet. But man, why the hell was hurry up and wait taking so freaking long?
Noble flipped through the file Max had handed him, taking a post-it note, he scribbled something and stuck it on a page before moving on. “Just gimme a sec, I want to check something.”
“Sure.” Saxon would wait. He had no other choice.
Three more post-it-notes and Noble blew out a breath. “Fuck.”
“It’s what I said,” Max agreed.
“What’s going on, Boss?” He wasn’t used to seeing Noble indecisive. His boss rarely showed indecision, the man made up his mind and stuck to it. Damn it, he better not be deciding rescuing Rick was outside of the scope of Red Squadron’s missions. He made up his mind then and there that orders or not, he would go find Rick and rescue him by himself if necessary. Yeah, he had spent years living a code of honor. He wore the Tags that signified that honor around his neck. However, the man who’d spent the morning in bed with Rick Jones, that man wanted vengeance and he wanted his man back.
Noble picked up a pen and flicked it over and over between his fingers. “Go grab Roman and Luc, bring them here.” He reached for his phone, “I need to make a call.”
“Roger that.” Okay then, something in the intel had Noble unsure if he should or could proceed with the hunt for Rick or not. “Yes, Boss.” He hoped like hell the answer was yes, the last thing he wanted to do was piss off his boss, but to save Rick, he’d do it in a heartbeat.
Noble waited for the door to slam shut behind Saxon. “I need clearance for this.” He picked up his cell, “Sending him in alone is stupid.”
“But to send more than one, we need clearance,” Max swiveled his chair around to watch Noble. He pointed to the computer system they used for planning ops. “All the intel is set up on that one.”
“Yup.” Noble scrolled through the numbers on his cell until he found the one he wanted. “Thank you for reading my mind once again.”
